Coaches Film Thread Week 12 2016: at Dolphins

This is on the 49ers 2nd TD drive. Kap has always been hesitant to use his RBs in the passing game. Here he quickly recognizes the coverage and uses the check down to exploit the coverage.

Switch Verticals is a flexible concept if the WRs are given the freedom to make their routes option routes. I've seen Chip use it to bust Cover3. Since the 49ers have seen MIA play Cover3 a number of times in this game (it's 3rd quarter), I'm guessing they are calling Switch Verts to bust Cover3.
vs Tampa2


Kap takes the snap and looks towards the Switch Verticals - it's not open. He quickly dumps it off to Draughn which is the correct decision because the quickest, easiest way to exploit Tampa2 is in the shallow middle area of the field since the MLB gains so much depth


+16

This is the big TD throw to give MIA a 10 point lead. It's 3rd & 3 and the 49ers show blitz pressure.



Instead, the 49ers drop 8 into coverage to form some sort of Cover2/Tampa2 look with two deep safeties and the MLB (Bellore) dropping into the middle of the field. There are 5 underneath zone defenders guarding the 1st down marker. The 49ers are clearly looking for a quick timing play from MIA. Tannehill recognizes the Cover2 zone look and targets the honey hole - the area behind the CB and in front of the safety.


I think Brock should have carried his man up the sideline more since there was no other threat to his zone, but I don't know what he's coached to do. Bethea thinks he's faster than he really is and is too slow to get to the ball. Slow safeties need to take more conservative angles.

Originally posted by thl408:
This is the big TD throw to give MIA a 10 point lead. It's 3rd & 3 and the 49ers show blitz pressure.



Instead, the 49ers drop 8 into coverage to form some sort of Cover2/Tampa2 look with two deep safeties and the MLB (Bellore) dropping into the middle of the field. There are 5 underneath zone defenders guarding the 1st down marker. The 49ers are clearly looking for a quick timing play from MIA. Tannehill recognizes the Cover2 zone look and targets the honey hole - the area behind the CB and in front of the safety.


I think Brock should have carried his man up the sideline more since there was no other threat to his zone, but I don't know what he's coached to do. Bethea thinks he's faster than he really is and is too slow to get to the ball. Slow safeties need to take more conservative angles.

Looks just a perfect offensive play call against this defense. Even if Bethea had broke earlier to get to that wr at the bottom of the screen. The other wr is coming wide open down the middle and the wr at the top of screen is wide open in the same honey hole.

I love this.. I love this

Hey thl, great stuff as usual. I know there has been a lot of talk about Kap not being able to read defenses. Have you seen improvement from him in this area this season?

Originally posted by a49erfan77:
Hey thl, great stuff as usual. I know there has been a lot of talk about Kap not being able to read defenses. Have you seen improvement from him in this area this season?

Yes I have, with this MIA game being his best so far. But, I set the bar low for Kap because his performance in 2015 was not NFL worthy. I always thought Kap did better against man coverage than zone, and Chip's offense will typically see more man coverage. MIA threw a variety of coverages at Kap. Chip does things through formation that helps define the coverage for the QB so that helps. This isn't new, any competent coach will do this for his QB. Putting WRs to one side of the field, motion, spread formations, are all things that help Chip's QB get a clearer picture of what the defense is about to do. The other part is the improved OL pass pro. That has consistently been good this season. Like night and day compared to Devey/Pears/Martin in 2015.

I don't know if Kap's biggest problem was actually reading the coverage. imo it was understanding that a certain route WILL be open against a certain coverage and trusting it to be open, instead of waiting for visual confirmation that it is open. This is a big setback throwing against zone coverage - lack of anticipation. So I think anticipating open WRs was the problem, not misreading coverage. The two might go hand in hand and it's hard to know why he doesn't pull the trigger sooner on some plays. Is it not reading the coverage quick enough, or is it not trusting the route to be open?

Thanks for another great breakdown and focusing on Tartt. Overall how did he do in your opinion?

Hate to be a whiner... but any other team.. if the roles were reversed and WE were on defense and caused this fumble...




REFS would have thrown the flag for hitting the QB low, and nullified the turnover.

FIRST DOWN OFFENSE!

Is it just me or does Kap seem to be looking off the safeties and moving LBs with is eyes a lot more the last couple games. I don't remember seeing this much the previous years... Is it just a function of the reads and Chip or Kap improving? Its definitely nice to see.

Originally posted by matguy87:
Is it just me or does Kap seem to be looking off the safeties and moving LBs with is eyes a lot more the last couple games. I don't remember seeing this much the previous years... Is it just a function of the reads and Chip or Kap improving? Its definitely nice to see.

Understanding a competent multi-functioning offense that has a clear direction.
As he understands the parameters he can go out there and just play like 2nd nature. That's what he's working towards.
Making the offense like tying your shoes. You don't even have to think about it in order to do it successfully.

Originally posted by thl408:

Originally posted by a49erfan77:
Hey thl, great stuff as usual. I know there has been a lot of talk about Kap not being able to read defenses. Have you seen improvement from him in this area this season?

Yes I have, with this MIA game being his best so far. But, I set the bar low for Kap because his performance in 2015 was not NFL worthy. I always thought Kap did better against man coverage than zone, and Chip's offense will typically see more man coverage. MIA threw a variety of coverages at Kap. Chip does things through formation that helps define the coverage for the QB so that helps. This isn't new, any competent coach will do this for his QB. Putting WRs to one side of the field, motion, spread formations, are all things that help Chip's QB get a clearer picture of what the defense is about to do. The other part is the improved OL pass pro. That has consistently been good this season. Like night and day compared to Devey/Pears/Martin in 2015.

I don't know if Kap's biggest problem was actually reading the coverage. imo it was understanding that a certain route WILL be open against a certain coverage and trusting it to be open, instead of waiting for visual confirmation that it is open. This is a big setback throwing against zone coverage - lack of anticipation. So I think anticipating open WRs was the problem, not misreading coverage. The two might go hand in hand and it's hard to know why he doesn't pull the trigger sooner on some plays. Is it not reading the coverage quick enough, or is it not trusting the route to be open?

This makes a lot of sense. Thanks to a49erfan77 for the question and thl408 this answer and thanks to him for the whole thread. I, too, enjoy these threads a lot.

Originally posted by Hoovtrain:
Thanks for another great breakdown and focusing on Tartt. Overall how did he do in your opinion?

Overall he was fine. I am most interested in how he handles deep zone responsibilities and in that regard he was not tested by Tannehill except for that one TD catch (posted above), but that was in the red zone - so not really a deep zone. In this MIA game, Tartt was mainly the box safety. When he was deep safety, the play didn't come his way. His big test will be against ATL in three weeks. We'll see how rangy he is unless JoN continues to use Bethea as his primary single high safety.

Here's the nice gain to Vance on a seam throw down the middle of the field.

This is a play Chip will call to completely spread the field in all directions. Notice the three vertical routes - two down the sideline, one down the middle of the field. Then there are two routes to the flat. That's 5 routes that try to stretch all zones. I think the true aim of this play is to horizontally stretch the two deep safeties with three verticals.
vs Cover6


The Cover2 safety gains depth and sees two verticals coming at him (Burbridge + Vance). He becomes the horizontally stretched defender on this play. The Quarters safety I think is asked to flat foot read Torrey so he doesn't identify Vance as the biggest threat. You'll see the Quarters safety come to a pause and not gain depth. This suggests he is flat foot reading something.


+35. No hesitation from Kap to pull the trigger.

Originally posted by thl408:
Here's the nice gain to Vance on a seam throw down the middle of the field.

This is a play Chip will call to completely spread the field in all directions. Notice the three vertical routes - two down the sideline, one down the middle of the field. Then there are two routes to the flat. That's 5 routes that try to stretch all zones. I think the true aim of this play is to horizontally stretch the two deep safeties with three verticals.
vs Cover6


The Cover2 safety gains depth and sees two verticals coming at him (Burbridge + Vance). He becomes the horizontally stretched defender on this play. The Quarters safety I think is asked to flat foot read Torrey so he doesn't identify Vance as the biggest threat. You'll see the Quarters safety come to a pause and not gain depth. This suggests he is flat foot reading something.


+35. No hesitation from Kap to pull the trigger.

... and 1 hell of a catch by Vance McDonald. He doesn't catch this the last few seasons.

Originally posted by thl408:
Here's the nice gain to Vance on a seam throw down the middle of the field.

This is a play Chip will call to completely spread the field in all directions. Notice the three vertical routes - two down the sideline, one down the middle of the field. Then there are two routes to the flat. That's 5 routes that try to stretch all zones. I think the true aim of this play is to horizontally stretch the two deep safeties with three verticals.
vs Cover6


The Cover2 safety gains depth and sees two verticals coming at him (Burbridge + Vance). He becomes the horizontally stretched defender on this play. The Quarters safety I think is asked to flat foot read Torrey so he doesn't identify Vance as the biggest threat. You'll see the Quarters safety come to a pause and not gain depth. This suggests he is flat foot reading something.


+35. No hesitation from Kap to pull the trigger.

What I love about your analyses each week is that it demonstrates how coaching and execution are required to succeed. For example, this is a play where Kelly is devising route combinations to create windows for the QB to throw to. In this case, Kaepernick is trusting what he's seeing and delivering an on target throw. Excellent.