Derrik Klassen does a good job with film review and especially focuses on QB's. Some of this is rehashed by the jd/THL thread but from a Rams point of view he does bring up some interesting things on why the Rams played the way they did and their scheme and coaching flaws that ended up being exposed by the 49ers.



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The right guard situation is an absolute mess. Cody Wichmann and Jamon Brown split reps, and neither of them knew their assignments or had the physical ability to hold up against the 49ers front. Aside from Rob Havenstein, who did not have a great night either, the entire offensive line was overrunning their assignments on zone plays. Too many defenders were able to slip through the A-gaps without much trouble. Center Tim Barnes was especially slow getting to the second level. Case Keenum might have had more passes hit the ground five yards away from his target than he had passes that were completed to Rams players.




49ers defenders followed the fullback or the motioned tight end in the running game, and they were right almost every single time. The Rams employed a fair amount of 21-personnel (two running backs, one tight end and two receivers) and 22-personnel (two running backs, two tight ends and one wide receiver) in the running game. If the Rams went to either of those formations, it was fair to assume that they were going to run the ball.







This play is the most obvious example of how well the 49ers were able to foresee the Rams plays before they happened. Inside linebacker Navarro Bowman sees fullback Corey Harkey sliding over to the weakside of the formation and knows that the Rams are going to follow him. Instead of waiting off the ball and letting the play develop just in case, Bowman acts on his instinct and demolishes the play immediately.










Co-offensive coordinators Rob Boras and Mike Groh called this sort of stuff all night. If the fullback was on the field, the Rams were running the ball through him. If the Rams motioned a player, they were running through him. The Rams did run one sort of counter play that bent to the opposite direction of the fullback's alignment, but he was still the lead blocker. By and large, the running game was largely predictable.

The Rams play callers heavily favored 21 and 22-personnel when running the ball. In the few times they opted to run out of the shotgun, it was still easy to see the play before the ball was snapped. The Rams ran inside zone to the tight end's side of the formation almost without any deviation. Nothing the Rams were doing from a schematic standpoint forced the 49ers to think.








Much like the running game, the Rams passing attack was easy to read. Their favorite passing formations were trey sets and trips bunch sets, usually to the right side of the field. Between the Rams receiving personnel and Keenum's lack of ability, there were only so many concepts the Rams could run and the 49ers defense knew it.




Differentiated by color, these are the two route concepts that the Rams ran out of trips/trey sets. The yellow route combination is a simple four verticals concept. It is as bland as four verticals comes. Granted, it can work with the right personnel and the ability to catch the defense off guard, but the Rams didn't show either of those things in Santa Clara. With howe smoothly the 49ers were able to identify the route concept and pick everyone up, the Rams best bet was for the far boundary receiver to either win in 1-on-1 coverage over the top or on his option to break back to the ball for a comeback route.







Aaron Donald was the only consistently good run defender over the course of the game. Cam Thomas stepped it up in the second half, but Donald was the only reliable player in that aspect all game. Michael Brockers had an off night. He was playing abnormally aggressive and guessing wrong too often. He took himself out of too many plays. Thomas outplayed him. The second half was better for run defense overall. Players made better run fits and better run blitzes were being called. Mark Barron and Lamarcus Joyner - while liabilities in the run game - were surprisingly effective in coverage for most of the night. Each of them had a blunder or two, but they were largely impressive and Joyner almost had an interception at one point.









The Rams have two small players in their front here (Lamarcus Joyner and Mark Barron) along with Alec Ogletree, who struggles with play strength despite his size. The appropriate way to mask with would be to clog the interior and hope that the smaller, weaker second level players can get out into space and make plays there. Instead, Williams spreads out the defensive line and forces the smaller players to hold their own over the middle of the field. That's poor common sense.





Similar to the still shot above, the Rams used a spread out defensive line here and expected the small, weak second level players to handle power. The Rams were wrong to do so. Barron got killed by the pulling tight end. Ogeltree got ran out of the play by left tackle Joe Staley. Joyner was kept away from the play by a tight end.













Coverage does not get any simpler than this. Williams called for a basic Cover 2 zone with four down linemen being the only pass rushers. The cornerbacks have the flats areas, the linebackers have the middle of the field and the two deep safeties cover the back end. Coverage can not get an easier to execute, but the Rams players still messed it up.

On the far side of the field, cornerback Coty Sensabaugh (who had a miserable night in coverage) carried up the field immediately without accounting for the possibility of a running back leaking out of the field. A running back did, in fact, leak out of the backfield into Sensabaugh's vacated area, but the struggling cornerback was bailed out by an even more egregious error from the three defenders over the middle of the field.

Seeing as the slot receiver to the left is coming from Joyner's side, it should be his responsibility to carry the receiver up the field. Instead, Joyner passes the receiver off, likely because he thought there was a centerfielding safety behind him instead of split coverage. Whatever the reasoning was, it was a critical error that would have been a big play if Blaine Gabbert were even a sort of competent quarterback.