Statistical Analysis: Fred Warner is a beast, Brandon Aiyuk is a future superstar, and Nick Mullens is... puzzling.

What has gone wrong, what has gone right, and what needs to change for the 49ers, as we dive into the advanced stats to bring new understanding to what this 2020 season has been.

Dec 19, 2020

(Glendale, Arizona) - Entering the final stretch, another stat analysis for FTN readers. I apologize for not posting any articles over the past couple days, but be sure to be on the lookout as Shanafandom, SportyMiner, Pat, and I are going to ramp up things.

A lot has gone wrong with the 49ers this season, mainly injuries. And there’s a whole lot of negatives. But there is a lot of positive to be looked at as well, especially with our younger players. Let’s get into it.

Offense

Quarterback

I don’t need to have 30 years of coaching experience to tell you that this year has not exactly been good QB play. However, there are a ton of very interesting observations I also have about this year’s QB play, particularly Nick Mullens, although we will cover Garoppolo in the future. But for today, we will focus on Mullens.

First things first, Nick Mullens. Let’s be extremely clear: Nick Mullens is a backup QB, and he is not better than Jimmy Garoppolo. This season is proof of that, and also a burn for John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan, who were receiving trade offers for him this offseason but ruled Mullens, “untouchable”. There are however, some big positives from Mullens this season, positives we have not seen in the past.

For one thing, I want to clarify: 49ers fans did not have a collective delusion about Nick Mullens’ 2018 season. He was absolutely serviceable.

Despite facing an astronomical 30.8% pressure rate in 2018 which was ranked 4th (behind Wilson, Mahomes, and Watson), Mullens was on target for 78% of his pass attempts, while having a bad throw percentage of 13.2%, fifth lowest in the league. For comparison, Jimmy Garoppolo last season faced a 20.8% pressure rate, and posted an on-target percentage of 77.2%, while posting a bad throw percentage of 13.7%, which to Garoppolo’s credit, the latter statistic was ranked 4th lowest in the league among qualifiers.

Simply put, he did his job, and that is why for almost one and a half years, 49ers fans believed they had one of the better backups in the league and possibly a very low-end starter in this league. Rightfully so. So what has gone wrong this season?

For one thing, let’s go to pressure rate - Mullens is again being pressured at a high rate, this time 31.8%, the highest in the league among qualifiers this season. This could be an anomaly, or it could be due to the OL losing multiple starts since Mullens took over. Or it could be partially attributed to his lack of ability to avoid pressure. So the logical explanation for this pressure rate would be to look at Garoppolo’s pressure rate this season.. which was, according to Pro Football Reference, 20% this season. Makes no sense.

So either the OL hates Nick Mullens… or it has to do with facing much tougher teams for the majority of his schedule. Garoppolo played weak defenses and DL for most of his injured season this year, with Arizona, New York (Jets), Seattle, and New England being the easiest games he played, and the Patriots and Rams being the tougher matchups. Mullens has faced the Giants, Eagles, Seahawks, Packers, Rams, Bills, Saints, and the Washington Football team. All of the teams above except for the Seahawks have good to great defenses.

But he performed well in 2018 with a similar pressure rate, despite having an arguably worse team? Why could he not do it again?

I can’t answer that. And it’s extremely confusing, considering this year’s advanced stats… don’t have him that bad either. It’s honestly… his mistakes. I know, anticlimactic, but Mullens on-target percentage this year and IQR are simply not that bad. He’s got a 75.9% on target percentage this season, not good, but not terrible either. Ranked 21st in the league among qualifiers.

And his bad throw percentage remains bottom 10 among qualifiers, at 14.4% (bottom 5 among 32 starters). So if his bad throw percentage is still really low, why does he seem to throw so many interceptions. After all, Mullens has an INT% of 3.4% this season, 3rd worst among all starters, with only Carson Wentz and Drew Lock below him.

The key, as you have probably witnessed, is that Mullens throws these interceptions at the complete worst time. Without accounting for differential, Mullens has a TD% of 3.4%, and a INT% of 3.4. Not good at all, but the point becomes moot when you add in a qualifier of a 10 point differential. Basically, what do these stats become when he’s not playing in garbage time, and the 49ers are within 10 points, either up or down.

When within 10 points, losing or winning, Nick Mullens throws interceptions at twice the rate he throws TDs, with a 1.7 TD% and a 3.4 INT%. Which is matched by the eye-test. Mullens is suffering both from his “bad throws” being caught by the opposing defense much more often than most QBs, while also throwing many more of these interceptable passes/interceptions at the worst times. It’s rare to find someone with such a low bad throw percentage, and such a high interception percentage. The closest player to Mullens in terms of a low bad throw percentage is Ben Roethlisberger with a bad throw percentage of 14.3%, only his INT% is 1.7%.

It’s a combo of bad luck + Mullens throwing particularly egregious bad passes. There is no current way to differentiate on how bad a throw is, they are bad, on-target, or none of those. So it’s likely that Mullens low percentage of bad throws are counterbalanced by said throws being so bad that they result in an abnormally high INT%.

There are some positives with Mullens’ game this season, namely, his deep ball. Yeah, weird. Although the noodle-arm label has followed him at every stop, Mullens among qualifiers has been 2nd in on-target percentage for attempts of more than 20 air yards. That’s pretty good. Weirdly enough, Cam Newton is the only player above him in that regard. The usual suspects are below those two, with Mahomes, Rodgers, Murray, and even Kirk Cousins. This is an anomaly, as it’s very similar to Garoppolo’s league leading deep ball completion last year - it comes with an extremely small attempt load. So he’s still noodle-arm. Just a more accurate noodle-arm when going deep.

Running Game and Offensive Line

Again, I don’t need a PhD in Football to tell you that the running game has not been up to Shanahan Standards™. Reason being… well, the OL sucks. To put it brutally honest, it’s just not good, outside of the transcendent Trent Williams.

This is not the RBs fault anymore. Mostert and Wilson are still ranked pretty well in mostly every metric, as Wilson has taken over the #2 RB job from Jerick McKinnon, who sadly has not worked out for the 49ers. Mostert still averages a top 10 yards over expected per attempt, meaning he churns out more yards than he should be getting at a top 10 rate in the league.

Last time we covered the run blocking on this OL, it was simply not good. It’s gotten worse since that time. The 49ers offensive line according to Football Outsiders is only responsible for about 3.95 adjusted line yards, 28th in the league. Worse, the 49ers are getting stuffed around 31% of the time, 2nd highest in the league. While this could be attributed to Shanahan’s run blocking scheme, this could be disproven by looking at last season, where the 49ers OL was ranked:

8th in adjusted line yards
12th highest in stuff rate (19.7%)

Last year’s OL is not that different from this year’s at least on paper. But it’s clear that this group has not meshed the way the 49ers have wanted it to. Mike McGlinchey and Laken Tomlinson have regressed, and while Trent Williams is still a standard bearer of excellence at the OT position, it’s outweighed by the instability at C and RG.

Justin Skule will start on Sunday. The biggest issue with that is Skule has blown blocks 6.2% of his snaps, by far the worst on the team. The 2nd highest OL in that regard, Mike McGlinchey, blows blocks on 3.1% of his snaps, still bad, but nowhere near Skule this season. Hopefully this changes. McGlinchey is near the bottom of the league in blown blocks. Among right tackles with at least 300 snaps for sample size, McGlinchey is ranked 2nd highest in blown block percentage on pass blocking reps, and 3rd highest in blown block percentage on run blocking reps. That does not necessarily mean that McGlinchey is bad in his other reps which he does not egregiously mess up, but it does indicate that the eye-test seems to be accurate - McGlinchey makes a lot of big mistakes where he gets just flat out beat, and they seem to come at crucial times.

Receivers

There is not much to talk about here. Richie James is pretty underrated, and Trent Taylor - has caught every catchable target thrown to him this season. Jordan Reed when healthy is still up there. But I’m going to have to turn this into a Brandon Aiyuk segment.

Brandon Aiyuk is a future superstar. That’s all I can say. And while this next segment is not meant to be a knock on Deebo Samuel, they just aren’t close when it comes to the talent each possess, respectively. Aiyuk, I truly believe can have his jersey retired when all is said and done. Let’s get into it.

In Deebo Samuel’s stellar rookie season last year, Samuel put up some great numbers.

15 games, 57 receptions, 802 yards, 3 TDs.
3.8 receptions per game, 53.5 yards per game, 0.2 TDs per game
14 rushes, 159 yards, 3 TDs, 11.4 yards per rush
0.9 rushes per game, 10.6 rushing yards per game, 0.2 rushing TDs per game

Great numbers for a rookie WR and you add in his elite rushing production for a WR, and it makes sense why he was the #1 WR down the stretch for last year’s Super Bowl Squad.

Now let’s look at Aiyuk.

10 games, 50 receptions, 660 yards, 4 TDs
5 receptions per game, 66 receiving yards per game, 0.4 TDs per game
5 rushes, 61 yards, 2 TDs, 12.2 yards per rush
0.5 rushes per game, 6.1 rushing yards per game, 0.2 rushing TDs per game

Now, these are the simple counting stats, but you can already see the discrepancy. Despite Aiyuk playing 2/3 of the games that Samuel played last season, and with Nick Mullens mostly at QB, with no Kittle or Samuel/Sanders to draw attention, he is averaging more receptions per game, more receiving yards per game, more TDs per game, and more yards per rush.

He’s only played 10 games, but if you extrapolate his per-game numbers over a full season, his impact becomes much more apparent. Aiyuk if he had played the full season with similar production could have posted:

80 receptions, 1056 receiving yards, 6 to 7 receiving TDs
8 rushes, 98 rushing yards, 3 rushing TDs

When you look at advanced stats, that is where things become clear. Aiyuk despite playing in 5 less games has already garnered more targets than Deebo Samuel did in 15 games last season - showing that he’s already earned the full trust of both Kyle Shanahan and whoever he has at QB.

Aiyuk this season has caught 50 of 58 catchable balls, while only having 3 drops on the season. Compare that to Kittle and Bourne’s 5 drops this season already, and Deebo Samuel’s 8 drops last season.

It gets better. 49ers fans have been yearning for some sort of downfield passing for a very long time, one of the main criticisms of the Shanahan offense under Jimmy Garoppolo and Nick Mullens. But Aiyuk.. seems to be oblivious. He’s already got the 3rd most air yards of any 49ers WR/TE since 2018, only behind, you guessed it, 2018 and 2019 George Kittle. Aiyuk also already has the 5th most yards after the catch since 2018 since, again, you guessed it, George Kittle of 2018 and 2019, and Deebo Samuel of 2019 and 2020.

He does everything. Aiyuk has caught passes resulting in 37 first downs, already ahead of any 49ers WR/TE outside of, man, there that guy is again, who is this dude George Kittle?! Deebo Samuel of 2019 caught 32 1st downs (in more games). In terms of first down %, Aiyuk is ahead of everyone except for.. Marquise Goodwin, weirdly. Still extremely impressive considering Aiyuk has a much larger target and reception load.

And then for the deep threat aspect - Aiyuk has already garnered more targets that traveled more than 20 yards in the air than any other WR/TE since 2018, yes, including George Kittle, despite, again, playing in just 10 games thus far.

It’s hard to understate how good Aiyuk has been. And how good he can really become, how high he can go.

Field Yates @FieldYates

49ers WR Brandon Aiyuk's last five games: * 10 rec, 119 yards * 5 rec, 95 yards, TD * 7 rec, 75 yards, TD * 8 rec, 91 yards, TD * 6 rec, 101 yards Since Week 9, he is one of three WR averaging 95 yards per game along with Tyreek Hill and Davante Adams.

Those 5 games, over a full season would be 115 receptions, 1539 yards, 10 receiving TDs. That’s how dominant Brandon Aiyuk has been playing over the past 5 games. This is no fluke.

Defense

Defensive Line:

Without DeForest Buckner, Dee Ford, Nick Bosa, and yes, Solomon Thomas to talk about, this segment would be awfully dry. But it isn’t, for good and bad reasons.

The good: Kerry Hyder Jr - this guy, has been a force and he is absolutely a must-resign for John Lynch. With Dee Ford’s health and status no longer trustworthy, the 49ers must look to find an EDGE rusher opposite Bosa, and they may already have one.

Hyder this season has racked up 44 pressures, 23 QB hits, 9 QB knockdowns, 32 hurries, and of course, 7.5 sacks. It’s hard to produce like that on any team, anywhere, but doing it for the 49ers in a year where they don’t have 4 All-Pro level talents is even better. His pressure rate this season is 14.8%, 4th in the league behind breakout DE Trey Hendrickson for the Saints, Joey Bosa, and Chris Jones. Yes, above Aaron Donald and Myles Garrett.

Sadly, it’s not all good. While Kinlaw and Givens have flashed this season and certainly provided reason for optimism… Arik Armstead, has not.

Player A: 367 pass rushes, 19 hurries, 16 QB hits, 11 QB knockdowns, 26 pressures, 3 sacks, 7.5% pressure rate
Player B: 346 pass rushes, 16 hurries, 16 QB hits, 6 QB knockdowns, 28 pressures, 1.5 sacks, 8.8% pressure rate

Pretty similar in production right?

Both are traditional interior DL with ability to play outside, and both were played out of position during their respective seasons.

Player A: 2017 (rookie) Solomon Thomas
Player B: 2020 Arik Armstead

Yeah. Not amazing, at all, especially considering that Armstead is being paid upwards of 15M. That contract may not age well, and a big reason why is that the 49ers took a shot on resigning a guy who played well only as the 4th best DL on his own team. I’m sorry, but if you need three better players to play that well, maybe you are not part of those “better players”.

Armstead has been quite good as a win-defender, as he is top 10 in ESPN’s run-stopping win rate this season. But that also comes with negatives, as Armstead has posted a missed+broken tackle percentage of 16.67% this season, 3rd highest among the 49ers, trailing only Azeez Al-Shaair and Tarvarius Moore.

You hope that Armstead finds his amazing play next season. But this seems to be representing a return to the normal rather than just an off season. Hope and pray for the opposite.

Linebackers, Safeties, and Corners

Fred Warner is a beast.

Warner has 97 tackles on the season, 45 of them coming short of the 1st down marker, a sign that Warner knows how to do his job. He’s the best coverage LB in football, and he’s only allowed 4 broken tackles this season. Warner in coverage is allowing just a 47.92 QB rating.

An interesting stat: deserved catch %. Deserved catch percentage evaluates catchable targets to actual targets, showing what would happen if the receiver caught every catchable pass. Warner’s deserved catch percentage allowed is 88.9%. His actual catch percentage allowed? 57.14%.

Best. In. The. League.

Azeez Al-Shaair, as mentioned before, still misses way too many tackles. But he’s a backup. Tarvarius Moore who many, including me, had high hopes for, has disappointed although he has played well when in his natural position at FS. When the 49ers instead place him at SS or CB, he gets burned quite a bit, missing tackles at the 2nd highest rate on the team. It almost feels like a Tank Carradine situation - Moore has been moved around so much that he’s never had a shot to prove himself at FS. In the small sample we have seen of him at FS this season, and by FS, I mean single-high or a dual safety look, never in the box - he’s looked pretty good. It’s when you switch him that problems occur. Moore’s contract year is next year, and with the 49ers cap and draft scenario, he may need to learn how to play SS or CB. But after 3 years, time is ticking.

Jimmie Ward who started off this season terribly, has bounced back in the biggest way, as one of the best DBs on the team for the past couple games. Ward has missed tackles at an extremely low rate and since being moved to a hybrid safety role, where he plays FS, SS, and nickel CB, has been really good in coverage as well.

Richard Sherman, as usual, is playing well with a couple hiccups - Sherman has allowed just a 56.25% completion this year, despite his deserved catch percentage being 100%. The WRs he covers are not catching balls that they would catch normally, and that has to do with the best corner of the previous decade covering them.

Jason Verrett has only allowed a 77.88 QBR this season as well. Another reason and yet another “must-resign” for Lynch and company. I have no idea how the 49ers plan to navigate this offseason, but decisions are going to be made on Jimmy Garoppolo, Dee Ford, and Weston Richburg. Book it.

Statistics are courtesy of Next-Gen Stats, ESPN, Pro Football Reference and Sports Info Solutions.

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