Why didn't we do a better job defensively against the Ravens?

If you changed the question to what could we have done better... the only thing I can think is taking the 2013-2014 tactic of letting the RB get his yards but hit the QB every chance you get. No doubt the refs were protecting Jackson, but there were a few times the D line could of blown him up during the read option and stopped those play calls. Most were close enough not to get a penalty but even if it did... Jackson was taking the ball for 10-15 a run anyways during those plays where the RB wasnt even given the ball. And its not like we'd be giving up THAT many more yards from the penalty.

Outside of weirdly always going after the RB when a couple direct hits on LJ would of made their run game basic... the D played phenomenal especially in those elements.

Garroppolo fumbling again, setting up their first TD. And a BS roughing the passer call on 3rd down, setting up their 2nd td. Other than that played a solid game against a good team. Jimmy gotta stop turning it over. The fumbles cost us the Seattle game too.

Ask Tim Ryan.

Originally posted by genus49:
Ask Tim Ryan.

Originally posted by NINERFORLIFE12:
Garroppolo fumbling again, setting up their first TD. And a BS roughing the passer call on 3rd down, setting up their 2nd td. Other than that played a solid game against a good team. Jimmy gotta stop turning it over. The fumbles cost us the Seattle game too.

I can't argue with that ^^

Can K'Won Alexander come off IR if he's healthy for the playoffs ❓❓

If you play LJ on the RPO, the rest of the DL should be able to stop the RB

Originally posted by TheWooLick:
The 49ers held the Ravens to their lowest point and yard output of the season.

230 yards and 20 points oh, that isn't looking easy that's a massive struggle for the Ravens.
Wade Phillips and the Rams gave up 45, Bill Belichick and the Patriots gave up 37 it sure looked a whole lot easier against those teams and every other team they played this year.

what you said and what you bolded in my post are not mutually exclusive. again, our offense did a great job grabbing time of possession and running the ball against them. those teams that you mentioned had a lot of 3 and outs vs ravens defense, fueling the ravens even more. texans and rams offense couldn't do jack against the ravens defense

I do agree we played well against them and were neck and neck. But again, we simply don't match up that well on defense. The wide-9 is designed to work in modern NFL passing league, not against a RPO with a one-of-a-kind player in Lamar with bunch of heavy blockers, TEs and tough RBs around him. It doesn't help Al-Shaair isn't really a starter and we missed Alexander a lot. It doesn't help that a LB spy these days is a rarity and we don't have many scout team players who resemble Lamar.

I'm not worried too much about any NFC teams. Our defense is designed to crap on passing teams and once they're in 2nd and long and then 3rd and medium or long, thats where we want them. Ravens are a different animal. That's it.

Originally posted by brodiebluebanaszak:

Overall we didn't give up the kind of yards the Ravens have been getting.

So, that's pretty good.

But we didn't come close to shutting them down either.

Got gashed for over 170 yards on the ground.

The highlight plays didn't show any penetration or take downs of Lamar.

Couldn't stop them at crunch time.

Where did things go off the rails?

We should've shut them out to zero points. Can't believe it. Our defense is totally the weak link.

Originally posted by TheRickestRick:

If you changed the question to what could we have done better... the only thing I can think is taking the 2013-2014 tactic of letting the RB get his yards but hit the QB every chance you get. No doubt the refs were protecting Jackson, but there were a few times the D line could of blown him up during the read option and stopped those play calls. Most were close enough not to get a penalty but even if it did... Jackson was taking the ball for 10-15 a run anyways during those plays where the RB wasnt even given the ball. And its not like we'd be giving up THAT many more yards from the penalty.

Outside of weirdly always going after the RB when a couple direct hits on LJ would of made their run game basic... the D played phenomenal especially in those elements.

This! The question for this thread was worded poorly.

They needed to just hit Jackson at the mesh pt...you can smash him in the pocket because he's still declaring himself a runner...do that over and over and I'll bet Harbs won't want to see his QB get abused like that.

Also let him hand the ball off to the RB on that read. let out IDL and LBers go to work. Instead they did the opposite of that. They took out the RB as much as they could and let Jackson have space on the edges. It was like a guaranteed 5+ yards ever time. If Jackson is gonna run make him run up the middle where he's gonna get hit on the regular. He wants to be a RB treat him like one.

I think teams will figure it out sooner than later.

Originally posted by the_dynasty:
We don't match up well with offense that are run-heavy. It's a fact. We are starting two rookies at LBs in a 4-3. and our DLine's strengths are getting to a prototypical passing QB.

Throughout the whole game, Ravens made it look easy. The key was to put them in 3rd and long situations, but that was much easier said than done. I almost felt couple of times they got too pass happy. If I had a run offense of their caliber, Id just run the ball all the time until the opposing team proves they can stop it and go for it on every 4th down and less than 5 yards.

We had to work for our 3rd down conversions, for Ravens it seemed stupid easy. Our run game actually kept our defense fresh, if we had many three and outs the defense would be toast.

Let's just say I'm glad we don't play in the AFC. All other NFC teams that are good we matchup well against. Aside maybe from Seattle, every other team plays right into our strengths.

As time goes, people could think of a plan to stop them. But right now, this ravens o looks way more explosive than our offense with Roman and Kaep ever was. They built the offense around Lamar and know what they're doing. Plus Lamar looks like a more refined passer than Kaep already. You can't beat this offense with run blitz like Ravens were able to do to us back in 2012.

Then why did we out gain them by 50 yards?

They gave up 20 points, 3 in the second half, and 7 on a 20 yard field against the highest scoring offense in the NFL. Don't really know what you're complaining about.

Originally posted by NinerTy:

Can K'Won Alexander come off IR if he's healthy for the playoffs ❓❓

No

I don't know why we didn't rope him in. After all I heard hundreds of times that the NFL figured out Kaepernick's an other running QBs style of play and "option" offense. And that is now dead in the NFL. Apparently all the DCs got way more credit than they should have.

Gotta be happy to only give up 20 to these guys when you consider they have been red hot and scored 45 against the Rams,41 against the Texans,49 against the Bengals and 37 against the Pats

Originally posted by the_dynasty:

Originally posted by TheWooLick:

The 49ers held the Ravens to their lowest point and yard output of the season.

230 yards and 20 points oh, that isn't looking easy that's a massive struggle for the Ravens.
Wade Phillips and the Rams gave up 45, Bill Belichick and the Patriots gave up 37 it sure looked a whole lot easier against those teams and every other team they played this year.

what you said and what you bolded in my post are not mutually exclusive. again, our offense did a great job grabbing time of possession and running the ball against them. those teams that you mentioned had a lot of 3 and outs vs ravens defense, fueling the ravens even more. texans and rams offense couldn't do jack against the ravens defense

I do agree we played well against them and were neck and neck. But again, we simply don't match up that well on defense. The wide-9 is designed to work in modern NFL passing league, not against a RPO with a one-of-a-kind player in Lamar with bunch of heavy blockers, TEs and tough RBs around him. It doesn't help Al-Shaair isn't really a starter and we missed Alexander a lot. It doesn't help that a LB spy these days is a rarity and we don't have many scout team players who resemble Lamar.

I'm not worried too much about any NFC teams. Our defense is designed to crap on passing teams and once they're in 2nd and long and then 3rd and medium or long, thats where we want them. Ravens are a different animal. That's it.

The offense held the ball for 5 minutes less than the Ravens offense.

No other defense has performed better against the Ravens than the 49ers. The scheme worked.

The Ravens scored 13 points on the D and gained 240 yards. The 49ers defense dominated them.