On Sunday night, the San Francisco 49ers face their toughest challenge yet of the 2023 season. They will host the Dallas Cowboys at Levi's Stadium, a bout between two NFC powerhouses.
The 49ers are coming off a 35-16 win over the Arizona Cardinals. To win, head coach Kyle Shanahan knew his defense needed to contain quarterback Joshua Dobbs, who has punished opponents with his ability to run with the football. The 49ers limited him to 12 carries for 48 yards.
On Sunday, the task will be stopping the eight-year veteran, Dak Prescott, a very different style of quarterback, but dangerous nonetheless.
"Dak's just a little bit different," Shanahan said Thursday afternoon on KNBR's "Tolbert and Copes" show. "Dak, definitely, if you let him break the pocket and stuff, I mean, he's a competitive guy who will run hard to move the chains and things, and if he has to, he'll try to run you over.
"They do a little bit of some called quarterback runs, mainly in the red zone, or some short-yardage situations, but that was a little different than Arizona. They were calling some design quarterback plays, and Dobbs was running hard every time.
"Dak's going to be a little bit more of a pocket guy, but we got to make sure they don't turn him into a runner because when he does get outside there, that's usually what can unlock your defense."
On the other side of the ball, the focus will be keeping star pass rusher Micah Parsons away from quarterback Brock Purdy. No one has more total pressures than Parsons' 27. By comparison, Nick Bosa, Pro Football Focus's highest-graded defender this season, has 20.
The 49ers coach discussed the unique challenge of facing the Cowboys defense and making sure his team knows where Parsons is at all times.
"It's not hard to locate him because we all know his number, and we know who that guy is," Shanahan said. "So we know exactly where he is. The hard thing is you want to make sure really good players, they don't mess the game up. If you ignore them, the odds are ... they're going to affect the game huge, just going back to [Rams DT] Aaron Donald and stuff like that.
"But it's really hard to put together a schematic game plan when you don't know where he's going to be until you break the huddle because you can't just take two guys to somebody all the time. There's too many issues, and they know exactly what they're doing with fronts and things like that, when to move them, where to move them, how to get them on certain people, how to make it really tough for you to help them.
"If you try to cover everything, your quarterback and your offense are going to be frozen because you're going to have to change every single play every single time, which, then, no one's coming off the ball and really playing good football. So there's an element of how you design something to make it tougher for that guy and to help our guys not have to be in too many positions where they're just completely on their own, having to deal with a player like that."
Shanahan recognized that despite their best efforts, Parsons is bound to make some impactful plays. The key, he stressed, is mitigating the significance of the pass rusher's impact.
"When they do win theirs, or when he does win his, you've got to make sure it's not a turnover," Shanahan noted. "You've got to make sure the worst-case scenario is just a sack. You've got to protect the ball. It's also why you've got to be balanced and do a lot of things to not allow him to tee off because when he tees off, he's tough to deal with.
"And all the guys they got around him can tee off, too. ... And [Cowboys defensive coordinator] Dan [Quinn], with all the guys that you don't know who are inside, and the backups, they all can rush the passer, and they're all moving. But [number] 11 is definitely the one you got to know where he is [on] every play."
The 49ers' quarterback plans to closely monitor No. 11's whereabouts throughout the game.
"Obviously, I think he's a game-changer of a player," Purdy said after Thursday's practice. "That's with every team that we go against—who are the guys that can change a game in one play, one snap? So obviously, always having my intent up, where he's at, where he's lined up.
"It was the same thing in the playoff game last year. It'll be the same thing this Sunday. But they also have really good players everywhere else, too. So it's just being in tune and on point every snap before I snap the ball."
You can listen to the entire conversation with Shanahan below.
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