49ers film room: How Kyle Shanahan, Brock Purdy, and Christian McCaffrey and the 49ers offense dismantled the Buccaneers defense
Kyle Shanahan and the offense are finding their stride down the home stretch here in preparation for the playoffs.
In his first live NFL game action last week versus the Dolphins, Brock Purdy led the team to a 33-17 win over Mike McDaniel and a top AFC team. In his second game, and his first official start in the NFL, Purdy picked up right where he left off as fans waited nervously all week to see how this week 14 game would pan out versus the greatest quarterback of all time. And Purdy did what he did in week 13: he made throws and carved up a top 10 NFL defense.
Purdy finished 16-for-21, 185 passing yards, and two touchdowns, and rushed for another touchdown. He was 7-for-8 under pressure with 109 passing yards and two touchdowns. Both of his touchdown throws traveled more than 20 air yards and he took a beating each time he threw it. He seemed unfazed by the moment and what it meant to play Tom Brady in his homecoming back to the Bay Area.
The rest of the offense? Christian McCaffrey carried the ball 14 times for 119 yards and one touchdown and caught a 27 yard touchdown pass from Purdy down the left sideline. Deebo Samuel got the team on the board first with a 13 yard touchdown run before exiting the game with a knee and ankle sprain. And wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk got in on the action with a 32 yard touchdown catch of his own.
The 49ers offense amassed 404 yards of offense and averaged 6.8 yards per play. Here’s how.
Purdy poised under pressure
Brock Purdy was 7-for-8 under pressure with 109 yards and two touchdowns. He hit two throws for touchdowns and paid the price for them with big hits. He hit other throws where he evaded pressure and found receivers downfield or found his checkdown and he seemed totally unfazed by the pressure.
His signature play in this game was throwing a 27 yard touchdown pass down the left sideline to Christian McCaffrey on a go route on a dagger/Y-cross concept.
2nd quarter, 3rd and 5 @ TB 27, 7:55 remaining
The play call on both sides of the ball here is unique and creative in how both Shanahan and Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles use their personnel.
The play call by Shanahan had George Kittle aligned in the backfield with McCaffrey split out wide to the left as the #1 receiver to the left of the formation. McCaffrey is running the alert go route down the left sideline. Kittle is in pass protection and the backside of the concept is running a deep crossing route with a dagger route behind it. They are in an 11 personnel 2x2 spread formation.
It looks like the defense is in a cover-0 blitz but Bowles is bringing the linebacker rush from two off-the-ball defensive tackles at linebacker depth in addition to the front four rushers. This looks to be some sort of heavy cover-0 blitz package designed to overwhelm the interior to the offensive line and put pressure on the quarterback. The rest of the coverage is man-to-man with the receivers.
The defensive tackles rushing from linebacker depth both easily get passed center Jake Brendel who lowered his pad level and just tried to absorb at least one rusher but both got into the backfield with relative ease. Pre-snap, Purdy identified the safety Logan Ryan covering McCaffrey out wide, his man coverage indicator. He also identified that it was probably a blitz of some type with the defensive tackles as linebackers.
He caught the snap and confirmed his pre-snap visuals, located the coverage on McCaffrey and tossed one downfield as he took a shot from the defenders. Ryan, in man coverage on McCaffrey, for some reason got caught looking inside at Aiyuk’s route and bit on it as McCaffrey was sprinting past him. Purdy placed the ball with precision on McCaffrey’s outside shoulder away from the trailing defender where he was able to catch it and drag his feet in the end zone.
On Purdy’s second touchdown pass of the game, he found Brandon Aiyuk down the left sideline just before halftime on a “curl pump” route but to get to that pass, Shanahan dialed up a swirl or “7-stop” route earlier on this drive. Shanahan is a master at putting defenders through a blender.
On the double swirl route, Purdy located Aiyuk versus the cover-2 cloud coverage side of the Buccaneers cover-6.
As Purdy drops back to pass, pay close attention to his helmet stripe. That’s a good indication of what he is doing with eyes and how he’s manipulating the coverage. He keeps his feet in sync with eyes and that holds the defenders in the middle of the field just long enough to prevent them from getting into the throwing lane to Aiyuk.
His eyes/stripe stay in the middle of the field while the routes develop before he delivers a pass into the hole in the zone. This allows Aiyuk to turn and get up field for 11 more yards.
Later on this drive, Aiyuk beat the coverage with a stutter-and-go and got behind the entire secondary before he caught the pass.
2nd quarter, 1st and 10 @ TB 32, :22 remaining
The play call here is “curl pump hurricane” with a “curl pump” by Aiyuk where he sells the deep curl route, stutters out of his break, and takes off downfield. Inside of him is a deep crosser and coming from the right side is Kittle on a shallow crossing route.
The defense is in quarters coverage pre-snap that rotates to cover-3 “sky” (strong safety rotation to the passing strength) post snap to take away the seams and in-breaking routes.
Aiyuk has a corner over the top of his route this time, to prevent him from getting free access down the field. But he gives a little stutter move like he is going to break and work back to the ball like a receiver would on a curl route. This gets Jamel Dean to bite on his double move as Aiyuk sprints past as he likely felt a similar route as the one above with Aiyuk’s condensed split.
The coverage is behind him by the time Purdy throws the ball and he did so just before he took a massive hit in the pocket. The pass hung a bit as he was forced to throw sooner and couldn’t get his full follow through on the pass but it had enough juice to clear the defenders chasing Aiyuk and right into his hands before scoring.
Purdy made several other throws where he was skifully able to avoid pressure and find his checkdowns, all while looking comfortable in the pocket and not flustered or nervous.
Run game continues to thrive
The fear heading into this season was that the run game would stall out due to the departure of Mike McDaniel to Miami. That has not been the case.
In week 14 versus Tampa Bay, the 49ers utilized a variation of their power/counter gap scheme run plays that’s designed to get to the edge of the defense when the defense sets a hard edge due to the Buccaneers playing a “jam” front (bear front 3-0-3).
The jam front prevents the offensive line from getting combo blocks in the zone running.
Instead of using traditional counter blocking with an offensive lineman pulling to the playside, the 49ers utilize lead blocking from a tight end and fullback that allows them to get to the edge quicker against smaller edge defenders like linebackers and safeties.
This allows them to keep all five offensive linemen in to block the interior of the defense where they can get double team blocks at the point of attack and allows them to get to the second level linebackers with easier angles where they can work more vertically to reach them. The goal is creating favorable blocking angles.
The 49ers gashed the Buccaneers several times with this counter run concept with two lead blockers to the playside edge. When the defense sees two lead blockers to the playside, the linebackers have to get to the edge and fit up the run against the pullers with a hammer technique (explode through the lead blocker’s outside shoulder) to force the ball back inside.
The problem here is that on several runs, since the linemen can get vertical, the force and spill defenders can set the edge but they are out-gapped back up the middle. They force the ball carrier, McCaffrey back inside, but McCaffrey is running behind a wall of offensive linemen.
When the 49ers were able to get to the outside edge of the defense, they did so through good scouting and relying on their playmakers to make big plays.
This is a staple shotgun running play for Shanahan offense, pin and pull sweep. The edge blockers “pin” the edge defenders inside, allowing an offensive lineman to get out on the edge, usually with another lead blocker.
Here, Tampa Bay is in a single coverage shell with man coverage across, indicated by the motion of the receiver to the other side. The corner who follows is the force defender to any run to that side but since he has man coverage responsibility, he follows Aiyuk away from the side the run goes to. This puts force responsibility on the next box defender who is inside Mike McGlinchey and is out of position automatically.
Deebo takes the toss and gets to the edge easily for the 13 yard touchdown. Had the corner been down in there without motion, he may have been able to stall the run.
Outlook
The 49ers dismantled the Buccaneers defense quite easily in week 14 and are peeling back layers to the offense to put on tape as they get closer to the postseason. They had another good test with the Seahawks in which they won by Kyle Shanahan dismantling the Seahawks secondary on Thursday Night Football on a short week where they were without Deebo Samuel.
Versus Tampa Bay, Shanahan showed he is not afraid to let his quarterback cut it loose and the offense will look to be a more downfield passing offense in the coming weeks.