49ers Head Coach Kyle Shanahan Thread

Our defense faces two more plays per game than our offense plays. For a team that is + in the turnover battle, this would normally mean that either our offense is underperfoming, or our defense is. Since our offense is performing well, that can only mean that our defense is not getting off the field as well as they should. This has been apparent in our losses, which I think SmokeyJoe is alluding to. Good teams have been able to drive up and down the field on our defense, and we've been pretty terrible at defending third downs consistently. Things have been better since the bye, but I'm still a bit worried about this Wilkes defense that has allowed some teams to drive down our throats.

Originally posted by Chance:
Our defense faces two more plays per game than our offense plays. For a team that is + in the turnover battle, this would normally mean that either our offense is underperfoming, or our defense is. Since our offense is performing well, that can only mean that our defense is not getting off the field as well as they should. This has been apparent in our losses, which I think SmokeyJoe is alluding to. Good teams have been able to drive up and down the field on our defense, and we've been pretty terrible at defending third downs consistently. Things have been better since the bye, but I'm still a bit worried about this Wilkes defense that has allowed some teams to drive down our throats.

Its basically this.

Teams want to play keep away from our offense. And we play into that by moving slow (and by playing worse defense than we have in previous years). We can easily control the pace of our offense and buy more time for extra opportunities with that offense while also limiting the importance of each drive we have on either side of the ball. Anybody who watched our losses, and the Rams game we won, should understand how few possessions we had in those games, and how high of an efficiency level was needed from our offense to be successful.

Originally posted by SmokeyJoe:

Originally posted by Chance:
Our defense faces two more plays per game than our offense plays. For a team that is + in the turnover battle, this would normally mean that either our offense is underperfoming, or our defense is. Since our offense is performing well, that can only mean that our defense is not getting off the field as well as they should. This has been apparent in our losses, which I think SmokeyJoe is alluding to. Good teams have been able to drive up and down the field on our defense, and we've been pretty terrible at defending third downs consistently. Things have been better since the bye, but I'm still a bit worried about this Wilkes defense that has allowed some teams to drive down our throats.

Its basically this.

Teams want to play keep away from our offense. And we play into that by moving slow (and by playing worse defense than we have in previous years). We can easily control the pace of our offense and buy more time for extra opportunities with that offense while also limiting the importance of each drive we have on either side of the ball. Anybody who watched our losses, and the Rams game we won, should understand how few possessions we had in those games, and how high of an efficiency level was needed from our offense to be successful.

Just thinking out loud, I wonder how much of that offensive efficiency is built into how long it takes between plays. The amount of shifts and motions takes time between plays, but on the other side of the coin, it opens up a lot of pre-snap information, which Brock has been great at processing.

Originally posted by Chance:
Just thinking out loud, I wonder how much of that offensive efficiency is built into how long it takes between plays. The amount of shifts and motions takes time between plays, but on the other side of the coin, it opens up a lot of pre-snap information, which Brock has been great at processing.

We can accomplish those things and still get plays off faster. As has been noted many times, we certainly aren't the only team running this scheme and a marginal increase in pace per play can buy you an extra possession or two, or extend a time crunched drive at the end of a half, over the course of the game.

We want this. Again, our offense is excellent. Just look at the base level numbers. We're top 2 in per play stats, both points and yards, but we're also the slowest damn team in the league. It's fine if our defense is dominant. It hasn't been against good offenses. We'll see going forward how whether that changes.

Originally posted by SmokeyJoe:

Originally posted by Chance:
Just thinking out loud, I wonder how much of that offensive efficiency is built into how long it takes between plays. The amount of shifts and motions takes time between plays, but on the other side of the coin, it opens up a lot of pre-snap information, which Brock has been great at processing.

We can accomplish those things and still get plays off faster. As has been noted many times, we certainly aren't the only team running this scheme and a marginal increase in pace per play can buy you an extra possession or two, or extend a time crunched drive at the end of a half, over the course of the game.

We want this. Again, our offense is excellent. Just look at the base level numbers. We're top 2 in per play stats, both points and yards, but we're also the slowest damn team in the league. It's fine if our defense is dominant. It hasn't been against good offenses. We'll see going forward how whether that changes.

I agree, it's a paradigm shift for Shanahan with this team, but until the defense proves it can get off the field on third down, we need to find any way we can increase the opportunities this offense has on the field.

Originally posted by Chance:
I agree, it's a paradigm shift for Shanahan with this team, but until the defense proves it can get off the field on third down, we need to find any way we can increase the opportunities this offense has on the field.

Exactly right.

Originally posted by SmokeyJoe:

Originally posted by Chance:
I agree, it's a paradigm shift for Shanahan with this team, but until the defense proves it can get off the field on third down, we need to find any way we can increase the opportunities this offense has on the field.

Exactly right.

so score on every possession , got it

Originally posted by 49AllTheTime:
so score on every possession , got it

You definitely don't got it, lol.

That's basically what we have to do when our defense is struggling and we operate as slowly as possible. When you have more possessions, they become less important. When you have less, their importance is magnified and decreases our margin for error. And again, you play to the strength of the team because we score more efficiently than every team in the league except one.

Originally posted by SmokeyJoe:

Originally posted by 49AllTheTime:
so score on every possession , got it

You definitely don't got it, lol.

That's basically what we have to do when our defense is struggling and we operate as slowly as possible. When you have more possessions, they become less important. When you have less, their importance is magnified and decreases our margin for error. And again, you play to the strength of the team because we score more efficiently than every team in the league except one.

If the defense is bad, doesn't it make sense to hold the ball as long as possible on offense to reduce the number of times the defense is on the field?

Originally posted by SmokeyJoe:

Originally posted by SmokeyJoe:
Right. Now do drives per game, plays per game, and seconds per play.

Of course all of this is going to be somewhat dictated by game situation… for example having significant leads as we have… but I'd apply it to the losses and close games specifically.

Plays per game: 27th
Seconds per play: 32nd

If anyone wants to dig deeper you can see the plays per game in our losses is of course even lower, and our pace is only slightly better. Our offense is really good… our defense is more suspect than it has been. One way you can counteract a less efficient defense is by increasing your offense's pace… especially when it is a dominant offense. You play to your strengths and try to widen the efficiency strengths you have over your opponent. Thats going to be on the offensive side of the ball this season.

The teams I listed above are top in plays per game there is no correlation to plays per game and winning

Originally posted by Chance:
Our defense faces two more plays per game than our offense plays. For a team that is + in the turnover battle, this would normally mean that either our offense is underperfoming, or our defense is. Since our offense is performing well, that can only mean that our defense is not getting off the field as well as they should. This has been apparent in our losses, which I think SmokeyJoe is alluding to. Good teams have been able to drive up and down the field on our defense, and we've been pretty terrible at defending third downs consistently. Things have been better since the bye, but I'm still a bit worried about this Wilkes defense that has allowed some teams to drive down our throats.

Or it means we built up a huge lead and got conservative

this logic only works implying a close game

also again we are one of the top ranked team in yards/play so teams haven't been driving down our throats

Originally posted by thl408:

Originally posted by SmokeyJoe:

Originally posted by 49AllTheTime:
so score on every possession , got it

You definitely don't got it, lol.

That's basically what we have to do when our defense is struggling and we operate as slowly as possible. When you have more possessions, they become less important. When you have less, their importance is magnified and decreases our margin for error. And again, you play to the strength of the team because we score more efficiently than every team in the league except one.

If the defense is bad, doesn't it make sense to hold the ball as long as possible on offense to reduce the number of times the defense is on the field?

so now we have to score on every possession because we have the 32nd best defense and can't get off the field, got it

Originally posted by thl408:
If the defense is bad, doesn't it make sense to hold the ball as long as possible on offense to reduce the number of times the defense is on the field?

Well I mentioned earlier it's a bit of a chicken/egg argument… and it's not so much a ToP argument as much as a possession based one. When you reduce the amount of time your defense is on the field, you increase your ToP but you also decrease your offensive possessions. We're a defense that has had success generating turnovers and we're an explosive, highly efficient, offense. You introduce more variance with turnovers by increasing defensive possessions, and you increase your scoring opportunities by simply having more offensive possessions.

We're not facing an offense that is better than ours this year, outside of potentially Miami in the SB… and I personally think our offense is better and more balanced. Unless a marginal increase in pace is going to dramatically decrease our efficiency, we are always going to want the ball as much as possible (not time, but possessions).

Originally posted by ritz126:
Or it means we built up a huge lead and got conservative

this logic only works implying a close game

I mentioned this. And I also mentioned looking at our losses and close games with this in mind. It's worse, not better.

Originally posted by SmokeyJoe:
I mentioned this. And I also mentioned looking at our losses and close games with this in mind. It's worse, not better.

You mean our 3 losses in over 365 days?

im sorry your logic makes no sense the stats you're hammering down are dominated by the worst offenses in the league