49ers film room: Why and how the 49ers offense fell flat versus the Rams in week 15
The 49ers offense saved it's worst performance for the worst possible week.
Yeah I know the game was 9 days ago…Thank you for reading!
It was just over a week ago, but the 49ers fell in week 15 to the Rams at home 12-6. The first half was played in a rainstorm and neither team could move the ball. There were a total of 11 first half punts and the score sat at 3-3 at halftime. The rain mostly cleared but the second half was more of the same except drives either ended with field goals or a turnover.
For the 49ers offense, crucial mistakes were compounded by the weather. The defense was unable to capitalize on two Matthew Stafford passes that resulted in dropped interceptions. On offense, Deebo dropped a pass right in his chest, Jauan Jennings dropped two passes, and other receivers had route running errors that forced Brock Purdy to take a sack because he had nowhere to throw.
And Purdy under-threw several passes including deep shots to George Kittle, Deebo, and Ricky Pearsall. The throw to Pearsall would have been a walk-in touchdown as Pearsall was open by several yards. It was not a goodnight, and just four days after the offense generated 38 points and eight explosive pass plays, they generated one explosive pass all game and just 6 points.
Quarterback misfires
I am leading this article off with Purdy’s below average performance. It’s only fair to critically examine him first because in recent days, his impending contract extension is front and center among fans and reporters and the question of whether or not he deserves a top tier quarterback contract. I have no idea what he deserves. He should try to get every last dime he can from Jed York because nothing is ever promised season to season, including health.
But if Brock and his agent are going to be asking for a deal north of $50 million, then every little detail in his performances deserves scrutiny. And with the sudden shift in tone from analysts like Brian Baldinger, Greg Cosell, Steve Young, and 49ers radio voice Greg Papa all acknowledging this past week that Purdy himself has regressed this season and Papa specifically saying the 49ers don’t necessarily want to pay that much.
It begs the question if the 49ers are laundering this information through these people after it was reported by Tom Pelissero last Sunday that Purdy is seeking a top money contract and it’s worth asking why they (the 49ers) wouldn’t want to. This could just be a negotiating tactic or it could be nothing. But they could also have real concerns.
The infamous miss from Purdy late in the 4th quarter to Pearsall is problematic for several reasons. It was late and under-thrown and would have likely been a walk-in touchdown and given them a chance to win the game.
The play call is a play action concept called “Miami Swirl” with a deep sit route over the middle and a corner/7-stop route (swirl) on the right side. Pearsall is running an alert deep post which the quarterback can throw versus a “premier look.” With the Rams in cover-6 (quarters to the pass strength“premier look” here is the quarters to the right of the defense on the top of the screen and cover-2 to the bottom.
The “swirl” route to the bottom by Jennings occupies the deep half safety and deep sit route over the middle occupies the quarters safety, allowing the deep post to be run behind it 1-on-1 with an isolated corner. The ball should be thrown down the hash but Purdy leaves the pass outside the hash almost halfway between the numbers and hash so that it’s behind Pearsall and allows the defender to catch up to it and knock it away.
Why was the pass late and thrown behind Pearsall? The primary driver of the inaccurate pass is the “heel click” and not having all of his cleats in the ground ready to throw Heel click is when the heels touch as a quarterback hitches up in the pocket, taking both feet off the ground and creating an unstable throwing platform as he throws. It delays the throw and takes all of the quarterback’s power away.
The heel click takes him away from the throw so that when he does finally reset, he's pointed behind Pearsall and that's where the ball ends up, off trajectory of Pearsall's route so the pass is behind him, causing Pearsall to have to adjust and letting the defender recover. This should have been a touchdown.
Brock also had another uncharacteristic miss when he 1) sailed pass over Deebo’s head and 2) usually would have thrown this dig route with some anticipation to Kittle over the middle of the field.
Kittle might still be running as there was no one in his path and the defender in trail was behind him by about three yards. Perhaps Purdy felt he needed to force the ball to Deebo and in the process just sailed it.
Brock also under-threw two other deep passes to Kittle and Deebo earlier before his miss to Pearsall. The pass to Kittle in the video above was left too far inside for Kittle to adjust to after he had already had about three yards of separation.
On a pass to Deebo down the seam early in the 4th quarter, Brock left the pass too short and behind Deebo which allowed the defender to undercut it and knock it away. It went right through the defender’s hands too and Deebo had no chance once that defender stepped in front of him.
Purdy’s interception just about sealed their fate in this game and they never really had a chance to come back. The play call was a double move curl pump concept to Jennings on the outside to the bottom of the screen. If Purdy had a problem under-throwing the ball all game, he did the opposite here and sailed this ball over Jennings into the end zone where the deep third corner caught it.
Shanahan complained that there should have been two illegal contact penalties on this play but the first contact was barely a yard beyond the 5-yard allowable zone and the officials are never inclined to call that there.
The second occurred when the ball was in the air and if anything would have been pass interference, not illegal contact, but even then, the contact wasn’t anything to significantly hinder the receiver and defenders are still allowed to initiate contact to protect themselves from collision.
Shanahan also said he had no problem with the throw because the corner “squatted” on the route but he didn’t. He was still in a position to bail deep and he was already playing eight yards off the ball pre-snap. It was just an ill-advised throw and Shanahan sounded like he was just protecting his quarterback from scrutiny, as he should.
Receiver errors
It was a bizarre few days between the Bears and Rams game for Deebo when took to social media to complain about his target share. He caught a few screen passes, couldn’t make a contested catch on the first play of the game, had the pass sail over his head above, and had another under-thrown target above as well.
But one of the biggest plays of the night was the wide open dropped pass he had just before the midway point in the third quarter. He created some good separation, a rare feat for him these days, and had a clear path to the end zone but he just lost concentration for some reason and let the pass bounce off of his chest. It would’ve been a touchdown.
Jennings also had two dropped passes.
In the first dropped pass, Purdy nailed this throw from the inside of a phone booth and Jennings couldn’t come up with it over the middle on third down, a down he’s had an 80+% conversion rate on.
Here’s his second drop.
A final point of contention is receiver usage and for some reason Chris Conley keeps getting meaningful snaps in this offense over someone like Jacob Cowing. We’ll never really know why Shanahan prefers the veteran over the speedy rookie but there are probably some valid reasons.
But it’s hard to fathom sometimes if he’s that much worse than Conley when Conley, in the above video, has a tendency to run the wrong routes and have mental errors. Kittle is an expert route runner so I am more inclined to believe he ran the correct route and Conley got confused by the play call. This isn’t the first time.
Last month versus Dallas, Conley cost the offense 5 yards when he demanded pre-snap that Pearsall switched spots with him, on a quarterback sneak of all plays. Pearsall apparently lined up wrong but what does it matter? It’s just a sneak. He also ran a poor route on a throw Brock missed that was on Conley for the incompletion, not Brock. Brock threw to a spot, Conley wasn’t there, and it looked like a bad throw from Brock it wasn’t.
Defense dropped interceptions
While this article was primarily about the offense, here are the two dropped interceptions that Deommodore Lenoir and Talanoa Hufanga had.
Outlook
Good teams capitalize on mistakes, bad teams don’t, and while the defense played exceptionally well, they were unable to take advantage of some over-aggressiveness from Matt Stafford and couldn’t make him pay while the Rams made Purdy pay for his mistake.
No way to sugarcoat this. This was just bad. And despite that, there’s still somehow a mathematical, though unrealistic and unlikely, chance the 49ers could make the playoffs. Wouldn’t hold your breath.