The San Francisco 49ers’ defense struggles with stopping the run. Although they managed to stop Detroit, the Red & Gold will have to perform better on Super Bowl Sunday.
The 2023 postseason has left the 49ers gashed on the ground. SF has given up 318 rushing yards to the opposition in just two games. Both teams—the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers—had strong run games with skilled ball carriers, to their credit.
However, the number does not lie: Kyle Shanahan is well aware that the 49ers need to do a better job of stopping the run.
“Yeah, we haven’t done very well, it’s been the common theme,” the 49ers coach said Monday about the team’s run struggles. “But people are going to get the edge when they block down on a defensive end. I thought there was a couple ones. I thought we did better with the crack tosses. There was a reverse yesterday on the fourth play of the game, one that we do a lot. The one that we call ‘dope’. That’s a really tough reverse to stop.”
Shanahan is alluding to Lions wide receiver Jameson Williams’ opening 42-yard scamper to the end zone.
Pull blockers are used in the “dope” play design to create a seam for the player in an endaround reverse for the wideout. In order to fool the defense, the quarterback (Jared Goff) will misdirect the ball to his left, and Williams will make full use of his speed as he sprints past 49ers.
Ben Johnson, the offensive coordinator for the Lions, made a good play call, but Shanahan was left scratching his head last Sunday over the team’s pursuit of the Red & Gold.
“They will pin the defensive end, which they got with [defensive end Nick] Bosa, by pulling a guard and blocking two people down. They will obstruct the next man. After that, a guy is kicked out. Then you need pursuit on the field, and I felt our pursuit on both of the long runs was as poor as it has been all year, so that play disappointed me.” The coach gave an explanation. “The next guy to turn it back gives us the advantage, not the defensive end where they were blocking him. He turned it back, and our pursuit vanished from sight. The most disheartening aspect of those two touchdown runs was that.”
Shanahan also mentions another play from the second quarter, when 49ers were exposed by running back Jahmyr Gibbs.
After the Packers disaster, Detroit attempted a play that they had been trying to correct for a week before executing a brilliant toss run to the right. Nevertheless, Gibbs was able to sprint past 49ers from the 15-yard line to the endzone for six points, demonstrating that preparation had paid off.
Shanahan was more concerned with the pursuit from the second level than he was with setting the edge.
Gibbs cut back and burst past 49ers defensive linemen after making safety Tashaun Gipson Sr. miss in the open field. The picture that paints the worst picture is of Chase Young, who appears to be jogging over to gang tackle and completely missing the play.
The 49ers coach defended his defensive linemen by viewing the situation from the side view of everyone rushing to the football in pursuit. Additionally, there is a synonym for the term “effort,” which was lacking in both TD runs.
“Yeah, it depends on which play because they’re all different,” Kyle Shanahan stated. “But like the reverse touchdown, it was a pulling guard with a fake away. So it looks like it’s a run away and the tackle comes down. So you should be crashing down. Then you get the reverse to the wideout going the other way. So they turn back right into the pin block. The ones that immediately happen, they want to go at it, but they’re still going to get pinned. The defensive ends, it’s not defensive ends. When you crack down on that you are getting outside. It’s our force player. That could be a cloud. It could be a strong safety in three deep. There’s different things you can do with that. That’s why there isn’t one clean answer.”
If the 49ers hope to defeat the Kansas City Chiefs, they will have to solve a few questions during the course of the next week and a half.
Taking the lead early in competitions has been San Francisco’s tried-and-true recipe for success. Positive things happen when the 49ers have possession time. But over the past two weeks, the game’s script has changed, with the team losing the possession battle in the first half. This is mostly because of the run game problems, as the Red & Gold have allowed drives of 8, 11, and even 17 plays against the Lions.
It must alter during Super Bowl LVIII. After Week 11, SF’s 22nd-ranked defense needs to get back to playing at its peak like they did in previous years. Otherwise, facing a Chiefs team that has averaged 127.33 yards per game this postseason could make for a difficult day.
“It depends on the scheme, depends on offensively and depends on the fronts and coverages you’re playing. But for the most part, whoever is setting the edge, which it usually isn’t the defensive end, our defensive ends are setting the edge when people aren’t blocking down. But it’s our clouds. It’s our safeties. It’s the pursuit of the backside because when someone does block down, that means someone’s picked. And when someone’s picked, everyone else can run over the top. We just have gotten crease too much and we better figure out a way to fix it,” Kyle Shanahan said.