49ers film room: What happened to the offense in the loss to the Browns?

The offense made too many mistakes in the loss to the Browns in week 6.

What happened on Sunday to the 49ers offense? The title to this article asks a question that has several answers, answers that explain why the offense went stagnant and only scored 17 points in a road loss to the Cleveland Browns in week six. In the previous two games versus Arizona and Dallas, this juggernaut offense scored 77 points and it certainly appeared they were headed toward another blowout after the first drive on Sunday.

But the game script began to quickly unravel after the second drive and they managed to take just a 10-7 lead into halftime. They wouldn’t score again until the 4th quarter, an 8-yard touchdown run by Jordan Mason after a defensive interception set them inside the 10.

Kicker Jake Moody missed two field goals, including what would’ve been the eventual game winner. Quarterback Brock Purdy threw his first interception of the season and threw several more off-target passes, including at least two more that could’ve been interceptions.

Brandon Aiyuk dropped what might have been a touchdown pass early in the second quarter. And the running game stalled out when running back Christian McCaffrey left the game with a rib injury while Deebo Samuel left with a shoulder injury sustained on the first play of the game.

All of these things contributed to a lackluster offensive output and just 17 points in their regular first loss since week 7 at home to Kansas City last season. But in what ways did these mishaps contribute to this loss? 

Brock Purdy off target throws

Per Sports Info Solutions advanced passing metrics, Purdy had an on-target throw percentage of 52.2%, by far his lowest of the season. Per Pro Football Focus, he was just 8-of-15 throwing from a clean pocket and 4-of-12 throwing under pressure. It was the worst performance of his young career and it’s worth noting that the rain probably had something to do with it, or at least played a factor in it.

In weeks 1-5 however, he’s about middle of the league, 14th, in on-target throw percentage. Under pressure in weeks 1-5, he’s done well, but is ranked 20th overall in passing grade per PFF. Even with the middling grades and ranks, he performed well below season ranks to this point. 

He missed a couple of open deep throws, something that’s been an issue with him this season. On this play here, he missed McCaffrey wide open out of the backfield, a play that would’ve gone for an explosive pass if not possibly a touchdown.

The play call is a dig route from the right with McCaffrey running a choice take-off route out of the back field. This is a play they’ve run a a couple of times now this season, nearly coming away with explosive passes in the two times now that I can remember. Ray Ray McCloud is running the dig.

The Browns safety drives on the dig route with the corner in trail outside. This leaves CMC one on one with the middle linebacker Anthony Walker (No. 5), a total mismatch for the Browns in man coverage. CMC stutters at the top of his route before taking off past the linebacker and is wide open with no safety help over the top. Colton McKivitz has the unfortunate pleasure of blocking Myles Garrett (No. 95) and Purdy gets a little pressure, possibly throwing off the timing just a bit and the pass falls incomplete.

Fortunately the play was negated by an offsides penalty but if he completes that then the offense is in much better shape with a bigger gain instead of a 5-yards by penalty gain.

But his off-target throws continued into the second half where he threw a pass to start the drive that was nearly an interception and then followed that up two plays later with a throw behind Aiyuk that WAS intercepted.

The 49ers are running a designed shot play, a deep post with a deeper dig route coming from the other side. It’s becoming a staple pass play in Shanahan offense and it went for an explosive play in week 4 versus the Cardinals. With the Browns in cover-3, he’ll be checking to see how the coverage carries the post first before working back to the dig.

Purdy begins his drop back looking at the post. But his helmet stripe shows him looking more down the middle of the field. He never looks him off. This keeps the middle linebacker in the middle of the field as he gains depth on his zone drop. Purdy comes back to the dig and fires it over the middle but the middle linebacker, Jeremiah Owusu-Karamoah (JOK) is sitting in his throwing window. Purdy is unable to layer the pass over JOK’s head and he’s able to tip the ball.

He was able to do this versus the Cowboys by catching Leighton Vander-Esch in quicksand over the middle but he was unable to here. He may have dodged a bullet on this throw, but two plays later, he was unable to. On his interception, Purdy left the ball behind Aiyuk and just flat misfired.

The play on 3rd and 10 here is a dagger concept with Aiyuk running the dig route and Jennings as the primary on the deep thru or crosser route with McCaffrey on a choice route underneath.

The Browns are playing a cover-1 robber coverage called “1-cross,” weak rotated safety coverage away from the pass strength to enable the safety to play any crossers in the middle of the field, where the 49ers like to send McCaffrey.

Purdy simply misfired and misjudged the receiver’s break. It was sort of an uncharacteristic miss, but it was one he was bound to make at some point as he couldn’t avoid the turnover column all season.

In fact, most of his off-target throws came with no pressure. It was an uncharacteristic day for Purdy throwing the ball.

Aiyuk dropped pass

Brandon Aiyuk played well but his drop late in the first quarter loomed large in a tight, close game.

The play call is a deep post concept to Aiyuk 1-on-1 with Denzel Ward. Aiyuk gets open downfield and just runs right past Ward. Up front, the 49ers offensive line has trouble picking up the pass rush game up front with five across the line. Banks should pass off the linebacker rush from Anthony Walker (No. 5) and is late recognizing the interior looper.

This puts a free runner in Purdy’s face as he throws. He stands in the pocket and delivers a strike downfield to Aiyuk. Aiyuk gets hands on the pass but it goes right through them. Another missed opportunity.

Run blocking issues with receivers

The running game was less than stagnant in this one too. Constantly putting the offense behind the chains and forcing Purdy into 3rd-and-longs is less than ideal. We have to give credit to Browns defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz though, they were prepared coming off the bye week and didn’t fall for the motions and alignments the 49ers offense was throwing at them.

On this play, the 49ers are running inside zone to the left. Purdy sends Aiyuk in motion to the left but the defense doesn’t bounce out with him. Safety Grant Delpit (No.22), the overhang defender here in the box, stays inside Ray Ray McCoud so he can crash down inside. McCloud should crash down inside to crack block the safety but he needs to get down the line of scrimmage horizontally right away instead of angling diagonally to block him. Delpit is able to make the stop.

This issue caught them two more times in this game, including in the red zone, as Schwartz seemed to stay one step ahead of Shanahan throughout the game. These two clips are two more examples of how the Browns overhang defenders inserted themselves into the run. Knowing that Shanahan likes to use receivers to block safeties, especially if the corner is playing off coverage, Schwartz used that to their advantage.

In the first clip, Jennings should come straight down the line to block safety Rodney McCleod (No. 26). Instead he takes a couple of steps up field then down the line. By this point in the down, McCleod was ready to meet McCaffrey in the backfield. If Jennings makes this block, there’s a good chance McCaffrey scores because he can bounce it outside without losing his momentum.

In the second clip, the 49ers are running YF power with the lead and kick-out blocks coming from Kyle Juszczyk and George Kittle. Aiyuk has blocking responsibility here on Delpit, the overhang defender who again is aligned inside. Aiyuk can’t get down the line fast enough to block him and the Browns are able to get back an extra defender at the point of attack after the kickout and lead blocks clear some space.

As Juszczyk approaches the hole, he should block the next most dangerous defender but Delpit, inserting here as the hammer, frees up another defender to also plug the point of attack, ensuring the run goes for no gain.

Screen game mishaps

There were a lot of other mishaps in this game and I’l be doing a separate piece on the offensive line in recent games, so her we’ll take a look at another facet of the offense where they tried to run screen passes after the first drive.

On the first screen, the 49ers offensive line gets it blocked up nicely and McCaffrey chips the defensive end before releasing, catching the shovel, and scoring. It caught the Browns off guard where Myles Garrett aggressively got upfield instead of sticking with McCaffrey when he recognized the screen. 

Later in the game, the screen game was picked up and the Browns were able to disrupt several or would have disrupted them had the receivers caught the ball.

In the first screen, Garrett tossed Trent Williams aside and disrupted the timing, allowing the linebackers to get downhill before the linemen were able to release downfield to block them. In the second clip, McCloud runs into Williams and Purdy is unable to get the ball out to him, falling incomplete. But the blockers on the perimeter were unable to effectively get it blocked up anyways. Had McCloud caught it, he would have been stopped for a loss.

The same issue occurs in the 3rd clip, the jailbreak screen, but Purdy fumbled it and ended the play. In the fourth clip, the defensive end recognized that no one was blocking him at the snap so he stuck with Juzczyk and held him up, preventing Juszczyk from releasing downfield. Purdy saw this and had to eat another sack as he slid down just before the line of scrimmage to avoid a hit up the middle.

Outlook

The 49ers have to clean up the penalties and execution issues that plagued them versus the Browns because they are about to face the Vikings on Monday night, a team that will send more pressure and blitzes than they’ve seen all season outside of the Giants game. The Vikings will also disguise a lot of pressure and try to confuse Purdy. The entire offense needs to be on their A-game.

As of this writing, it is unclear if they will have CMC, Trent Williams, and Deebo, who have been listed as day-to-day on the injury report.