First Down Production

I'm sure many of you remember me tracking this for us the past two years noting how critical this down was (to get 4+ yards at least) for the overall success of our offense. It was pretty bad against Green Bay but once again, last night, it was horrendous and unimaginative.

In fact, to put it into perspective, we ONLY had a total of 24 yards on first down leaving us in constant 2nd and longs (some VERY long). Only two of these first down opportunities was for more than 4 yards (several were in the negatives or incompletes and even INT's). Add in penalties on top of this and we played right into the strengths of Seattle, both their aggressive style (press coverage up tight at the LOS and pass rush).

In the second half, we only gained 68 yards with most in 4Q when the game was well out of reach.

For all the talk of HaRoMan, I thought we'd be much much better this year with all the added weapons, a full off season, chemistry, skill sets of players, etc. but it appears this is a real negative trend no matter what the personnel is.

Originally posted by NCommand:
I'm sure many of you remember me tracking this for us the past two years noting how critical this down was (to get 4+ yards at least) for the overall success of our offense. It was pretty bad against Green Bay but once again, last night, it was horrendous and unimaginative.

In fact, to put it into perspective, we ONLY had a total of 24 yards on first down leaving us in constant 2nd and longs (some VERY long). Only two of these first down opportunities was for more than 4 yards (several were in the negatives or incompletes and even INT's). Add in penalties on top of this and we played right into the strengths of Seattle, both their aggressive style (press coverage up tight at the LOS and pass rush).

In the second half, we only gained 68 yards with most in 4Q when the game was well out of reach.

For all the talk of HaRoMan, I thought we'd be much much better this year with all the added weapons, a full off season, chemistry, skill sets of players, etc. but it appears this is a real negative trend no matter what the personnel is.

post of the year and i have been harping on this. you get nothing on first and second down and get predictable, it will bite you against a good defensive team on the road who already has the lead, see last nights game please. you have to get something on first and second down for gods sake, that is stuff you learn in high school

Originally posted by cciowa:
post of the year and i have been harping on this. you get nothing on first and second down and get predictable, it will bite you against a good defensive team on the road who already has the lead, see last nights game please. you have to get something on first and second down for gods sake, that is stuff you learn in high school

I was absolutely baffled by the play calling on first down. Every single play, by the formation alone, you can tell not only whether it was a run or pass but where it was going (more often than not). Obviously, the Hawks were in our backfield on any edge rush for major loss of yards and easly stuffed the inside run with extra penetration. It was a sad sad affair.

It seems that Roman is always holding back. I know it worked against the Packers in the playoffs last year but his play calling was flat.

Originally posted by LasVegasWally:
It seems that Roman is always holding back. I know it worked against the Packers in the playoffs last year but his play calling was flat.

"flat" is a very good word for it. He is lucky CK didn't get hurt b/c once he got gun shy, he was running for his life.

Originally posted by NCommand:

Originally posted by LasVegasWally:
It seems that Roman is always holding back. I know it worked against the Packers in the playoffs last year but his play calling was flat.

"flat" is a very good word for it. He is lucky CK didn't get hurt b/c once he got gun shy, he was running for his life.

i still say all gore needs is a small window but its like the line has forgotten to do what they did so well last year?

cc, this is what I noted in another thread:

One thing I noticed about the Packers/Hawks game was that there seems to be a distinct difference in how defenses are playing us and much is to guard against the Q-formation (i.e. the read option). Teams know that Gore is one of the best between-the-tackle RB's in the game; no need to worry about him bouncing it off tackle though. So GB countered with HUGE bodies inside with Jolly/Raji/Pickett and had a heavy rotation there throughout the game. Then they played physical up at the LOS with their secondary in press AND kept an eye in our backfield. If they saw CK start to run, they blow up field off the edges and the OLB's contain more on the outside (play more disciplined). Even if we put the speedster in Hunter in there to run off tackle, it's played the same way...and as a result, you've forced Gore into pass protection, taken away any runs between the T's and eliminated any off-T runs (or scrambles). And since we rarely take any true deep shots down field (or have a consistent threat there), defenses just ignore it. Where we COULD attack is in the middle soft zones with both VD and McDonald and esp. with flaring out Gore/Hunter/Miller out there. This, ironically, is how we beat the Hawks last time in SF; short 5 yards passes just behind the DL and allowing Gore and Walker to get RAC. It chewed up the clock, kept drives alive and we finished with a TD.

Thought this was worth bringing back. Here are the totals on each of the first down plays the Niners had at Seattle.

It was, once again, extremely inconsistent. They were able to pick up 162 yards on first down, but if you see below, Kaep's runs were a big part of that. Out of 24 first down plays, 11 resulted in either no gain or negative yardage. I didn't count the sack fumble that Goodwin recovered for a 2 yard gain.

run: 2

run: 1

run: 17 (QB)

run: -1

pass: 0

run: 0

run: 58 (QB)

run: 2

pass: 0

run: -1

pass: 0

run: 9

pass: 22

run: 22 (QB)

pass: 2 yards after -8 yard sack, and recovery

run: 0

pass: 0

run: 3

run: 11

pass: 0 (intercepted)

run: 0

run: 4 (QB)

pass: 11

pass: 0 (intercepted)

Originally posted by TheRatMan13:
Thought this was worth bringing back. Here are the totals on each of the first down plays the Niners had at Seattle.

It was, once again, extremely inconsistent. They were able to pick up 162 yards on first down, but if you see below, Kaep's runs were a big part of that. Out of 24 first down plays, 11 resulted in either no gain or negative yardage. I didn't count the sack fumble that Goodwin recovered for a 2 yard gain.

run: 2

run: 1

run: 17 (QB)

run: -1

pass: 0

run: 0

run: 58 (QB)

run: 2

pass: 0

run: -1

pass: 0

run: 9

pass: 22

run: 22 (QB)

pass: 2 yards after -8 yard sack, and recovery

run: 0

pass: 0

run: 3

run: 11

pass: 0 (intercepted)

run: 0

run: 4 (QB)

pass: 11

pass: 0 (intercepted)

Thank you...I had posted the run game stats in the Roman thread but this is better and shows the bigger issue with our offense...much of this is d/t predictability. Only 4 completed passes all game on 1st down (and 1 was an INT)? Sad!

I was joking with my friend watching the games this year that the Niners should simply elect to skip 1st down and go straight to 2 and 10 unless they need to burn some clock.

Originally posted by PrisonOfGlass:
I was joking with my friend watching the games this year that the Niners should simply elect to skip 1st down and go straight to 2 and 10 unless they need to burn some clock.

No question and I'd take it! We usually have penalties or loss of yardage on these downs. 2nd and 10 is better than 2nd and 15!

dbl

Originally posted by NCommand:
Thank you...I had posted the run game stats in the Roman thread but this is better and shows the bigger issue with our offense...much of this is d/t predictability. Only 4 completed passes all game on 1st down (and 1 was an INT)? Sad!

Yeah I actually saw your post, so I thought this would be worth bringing back up.

I was going to go through all 16 games and break down first and second down plays, but just the Green Bay game took a half hour. I don't have time for that lol.

Originally posted by TheRatMan13:

Originally posted by NCommand:
Thank you...I had posted the run game stats in the Roman thread but this is better and shows the bigger issue with our offense...much of this is d/t predictability. Only 4 completed passes all game on 1st down (and 1 was an INT)? Sad!

Yeah I actually saw your post, so I thought this would be worth bringing back up.

I was going to go through all 16 games and break down first and second down plays, but just the Green Bay game took a half hour. I don't have time for that lol.

Don't feel bad dude...I used to keep manual tabs on this issue about 3 years ago...for an entire year+ when Alex was here...and then some sports writer stole my "research" and posted it in his article about the importance of first down production (4+ yards) and how the Niners were doing. No joke.

Niners gotta move more to 3 wr sets over the 2 te sets. Get some easy option passes out of the slot. I really think getting some speed on offense would help too. No team in the league fears the niners speed. Teams sit & jump on all short routes. Plus they are overly predictable on 1st down.