St. Louis Rams week 6 coaches film analysis

Another fun film to watch - as we won

Several things stood out to me - CK played one of the best - if not the best game I've seen him play, as far as throw with anticipation, read of the defense, climb the pocket, and feeling the pressure.

His only terrible decision ended up not costing us at all because of a horse-collar penalty. Greg Williams and the Rams blitz more than any team in the league and we were able to identify the blitz, block well and gain over 340 yards through the air.

Part of that was -what I call, the Frank Gore affect. The Rams were run blitzing most of the time - so it was more about filling gaps than it was about trying to generate pressure - so their lanes weren't spread out like they would be in a pass blitz. However, there were several obvious passing situations where they blitzed and we still did a great job of pickup and execution. However - St. Louis is a historically bad pass rushing team right now - I think the worst in 40 years or something. 1 Sack through 6 weeks.

I have started to notice something else though - which came to mind after A.J. McCarron's recent comments regarding Alabama's recent offensive struggles.
It does seem that we have a lack of leadership on the offensive side of the ball - from the players.

It isn't any more evident than when you look at the defensive side of the ball. We've had injuries galore, a huge suspension, and a lot of turnover in the secondary. However, the defense has still maintained an elite level of play. When the defense plays poorly - it's always for a very short stretch. Then, they'll get things straightened out. What you see from film is - it's not so much about changing any calls or making a lot of adjustments from a coaching standpoint - it's like a switch flips and the players buckle down and execute their assignments better. I think leadership among the players has a lot to do with that. We have Patrick Willis on that side of the ball who has emerged as a leader the last 4-5 years. I don't think we have that on offense. When we have a negative play of any kind - it's almost a certainty that the drive will stall.

It reminds me a lot of the 94 niners. If you watch the "America's game" on that year, Steve Young talked a lot about how the players really didn't accept him as a leader until that year. It didn't matter how many things he could do and achieve on the field - they weren't fully bought into him as a leader until the Eagles game where he went off on George Seiffert.

But, back to the film. As usual - I'll start with the Positives and work to the negatives starting with Offense to defense.

Offense:

Positives: O-line protection was good for the most part - there were some pressures they gave up which led to incompletions, but, no sacks. Which is the first time that's happened in over 16 games with CK. Brandon Lloyd has been a huge boost for the offense. He's not a burner by any means, but, his ability to make the spectacular catch and his savvy as a route runner make up for a lot of that. It just goes to show, that speed isn't the most important part of being a deep threat. It's the ability to attack the defender in a way to open up your deep threat.

I mentioned it earlier, but, saw some great anticipation throws from CK that are real exciting to see. Also saw much better pocket awareness than before - which led to a couple really good conversions. It was great to see him climb the pocket and make some tough throws.

VD is gonna get an honorable mention in the positives but will also be covered in the negatives - his presence alone does make a big impact on the offense. There were several plays where the attention he gets opened other guys up.

I liked some of the creative things Roman did in the passing game to get favorable matchups and force the Ram's hand. It was more in how he used personnel in different formations. He'd come out in a 12 personnel sometimes and spread it all out, or in a 21 personnel and spread it out so that we'd get WR's matched up on LB's in zone coverage or LB's against RB's in pass coverage. He really went after the LB's a lot in this game.

Negatives:
It was a struggle to get the running game going after Iupati left. Looney got pushed around for a bit. He started to settle in a little better near the end - but, I didn't like his leverage for a while

Vance McDonald not only had the big fumble but, blew several key blocks in the run game. I haven't been all that impressed with him this year. I'm not sure what's keeping him ahead of Carrier in the depth chart - maybe it's the playbook as I know he tends to play a different position than TE - usually a "U" back position. Which has a lot more assignments that go along with it.

VD had a terrible game. Dropped several passes and also missed some key blocking assignments in the run game.

Defense:
Positives:
Even with all the injuries, the defense is playing well. They only gave up 3 points in the final 3 quarters. That's a win for any defense against any team. We were able to generate more pressure on the QB than we had all year. We didn't necessarily blitz more than normal - we put a lot of pressure on the RB's to stand up against LB's(inside and outside) often. Austin Davis did a good job against us early in the game - he stood tall against pressure and made some great throws, but, the pressure seemed to be cumulative. The later in the game it got, the worst he got as the pressure affected him more and more.

Vic Fangio continues to blow me away as a D-coordinator. I really do think he's the best D-coord in the league. We finished that game with only 3 starters from last years defense playing and we still did an outstanding job. He did a lot of things to create pressure. Sometimes it was with stunts, sometimes with blitzes and sometimes it was by a mixture of where the stunts were coming from and alignments. One way play in particular, he lined up 3 guys to the right side of the center and had Justin Smith alone on the left side. Because of the stunts - the LT didn't get any help from the LG. This put Justin Smith 1-1 with the LT who couldn't hold his ground against Smith's bullrush.

Our D-line continues to impress. They have an ability to stay engaged with the O-lineman through to the point where they should disengage and then are able to schuck these guys off and either make a play or turn the play back towards a LB.

Our coverage units also did a good job throughout the majority of the game - especially Perrish Cox. He had two bad plays from what I saw, but, one - he was in a really tough position, the other was negated because of offensive PI.

Negatives:
Not too many here - the injury to Willis will hurt though. Borland did an ok job, but he's not the physical presence Willis is at all. But, we can't expect him to be. Unfortunate that it comes the week we're going to play Peyton.

Chris Culliver was the biggest disappointment on defense. He played with poor technique a couple times and completely blew his assignment on a TD.

Other than that, not much else to say. As usual, breakdowns to follow.

I wanted to touch on this play because it's a great example of CK throwing with anticipation:

This is big because it was 3rd and 12 in the 3rd Qtr. This led to a TD to put us in the lead that we never relinquished.


St. Louis had been running a lot of funky blitzes against us out of these blob like fronts. So, to combat all of it, we run a super quick snap. Literally, I had to grab this at exactly the right moment for Kilgore to have his hand on the ball. He walks up and just grabs the ball to snap it. There's not "hut" call. This way, St. Louis is caught in their own game.

Note the single safety look.


At the snap, the corners position - mixed with the single safety give away the cover 3 zone - more specifically, it's a sort of "fire" zone. It's a one man blitz with a 6 man cover 3 zone behind it. So, CK knows right here where he's going with the ball. Because of the quick snap - it leaves 2 pass rushers a long way from the QB, so it negates most of the pass rush.


Lloyd's vertical route clears the outside zone and opens up the space to outside for Boldin.


You see the great chemistry of Boldin and CK. The yellow line is the first down. So, they got this route right where it needed to be.


CK leads him to outside, away from the closing LB and towards the smaller defender. 1st down!


This angle shows the anticipation - he's in his windup.


More through.

The ball's on it's way before Boldin even gets around. That's anticipation. Great job CK.

You might be giving Fangio too much credit. Tomsula is the man behind the stellar front seven!

This is how VD can affect the defense:


This is good use of personnel in the formation to force the Rams to show their hand. We come out in 11 Personnel(1 back 1 TE) so the Rams are in their "Nickel" personnel(5 DB's, 2 LB's, 4 DL). We send Gore out wide with Boldin and Johnson in the slot. Because the Rams align a LB over Boldin it reveals the zone coverage. This, with the 2 high safeties reveal the cover 2 zone. This means, the MLB is the only man in the middle of the field.


Because we hit so many of the short curls to VD, the MLB tries to jump on VD's route. This opens up the middle of the field.


It opens up the area for Johnson to work and CK hits him over the middle.

He gets the ball with space to work and gets a nice 13 yard gain. Unfortunately, we had a false start by VD on the previous snap, so we still ended up with 3rd down and Boldin drops a tough pass the next play and we don't convert. However, you see the affect of VD on a defense.

Originally posted by verb1der:
You might be giving Fangio too much credit. Tomsula is the man behind the stellar front seven!

Well, I'm also looking at scheme and the collective effort of the defense. Don't get me wrong, I think Tomsula is one of the best D-line coaches out there because of how sound all our D-lineman are in their technique and assignments. But, some of the sacks we got were because of great coverage and some by great design. Most of our sacks this year haven't been because of great individual effort, but more by great team defense. Which, if it's an individual thing - that's usually either on the player or position coach or both. But, when it's a whole defense, that's when you look at the coordinator.

Fangio has our defense - even after all the crap - in the top 5 in both passing and rushing defense. No other team in the league can say that.

Nice summary, jonnydel. Just got through watching the game myself and there were two things that stood out to me on the offensive side of the ball. The spread offense is starting to be a preferred look for Kap imo. It puts defenses in a real bind as to how they play the 49er's spread look and how Kap can use his legs to scramble. This forces teams to place a spy on him - now they only have 1 deep safety. Or they zone up in the middle of the field - easy curl routes for Kap to complete, easy 7 yards.

The other thing that stood out is that the 49ers ran the ball out of 11 personnel (1rb/1te/3wr) using a spread formation, which was something that was discussed in the offseason here on the Zone. Many of us feel this is the most talented grouping that the 49ers can put on the field. Not because Miller and Vance suck (I know the Vance thread is active right now), but because SJ trumps them both, easily. The only question was how well can Gore run without a lead blocker. He did well in this game. I'll hit on some of his runs out of this personnel and formation.

Rams played a nice mix of man and zone coverage all game long in an effort to give Kap more to think about. Rams played a nice bait coverage (variation of Tampa2) to win on a 3rd down. What's funny is they played a similar coverage on the Lloyd TD and it was just way too aggressive given the game situation (80 yards away, under 20 seconds left). Justifiably they got bit in the ass with that coverage call. I'll try to hit on this as well.

Agreed that ADavis made some very nice throws to start the game and that's how they were able to move the ball so well. 49ers disguised their blitzes very well with props to Brooks for coming a few times on well timed blitzes. Well timed as in he didn't show as a blitzer until just before the snap. It is easy to see the difference between a RB that knows how to pick up a blitz (Gore), and one that doesn't (Rams RB). Not in recognizing the blitz, but actually using proper blocking technique to nullify the blitzer. ADavis just didn't make the same good throws in the second half of the game as he was in the first half and credit goes to the 49ers for forcing him to make tight throws as they mixed coverages as they always do. Honorable mention to Ian Williams who I thought did well against the run.

Here's a great play made by CK - he climbs the pocket and finds the receiver.


Here, it's early in the game and St. Louis is showing their "blob" like defense. Because the safety is down over Miller - it reveals a blitz in man-coverage. They also use the MLB, #55, as a "spy".

as best as I can figure, the alignment of Miller as a TE confused the LB over VD and he's not sure which side is the "strong" side. So, they're blitz call gets mixed up and he blitzes. He should be in coverage on VD. This puts the corner in a tough spot. He's now stuck between choosing to cover VD or Boldin on the backend. He tries to pick a middle ground and so it looks like he's in zone coverage - but, based off everything else, I think he's just reacting to the blown assignment in front of him.


The safety over Miller see's Miller stay in to block so he comes on a blitz - some teams with play it that way. If you're man stays in to block - you blitz. We tend to drop our guys into zone if their man stays in to block. Because the MLB is "spying" on CK he isn't aware of the two receivers behind him. The corner is stuck between a rock and a hard place.


Miller then releases out of his block so the MLB has to now bail on his "spy" and cover Miller. This opens up the middle for Boldin.

Boldin is wide open and Ck is able to get him the ball.

From here you see the front St. Louis used.


The line does a great job with their 1-1 blocks and Gore saves the day with his blitz pickup. He comes across the formation to pickup the safety.


Here CK had the choice to bail out of the pocket or climb the pocket. He does a good job of climbing the pocket to extend the play.


He climbs the pocket and makes a solid throw to Boldin who picks up 28 on the play. Too bad McDonald fumbled another big pass play on the next play after this.

Originally posted by thl408:
Nice summary, jonnydel. Just got through watching the game myself and there were two things that stood out to me on the offensive side of the ball. The spread offense is starting to be a preferred look for Kap imo. It puts defenses in a real bind as to how they play the 49er's spread look and how Kap can use his legs to scramble. This forces teams to place a spy on him - now they only have 1 deep safety. Or they zone up in the middle of the field - easy curl routes for Kap to complete, easy 7 yards.

The other thing that stood out is that the 49ers ran the ball out of 11 personnel (1rb/1te/3wr) using a spread formation, which was something that was discussed in the offseason here on the Zone. Many of us feel this is the most talented grouping that the 49ers can put on the field. Not because Miller and Vance suck (I know the Vance thread is active right now), but because SJ trumps them both, easily. The only question was how well can Gore run without a lead blocker. He did well in this game. I'll hit on some of his runs out of this personnel and formation.

Rams played a nice mix of man and zone coverage all game long in an effort to give Kap more to think about. Rams played a nice bait coverage (variation of Tampa2) to win on a 3rd down. What's funny is they played a similar coverage on the Lloyd TD and it was just way too aggressive given the game situation (80 yards away, under 20 seconds left). Justifiably they got bit in the ass with that coverage call. I'll try to hit on this as well.

Agreed that ADavis made some very nice throws to start the game and that's how they were able to move the ball so well. 49ers disguised their blitzes very well with props to Brooks for coming a few times on well timed blitzes. Well timed as in he didn't show as a blitzer until just before the snap. It is easy to see the difference between a RB that knows how to pick up a blitz (Gore), and one that doesn't (Rams RB). Not in recognizing the blitz, but actually using proper blocking technique to nullify the blitzer. ADavis just didn't make the same good throws in the second half of the game as he was in the first half and credit goes to the 49ers for forcing him to make tight throws as they mixed coverages as they always do. Honorable mention to Ian Williams who I thought did well against the run.

I noticed the same thing. First time I watched it I thought, "what in the world coverage is that???" Then, after watching it a couple times, I realized they were trying to bait an underneath throw. That's Greg Williams for you - big risk/big reward guy. He was trying to get the ball back with a short field. It worked in the SB against manning - played a bait coverage. But, bit them hard on this one. Tried to bait the tampa 2 and got burned lol....

Originally posted by jonnydel:
I wanted to touch on this play because it's a great example of CK throwing with anticipation:

This is big because it was 3rd and 12 in the 3rd Qtr. This led to a TD to put us in the lead that we never relinquished.


St. Louis had been running a lot of funky blitzes against us out of these blob like fronts. So, to combat all of it, we run a super quick snap. Literally, I had to grab this at exactly the right moment for Kilgore to have his hand on the ball. He walks up and just grabs the ball to snap it. There's not "hut" call. This way, St. Louis is caught in their own game.

Note the single safety look.


At the snap, the corners position - mixed with the single safety give away the cover 3 zone - more specifically, it's a sort of "fire" zone. It's a one man blitz with a 6 man cover 3 zone behind it. So, CK knows right here where he's going with the ball. Because of the quick snap - it leaves 2 pass rushers a long way from the QB, so it negates most of the pass rush.


Lloyd's vertical route clears the outside zone and opens up the space to outside for Boldin.


You see the great chemistry of Boldin and CK. The yellow line is the first down. So, they got this route right where it needed to be.


CK leads him to outside, away from the closing LB and towards the smaller defender. 1st down!


This angle shows the anticipation - he's in his windup.


More through.

The ball's on it's way before Boldin even gets around. That's anticipation. Great job CK.

Great shot of the ball already on its way before Boldin turns around. It's clear that Kap trusts Boldin with these throws where Boldin has yet to make the cut in his route and ball is already on its way. It remains to be seen if he can trust his other WRs with the same magnitude, or if they deserve that kind of trust. This is why Boldin is a 3rd down converting machine.

I'm working on the 80 yard TD right now

Originally posted by jonnydel:
I noticed the same thing. First time I watched it I thought, "what in the world coverage is that???" Then, after watching it a couple times, I realized they were trying to bait an underneath throw. That's Greg Williams for you - big risk/big reward guy. He was trying to get the ball back with a short field. It worked in the SB against manning - played a bait coverage. But, bit them hard on this one. Tried to bait the tampa 2 and got burned lol....

Agreed. Cutting those plays up right now...

Originally posted by jonnydel:
I'm working on the 80 yard TD right now

Ok let me post the bait coverage, should be up in 10 minutes. Then it will make the 80 yard TD throw make a lot of sense in terms of wtf the Rams were trying to do.