Coaches Film Analysis: 2018 Season

Originally posted by thl408:
MIN defense came with so many different coverage calls and played them all very well. Usually teams that play so many coverages with pattern matching will have lapses and blown coverages. There was only one play where they blew coverage and the 49ers capitalized (Juice 50+ yard catch and run). Once MIN established their 4 man pass rush, they were able to play every down as if they were in the red zone. Red zone defenses don't have to worry about defending deep so they compress all areas of the field. Seams between zones are tighter, safeties play shallow, everything is condensed. Losing Goodwin early in the 2Q had to have contributed to this as well.

MIN came in and emphasized taking control of the short/intermediate middle of the field. Garcon nearly had his head taken off a couple times going over the middle with a safety playing shallow. MIN was forcing the 49ers to attack outside the numbers to find success. This was very apparent in the second half and the 49ers nearly made them pay for it on the 4Q drive that ended in the overthrow to Kittle near the goaline.

Defensively the 49ers came with their usual Cover3 scheme. Nothing new there. There were some creative pass rushes that looked like blitzes but involved dropping a DE into coverage and rushing CBs. COusins felt pressure whether it was there or not, and made quick throws, one of which nearly resulted in an INT by Tartt. Thielen was killing the 49ers from the slot. KWilliams, Ward, Colbert, all were victims.

The run defense was on point and except for some missed tackles that made some MIN run successful, the 49ers were very sound and was able to control the LoS. jd, agree with what you said in another thread about how the 49ers used lots of Over fronts to help defend the run. Warner and Foster reading and shooting gaps is going to result in lots of TFL in the future. Tartt continues to excel as a box safety playing the run. This matchup unfolded predictably since MIN is hurting along the OL.

I think the book on Jimmy will be to take away the middle of the field and force him to throw outside. This makes sense since most accurate QBs that throw with anticipation can make a killing over the middle of the field. With the talented LBs, four man rush, and Harrison Smith roaming around, MIN can effectively do this.

Overall the game came down to MIN's defense being able to smother the 49er offense. They threw so many looks at the 49ers and kept them off balance. I don't think they blitzed very often because there wasn't a need to. Having Jimmy escape without injury was a minor victory.

Absolutely. When a defense can drop 7 every time and has the talent and speed to not give a huge cushion down the middle it makes it really, really tough. We saw on the Pettis near TD that even when the defense should've been punished for how they tried to smother the short/intermediate middle their defender still made up for it and made one heck of a play.

This is the 49ers first 3rd down of the game and it was a preview of things to come.
Double Slants vs Cover 1 Robber
MIN shows presnap pressure, but will back off at the snap.


Versus man coverage, try to hit the slant. Kyle has mentioned this, but MIN puts a robber in the middle (Kendricks) to give inside help.


Muddling the middle of the field was a common theme in this game for MIN's defense. Jimmy mistakenly tries to hit the inside slant and is fortunate it's just an incompletion.


Sidenote, check out Goodwin vs XRhodes on the backside. When MIN starts taking away the middle, an outside threat helps. When Goodwin left the game, that hurt.

Kyle loves him some bootleg action. At one point in the game he called three consecutive bootlegs. But MIN also knows this and was ready to take it away. This is the second play of the game and the first bootleg/slide play of the game.
The blue DE is not going to fall for the playfake and will look to pressure Jimmy.


The play results in an incompletion because of the rushed throw.

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The next time SF calls a bootleg, they do it out of shotgun.


This allows Jimmy to see the DE as he completes the playfake since his back isn't turned to the field.


+18. Nice little adjustment to account for the unblocked DE.

Here's the big missed opportunity to Pettis I've mentioned a few times. If this is Goodwin, I think this is a TD and the whole game is different. He's just got that crazy speed. But, also, this is one talented defense we played.



We're going to run one of our staples, the PIN concept. The PIN is a combo of a Post+DIG or deep in. Garcon runs the deep in and Pettis is running the post. We're going to jazz up some read-option run action to give Jimmy more time and try and pull the safety out wider. This is a great design against a cover 2. Cover 2 is weak down the middle of the field so this is a great play call and pretty good execution. We're going to run Taylor on a wheel vertical to widen the boundary safety even more. Minn is in cover-2 man.



Here's the run action that is trying to widen the safety Harrison Smith.



SMith doesn't bite at all and looks so shade inside. Compare his drop with the other safety who's even wider on the more shallow part of the field.



As he's helping on Pettis he peeks inside and see's Garcon coming on his DIG route.



Smith is the player Jimmy is reading. He bites just for a second on Garcon's route and it allows Pettis behind him.



Pettis is now behind the defense and Jimmy launches a pass.



That's as good a pass as you can throw and the defender just made an incredible play. How many times have we seen our team give up TD's on throws less accurate than this over the past 4 years. You tip your cap to that defender and move on.

I tried to include the GIF of the play but the sequence was just too long. My filesharing site I use says the GIF file was too large...Sorry guys.

Side note - this is the drive that ended in the Morris fumble....

Originally posted by thl408:
This is the 49ers first 3rd down of the game and it was a preview of things to come.
Double Slants vs Cover 1 Robber
MIN shows presnap pressure, but will back off at the snap.


Versus man coverage, try to hit the slant. Kyle has mentioned this, but MIN puts a robber in the middle (Kendricks) to give inside help.


Muddling the middle of the field was a common theme in this game for MIN's defense. Jimmy mistakenly tries to hit the inside slant and is fortunate it's just an incompletion.


Sidenote, check out Goodwin vs XRhodes on the backside. When MIN starts taking away the middle, an outside threat helps. When Goodwin left the game, that hurt.

When I watched this play I wasn't sure if Jimmy's read was really that bad. He see's the Robber defender turn his hips the other way, the guy just makes an incredible recovery. 9/10 times when a defender turns his hips like that, especially a LBer, they aren't going to be fluid enough to turn around and run. That's a great play by the defense IMO.

There was a questionable series of playcalls near the goaline that left many of us wondering why Kyle would want to test the MIN defense with a weakness vs strength matchup. This is the play before the Morris lost fumble, when he also fumbled but was able to recover.

Tomlinson will pull and lead through the hole. Earl Mitchell will make the kickout block. To me this looks a bit odd because usually the first blocker to the edge is the one to make the kickout, the second player will lead through the hole. It's reversed on this play as Tomlinson (first) looks to lead through the hole. But I don't think that's what made this play fail.


Kittle has to hit the outside shoulder of his block. This would pin that LB to the inside. Blue LB will end up making the tackle because he's unblocked.


Kittle does not block the outside shoulder and loses leverage on the block. This complicates things for Tomlinson who wants to lead through the hole that is to Kittle's left shoulder.


Tomlinson ends up ramming Kittle in the back which creates an unbloced LB, who blows up the play. If Kittle nails the outside shoulder, there is less (or no) room for the LB to shoot that gap and tackle Morris.

Originally posted by jonnydel:
When I watched this play I wasn't sure if Jimmy's read was really that bad. He see's the Robber defender turn his hips the other way, the guy just makes an incredible recovery. 9/10 times when a defender turns his hips like that, especially a LBer, they aren't going to be fluid enough to turn around and run. That's a great play by the defense IMO.

Yeah that was a nice change of direction by the LB. Very impressed with the MIN LBs in this game.

Jimmy was late on a few throws in this game. This goes to show, against this defense, the holes are small and you have to throw the ball exactly on time.

I won't show the hole play and art but this is the first 3rd down of the second half and the play immediately after Garnett went down. We run a drive concept to the right side with Garcon and Taylor. Jimmy executes most of this play really well. He does the things you want a QB to do. He looks off the LBer away from the play to keep the hole open and throws the exact right spot, but he's just a hair second too late.

Jonnydel, thanks for the positive vibes! Love this thread and you are correct...hard to enjoy a loss but there were so many injury problems going in the niners had an uphill road. Sherman being healthy and Warner looking so good leads me to have faith in the D going forward. Once Foster is back it should take another huge jump up. Buckner getting sacks helps relieve the lack of a truely elite edge guy.

I'm kind of skipping around but this was a big opportunity to make a play and the 49ers just couldn't reel it in - too common an occurrence in this game. This is the Tartt near INT that could have setup the offense is great position.
49ers show a 2 deep shell. MIN is running a Smash concept to the right side. Smash beats Cover2 on the whiteboard.
When WRs line up tight to the LoS, 49er CBs are a threat to rush the QB. This happened a couple times in the 1Q (I'll show that later). 49ers will rush both slot CBs while dropping Marsh into coverage. Reds will rush, oranges are underneath zones.


Post snap, Tartt rotates down to his curl/flat assignment as the 49ers reveal Cover3. Smash does not work against Cover3.


Cousins has seen slot CBs blitz before and rushes his throw, targeting the Smash concept (hitch route). Tartt closing in fast.


Gotta make these plays when they present themselves.

Originally posted by jonnydel:
Jimmy was late on a few throws in this game. This goes to show, against this defense, the holes are small and you have to throw the ball exactly on time.

I won't show the hole play and art but this is the first 3rd down of the second half and the play immediately after Garnett went down. We run a drive concept to the right side with Garcon and Taylor. Jimmy executes most of this play really well. He does the things you want a QB to do. He looks off the LBer away from the play to keep the hole open and throws the exact right spot, but he's just a hair second too late.

This was a play I wanted to mention. It's another of the many times the "deep" safety was not playing deep at all. Here the deep safety is the one that smacks Taylor. They squatted the middle of the field a lot in this game. When Goodwin exited the game, it was even more obvious.

Watch Mitchell eat up this double team and allow Tartt to fill the hole. AA also crashes down and doesn't all the RB to cut back or get taken out by the TE coming across and trying to chop him.

Originally posted by thl408:
I'm kind of skipping around but this was a big opportunity to make a play and the 49ers just couldn't reel it in - too common an occurrence in this game. This is the Tartt near INT that could have setup the offense is great position.
49ers show a 2 deep shell. MIN is running a Smash concept to the right side. Smash beats Cover2 on the whiteboard.
When WRs line up tight to the LoS, 49er CBs are a threat to rush the QB. This happened a couple times in the 1Q (I'll show that later). 49ers will rush both slot CBs while dropping Marsh into coverage. Reds will rush, oranges are underneath zones.


Post snap, Tartt rotates down to his curl/flat assignment as the 49ers reveal Cover3. Smash does not work against Cover3.


Cousins has seen slot CBs blitz before and rushes his throw, targeting the Smash concept (hitch route). Tartt closing in fast.


Gotta make these plays when they present themselves.

This play and Bourne running the wrong route were the difference in the game IMO. When Cousins was fooled and rushed we had an opportunity for a pick or possibly pick 6(that's real common if you can jump is just .01 seconds earlier) and the pick 6 we had the other way. Those 2 plays different, I think we win this game.

Originally posted by jonnydel:
Here's the big missed opportunity to Pettis I've mentioned a few times. If this is Goodwin, I think this is a TD and the whole game is different. He's just got that crazy speed. But, also, this is one talented defense we played.

We're going to run one of our staples, the PIN concept. The PIN is a combo of a Post+DIG or deep in. Garcon runs the deep in and Pettis is running the post. We're going to jazz up some read-option run action to give Jimmy more time and try and pull the safety out wider. This is a great design against a cover 2. Cover 2 is weak down the middle of the field so this is a great play call and pretty good execution. We're going to run Taylor on a wheel vertical to widen the boundary safety even more. Minn is in cover-2 man.
Here's the run action that is trying to widen the safety Harrison Smith.


SMith doesn't bite at all and looks so shade inside. Compare his drop with the other safety who's even wider on the more shallow part of the field.

Another example of how aggressive the "deep" safety is. He was looking to help on intermediate routes, and abandons his deep zone. He's basically saying "screw my deep zone, I'm helping on the crosser from the other side of the field". Argh another missed chance to make MIN pay.

Wanted to spotlight what Sherm does for this defense. This was a 3rd and 12 and we ran another call of "Mable" when Minn came out in an unbalanced set. Sherm was the "man" guy on his side. We couldn't run this at all with D. Johnson last year as if we did, the opposing offense just put Johnson in man-coverage the whole game and picked on him or he got flagged. Again, I hated Sherm but man this is nice to have. This allows the defense on the other side to play a smothering zone and ends up in a Blair/Buckner sack that's a coverage sack. How many times did we get a coverage sack last year? *crickets*

I said it last year, one thing that hurt our rush was Johnson. In a pinch, teams would throw at him or scheme at him. Can't do that this year.