Week 3 Seattle Seahawks coaches film analysis

Originally posted by qnnhan7:

Originally posted by jonnydel:
Here was on of the missed reads I saw from Gabs. He didn't have a ton, but this one was bad. Almost an INT.


here, we're going to run a shallow cross concept against Seattle's cover 3 zone.


We've run this play a lot over the past 3 weeks and Seattle is ready for it. Gab wants to go to the shallow crosser but Seattle's jumping on it with 3 defenders.


You see the 3 seattle defenders jumping on the crosser and Sherman is all over T. Smith. Chancellor is also sitting on the RB swing route.


With so much attention given to the crosser, Bell is open over the middle. But, Gabs moved on to T. Smith.


Sherman should've been called for some sort of illegal contact IMO, but he isn't and nearly intercepts the ball. Missed the wide open TE though. He doesn't do this a lot, but that one could've gotten the offense moving to score some more points before the half. He's gotta make that play and his that read.

When I saw the replay of this play on Sherman and Smith. It did looked like Smith initially had a step and body position on the cut inside to box out Sherman for the catch. I don't think Gabbert would have stayed with it had he thought that Smith wouldn't have the chance. Gabbert sure did missed a wide open TE for staying with Smith doe

I remember John Lynch said Sherman effectively ran the route for Smith...lol no he didn't ...he held him

Smith has many attributes but strength to fight off a defender to make that catch is just not in his toolbox.

Now if that throw had gone to Boldin... nvm.

Originally posted by dj43:

Originally posted by jonnydel:

Originally posted by SunDevilNiner79:

Originally posted by dj43:
IIRC, Smith is at the top of the screen and comes open just as Gabbert releases the ball to the right flat. So yes, it could have been to open him up, unfortunately, Brown whiffs and Gabbert is under pressure to get rid of the ball so he goes wide instead of holding it to see if Smith comes free.

If Smith doesn't come free Gabbert is either sacked or throws it away. There is no chance of a 1st because of the way Seattle plays their zone coverage on those swing plays.

ah thanks, thats what I thought after looking at the freeze frame more

he threw it over the middle to Kerley and Wagner mauled him(got there early IMO) and the pass was incomplete.

Agree.

Yes, you are correct on the play.

I'm going to be a bit more harsh on this play and expect the QB to understand exactly where to go with the ball based on the post snap actions of the two Hook defenders. This is the play we are talking about in this string of quotes.

Hank concept versus Cover3. We've seen this before. The progression is inside-out. Based on what the Hook defenders (blue/pink) do will determine which sideline Gabbert needs to take his progression. Hank is basically mirrored Curl-Flat concepts with a Snag (Curl) route over the middle.


As Gabbert is dropping back, this is what he sees. I know there's a rusher coming, but Gabbert still needs to keep his eyes on the coverage. It's 3 step timing. Gabbert has to see which Hook defender is covering the Snag over the middle. If it's pink, Gabbert should take his progression to his left. If it's blue, Gabbert should take his progression to the right. It is blue that moves over to cover Kerley's Snag. So the next route in the progression is Torrey.


Torrey and Hyde are now working the Curl-Flat concept. This route concept puts a stretch on the Curl/Flat defender (green), hence the name. If green plays the passing lane to Torrey, target Hyde. If green buzzes to the flat to cover Hyde, then target Torrey. At the same time that Gabbert is winding up to throw to Kerley, he should instead be targeting Torrey who is about to hit the quiet spot.


The moment between the snap and the time Gabbert sees the blue Hook defender move, I think, is enough to move to and target Torrey.

Originally posted by jonnydel:
Well....that sucked.....

Let me start out by saying this: I'm glad I've had a few days to calm down a little bit - I HATE Seattle....really..... There's no other team that I'll go and watch replays of games they lose just to watch them lose....

I used to live in Seattle and have gone to a number of games at the clink(Qwest field before that) and hated being surrounded by those fans every time. I was at the game when we last won in Seattle as was flipped off while I was getting in my car by some lady driving a Buick in her 60's.....seriously, lol.

After I watched the game on Sunday I was ready to call for the head of everyone on the team, from Jed-Baalke-Chip-Modkins-JoN-Gabbert-every receiver we have-everyone on defense but Bow....

After watching the game film and having a couple days to calm down there are always positives and negatives from games. So, we'll talk about each.

I'm going to flip the script a little from the previous two weeks and talk about QB first.

Where I'm at, especially after watching the film is in a pretty similar place to Marvin49. I don't think Gabbert did anything in that game to lose the game for us but he didn't do anything to win it.. The INT he had wasn't his fault, the ball was right where the receiver would want it, Patton simply blew it. I really hated a number of the play calls. I think Modkins hit it right on the head in his presser when he said they have to give their guys a better plan and a better situation. There were a number of designed play calls that were just bad ideas. I don't care who would've been our QB in this game, I don't think we win. We could've had Steve Young under center and I don't think we win this game. Our receivers were blanketed on a number of plays and we had no run game until mid way through the 4th quarter.

I saw 2 missed reads in the game - which isn't terrible considering it was Seattle's defense. There were a number of would-be sacks that he helped get the ball out to avoid. But, overall, there's no magic, there's nothing spectacular and Seattle is a great defense that has caused Aaron Rodgers - who has much better receivers, or even Kaepernick with much better receivers, throw for very few yards. So, that has to be taken into account. Seattle's defense was ballin'. If you're gonna beat that defense in Seattle you either need something magical from your QB with zero mistakes, or pack some serious playmakers. We had neither.

The game-plan was one that seemed to want to attack Seattle horizontally in the passing game more than vertically. When we tried to attack vertically near the seams we were successful, but far too often we tried to attack horizontally towards the sidelines and failed.

Overall - We lost all 3 phases of the game. You can't win in the NFL when that happens. I expected our offense to struggle against that defense, especially considering that our offense isn't overly complex and Seattle with thrive against schemes like that. But I was more disappointed with the defense. People want to blame our defensive struggles on the offense, but when you give up 21 points that quickly, that's not the offenses fault. The Rams' offense wasn't highly successful against Seattle and their defense held them to 3 points. Wasn't it Chip Kelly who said after he was hired and people questioned him about his offense exposing his defense he said, "when you're defense gives up a 3rd and 17 that's not because of your offense". Well, we gave up a 3rd and 17....seriously....we did. We gave up many 3rd and longs - you cannot do that and win. You just can't.

we gave up the following:
3rd and10
3rd and 15
3rd and 14
3rd and 17
3rd and 21

When you give up 5 downs of 3rd and 10+...that's just bad folks.

We also lost on special teams. We missed a FG, gave up a 62 yard punt return and had another punt tipped that resulted in a 26 yard punt. You can't do those things against great teams and expect to win.

Defense - I thought we had a number of players who stood out - and not for good reasons. We also got out-schemed a couple times that cost us big. Our defense should be much better than it was. We have 4 first round picks on that side of the ball. There's no excuse. I don't care if we're young - these are first round picks...

LB - we desperately need another playmaker or at least solid LB next to Bow. I feel bad for the guy because his job is 10x harder than it has been in the past. The Seahawks ran at Hodges multiple times and were able to exploit him as well as exploit him in the passing game. Hodges had one of the worst games I've seen from a LB. It was bad. He gave up chunk runs, chunk passes and was at fault numerous times. We also desperately need some more help at OLB. Harold and Carradine are not the answer.

DL - Armstead played very few snaps in this game and I know I'm going to get flak and people calling me impatient - but the dude is in his 19th game as a pro and was a mid-first round pick. While I don't expect him to be J.J. Watt, he should be playing more than situation-ally at this point. Yes, he can push the pocket but he still disappears in the run game. We got equal production from Quinton Dial who was a 6th rounder. Armstead needs to step it up and step it up quick. Buckner also played sub-par IMO. He didn't do a whole lot to excel - again, he's an early first round pick. Mike Purcell also was the culprit on a few plays.

Bear in mind, Seattle's offensive line is supposed to be one of the worst in the league. With the high round talent we have, we should've mauled them. Instead, we made them look all-pro.

DB - 3/5 of our secondary were either 1st or 2nd round picks and we let Seattle throw on us quite a few times. We should be better, plain and simple.

It wasn't a pretty game for anyone involved and the film is going to show that. To win more games we have to coach better, play better, execute better, throw better, catch better, defend better. We can't put that kind of crappy performance out on the field and expect to win. Not in this division, not in this league. We knew the early part of the season was going to be tough and we were facing a murderers row of front 7's in the league. But, these are also the gold-standard teams that we have to measure ourselves against to see where we're at. Unfortunately, we're measured as severely lacking in talent in comparison to these teams.

Excellent breakdown sir.. When you play a defense that is faster then most of your offensive pieces you have to stretch the field, IMO. I didn't see that at all as you alluded above to the horizontal game plan. How can you beat a fast defense when you are allowing them to cover even less ground? I'd rather watch 6 picks downfield than lose they way we did Sunday. If your putt is short you will 100% of the time not make the putt and that is essentially how the offense played Sunday. Defensively I agree with you totally once again. The two Oregon first rounders are fails at this point. How we didn't dominate physically Seattle's makeshift line and allow a backup RB to gouge us was a flabbergaster. Very little fight in our dogs last weekend...

Originally posted by Phoenix49ers:
On offense its hard to fault the gameplan considering the talent on the roster, particularly at QB. I think you can complain about some individual playcalls but you don't beat Seattle by attacking them down the field, you attack them horizontally, the way the Patriots did in the SB.

"They'd allowed the fewest big plays of any team all season, and you saw pretty early why you don't want to go into the Super Bowl throwing up a bunch of posts, a bunch of 'nine' routes. ['Go' routes.] Richard Sherman picks off the go route every time you throw it."

"The plan was to exploit other parts of the field—but short parts of the field. Michael Bennett rushes from everywhere. Cliff Avril kills people. They believe in what they do. We countered that by saying, 'Okay, here's what we're pretty good at: Space the field, find the soft spots, be satisfied with the four-yard gain, be happy with the four-yard gain. We were gonna be happy with a two-yard gain."-Tom Brady

http://www.givemesport.com/544999-tom-brady-reveals-how-new-england-patriots-beat-seattle-seahawks

The key is that you have to be able to execute at a high level, you're dinking and dunking down the field and depending on YAC. That means there is more pressure on everyone to do everything quickly and with precision. The precision part was definitely lacking. Missed blocks, circled off routes, bad ball placement by the QB, it was just all over the place and everyone gets a share of the blame. There are definitely things that the coaching staff could have done better but at some point, you're going to be limited by who you are putting on the field. If the guys you have out there aren't executing, aren't playing with precision, it can wreck a gameplan in a hurry.

Against better defenses this team is going to struggle mightily. Outside of Torrey they don't have anyone who is an exceptional threat and you have a quarterback that is gun-shy and even when he is completing passes, the ball placement isn't very good. It will be up and down all season and if Gabbert can't get it together against a flimsy Cowboys defense, he needs to go ride the bench ASAP.

Thanks for posting this. I don't think attacking underneath is a bad gameplan at all. Remember the Thanksgiving day game when the 49ers kept trying to attack deep? That's the wrong area to attack SEA with EThomas lurking, Sherman excelling at defending the deep throw, shutting down Torrey, and losing Vance midway through the game. Gabbert's stats on throws of 10+ yards are weak. Don't play into the hands of SEA by attacking them where they are very strong with something the QB can't do. Establish the short passing game first, then take deep shots later.

This is all whiteboard football, but Cover3's weakness is the four underneath zone defenders assigned to cover six zones. SEA knows this, went out and drafted some of the quickest LBs in the league. So while SEA has fast LBs to cover up for the scheme deficiency, the 49ers were simply outmatched that even though the concepts work on the whiteboard, they couldn't be executed on the field.

I agree with you Thl..the hank and curl-flat Did their job and Got the reaction from the defense it wanted. This throw has to be made.

Originally posted by thl408:

On SEA's second drive of the game, they overcame 2 offensive holding calls and a false start to score a TD. This is the 3rd & 14 conversion.

I think the 49ers are in Cover6. Reid is the Cover2 safety. The player to watch is Bow.




Bow gives a shove to re-route Graham.


Then Bow takes a zone drop as he allows Graham to go by without carrying him up the seam.


Huge hole in the middle of the field with Reid taking his Cover2 depth. Ward has turned to run with his WR in man coverage.


Graham cannot be allowed to run free like that. Bow has to either carry him up the seam or Reid can't be in Cover2 so that he can provide over the top help once Bow re-routes Graham. jonnydel cut up a play in the CAR game that showed how much depth Reid was playing with. I have a feeling he is being coached to do this. When it's a hole this huge, it's hard to tell what is supposed to happen.

Why in gods name is Reid playing such a deep zone. Its 3rd and 14!! Play the sticks!!

Originally posted by thl408:

Originally posted by Phoenix49ers:

On offense its hard to fault the gameplan considering the talent on the roster, particularly at QB. I think you can complain about some individual playcalls but you don't beat Seattle by attacking them down the field, you attack them horizontally, the way the Patriots did in the SB.

"They'd allowed the fewest big plays of any team all season, and you saw pretty early why you don't want to go into the Super Bowl throwing up a bunch of posts, a bunch of 'nine' routes. ['Go' routes.] Richard Sherman picks off the go route every time you throw it."

"The plan was to exploit other parts of the field—but short parts of the field. Michael Bennett rushes from everywhere. Cliff Avril kills people. They believe in what they do. We countered that by saying, 'Okay, here's what we're pretty good at: Space the field, find the soft spots, be satisfied with the four-yard gain, be happy with the four-yard gain. We were gonna be happy with a two-yard gain."-Tom Brady

http://www.givemesport.com/544999-tom-brady-reveals-how-new-england-patriots-beat-seattle-seahawks

The key is that you have to be able to execute at a high level, you're dinking and dunking down the field and depending on YAC. That means there is more pressure on everyone to do everything quickly and with precision. The precision part was definitely lacking. Missed blocks, circled off routes, bad ball placement by the QB, it was just all over the place and everyone gets a share of the blame. There are definitely things that the coaching staff could have done better but at some point, you're going to be limited by who you are putting on the field. If the guys you have out there aren't executing, aren't playing with precision, it can wreck a gameplan in a hurry.

Against better defenses this team is going to struggle mightily. Outside of Torrey they don't have anyone who is an exceptional threat and you have a quarterback that is gun-shy and even when he is completing passes, the ball placement isn't very good. It will be up and down all season and if Gabbert can't get it together against a flimsy Cowboys defense, he needs to go ride the bench ASAP.

Thanks for posting this. I don't think attacking underneath is a bad gameplan at all. Remember the Thanksgiving day game when the 49ers kept trying to attack deep? That's the wrong area to attack SEA with EThomas lurking, Sherman excelling at defending the deep throw, shutting down Torrey, and losing Vance midway through the game. Gabbert's stats on throws of 10+ yards are weak. Don't play into the hands of SEA by attacking them where they are very strong with something the QB can't do. Establish the short passing game first, then take deep shots later.

This is all whiteboard football, but Cover3's weakness is the four underneath zone defenders assigned to cover six zones. SEA knows this, went out and drafted some of the quickest LBs in the league. So while SEA has fast LBs to cover up for the scheme deficiency, the 49ers were simply outmatched that even though the concepts work on the whiteboard, they couldn't be executed on the field.

Well, I agree that on the whiteboard a lot of our stuff should've worked. But the problem I had was that we didn't have the right pieces in the right place to take advantage. Twice we tried to run a rub play to block chancellor from getting to his flat coverage and throw a quick out to the TE. On the whiteboard it looks great, but in execution, chancellor read it all the way aND we got a 3 yard gain the first time and a 1 yard gain with an injured Celek on 3rd down the 2nd time. We tried running a curl/flat which is great against cover 3 zone, but we first ran PA and it actually helped seatthe recover and shut the play down faster. There was the hank concept you showed aND the shallow cross I showed, but other than that I wasn't seeing open lanes or space for our guys in the horizontal game. Seattle was ready for a lot of the stuff we did. We also ran that sweep I showed 3 times and it was stuffed for -3 one of those times. The only times we were able to have any semblance of movement from our passing game was when we vertically stretched their defense.

I'm not saying we should've taken shots deep at Sherman or thomas, that's a fools errand. I'm thinking more of some of the speedo concepts with deep crosses off PA and flood concepts. ARI lit up Seattle last year with floods. While the Seattle defense can be exposed for the 4 underneath defenders, you have to guys who can gain yards after catch from those plays, we couldn't do it.

Again, though our defense deserves just as much blame in this. You can't expect your offense to keep pace against that defense. They have to keep you in the game. It's how LA beat Seattle and how Miami had a shot. The defense kept the offemse in the game. Ours gave up 3 TD's in 1 1/2 quarters.

Originally posted by Niners816:


I agree with you Thl..the hank and curl-flat Did their job and Got the reaction from the defense it wanted. This throw has to be made.

Yep the play was there. Not a scheme issue

Originally posted by Afrikan:

I don't think Gabbert did anything in that game to lose the game for us but he didn't do anything to win it.. The INT he had wasn't his fault, the ball was right where the receiver would want it, Patton simply blew it. I really hated a number of the play calls. I think Modkins hit it right on the head in his presser when he said they have to give their guys a better plan and a better situation. There were a number of designed play calls that were just bad ideas. I don't care who would've been our QB in this game, I don't think we win. We could've had Steve Young under center and I don't think we win this game.

didn't do anything to lose the game? How about converting 1st downs? Helping our defense to rest, TO FEEL MOTIVATED TO STAY IN THE GAME. How about waiting for something else to be open than hitting the first short pass he feels comfortable with


of course you don't care who could've been the QB this game. The point is, we don't know what could've happened. BUT what we do know, is Gabbert continues to play as the worse Starting QB in the League.

I got to get back to work.. I'll edit it this later....

You surround him with s**t to work with and you expect anything better than what we got? The D lost this game within minutes, after that it's nearly impossible to throw on this team when they know that's the only thing you can do to get back in the game.

Originally posted by thl408:

The moment between the snap and the time Gabbert sees the blue Hook defender move, I think, is enough to move to and target Torrey.

Weird, jonnydel said on page 2 that he didn't know where Gabbert should go here and implied that the play design was at fault.

I think you're wrong here. Gabbert doesn't make wrong reads very often.

Did you hear what Modkins had to say in the presser?

.

Originally posted by awp8912:
Weird, jonnydel said on page 2 that he didn't know where Gabbert should go here and implied that the play design was at fault.

I think you're wrong here. Gabbert doesn't make wrong reads very often.

Did you hear what Modkins had to say in the presser?

Then I don't agree with jonnydel on this. What did Modkins say? The thing about not giving the players a good game plan? I'll leave that up to you to decide.

For this play here? I know exactly what is supposed to happen and Gabbert blew the read. I broke down what he's supposed to look for. I won't go into the "doesn't make wrong reads very often" part, but on this play he got it wrong. How else does he target a Kerley with a LB draped all over him and not progress to the next read?

Our DL made a 5th rouind guard out of North Dakota State look like a stud. There is NO NO reason why Armstead and Buckner should not be in for more plays. AND no reason why they should not be able to dominate at the LOS.

The Defense played a prevent defense the whole game, it was bizarre.

This is the same type of concept versus a similar coverage, let's go back to the Rams game. I had this play cut up and will just copy paste.

Hank on 7 step timing versus Tampa2. Read is the same: Snag is first, watch to see which Hook defender covers the Snag. Progress in that direction.


Orange is the Hook defender moving over to cover the Snag. Progress to Patton.




Correct read. Which means...the play above in the SEA game was the wrong read.

Originally posted by thl408:

Originally posted by awp8912:

Weird, jonnydel said on page 2 that he didn't know where Gabbert should go here and implied that the play design was at fault.

I think you're wrong here. Gabbert doesn't make wrong reads very often.

Did you hear what Modkins had to say in the presser?

Then I don't agree with jonnydel on this. What did Modkins say? The thing about not giving the players a good game plan? I'll leave that up to you to decide.

For this play here? I know exactly what is supposed to happen and Gabbert blew the read. I broke down what he's supposed to look for. I won't go into the "doesn't make wrong reads very often" part, but on this play he got it wrong. How else does he target a Kerley with a LB draped all over him and not progress to the next read?

It's a Trap Thl.....this dude has made a point of calling out Johnny and painting him as some Gabbert-homer. This is just nonsense from the QB thread trying to come in the film thread.