Joe Looney?

Originally posted by NCommand:
You bet!

The good thing is preseason games are pretty vanilla and straight-up. I think I only saw one pull by Looney and one blown up middle screen. That was about as exotic as we got. In that sense, it makes it a bit easier to ID OL successes/failures and assess the individual battles/matchups. But to keep perspective, it can get difficult at times b/c we don't know all the assignments. For instance, if Kilgore gets blown back at C, he could distrupt a pull block, etc. But we typically play power anyhow which is man-on-man. After tomorrows game, a couple of us are going to assess the OL play the best we can but please feel free to chime in since you have a different vantage point from the all22 as well if you get a chance. If not, we'll pull the veteran-card and "save" you for the regular season on assessing the passing game!

I look forward to reading the post game analysis. There is no all22 in the preseason that is available to the public.

Really want Looney to step up and salvage the 2012 class by grabbing that RG spot. It would make allowing Iupati to go a bit easier. Looney and BThomas for the next few years.

Originally posted by thl408:

Originally posted by NCommand:
You bet!

The good thing is preseason games are pretty vanilla and straight-up. I think I only saw one pull by Looney and one blown up middle screen. That was about as exotic as we got. In that sense, it makes it a bit easier to ID OL successes/failures and assess the individual battles/matchups. But to keep perspective, it can get difficult at times b/c we don't know all the assignments. For instance, if Kilgore gets blown back at C, he could distrupt a pull block, etc. But we typically play power anyhow which is man-on-man. After tomorrows game, a couple of us are going to assess the OL play the best we can but please feel free to chime in since you have a different vantage point from the all22 as well if you get a chance. If not, we'll pull the veteran-card and "save" you for the regular season on assessing the passing game!

I look forward to reading the post game analysis. There is no all22 in the preseason that is available to the public.

Really want Looney to step up and salvage the 2012 class by grabbing that RG spot. It would make allowing Iupati to go a bit easier. Looney and BThomas for the next few years.

Thanks for the clarification. It is an epic tool though and you've made the absolute best with it (I esp. love the gifs aftr the still shots and analysis)!

Me too. I hope he takes the next step towards that as well. I'd love to get Davis back soon so Looney can start building some chemistry together next to Kilgore and Davis. I love his ability to pull. That could be an added benefit...as opposed to relying on Iupati 95% of the time to do that.

Here's my analysis of the starting guards. I hope this is the right place for it. NC, let me know if you want it somewhere else, and I'll move it.

1st DRIVE

1st and 10 (14:54): 3-step drop. Looney stones Sly Williams, completely stopping his rush. Iupati turns out to help Staley with Wolfe. Initial contact is good, but he inexplicably stops moving his feet and gives up inside leverage. On a double team. Where he is the inside guy. Which is garbage. If Kap holds the ball another second, he would get hit, but the ball is out before any damage is done.



2nd and 10 (14:51): Trap left. Iupati gets a good kickout on Williams. Looney releases quickly upfield and completely seals off the MLB (Irving). It's a nice hole, even though Vernon stops right in the middle of it and blocks no one.



3rd and 1 (14:16): Power Left. Looney can't get around Staley's down block initially (staley gave up some penetration), but he keeps working laterally and eventually picks up Irving, after miller releases his block on Irving. Looney could have easily stayed stuck in the wash, but he made a persistent effort to engage someone and succeeded. Iupati destroys Knighton on his down block, which is impressive (Knighton is a LOAD). FYI, tim Ryan thinks this is the same play as the last one, but he is an idiot. On a trap, the backside guard pulls flat for a kickout and the playside G and T release downfield to the LBs, leaving the end man on the LOS (EMOL) to get blown up by the kickout. In Power, the backside G pulls around the down block to engage a LB at the second level, and there is another lead blocker (usually the FB). In this case, an additional backfield player provided a kickout (Vance). Silly Tim Ryan.



1st and 10 (13:42): 3-step drop. Looney has no one on him, so he slides out and helps Martin with Wolfe. He hits Wolfe hard enough that Martin almost loses his balance. It was unnecessary, as Martin had him, and it was maybe a little too much, as he could have accidentally disengaged Wolfe from Martin, but I like the nastiness. Iupati stones Williams at the line, and Williams gives up on his pass rush.



1st and 10 (13:07): Counter Right. Looney and Martin double-team the end (#97 is a backup, so I don't know his name), and they get away with an illegal chop. It looks like Looney slipped on his way to down block Knighton, but Looney gets into the DE's legs, and Martin hits him high. DE plays decent sprawl technique, and the double doesn't get a lot of movement. Iupati pulls with the kickout responsibility, and looks like he can't decide between a kickout or a hook. He ends up with a half-assed kickout that gets no movement, as his pad level sucks. The result is a block that looks like neither a kickout nor a hook. Miller reads kickout and iso leads inside of Iupati's block, and he ends up blocking Knighton, who should have been Looney's guy. Hyde reads Iupati's block as a hook, so he runs outside of Iupati's block, and he gets tackled by Talib. If Iupati performed an actual hook block here, Miller would have pulled outside and he might have picked up Talib, giving Hyde a chance for a big gain.



2nd and 8 (12:23): 5-step drop. Looney dominates Williams, but there is no communication between Him and Martin on the T/E stunt Denver is performing. Ware disengages from Martin and loops behind Williams, and no one picks him up. Martin should have taken over Williams, pushing Looney to Ware, but Looney is also responsible for keeping his eyes up, recognizing the free runner, and knowing where his help is (ie: he could have passed Williams to Martin and engaged Ware, but the primary responsibility to swap belongs to the blocker whose man disengages). No harm on this one, but D. Ware is not the guy you want to let run free at Kap. Kap gets the ball out fast enough to make up for the Right side's brain fart. Iupati actually pushes Knighton back, which is tough to do on a 5-step.



3rd and 4 (11:34): 5-step drop. Looney gives up ground too quickly to the bullrush, and he ends up right in Kap's face. If Looney does a better job on the DE, the blitzing S would have less of a straight shot into the backfield, causing him to lose some momentum, and he might not be able to destroy Miller on his way to hitting Kap. Iupati initially stops Knighton who decides to drift outside into a lazy contain rush. Incidentally Ward gets away with a shot to Kap's helmet, but QBs with tattoos don't enjoy the same protections in this league.



2nd DRIVE



1st and 10 (6:34): Counter right. Looney downblocks Knighton and gets some push, which is pretty impressive as a solo block (not as much movement as Iupati got in the first drive, though). Iupati has the iso pull, and he almost doesn't make the turn inside of Miller's kickout (Miller gets blown up a bit, tightening the corner for Iupati). He kind of side-skips through the hole and gets one solid punck on Irving, who then disengages and piles on Hyde just after the tackle.



2nd and 6 (5:51): 3-step from empty shotgun. Williams zone drops, so Looney has no one to block. He helps Kilgore with Knighton, who is going nowhere. He probably could have helped Martin, who is getting used badly by Ware. Iupati picks up the blitzing LB (Marshall?) and runs him by the play.



1st and 10 (5:09): PA pass. Looney pulls to sell the run fake, picks up Wolfe, washes him down the line, then throws him to the ground. There's that nastiness again. Iupati initially blocks down for the run fake, then settles in to double Knighton with Staley. Knighton is not a pass rusher, and he goes nowhere.



2nd and 1 (4:49): Zone Left. Yikes, we are a bad zone team. Rather than create a seam with a cut block, we have carrier pull from left to right to create a seal. Iupati influences well and gets the backup DE to run left with him long enough to open a small seam, which Hyde chooses to run through. Looney's zone step is okay, but Williams does not run with him. The hole should be between Looney's block and Carrier's seal, but Williams staying put means that a seam opens up between Looney and Iupati, and that's where Hyde goes. Good decision by Hyde to get the 1st down. Ugly-looking Zone play by us. We are not built for the Zone scheme.



1st and 10 (4:14): 5-step drop. Looney locks up Williams pretty well. He lets Williams turn his shoulder outside, but Alphonso Smith provides a timely chip block that allows Looney to square back up on Williams. This might have been by design, as Smith was clearly on that path out to his route. Iupati picks up Marshall on the blitz again, scoring a one-punch knockdown. Hilarious and effective.



2nd and 1 (3:42) straight up Gap Scheme RB Draw. Looney releases to the 2nd level and ties up Irving. Looney loses his helmet for the 4th time today.Iupati makes a good one-step pass fake and runs the backup DE (97) past the play. The left side sold the pass fake MUCH better than the right, mostly due to Staley kicking back for a two count.



1st and 10 (3:06): Another Draw (seriously?). EVERYONE pass fakes convincingly. Looney tries to influence the DE (76) to rush his outside shoulder, but the DE doesn't bite (this happens sometimes, and it totally sucks when it's your guy), going inside. He slips to a knee trying to regain leverage and gets away with a pretty bad hold (one arm hug). Iupati sells the pass then release quickly upfield and engulfs Marshall. Even with Looney getting beat, this one goes for 10-15 yards if Kilgore doesn't get destroyed by Knighton.



2nd and 8 (2:27): PA pass (zone fake). Looney washes Knighton about 5 feet down the line and Knighton quits. Again. Iupati stones Wolfe.



3rd and 8 (2:21). 3-step from shotgun. Looney blocks Wolfe to the ground, but he was starting to present a seam by turning his shoulders to the outside again. It's a bad habit. If Wolfe stays on his feet, he can accelerate to Kap. On second look, Looney might have been looking for another chip (this time from Hyde, who runs right past Wolfe on his way out to his route). Iupati has no one head up, so he slides out to help Staley with Ware, but Staley has Ware bottled up. If Iupati looked inside, he could have helped Kilgore, who was getting beat badly by a backup DE (Jackson).



That's the last play for Looney and Iupati. I think they both looked strong and aggressive. Much better game for Iupati than last week. He still had a couple questionable plays in pass pro and one bad pull, but he looked good. Looney looked better than last week, as he didn't seem to have any issues with his pad level in this one. He had two bad blocks where he lost his footing. And he got walked back convincingly by a bulrush on one pass play where he should have set up stronger. Overall: good day from the guards, with a couple consistency issues to iron out. There were a couple communication issues, as well. It's still preseason.

Wow Rath!!!! Great breakdown.

Excellent breakdown Rath!

I feel a lot better about Loony's growth & development.

Originally posted by thl408:

Originally posted by NCommand:
You bet!

The good thing is preseason games are pretty vanilla and straight-up. I think I only saw one pull by Looney and one blown up middle screen. That was about as exotic as we got. In that sense, it makes it a bit easier to ID OL successes/failures and assess the individual battles/matchups. But to keep perspective, it can get difficult at times b/c we don't know all the assignments. For instance, if Kilgore gets blown back at C, he could distrupt a pull block, etc. But we typically play power anyhow which is man-on-man. After tomorrows game, a couple of us are going to assess the OL play the best we can but please feel free to chime in since you have a different vantage point from the all22 as well if you get a chance. If not, we'll pull the veteran-card and "save" you for the regular season on assessing the passing game!

I look forward to reading the post game analysis. There is no all22 in the preseason that is available to the public.

Really want Looney to step up and salvage the 2012 class by grabbing that RG spot. It would make allowing Iupati to go a bit easier. Looney and BThomas for the next few years.

Man he would need to step up in a MAJOR way..I think we will resign Iupati. B Thomas to battle for the RG spot. Gotta protect Kaep. Yet so far Looney has done a pretty good job in the short amount of time given.

FG unit. Looney flips a player off.

Originally posted by thl408:

FG unit. Looney flips a player off.

So manziel gets fined and Looney doesn't?

Looney definitely has a nasty streak

Originally posted by Oakland-Niner:

Looney definitely has a nasty streak

Good

Originally posted by Quest4six:

Originally posted by Oakland-Niner:

Looney definitely has a nasty streak

Good

Agree. I like that mean streak on the 49ers o-line.

Originally posted by tohara3:

Originally posted by Quest4six:

Originally posted by Oakland-Niner:

Looney definitely has a nasty streak

Good

Agree. I like that mean streak on the 49ers o-line.

FABULOUS!

I used to love guys like Kevin Gogan - mean and nasty w/ a "Don't F--K w/me attitude

Originally posted by LasVegasWally:

Originally posted by tohara3:

Originally posted by Quest4six:

Originally posted by Oakland-Niner:

Looney definitely has a nasty streak

Good

Agree. I like that mean streak on the 49ers o-line.

FABULOUS!

I used to love guys like Kevin Gogan - mean and nasty w/ a "Don't F--K w/me attitude

Newberry was an angry man, as well.

Originally posted by Pillbusta:
So manziel gets fined and Looney doesn't?

He flipped him head over heels, not off. Dude just looks nasty.

The guy was on top of Looney, then Looney flipped him off. Play on words, bro.