49ers Film Room: 49ers offense keeps it simple in win over Seattle in the wildcard round
49ers run game creates explosive plays with McCaffrey and Deebo capping off their day with huge runs.
The 49ers came in with a simple game plan versus Seattle that largely worked: Run against favorable fronts and throw against favorable coverages. Trailing 17-16 at halftime, the offense came to life in the 2nd half to score 25 points with the defense holding Seattle to a meaningless second half touchdown in garbage time.
The offense struggled for part of the first half, settling for three field goals largely due to some uncharacteristically poor throws from Brock Purdy that found the linebacker’s hands before they got to the receivers. He has had his fair share off-target throws but not clustered like this. The 49ers moved the ball at will nearly all game long regardless so we can probably just chalk it up to nerves early in the game.
Outside of that, there was nothing really new or revolutionary from Shanahan in this one that we haven’t seen in recent weeks. Although he’s still creating match-up nightmares for opposing defenses, he stuck to the core tenets of his offense relying heavily on play action to create space for his receivers.
This game was a good glimpse into how Shanahan drew up a plan and adjusted to the counters to his plan counters of his own.
The game plan in this one was fairly straightforward: run versus favorable boxes, throw versus favorable coverages and hit Seattle’s defense when they cheated to stop the run with play action over their heads (subject of a later article). It’s a chess match, and Shanahan and the 49ers offense won round three easily.
In the run game, the 49ers amassed 165 total yards, which looks very good on paper. However, 90 of those yards came on two carries by Christian McCaffrey (68-yard run in the first quarter) and Deebo Samuel (22 yard run also in the first quarter). Minus those two plays, the ground game rushed for 75 yards on 27 attempts, a paltry 2.8 yards per carry.
Their best rushing attempts though came against Seattle two high safety coverages. This meant that Seattle would have to defend the run with light boxes because the box safety was sitting deep to prevent the explosive pass play.
Shanahan kept the offense in 21 personnel (two running backs, one tight end), which kept the Seahawks defense on these plays in their base 3-4 personnel.
First play, 1st quarter, 1st and 10 at SEA 45, 11:49 remaining
In this first play, Deebo’s 22-yard run in the first quarter, the 49ers are in 21 personnel here but with Deebo in the backfield and McCaffrey split out as the X receiver. The play call is a wide zone toss to the left they call “Force.”
Force tags the fullback, Kyle Juszczyk, with blocking the first support defender if the SAM linebacker is off the ball, which he is here. The first support defender is the safety who comes downhill to the playside.
The Seahawks are out-gapped to the strong side with the offense having a 4-on-3 advantage to the left as Deebo gets the snap. The defensive end (Bruce Irvin No. 53) crashes inside and Kittle leads up to the SAM linebacker Tanner Muse (No. 58). Deebo takes the toss and hits the edge with speed as Juszczyk leads up to the safety and Aiyuk kicks out the corner. Being a man down in the box helped the 49ers gain 22 yards on this run.
Second play, 1st quarter, 1st and 10 at SF 15, 8:02 remaining
On the next drive, McCaffrey hit the edge for a 68-yard gain on first down that helped set up the 49ers first touchdown of the game on a wrinkle to their “zorro” run concept.
Zorro is a strong side wide zone concept designed to attack defenses that set hard edges and want to force the offense back inside. Typically another receiver or fullback will block inside the tight end and work to the first support defender.
On this play, one that the 49ers have been running regularly in recent weeks, the tight end is the blocker “protecting” the inside hip of the tackle before working up to the next support defender. Juszczyk works inside to block the linebacker plugging the play side B-gap on the line of scrimmage while Trent Williams kicks out the overhang defender with Kittle blocking to the inside of Williams.
The Seahawks are again out-gapped to the play side after the motion from Kittle. Their 3-technique defensive lineman doesn’t shade over the tackle when Irvin kicks out over the slot. The “zorro” play call also has a “CAT” tag with it, designating the play side wide receiver, Aiyuk, to block the safety instead of the corner.
The 49ers run it to the huge B-gap bubble for a huge gain by McCaffrey. The play side safety is late to fill and never gets downhill before Aiyuk blocks him. McCaffrey scoots between his blockers and is finally taken down in the red zone.
The 49ers didn’t have much success running the ball after these two big runs as I stated earlier above, primarily due to the Seahawks late safety rotation down to the box on running downs, giving the defense a defender the 49ers couldn’t account for when they were able to get to the edge.
The cut-up above shows the positive yardage running game snaps versus two safety coverage or when at least one safety was out of the run fit due to alignment.
In the next article we’ll look at the 49ers play action passing game.