What exactly is wrong with the passing game, the running game, the EDGE rush, the secondary - why have the 49ers gone 2-3 in a stretch they should have gone 5-0 in?
Great stuff, this team has been a major disappointment this year and like you said it not just because of injuries either. How Kyle and jimmy respond this week is going to be huge not just in the short term but long term also. Jimmy is now playing for his career in SF not a SB repeat. Kyle should be crystal clear to the players. Either produce or find a different team. Last year no longer matters now.
They're doing worse, but it could be a result of the below:
Mostert LY
faced stacked fronts 29% of the time, TY 12%
Base fronts 29% of the time, TY 61%
and light fronts 40% of the time, TY 26%
So what - teams aren't giving any light front looks to the 9ers
But, Mostert
He had 12 breakaway runs (10+ yards) with 8.8% Breakaway run rate (#1 in the league)
This year only 2 breakaway runs with a 6% breakaway run rate (#11 in the league) probably just not enough opportunity yet.
5.3 true yards per carry LY (discounts long runs as they over-weight this stat)
5.7 true yards per carry TY
26% Juke Rate LY
34% Juke Rate TY
1.89 Yards created per touch LY (#6 in the league)
3.77 Yards created per touch TY (#3)
So, RM is actually better this year than last year. He's doing MORE work to make up for the O line / Heavier fronts.
How about passing.
Nick Mullens and CJ are both posting abysmal 2.7% TD rates, less than Half of Jimmy G's.
Jimmy has had a 90% protection rate from the Oline, significantly better than Nick and CJ AND that's better than last year by several % pts.
CJ has had 0 Danger / Interceptable passes
While Nick and Jimmy are just playing catch with the other team (15 & 11 respectively)
Nick and CJ are significantly more accurate than Jimmy
the support cast (pass catchers) are performing significantly worse this year.
Last year they were #4 in the league, this year #11 in production premium.
They averaged 1.7 yards of separation just about the same as TY.
And they're dropping LESS balls, over 50% less per game right now than LY.
That is to say, they're getting open and catching the balls, but they're not getting the YAC.
Last year Jimmy posted a 77% clean pocket completion percentage, this year is 66%.
He's simply not delivering the balls where they need to go, and the pass catchers aren't delivering when they have the ball in their hands.
There's no denying it, right now Mullens is outperforming Jimmy G across all measures including pressured pocket completion % and catchable pass rate (82% vs 69%)
CJ's pressure pocket completion % is 11% and he's completing 40% of passes out of play action. CJ is too safe and shouldn't be in the game unless necessary.
If nick can take more down field passes and be stronger in the Red Zone, no reason he shouldn't be starting.
Jimmy is the better QB, he's shown that. He needs to get his accuracy back.
If you had asked me to diagnose the issues, I wouldn't have been too worried about the defense, which holds true. However, I would have guessed the issues with our passing game were primarily due to the OL, while the issues with our running game would have more to do with us playing from behind while defenses load the box against our run.
Stats pretty clearly show that the OL is holding up about as well as last year in pass protection, and receivers are still getting open. Falls pretty squarely on JG now imo, but I'm hopeful he'll progress to his mean.
On the other hand, the OL has been abysmal in the run game, which I would not have guessed (at least to that extent). Pretty crazy what our backs have done for us this year thus far.
Really eye-opening stuff, man. Helped me see exactly where we're struggling and where we can have hope. Thanks as always for the content and everything you do for the community!
I've been on of the biggest Jimmy supporters. He earned it with his great footwork, quick release, and generally seemed to read defenses well finding the holes in the defense. He had a very good touch of passes over the middle and to the flats. He is just not doing any of those things that made him great and covered up for his lack of the deep ball. I just don't see the same Jimmy and it's really sad. He clearly has either no footwork or "happy feet". He's still been ok over the middle but defenses are focusing on shutting that down. His reading of defenses, granted I have no idea what they actually are seeing or not seeing, but it appears to be horrid...he's not picking up the blitzer and not reading the zones coverage. It's just mind boggling!
Jimmy is the epitome of “lukewarm” or “milquetoast, to wit:
- with a Favre or Stafford type player, they have misses and misfires but wow you with the deep ball beauty that wins the game.
- with a Smith or Cousins type player, they bore you to tears but never mess up. You game plan around their weaknesses and depend on them to do their job.
- with a Winston type player, you have a big arm with inaccuracy like Stafford but they are bull-headed and make stupid (not just bravado) mistakes.
- ironically, Cousins this year is like Jimmy. His strength (accuracy) is gone, so he’s worthless.
What do you do with a QB that is as inaccurate as Stafford but can’t throw the deep ball, while also being as noodle armed as Smith but kills drives with that misfired 3rd down out route?
They aren’t bull-headed so you think there is hope. At least with Winston, their limitations are so obvious they force you to bench them.
Jimmy and Cousins are milquetoast; bland and uninspiring.
There's too much here to touch on everything, and to be honest the main answer to "what is wrong" is "all the top players are injured". But a few key points:
Pass rushing.
The stats you quote only tell you whether the UNIT is producing, not whether the players are performing well. This is because last year, the unit was 4 rushers on pretty much every play - our success was based on dropping 7 into coverage and knowing that the pass rusher will still create pressure.
This season, you are gettting the same amount of pressure but ONLY BECAUSE WE ARE BLITZING OFTEN. It now takes 5 or 6 men to get the same pressure that 4 were getting last season. The individual rushers are not as good as last year.
Which means that in coverage, 5 or 6 men have to do the work that 7 were doing last season - and when you add in injuries in the secondary, that's not going to happen.
Run blocking
Adjusted line yards is a...not great stat for a Shanahan offense. It's better for power teams. It doesn't give any credit to the OL for runs beyond 10 yards, which when you think of how often you see a 49ers lineman making a key block WAY downfield clearly isn't appropriate.
Shanahan's offense has always been predicated on the big plays - we've never really been super efficient at ploughing 4+ yards every play; rather, we get a couple of 2-3 yard plays and then bust out a 30 yard one. Adjusted line yards kind of assumes that offenses are trying for consistency, not explosiveness, when running the ball, and that's not what the offense does.
So even if/when we get better, we probably will never be great at adjusted line yards. We aren't trying to.
It's also why you shouldn't give all the credit to Mostert. The OL is blocking for him, just not in the traditional way.
Passing
I'm not going to comment much here, as we can all see what is happening in the games. One sidenote: "This is from 2019, there is no sample size error here."
There's always a sample size error in a single season. If there wasn't, we'd be absolutely positive based on a single season of data that every QB on that diagram is correctly placed relative to eachother, and that's certainly not the case.
The data is persuasive, but doesn't mean it's correct. [And if it's wrong, it could be better or worse than presented].
You are correct on the sample size, but the only problem is that Jimmy hasn't played much. That would be our best baseline to go off no?
I used adjusted line more as a supporting point for the RB yards above expectation stat... and last season the OL was not nearly as bad as its being portrayed in these early stats.
We are blitzing at 7th highest rate so far,so I agree in that. I dont think this EDGE rush is what it was, I just think this may be an encouraging sign that Saleh is finding other ways to pressure the QB through scheme and stunts, and unique blitzes
"You are correct on the sample size, but the only problem is that Jimmy hasn't played much. That would be our best baseline to go off no?"
Well two points. First, "best baseline we have" is very different to "no sample size error". And second, the best baseline we have is probably all of Jimmy's data combined - the sample is too small to just take 2019 and feel you can ignore what we've seen in 2018 and 2020 (when Jimmy was worse than 2019) and 2017 (when he was better).
But that doesn't indicate he's playing excellently, for the same reason I made - when we get pressure it's because of numbers. It's not like last season where Bosa and Ford were beating men in the first half second of the snap - this season's pressure. PFF's pass rushing grade has him about 55th - they don't rate him as better than a rotational pass rusher (which, BTW, is a positive compared to his expectations - but a negative compared to Bosa and even Blair last season).
The point is that this is not a good pass rush, even if the pressure numbers are there. Good pass rushes don't force you to compromise the secondary. And leaving the secondary on islands is especially bad when you are running out street-level CBs.
Interestingly enough, the adjusted line for 2019 was 4.53 yards, 8th in league. So maybe the zone blocking scheme doesn't change stuff as much as expected
👍 glad you like it
Great stuff, this team has been a major disappointment this year and like you said it not just because of injuries either. How Kyle and jimmy respond this week is going to be huge not just in the short term but long term also. Jimmy is now playing for his career in SF not a SB repeat. Kyle should be crystal clear to the players. Either produce or find a different team. Last year no longer matters now.
Stage can't get much bigger, that is for sure.
Here are some more advanced stats:
The O Lines Run blocking efficiency
LY 89.8 6th in the league
TY 74.9, 28th in the league
They're doing worse, but it could be a result of the below:
Mostert LY
faced stacked fronts 29% of the time, TY 12%
Base fronts 29% of the time, TY 61%
and light fronts 40% of the time, TY 26%
So what - teams aren't giving any light front looks to the 9ers
But, Mostert
He had 12 breakaway runs (10+ yards) with 8.8% Breakaway run rate (#1 in the league)
This year only 2 breakaway runs with a 6% breakaway run rate (#11 in the league) probably just not enough opportunity yet.
5.3 true yards per carry LY (discounts long runs as they over-weight this stat)
5.7 true yards per carry TY
26% Juke Rate LY
34% Juke Rate TY
1.89 Yards created per touch LY (#6 in the league)
3.77 Yards created per touch TY (#3)
So, RM is actually better this year than last year. He's doing MORE work to make up for the O line / Heavier fronts.
How about passing.
Nick Mullens and CJ are both posting abysmal 2.7% TD rates, less than Half of Jimmy G's.
Jimmy has had a 90% protection rate from the Oline, significantly better than Nick and CJ AND that's better than last year by several % pts.
CJ has had 0 Danger / Interceptable passes
While Nick and Jimmy are just playing catch with the other team (15 & 11 respectively)
Nick and CJ are significantly more accurate than Jimmy
the support cast (pass catchers) are performing significantly worse this year.
Last year they were #4 in the league, this year #11 in production premium.
They averaged 1.7 yards of separation just about the same as TY.
And they're dropping LESS balls, over 50% less per game right now than LY.
That is to say, they're getting open and catching the balls, but they're not getting the YAC.
Last year Jimmy posted a 77% clean pocket completion percentage, this year is 66%.
He's simply not delivering the balls where they need to go, and the pass catchers aren't delivering when they have the ball in their hands.
There's no denying it, right now Mullens is outperforming Jimmy G across all measures including pressured pocket completion % and catchable pass rate (82% vs 69%)
CJ's pressure pocket completion % is 11% and he's completing 40% of passes out of play action. CJ is too safe and shouldn't be in the game unless necessary.
If nick can take more down field passes and be stronger in the Red Zone, no reason he shouldn't be starting.
Jimmy is the better QB, he's shown that. He needs to get his accuracy back.
Awesome stuff. Mostert has been incredible this season - he is no fluke at this point.
Yep.
I got excited about half way through yours and started digging to put the comment up.
Went back and read the rest of the article and realized I put in a bunch of the same things you did 🤣
Nice work !
Really awesome, Riqo.
If you had asked me to diagnose the issues, I wouldn't have been too worried about the defense, which holds true. However, I would have guessed the issues with our passing game were primarily due to the OL, while the issues with our running game would have more to do with us playing from behind while defenses load the box against our run.
Stats pretty clearly show that the OL is holding up about as well as last year in pass protection, and receivers are still getting open. Falls pretty squarely on JG now imo, but I'm hopeful he'll progress to his mean.
On the other hand, the OL has been abysmal in the run game, which I would not have guessed (at least to that extent). Pretty crazy what our backs have done for us this year thus far.
Really eye-opening stuff, man. Helped me see exactly where we're struggling and where we can have hope. Thanks as always for the content and everything you do for the community!
I've been on of the biggest Jimmy supporters. He earned it with his great footwork, quick release, and generally seemed to read defenses well finding the holes in the defense. He had a very good touch of passes over the middle and to the flats. He is just not doing any of those things that made him great and covered up for his lack of the deep ball. I just don't see the same Jimmy and it's really sad. He clearly has either no footwork or "happy feet". He's still been ok over the middle but defenses are focusing on shutting that down. His reading of defenses, granted I have no idea what they actually are seeing or not seeing, but it appears to be horrid...he's not picking up the blitzer and not reading the zones coverage. It's just mind boggling!
The problem with Jimmy is he is super hit or miss. He either is on target or way off. And so far this season, he's been overwhelmingly way off
I expect a bounce back. I hope
Jimmy is the epitome of “lukewarm” or “milquetoast, to wit:
- with a Favre or Stafford type player, they have misses and misfires but wow you with the deep ball beauty that wins the game.
- with a Smith or Cousins type player, they bore you to tears but never mess up. You game plan around their weaknesses and depend on them to do their job.
- with a Winston type player, you have a big arm with inaccuracy like Stafford but they are bull-headed and make stupid (not just bravado) mistakes.
- ironically, Cousins this year is like Jimmy. His strength (accuracy) is gone, so he’s worthless.
What do you do with a QB that is as inaccurate as Stafford but can’t throw the deep ball, while also being as noodle armed as Smith but kills drives with that misfired 3rd down out route?
They aren’t bull-headed so you think there is hope. At least with Winston, their limitations are so obvious they force you to bench them.
Jimmy and Cousins are milquetoast; bland and uninspiring.
There's too much here to touch on everything, and to be honest the main answer to "what is wrong" is "all the top players are injured". But a few key points:
Pass rushing.
The stats you quote only tell you whether the UNIT is producing, not whether the players are performing well. This is because last year, the unit was 4 rushers on pretty much every play - our success was based on dropping 7 into coverage and knowing that the pass rusher will still create pressure.
This season, you are gettting the same amount of pressure but ONLY BECAUSE WE ARE BLITZING OFTEN. It now takes 5 or 6 men to get the same pressure that 4 were getting last season. The individual rushers are not as good as last year.
Which means that in coverage, 5 or 6 men have to do the work that 7 were doing last season - and when you add in injuries in the secondary, that's not going to happen.
Run blocking
Adjusted line yards is a...not great stat for a Shanahan offense. It's better for power teams. It doesn't give any credit to the OL for runs beyond 10 yards, which when you think of how often you see a 49ers lineman making a key block WAY downfield clearly isn't appropriate.
Shanahan's offense has always been predicated on the big plays - we've never really been super efficient at ploughing 4+ yards every play; rather, we get a couple of 2-3 yard plays and then bust out a 30 yard one. Adjusted line yards kind of assumes that offenses are trying for consistency, not explosiveness, when running the ball, and that's not what the offense does.
So even if/when we get better, we probably will never be great at adjusted line yards. We aren't trying to.
It's also why you shouldn't give all the credit to Mostert. The OL is blocking for him, just not in the traditional way.
Passing
I'm not going to comment much here, as we can all see what is happening in the games. One sidenote: "This is from 2019, there is no sample size error here."
There's always a sample size error in a single season. If there wasn't, we'd be absolutely positive based on a single season of data that every QB on that diagram is correctly placed relative to eachother, and that's certainly not the case.
The data is persuasive, but doesn't mean it's correct. [And if it's wrong, it could be better or worse than presented].
You are correct on the sample size, but the only problem is that Jimmy hasn't played much. That would be our best baseline to go off no?
I used adjusted line more as a supporting point for the RB yards above expectation stat... and last season the OL was not nearly as bad as its being portrayed in these early stats.
We are blitzing at 7th highest rate so far,so I agree in that. I dont think this EDGE rush is what it was, I just think this may be an encouraging sign that Saleh is finding other ways to pressure the QB through scheme and stunts, and unique blitzes
"You are correct on the sample size, but the only problem is that Jimmy hasn't played much. That would be our best baseline to go off no?"
Well two points. First, "best baseline we have" is very different to "no sample size error". And second, the best baseline we have is probably all of Jimmy's data combined - the sample is too small to just take 2019 and feel you can ignore what we've seen in 2018 and 2020 (when Jimmy was worse than 2019) and 2017 (when he was better).
Hard to combine the numbers but your point is valid.
And there are some positives
Kerry Hyder Jr is #4 in PRP right now per PFF...
But that doesn't indicate he's playing excellently, for the same reason I made - when we get pressure it's because of numbers. It's not like last season where Bosa and Ford were beating men in the first half second of the snap - this season's pressure. PFF's pass rushing grade has him about 55th - they don't rate him as better than a rotational pass rusher (which, BTW, is a positive compared to his expectations - but a negative compared to Bosa and even Blair last season).
The point is that this is not a good pass rush, even if the pressure numbers are there. Good pass rushes don't force you to compromise the secondary. And leaving the secondary on islands is especially bad when you are running out street-level CBs.
Agree on that too. They played Allen like he was Sherman with press man on Parker. Was not going to work regardless of safety help
Interestingly enough, the adjusted line for 2019 was 4.53 yards, 8th in league. So maybe the zone blocking scheme doesn't change stuff as much as expected