Out-Coached! = Why did Seattle dominate both our O-line and our D-line?

Originally posted by NCommand:
It really is an abolsutely pathetic display of offense IMHO with SOOOO many weapons and depth. No bones about it and I'm not even sure if we can spin it in ANY positive way now. The theme is that when you get to the playoffs, coaching is usually THE difference in games between two equally talented teams. That's not to dismiss the other issues as well (clearly). When we fail, it's usually a collective collapse.

If that logic ran true, wouldnt belichick be playing for - and winning - a super bowl almost every year? Games come down to not only coaching, scheme, and tactics, but EXECUTION. I feel dumber after reading your "insight."

Here is my 2 cents, I think Harbaugh is a GREAT Leader but Lacks in the xs & o's part of coaching. This team has talent but our passing game and development of the passing game is stuck in 1988 Chicago. Roman has got to go. This team lacks explosive playcalling and is WAY TOO predictable. Look at the Seattle 3rd and 22 from mid field, instead of trying to get 22 yards, Wilson dumped off to his TE for a nice 15 yard gain to make a manageable FG or a LUCKY go for it attempt. Had that been the 49ers on 3rd & 22, Harbaugh woulda called a draw play by Gore, Hunter or Kap. What the 49ers really need is an offensive minded OC who is GREAT at when to call certain pass run balences. Something Roman is BRUTAL at.

Originally posted by maxsmart:
We are supposed to have the 'best' O-line in the NFL, yet we couldn't run. We are supposed to have the best front 7 yet we couldn't stop Seattle's run. We have more talent as evidenced by more pro bowl picks, so that leaves two main possibilities:

#1. Out schemed / out-coached
#2. Our players are over-rated

I think our O-line and O-line are both a little bit over-rated.
However I think the main problem is coaching and scheme. We should go back more to the west-coast roots of short quick ball-control passes to the running backs and Tight ends, and also more 'zone-blocking' by the O-line (like Walsh and McKittrick). Zone blocking would allow Gore/Lattimore/Hunter to find and pick the hole, and they all have great vision so they would excel in that scheme.

Regarding ball-control passing:
Gore only had 16 catches = 1 per game! Kendall Hunter had 2 catches on the entire year! [Roger Craig averaged ~75 catches a year for 5 years in a row! Ricky Watters averaged 60 catches per year.]
Vernon Davis is all-pro talent, 1 or 2 most talented TE in NFL, yet only gets ~50 catches per year. We trade up for McDonald and he only gets 8 catches! Celek has only 2 catches! Might as well play Kilgore at TE. Plus we rarely throw deep to loosen up the defense, so they crowd the mid-range routes. Our offense sucks because of coaching and scheme more so than talent!

Regarding converting to a zone blocking scheme, if you want that to happen then get ready to draft 4 new starting Olineman. One of the prerequisites for being a zone blocking Olineman is nimble feet. Agility is prized over strength. I can see Staley being the only holdover that can work in a zone blocking scheme because he is such a well rounded Olineman. The maulers that the 49ers currently have in Boone, Iupati, and ADavis will not have their skillset translate well to zone blocking. We can thank Sing for this, as he asked Baalke to go for big strong Olinemen. This was actually touched on during the season, and it was said that the 49ers do use some zone blocking plays, mainly on the read option. But that is straight ahead zone blocking. We see some stretch plays to the edges that the 49ers fail at and that is a glimpse to what would happen if the 49ers went to a pure ZB scheme (run left/right) with their current personnel.

Great topic, ball control passing. I would love to see more of this in the 49er offense. I think this starts with Kap and him looking to dump it off as a third/fourth option in his progression as opposed to looking to extend the play while looking downfield. That's just his mentality at this stage in his career. The checkdown routes are being sent out, they just aren't utilized by Kap. The checkdown routes to Kap is like option #5. I hope that as Kap learns to just take what's being given on a single play, throws to the RBs will get a slight uptick. I do not think that throwing to RBs will have the same success as it did back in the Walsh days. LBs nowadays run faster than many RBs. This was not the case back in the 80's when many LBs were big plodding run stoppers. Now the LBs are the most athletic players on the field it seems and they can track down RBs and reduce RAC, which is what Craig and Watters thrived on.

TEs can also be used for ball control passing, but many of VDs routes are downfield since he is the only guy that can stretch a defense vertically. When (hopefully) the 49ers get a vertical threat at WR, we may see more VD routes sent short to intermediate as the new WR can be used to go downfield and take over that role for the offense.

I hate when folks say other than the long run they stopped the run well. The long run is what killed them. That's the play they needed to stop but couldn't. That's on the players for not getting it done. Especially Reid who had a horrible game.

Originally posted by Paulb10486:

Originally posted by NCommand:
It really is an abolsutely pathetic display of offense IMHO with SOOOO many weapons and depth. No bones about it and I'm not even sure if we can spin it in ANY positive way now. The theme is that when you get to the playoffs, coaching is usually THE difference in games between two equally talented teams. That's not to dismiss the other issues as well (clearly). When we fail, it's usually a collective collapse.

If that logic ran true, wouldnt belichick be playing for - and winning - a super bowl almost every year? Games come down to not only coaching, scheme, and tactics, but EXECUTION. I feel dumber after reading your "insight."

Sure, if half his team wasn't lost to FA, jail and injuries. It's safe to say they went further than most expected. But if you want to justify a 32nd ranked offense and another fail-job in the playoffs (esp. 1st down production), go for it...I look to get smarter!

We lost halftime. Better adjustments on the other side of the ball. No one ran it in the first half. Lynch's first 13 carriers went for like 36 yards.

Originally posted by maxsmart:
We are supposed to have the 'best' O-line in the NFL, yet we couldn't run. We are supposed to have the best front 7 yet we couldn't stop Seattle's run. We have more talent as evidenced by more pro bowl picks, so that leaves two main possibilities:

#1. Out schemed / out-coached
#2. Our players are over-rated

I think our O-line and O-line are both a little bit over-rated.
However I think the main problem is coaching and scheme. We should go back more to the west-coast roots of short quick ball-control passes to the running backs and Tight ends, and also more 'zone-blocking' by the O-line (like Walsh and McKittrick). Zone blocking would allow Gore/Lattimore/Hunter to find and pick the hole, and they all have great vision so they would excel in that scheme.

Regarding ball-control passing:
Gore only had 16 catches = 1 per game! Kendall Hunter had 2 catches on the entire year! [Roger Craig averaged ~75 catches a year for 5 years in a row! Ricky Watters averaged 60 catches per year.]
Vernon Davis is all-pro talent, 1 or 2 most talented TE in NFL, yet only gets ~50 catches per year. We trade up for McDonald and he only gets 8 catches! Celek has only 2 catches! Might as well play Kilgore at TE. Plus we rarely throw deep to loosen up the defense, so they crowd the mid-range routes. Our offense sucks because of coaching and scheme more so than talent!

half the team was injured and this is what you have to complain about

lol

Originally posted by thl408:

Originally posted by maxsmart:
We are supposed to have the 'best' O-line in the NFL, yet we couldn't run. We are supposed to have the best front 7 yet we couldn't stop Seattle's run. We have more talent as evidenced by more pro bowl picks, so that leaves two main possibilities:

#1. Out schemed / out-coached
#2. Our players are over-rated

I think our O-line and O-line are both a little bit over-rated.
However I think the main problem is coaching and scheme. We should go back more to the west-coast roots of short quick ball-control passes to the running backs and Tight ends, and also more 'zone-blocking' by the O-line (like Walsh and McKittrick). Zone blocking would allow Gore/Lattimore/Hunter to find and pick the hole, and they all have great vision so they would excel in that scheme.

Regarding ball-control passing:
Gore only had 16 catches = 1 per game! Kendall Hunter had 2 catches on the entire year! [Roger Craig averaged ~75 catches a year for 5 years in a row! Ricky Watters averaged 60 catches per year.]
Vernon Davis is all-pro talent, 1 or 2 most talented TE in NFL, yet only gets ~50 catches per year. We trade up for McDonald and he only gets 8 catches! Celek has only 2 catches! Might as well play Kilgore at TE. Plus we rarely throw deep to loosen up the defense, so they crowd the mid-range routes. Our offense sucks because of coaching and scheme more so than talent!

Regarding converting to a zone blocking scheme, if you want that to happen then get ready to draft 4 new starting Olineman. One of the prerequisites for being a zone blocking Olineman is nimble feet. Agility is prized over strength. I can see Staley being the only holdover that can work in a zone blocking scheme because he is such a well rounded Olineman. The maulers that the 49ers currently have in Boone, Iupati, and ADavis will not have their skillset translate well to zone blocking. We can thank Sing for this, as he asked Baalke to go for big strong Olinemen. This was actually touched on during the season, and it was said that the 49ers do use some zone blocking plays, mainly on the read option. But that is straight ahead zone blocking. We see some stretch plays to the edges that the 49ers fail at and that is a glimpse to what would happen if the 49ers went to a pure ZB scheme (run left/right) with their current personnel.

Great topic, ball control passing. I would love to see more of this in the 49er offense. I think this starts with Kap and him looking to dump it off as a third/fourth option in his progression as opposed to looking to extend the play while looking downfield. That's just his mentality at this stage in his career. The checkdown routes are being sent out, they just aren't utilized by Kap. The checkdown routes to Kap is like option #5. I hope that as Kap learns to just take what's being given on a single play, throws to the RBs will get a slight uptick. I do not think that throwing to RBs will have the same success as it did back in the Walsh days. LBs nowadays run faster than many RBs. This was not the case back in the 80's when many LBs were big plodding run stoppers. Now the LBs are the most athletic players on the field it seems and they can track down RBs and reduce RAC, which is what Craig and Watters thrived on.

TEs can also be used for ball control passing, but many of VDs routes are downfield since he is the only guy that can stretch a defense vertically. When (hopefully) the 49ers get a vertical threat at WR, we may see more VD routes sent short to intermediate as the new WR can be used to go downfield and take over that role for the offense.

Fantastic post and perspective. Do you think that a vertical threat outside is the real answer to this offense? I mean, we had Randy Moss and brought in Marlon Moore who tore it up in the pre season/camp and was brought in to be that vertical threat. We had Tedd Ginn and his 4.2 speed...yet we never even bothered to use any of these guys in that role and stuck with the outside intermediate passing game most of the year. Many of the teams we struggle with are physical DB's who press (and hold) at the LOS so is a deep sideline or post route really going to open up things underneath more or be a higher % play for this offense?

Just curious on your thoughts on how to improve upon this offense given we are probably stuck with it next year as well with even more talented/depth added via FA and the draft.

Originally posted by jbeale49:
We lost halftime. Better adjustments on the other side of the ball. No one ran it in the first half. Lynch's first 13 carriers went for like 36 yards.

This.

Our OL is seriously overrated. I think Staley and Boone are great....the rest were basically mediocre to poor this year.

Originally posted by T-9ers:
You guys want a Super Bowl but we got like the 10th best QB in the league. Can't tell me we ain't got a Super caliber team elsewhere, we do. Seahawks stacked the box, dared Kaep to throw, he couldn't get it done. There's been almost 50 Super Bowls played and a running QB has won none of them, so you can keepall that running stuff. I'll take 300 yds. and 3 td's passing anyday. Just look at Montana's comments from about a week ago about Kaep, you think he just made that stuff up? Kaep has to stay in the pocket and make clutch throws under pressure, beating teams with his brain. I'd like to ask Pete Carroll about that last play, I bet he'll take that match-up and situation a 100 times out of a 100.

10th??? Really? I would love to hear your list. Also, no running QB ever won a SB? Ever hear of the name Steve Young?

I know a lot of people want to return to our WCO Roots , but that is easier said than done, Walsh drew up a lot of schemes in the short passing game to create mismatches for our playmakers in space, but back in Walshs days, speed at LB was not what it is today ...these days just about every team has LB's with demon speed on their roster , which makes it more difficult for our RB's and TE's to be effective receivers in the short passing game ...which explains our reliance on a heavy run game ....hopefully we add a couple more playmakers in the off season to improve the passing attack

Originally posted by maxsmart:
We are supposed to have the 'best' O-line in the NFL, yet we couldn't run. We are supposed to have the best front 7 yet we couldn't stop Seattle's run. We have more talent as evidenced by more pro bowl picks, so that leaves two main possibilities:

#1. Out schemed / out-coached
#2. Our players are over-rated

I think our O-line and O-line are both a little bit over-rated.
However I think the main problem is coaching and scheme. We should go back more to the west-coast roots of short quick ball-control passes to the running backs and Tight ends, and also more 'zone-blocking' by the O-line (like Walsh and McKittrick). Zone blocking would allow Gore/Lattimore/Hunter to find and pick the hole, and they all have great vision so they would excel in that scheme.

Regarding ball-control passing:
Gore only had 16 catches = 1 per game! Kendall Hunter had 2 catches on the entire year! [Roger Craig averaged ~75 catches a year for 5 years in a row! Ricky Watters averaged 60 catches per year.]
Vernon Davis is all-pro talent, 1 or 2 most talented TE in NFL, yet only gets ~50 catches per year. We trade up for McDonald and he only gets 8 catches! Celek has only 2 catches! Might as well play Kilgore at TE. Plus we rarely throw deep to loosen up the defense, so they crowd the mid-range routes. Our offense sucks because of coaching and scheme more so than talent!

This is dumb. If either Andy Lee gets the correct call or Kap puts the ball a couple inches further at the end on pass to Crab, we win. Then is the narrative that we got dominated at the line of scrimmage??

Originally posted by kray28:

Our OL is seriously overrated. I think Staley and Boone are great....the rest were basically mediocre to poor this year.

They are our two best linemen. I think they should move Boone to RT and Davis to RG. Davis is too slow sometimes for the speed rushers.

I'm not sure I'd use the term dominate. First of all, give the other team some credit. Seahawks had the top ranked defense for a reason and Lynch is a beast. I actually thought we got more than our share of lucky bounces go our way (Aldon's recovery on very first play, recovering LMJ's muffed punt return, Goodwin picking up the Bennett strip of Kaep that squirted forward to him that I think led to the Boldin TD) but one more play that goes the other way and the discussion on this board will be how the Broncos are going to get destroyed in two weeks. No one got blown out in this game. It was two elite teams playing a hard hitting game and the home team pulled it out.

Really, if there's anything to complain about it's the decision to test the top DB in the game on a double move fade route when you have plenty of time and timeouts to run at least 3 other plays.