49ers film room: a quick look at Trey Lance's year 2 preseason debut, while Spencer Burford and Samuel Womack stand out among the new rookie class
Lance only threw 5 passes so what exactly did we learn? We'll look at the tape to see!
Second year quarterback Trey Lance only played two series and threw five passes in the first preseason game of 2022 versus the Green Bay Packers on Friday night but we learned a lot from those snaps. He finished 4-5, 92 passing yards, and one 76-yard touchdown pass (where the bulk of his passing yards came from). The 49ers were victorious 28-21 after solid performances from backup quarterbacks Nate Sudfeld and Brock Purdy.
The last two weeks were tense as camp started with fans hanging on every word that beat reporters published or tweeted daily from practice. Practice stats were used to credit or discredit Lance as he heads into year two as the franchise quarterback (albeit with Jimmy Garoppolo still on the roster going through his own practice and rehab on a side field). Context was often ignored or missed in favor of one’s preferred narrative.
Which is why it was nice to get some real football back on our screens this weekend. Perhaps we got a glimpse into what the offense will look like but a lot of that will depend on Kyle Shanahan’s comfortability calling those concepts for Lance when the games count. But did the first preseason game tell us anything? I think we hopefully learned some new things (with caveats explained later) and I think we learned some things we already knew.
Most of the presumed starters for the 49ers and Packers were given the night off. That meant that Lance was only going to be facing primarily the Packers second team defense. But that also meant he would be facing them behind the 49ers second team offense and other back-ups.
Important context for sure, but it can muddy up an evaluation if all one is concerned with is who they faced. And yet, it was still a good test from the first drop-back Lance attempted to his last.
Lance’s first passing snap came on the second play of the game when Shanahan called a downfield shot play with receiver Jauan Jennings (No. 15) on a pylon corner route downfield. As Lance hit the top of his drop, left tackle Colton McKivitz (No. 68) gets beat around the edge forcing Lance to step-up into the pocket.
Lance is looking for Jennings but the Packers have every route well covered. Lance climbs up through the pocket, stays light on his feet, resets his feet to throw, and keeps his eyes downfield. There’s no throw so Lance pulls it down and picks up the first as he scrambles and slides. As he does, he buys himself some space by using his eyes to draw the defender toward the checkdown. This entire rep is a sign of maturity in the second year passer as he struggled at times in 2021.
His first pass completion came on a designed quarterback keeper play action where he found receiver Ray-Ray McCloud in the flat for a short gain, nothing really noteworthy on this play.
On his second completion, he found tight end Ross Dwelley in the flat on a quick game stick/flat passing concept. This was really my only gripe with his passing attempts and it is one that I am most interested in watching as preseason continues.
He struggled with quick passing game concepts last season, often finding his rhythm as the game went on and he got more comfortable. I don’t expect that to change this season. They’re not easy concepts to master as they often require snap decisions in a short time and/or a pre-snap decision the quarterback must get right before he throws.
The Packers are playing cover-3 across the formation, a pretty vanilla coverage for a preseason game. The motion pre-snap tells Lance that the Packers are playing a zone coverage, Lance makes the right read but the ball is a bit high. Dwelley still snags the pass out of the air but ideally this pass is lower so Dwelley can tuck it away and get more yards upfield. The timing and placement is crucial here.
On 3rd-and-9 on the next play, Shanahan’s play call is one that allows them to showcase Lance’s arm talent by throwing a deep out route on the sideline. The pass seemed high and outside at first but after seeing the all-22, I firmly believe the blame resides more with the wide receiver, Danny Gray, than it does with Lance.
The play call is “double scout F spread sneak” where Gray is running a “scout” route that can be run one of two ways:
The scout route is run a like a 10 yard speed out if the play call starts puts the trips to the field.
The scout route is run like a 10 yard stop route if the play call puts the trips into the boundary while the receiver running the scout route “works down stem” away from the defender.
The receiver, if inside the numbers (field side from a tight split), cuts off of the inside edge of the numbers toward the sideline.
You can see how the receivers run this route in these cut-ups of the Shanahan video install from 2012.
Lance drops back to throw in shotgun, which turns a normally 5-step drop from under center into a 3-step drop in gun, one big step, two smaller steps. He hits the top of his drop and fires as he plants. Gray leaps through the air to catch it but lands out of bounds, leading many observers to proclaim that Lance threw an inaccurate, overthrown pass. I think there’s a different explanation.
The pass was fine. It was on target and thrown where it needed to be. Gray speed cuts too early, about 2 yards from the edge of the numbers, and then drifts back toward the line of scrimmage, leading to pass that he has difficulty coming down with. The aesthetics of the entire play look much different if Gray stays linear and ends up at the 18 yard line to catch the pass instead of about the 19.5 yard line.
In a timing offense, those little details matter. Gray is a rookie and Shanahan did mention earlier in the week that Gray has done things that all rookie receivers do that drive him insane. He’ll get better with experience and reps. But the pass play from Lance is not as egregious as it was made out to be.
Lance and Gray connected one final time before Lance was taken out of the game. They connected for a 76-yard touchdown pass down the left sideline on their “Spartan Knife” concept, a slot fade to the front side of the progression with dagger combo to the right.
Lance motions tight end Tyler Kroft out wide to the #1 receiver position outside Gray. It looks like a zone coverage since the corner over outside Kroft and the safety shades over the slot. It turns into man coverage as the Packers send all five rushers across the defensive line at the snap.
This leaves the Packers safety Dallin Leavitt (No. 6) 1-on-1 with the speedy receiver running a slot fade route. Lance effortlessly tosses the pass down the sideline and hits Gray in stride who outruns the coverage and scores.
Spartan Knife is a favorite of Shanahan’s with Lance, at least in the preseason. He’s 2-for-3 on that concept with two big completions last year in Los Angeles versus the Chargers and this year versus the Packers.
The main takeaway from Lance’s pass attempts are that we need to see this consistently in the next two preseason games and into the regular season. Undoubtedly there was some good and some not so good and we should be looking for progress in those areas that weren’t so good.
The flip side is the passing attempts did not show us anything that we already knew. We knew he could make throws at every level and we knew he struggled throwing quick game concepts. And that’s perfectly okay.
Spencer Burford
Offensive lineman Spencer Burford might not lose the starting job he had Friday night. The former University of Texas at San Antonio offensive lineman has had a pretty good camp so far and in the game against the Packers he was a menace finishing blocks in the pass and run game.
In fact, Burford can be seen not only finishing blocks, but downright putting defenders on their backs and playing until the whistle. That kind of mentality is going to pay off for an offensive line where the interior was their biggest question mark heading into the season after losing Alex Mack and Laken Tomlinson.
Samuel Womack
The 49ers had three interceptions on Friday night and two of them were by rookie nickel corner Samuel Womack, and they weren’t just gift wrapped turnovers the result of bad throws or drops. They were created as a result of sticky coverage and not giving up on the play until it was over. It is no surprise, Womack, who recently begun seeing reps with the first team defense in camp, was second in the nation last season at Toledo with 15 pass break-ups. He had 45 total pass break-ups in his college career.
On his first interception, the Packers are in a two-receiver stack to the top of the screen with Womack (No. 26) the point defender and corner Ambry Thomas playing off at depth with outside leverage on the #1 receiver who is also off the ball. For this, it’s typical to “top hat” the coverage.
“Top hat” coverage puts the point defender in press versus the man on the line of scrimmage but puts him in man coverage on the off the ball receiver. The corner aligns deep and plays man on the receiver on the line of scrimmage.
The slot receiver releases first and goes vertical so Womack stays on the number one who stutters before quickly cutting to the flat. Love fits the pass in between Womack and receiver Romeo Doubs but Doubs is unable to hang onto the ball while going to the ground.
Womack scoops the ball up for the interception because Doubs never controlled or possessed it while on the ground and never touched the sideline, which would’ve put the ball dead out of bounds. It was a great play by Womack to never give up on the rep and it paid off.
On his second interception, he was playing straight man coverage as the point defender in a “lock and level” coverage on the #2 in trips Amari Rodgers. In “lock and level”, the point defender is pressed up on #2 and the other defenders covering #1 and #3 in trips are aligned at different depth and alignments to take the pressure off trying to cover switch releases by the receivers.
The Packers were again trying to mess with the coverage rules but Womack stays locked on to Rodgers, walls him off from the middle of the field, speeds turns and still stays on Rodgers inside hip enough that when he turned around to locate the ball, he was able to step in front of the pass intended for Rodgers. He returned it for 50 yards.
“That’s like a route that I cover every day in practice,” Womack said after the game. “That play was just like being at another practice. It was game time, and I took advantage of it.”
On Sunday, speaking to the media after practice, DeMeco Ryans stated that:
"For Womack, those are plays you saw him make in college. He was always sticky in coverage, contesting the throws, a lot of PBUs, a lot of interceptions in college so I've seen him make those plays seen him make those in the game as well, seen him make those plays in practice so it wasn't a surprise that he was sticky in coverage, he was exactly where he needs to be. A smart player making really big time plays for us."
It appears that Womack will slide into the nickel spot with the first team as the 49ers announced they have cut Darqueze Dennard on Monday morning.
This week the 49ers head to Minnesota for joint practices on Wednesday and Thursday August 17th and 18th in preparation for their second preseason game on Saturday August 20th. It’s not clear if we will see Trey Lance take any snaps in this game but it seems unlikely as they’ll want to get him most of the reps in the joint practice versus the Vikings first team defense. Even if he does not play, there are still plenty of players to keep our eyes on this week.