Pass Rush Time!

I know we keep repeating this same topic but IMO its the most important. We really need a pass rush, and until we get that, we will be in the middle of the pack. I know we say "well we need a qb first." But in all honesty, I think we're pretty good at qb. As much as I think Alex is the better of the two, I wouldn't mind having either one at the helm. I don't want to have another sub par qb look like Dan Marino when they play us. The game in Dallas and Philly, etc, really showed how much we need to get to the qb. We can stop the run. We have good corners and cover people. We just need to get in the qb's face and make him eat a mouth full of helmet!

Originally posted by FriscoKid220:
I know we keep repeating this same topic but IMO its the most important. We really need a pass rush, and until we get that, we will be in the middle of the pack. I know we say "well we need a qb first." But in all honesty, I think we're pretty good at qb. As much as I think Alex is the better of the two, I wouldn't mind having either one at the helm. I don't want to have another sub par qb look like Dan Marino when they play us. The game in Dallas and Philly, etc, really showed how much we need to get to the qb. We can stop the run. We have good corners and cover people. We just need to get in the qb's face and make him eat a mouth full of helmet!

... and the bolded will now end in Alex vs Shaun... may as well change the title of your thread in preparation of the hijacking, haha.

As I say and believe all along... when dealing with a BASE defense, we need a dominating NT to cause enough havoc in the middle of opposing OLs to give our OLBs a decent chance to pressure the QB. No inside pressure and the QB can step in and away from the outside rush... creating that much more time to read the D. It's hard to say whether we have that NT, but I'm easily leaning towards NO. Franklin? Nope... Sopaga back inside as a 1-gapper? Maybe... Balmer inside? Probably not... So it will be interesting to see if we can in fact improve our pass rush. I also don't think our run is as good as advertised either. Sorry if this all sounds too negative, but that's what I was thinking just now.

Originally posted by oldman9er:

Originally posted by FriscoKid220:
I know we keep repeating this same topic but IMO its the most important. We really need a pass rush, and until we get that, we will be in the middle of the pack. I know we say "well we need a qb first." But in all honesty, I think we're pretty good at qb. As much as I think Alex is the better of the two, I wouldn't mind having either one at the helm. I don't want to have another sub par qb look like Dan Marino when they play us. The game in Dallas and Philly, etc, really showed how much we need to get to the qb. We can stop the run. We have good corners and cover people. We just need to get in the qb's face and make him eat a mouth full of helmet!

... and the bolded will now end in Alex vs Shaun... may as well change the title of your thread in preparation of the hijacking, haha.

As I say and believe all along... when dealing with a BASE defense, we need a dominating NT to cause enough havoc in the middle of opposing OLs to give our OLBs a decent chance to pressure the QB. No inside pressure and the QB can step in and away from the outside rush... creating that much more time to read the D. It's hard to say whether we have that NT, but I'm easily leaning towards NO. Franklin? Nope... Sopaga back inside as a 1-gapper? Maybe... Balmer inside? Probably not... So it will be interesting to see if we can in fact improve our pass rush. I also don't think our run is as good as advertised either. Sorry if this all sounds too negative, but that's what I was thinking just now.

Run defense looks so good b/c teams kept throwing the ball all over the secondary partly due to no pass rush.

Originally posted by lamontb:

Originally posted by oldman9er:

Originally posted by FriscoKid220:
I know we keep repeating this same topic but IMO its the most important. We really need a pass rush, and until we get that, we will be in the middle of the pack. I know we say "well we need a qb first." But in all honesty, I think we're pretty good at qb. As much as I think Alex is the better of the two, I wouldn't mind having either one at the helm. I don't want to have another sub par qb look like Dan Marino when they play us. The game in Dallas and Philly, etc, really showed how much we need to get to the qb. We can stop the run. We have good corners and cover people. We just need to get in the qb's face and make him eat a mouth full of helmet!

... and the bolded will now end in Alex vs Shaun... may as well change the title of your thread in preparation of the hijacking, haha.

As I say and believe all along... when dealing with a BASE defense, we need a dominating NT to cause enough havoc in the middle of opposing OLs to give our OLBs a decent chance to pressure the QB. No inside pressure and the QB can step in and away from the outside rush... creating that much more time to read the D. It's hard to say whether we have that NT, but I'm easily leaning towards NO. Franklin? Nope... Sopaga back inside as a 1-gapper? Maybe... Balmer inside? Probably not... So it will be interesting to see if we can in fact improve our pass rush. I also don't think our run is as good as advertised either. Sorry if this all sounds too negative, but that's what I was thinking just now.

Run defense looks so good b/c teams kept throwing the ball all over the secondary partly due to no pass rush.

This was pretty true of a few teams like Seattle, AZ, and Dallas... maybe more? I think opposing teams (spiraling teams) had terrible 3rd down conversion rates... and therefore hurt their carries. RBs like Thomas Jones and Ronnie Brown ripped us for well above 5 yards a carry, but didn't carry often enough. Marshawn Lynch ripped us for over 8 yards a carry. Just something to keep in perspective.

Originally posted by oldman9er:

Originally posted by FriscoKid220:
I know we keep repeating this same topic but IMO its the most important. We really need a pass rush, and until we get that, we will be in the middle of the pack. I know we say "well we need a qb first." But in all honesty, I think we're pretty good at qb. As much as I think Alex is the better of the two, I wouldn't mind having either one at the helm. I don't want to have another sub par qb look like Dan Marino when they play us. The game in Dallas and Philly, etc, really showed how much we need to get to the qb. We can stop the run. We have good corners and cover people. We just need to get in the qb's face and make him eat a mouth full of helmet!

... and the bolded will now end in Alex vs Shaun... may as well change the title of your thread in preparation of the hijacking, haha.

As I say and believe all along... when dealing with a BASE defense, we need a dominating NT to cause enough havoc in the middle of opposing OLs to give our OLBs a decent chance to pressure the QB. No inside pressure and the QB can step in and away from the outside rush... creating that much more time to read the D. It's hard to say whether we have that NT, but I'm easily leaning towards NO. Franklin? Nope... Sopaga back inside as a 1-gapper? Maybe... Balmer inside? Probably not... So it will be interesting to see if we can in fact improve our pass rush. I also don't think our run is as good as advertised either. Sorry if this all sounds too negative, but that's what I was thinking just now.

You are spot on my friend. It all starts inside with the NT. Although I have little to no faith in Lawson being a pass rusher, his job would be that much easier if we had a good NT. As it is now, teams really only have to key on 2 guys (Haralson & Smith) which both play on the offenses left side. We NEED another pass rusher, but we REALLY NEED a player in the middle that commands constant double teams.

I agree with previous comments.

I've said it a thousand times on this board, our pass rush problem isn't from the edge. I recall watching our edge rushers apply plenty of pressure many times. However, all the qb had to do was step up and he had nothing but green field in front of him.

Haralson would have had AT LEAST 4 more sacks last season if we could get ANY push up the middle and we didn't fix that issue. Franklin may be decent in run D but as far as collapsing a pocket on passing plays he doesn't get it done.

It is very important and the one thing that still concerns me the most on our team
going into TC.

I like Parys Haralson and Manny Lawson but there is not much behind them with Marques Harris, Jay Moore and Ahmad Brooks battling for the two backup spots behind them. Plus im still not totally sold on Lawson, he has to show he has regain his full speed from that torn ACL and he has to show he has/can develop some pass pass rush moves and strength to push of blockers. I really hope Al Harris can teach this kid some pass rush moves, we'll see how it works out.

I was a big Parys Haralson when he came out of Tennessee. He was their defensive leader and was tough as nails. I remember him playing with a 102 degree temp against Alabama in a big game and he had 3 sacks and that was hospitilized after the game. He was a steal for us in the 5th rd and he is developing into a very nice player. He isn't very tall or all that big or even that fast, he does have a good burst though and plays big for his size and uses his hands well to push of blockers. Plus he is a relentless and goes all out on every play. I can see him reaching double digit sacks this year but he will never be a guy teams fear all that much and worry about double teamming him.

Hopefully Lawson can develop into the player we think he can be and he can form a solid outside duo with Haralson. In Manusky's 3-4 scheme, we don't need one big time pass rusher, we can get help from differen't guys with his one gapping and attacking scheme. The D-Line will be able to attack more and get more pressure as we saw late last season when Manusky ran things on defense and Justin Smith's sack numbers grew. I also think Demetric Evans will be an upgrade over Ray McDonald and I think Balmer can be a guy who can eat up some space and free up lanes for other guys. I think you can also expect to see Willis attack the football more and I can see him getting 4-6 sacks.

Like I said my biggest worry is if Lawson or Haralson go down for any significant amount of time. Marques Harris can fill in for a game or two but thats about it and you can't trust Ahmad Brooks and I just don't know about Jay Moore.

It's funny cuz we had a halfway decent pass rush last year, I mean we tied the Colts of all teams for sacks.

Originally posted by waiting4number6:
It's funny cuz we had a halfway decent pass rush last year, I mean we tied the Colts of all teams for sacks.

That is simply not so. I really wish people would stop looking at the stats when making these claims. Sacks are not the full measure of determining whether a team had a good pass rush or not. Teams can get lots of pressure and still get minimal sack totals... just as they can get consistently lousy pressure and still get decent sack totals. Just because we managed 30 sacks last season does not mean we were able to generate QB pressure on a consistent basis... because we didn't.

WTF? 30 sacks are 30 sacks whether you get pressure up the middle or not. Are you guys arguing that the Niners' 30 sacks are somehow not as valid as the Colts' 30 sacks? OK, I'm confused... and a little angry.

Originally posted by BrodieFan:
WTF? 30 sacks are 30 sacks whether you get pressure up the middle or not. Are you guys arguing that the Niners' 30 sacks are somehow not as valid as the Colts' 30 sacks? OK, I'm confused... and a little angry.

Yea it's just as valid as the Colts' 30 sacks, but there pass rush was lame also. and what are you angry about?

Originally posted by lamontb:

Originally posted by BrodieFan:
WTF? 30 sacks are 30 sacks whether you get pressure up the middle or not. Are you guys arguing that the Niners' 30 sacks are somehow not as valid as the Colts' 30 sacks? OK, I'm confused... and a little angry.

Yea it's just as valid as the Colts' 30 sacks, but there pass rush was lame also. and what are you angry about?

I'm not really angry, just annoyed that fans have become so negative that the Niners' 30 sacks is somehow not as valuable as another given team's 30 sacks. That makes absolutely no sense to me. A sack is a sack.

Guess I will try to explain better, BrodieFan...

Sacks are great when we can get them, but what about the other snaps? Tell me, what would you prefer?


1. SF gets 30 sacks, but pressure the QB well on only 1 out of every 7 pass plays.

2. SF gets 20 sacks, but pressures the QB well on 5 out of 7 pass plays.

Originally posted by BrodieFan:
WTF? 30 sacks are 30 sacks whether you get pressure up the middle or not. Are you guys arguing that the Niners' 30 sacks are somehow not as valid as the Colts' 30 sacks? OK, I'm confused... and a little angry.

I understand where you are coming from, but the Colts play a Cover-2 defense which isn't designed to rely so heavily on pressuring the QB. They get pressure largely through the play of their DE's while allowing their CB's to play zone with plenty of Safety help and a MLB that plays center fielder in most cases. The Colts are also pairing a defense designed to simply give them a shot with an offense designed to win games.

We run a 3-4 defense (4 DL in the nickel / dime packages) and ask our secondary to play man while we attempt to bring pressure through blitz packages. In short, our defense needs better / more consistent pressure to work. We are also asking the defense to do more than simply give our offense a chance to win. We need the offense to do just enough for the defense to win.

So, yes - it is possible for our defense to get the same number of sacks as some other defense and still be less effective.

Well, sorry to be so difficult, but those 20 with more pressures aren't necessarily better. I've seen lots of QB's continually complete passes under pressure, but I've never seen one complete a pass while on his ass.