49ers film room: Robert Saleh's 3rd down coverage scheme
Defensive coordinator Robert Saleh unveiled some new pre-snap alignment wrinkles in his coaching debut back with the 49ers during the preseason.
49ers football is BACK and so are some familiar faces. The 49ers defense took the field in the preseason with Robert Saleh back at the helm as the top man in charge and if the preseason games were any indication of what’s to come, we’re in for a full fledged defensive evolution from the former Seattle scheme defensive coach. In the preseason, we saw a glimpse of new presentations we haven’t previously seen from Saleh, even while he was with the Jets.
If you remember, Saleh came back to be the defensive coordinator after spending most of last season with Green Bay after he was fired from the Jets. In Green Bay, even while serving as an offensive analyst for Matt LaFleur, Saleh spent time with former 49ers defensive coach Jeff Hafley, who coached under him and Shanahan in 2018. Hafley is the Packers defensive coordinator.
Hafley’s Packers defense showed some unique coverage rotations last season that would show them crowding the line of scrimmage with a cover-0 pre-snap picture behind it before rotating into Tampa-2. Based on what we saw from Saleh against Denver and again versus Las Vegas, it’s like he’s given it his own unique twist.
Usually in preseason, coverages are static and vanilla. Not this preseason. What did the tape show us? It showed us unique ways that Saleh can and probably will line up the defense showing pressure but dropping into zones or playing man while rushing four. There were also some 5 and 6-man pressures sprinkled in there too. But a lot of the presentations look exactly the same. They just function in different ways post snap.
But the main takeaway is that showing an all out pressure front with all 11 defenders within 6 yards of the line of scrimmage, often with 9 up on the line itself, forces an opposing offense to have to account for the most dangerous 5 or 6 defenders that could rush the passer or send a blitz.
If a defense can get free rushers away from the pass protection slide or make the quarterback think twice about a particular read, it can significantly speed up or slow down the quarterback’s mental process, where decision-making ability is degraded.
We can see this on several 3rd down passing situations in the first two preseason games thrown at the Bronco’s and Raiders quarterbacks throughout each game.
Cover-1 sim pressure
On the game’s first third down against Denver, Saleh showed pressure with 9 defenders within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage.
The defense is showing an all out pressure look with a “rush front” of four down linemen in the 3 and 9-technique defensive line positions and 2 linebackers mugged up shaded into the A-gap.
The offensive line slides protection to the right from the center over because they have declared that LB53 is the MIKE and the safety is in a position to blitz from that depth. That gives four on four to the right with the Bronco’s running back.
The 49ers defense begins to tip their hand just before the snap with the safety rotating to the deep middle and at the snap, the linebackers bailing. The offensive line has already declared their slide and as they’re checking the rush, the 49ers stunt their front with CJ West spiking the A-gap and Kalia Davis looping around center. They’re not able to recover.
From the quarterback’s perspective, Nix sees the defense morph into cover-1 and where he wanted to throw across the middle, his receiver had no leverage with a low zone defender in the seam underneath and another defender on the low inside hip. Now he has to process what’s next but can’t because Davis looped around center to sack him. He ends up throwing an errant pass that fell incomplete.
Cover-3 sim pressure
The play above was actually negated by a penalty that extended the Bronco’s drive. On the next third down on this drive, the defense showed the same alignment.
But this time they morphed into a cover-3 zone as the offense had a good man coverage beater concept called.
Bo Nix was forced to check down after the crossing routes were blanketed across the middle of the field.
While those were basic variations we’re likely to see, Saleh threw some other curveballs at all of the Broncos quarterbacks in week one of the preseason. He utilized a combination of fronts and sent 5 and 6-man pressures with cover-1 behind a set of sub package blitzes and showed pressure before dropping into quarters coverage.
5 and 6-man pressures
In the preseason we saw Saleh dial up some basic 5 and 6-man pressures as well.
On this nickel pressure, the Broncos are sliding their offensive line to the left, putting the running back in pass protection to the right to help the 2-man blocking surface when the defender’s walk down to show blitz. He’ll be looking inside out.
On the backside, Saleh overloads two blockers with three defenders after the center mirrors the defensive tackle.
The result is a nifty way to manipulate even the strong side of the pass protection scheme to generate a free rusher, resulting in Nix scrambling through the end zone before throwing the ball away and being hit with a safety because it did not get back to the line.
On two of the pressures, the five defenders on the line of scrimmage were the primary rushers. A basic 5-man blitz with man coverage behind it.
On another 5-man pressure, the defense showed six on the line of scrimmage with one of the linebackers creeping up at the 6th potential rusher. The linebacker on the line of scrimmage, Jalen Graham, doesn’t rush and instead ends up as the low zone “rat” dropper looking to rob anything shallow underneath, just another way to muddy the picture pre and post snap.
Quarters sim pressure
The defense here creates a simulated pressure or blitz situation (5 or more pass rushers) through its pre-snap presentation. In addition to the four down linemen, the linebackers are showing pressure in a mugged A-gap alignment.
But defense only sends four rushers into the play despite their initial presentation. The linebackers bail to underneath quarters zones. Usually in a simulated pressure, the defense will send at least one non-traditional pass rusher among their four pass rushers who can either be a linebacker or defensive back, but here, the 49ers only rush with their defensive line.
Final thoughts
I’m sure this only scratches the surface of what we’ll see from Robert Saleh on 3rd downs as they look to recreate some of the magic of that 2019 season when the scheme first evolved. We have yet to see Saleh unleash this revamped scheme with the starting 11 on defense and although we caught a glimpse of what it will look like, it may just end up being the area of the team that helps them close out close games this season.