Offseason All22 Film Study

Versus Fitz in the slot, playing with a cushion. I want to say that many times when the slot CB (in Fangio's defense) is aligned like this, he's pattern matching and will only cover the WR that he lines up over if the WR goes vertical or breaks outside. If that WR runs a drag route, the slot CB will pass coverage over to a team mate. I didn't see any good examples of that in this game, but I am positive it will happen in later games (I think).

Cover1


Ward opens up and plays with outside leverage. This is done to funnel Fitz towards the middle of the field where his safety help is (Bethea). If Fitz breaks goes vertical up the middle of the field, Bethea is there. If Fitz breaks across the middle of the field, Reid will be there. Fitz looks as though he's breaking towards the middle of the field.


Fitz's route actually calls for him to break back to the outside, exactly the leverage Ward is playing with. Fitz's route is defeated as he runs right into Ward.

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Ward versus MFloyd. Cover1



Ward seen taking outside leverage, trying to funnel Floyd towards Bethea.


Floyd eats up the cushion very quickly and stems outside, towards Ward's outside leg and gets Ward to backpeddle. As soon as Ward looks like hes about to flip his hips to the outside, Floyd cuts towards Ward's inside leg. Ward is seen crossing over his legs while back peddling.


The crossing over of the legs causes him to lose his balance when he tries to turn upfield. Ward quickly recovers to arrive just as the pass arrives, and knock it away.

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Ward versus ARoberts. cover2 man.



Unlike cover1 where the safety help is in the middle of the field, this is cover2 (Middle of Field Open) where the safety help is on each half side of the field. At the snap, Ward opens up and takes inside leverage to funnel the WR towards the sidelines. Notice Cox at the bottom doing the same thing.


By taking inside leverage, it keeps the WR away from the middle of the field where the seam is in cover2 (blue area between the safeties). From there, it's just staying on the WR's hip pocket. Trail position to prevent inside breaking routes, knowing the safety is over the top if the WR tries to win vertically.

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This was the only instance in this game where I saw Ward in straight zone coverage. Perhaps a sneak peak into how he does reading a QB's eyes and anticipating plays as he watches a play unfold - what a safety does.

Sail versus cover3. Ward will be the strong side curl/flat defender and target of this play design as it tries to vertically stretch Ward.


The QB pump fakes to the WR (yellow) to try and get Ward to bite up towards the line of scrimmage. #11 is Fitz.


Ward does react by creeping up towards the WR in the flat.


Cover3. Blue defenders are deep zones, orange are underneath zones. The yellow WR is there to bait Ward forward so that Fitz can attack the area behind Ward. Ward is watching the QB's eyes and quickly gains depth as he keeps his shoulders square to the play in order to see everything develop.


Ward breaks up the pass.


Good play recognition.

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4Quarter: Ward versus Fitz. 2nd & 30.
cover1 robber


.Ward opens his hips to play with outside leverage.


49er CBs all play their WRs in the same manner. Outside leverage to funnel the WRs towards the two safeties in the middle of the field - Reid intermediate and Bethea deep. Shown below, Ward has his hips opened to face the WR, but his actual positioning in relation to Fitz, is not good. He's actually directly over the top with no outside leverage at all.


Fitz breaks to the outside. Ward gets turned around and cannot offer any resistance.


Completed as Ward got lax on his positioning. Had he played it like the play in post #196 and had actual outside positioning, Fitz would have ran right into Ward.

In this @ARI game, Ward also looked as though he got burned on this TD catch, but it was Reid that blew the coverage.

http://www.49erswebzone.com/forum/niners/179704-cards-week-coaches-film-analysis/page5/#post64

Thl408, I noticed that in your clips above that Reid was the lurking safety or intermediate safety and Bethea was the deep single high safety. Is this a coincidence from a small sample size or does this happen a lot? Given that Reid is the FS and runs a high 4.4 you would think he's the single high safety, not Bethea.

Originally posted by Adusoron:
Thl408, I noticed that in your clips above that Reid was the lurking safety or intermediate safety and Bethea was the deep single high safety. Is this a coincidence from a small sample size or does this happen a lot? Given that Reid is the FS and runs a high 4.4 you would think he's the single high safety, not Bethea.

They interchanged quite often when talking about which of the two played as the single high safety in cover1, as well as who stayed in the deep middle when in a cover3 shell. If I had to put a number on it, I'd say 60% of the time it was Bethea playing as the deep safety - so it's really close and I wouldn't be surprised if I was wrong with that guess and it was actually flipped.

I agree that Reid is the more athletic of the two, and it seems to make more sense to have Reid play the single high, but Bethea can manage as the deep safety because I feel he does two things that make up for his lesser speed. He is very good at play recognition and pursuit angles. This results in running in straight lines and very little wasted steps. All the veteran savvy allows him to get away with being a bit on the slow side when talking about pure athleticism.

Originally posted by thl408:
Ward in tight press alignment vs Fitz. I''m not sure what coverage this is. Looks like cover2 man, but Reid doesn't act like a cover2 safety. If this is indeed cover2 man, then Ward isn't funneling Fitz to where his help is.



Ward jams Fitz at the line. Notice the hand that Ward uses here, his left arm. I think he's trying to funnel Fitz to the outside, but fails as Fitz wins the inside release.


I'm not sure what to make of this play, because I can't determine the coverage, except to say that Ward was asked to press, bump and run.

I kind of like this alignment...the press allows Ward to keep the WR on his hip WHILE keeping an eye on the QB and as a result, can make a play on the ball...or in this case, smash the crossing WR. I think this is an effective way to use him. I like that Reid is free to roam here on the shorter underneath routes too. BTW is that Brooks lining up at the LOS on the DL (fake blitz) and then dropping back and making a PD?

Originally posted by thl408:
Ward versus MFloyd. Cover1



Ward seen taking outside leverage, trying to funnel Floyd towards Bethea.


Floyd eats up the cushion very quickly and stems outside, towards Ward's outside leg and gets Ward to backpeddle. As soon as Ward looks like hes about to flip his hips to the outside, Floyd cuts towards Ward's inside leg. Ward is seen crossing over his legs while back peddling.


The crossing over of the legs causes him to lose his balance when he tries to turn upfield. Ward quickly recovers to arrive just as the pass arrives, and knock it away.

I have to say, on most of these you've highlighted, he's doing a fine job of keeping his eyes in the backfield. The excellent route here trips him up but he STILL recovers quickly and still has the savy to knock him OOB for an incompletion. Well done.

Originally posted by thl408:
Ward versus ARoberts. cover2 man.



Unlike cover1 where the safety help is in the middle of the field, this is cover2 (Middle of Field Open) where the safety help is on each half side of the field. At the snap, Ward opens up and takes inside leverage to funnel the WR towards the sidelines. Notice Cox at the bottom doing the same thing.


By taking inside leverage, it keeps the WR away from the middle of the field where the seam is in cover2 (blue area between the safeties). From there, it's just staying on the WR's hip pocket. Trail position to prevent inside breaking routes, knowing the safety is over the top if the WR tries to win vertically.

This is not how I'd like to use him. IMHO, if you are going to put him up at press, he's GOT to at least get a jam and instantly take that WR out (as the QB looks there first). You see Cox contest the WR on the other side. The other reason I don't like using him this way is b/c he's not only in trail-mode to pass off to the S but his back is to the QB the entire time which plays against his skill set. If I was an experienced QB I'd throw instantly to this WR for either a quick completion or a pass interference before Bethea can get over there (check to the hot route when you see a clean release).