Super Bowl LIV: San Francisco 49ers v Kansas City Chiefs preview and predictions

The Xs and Os

49ers offense vs. Chiefs defense

NFC Championship - Green Bay Packers v San Francisco 49ers

I have said all year that I think Kyle Shanahan as the best offensive play-caller in the league today, because of his understanding of defensive principles and the resulting weaknesses. It may look like the 49ers just have a great blocking and a trio of talented running backs, so they can smash it down the defense’s throat, but a lot of their success has to do with the way their head coach draws up plays and uses tendencies against them – largely displayed by their league-leading 75 percent pre-snap motion.

When it comes to their run game, they might be zone-oriented in their base scheme, but they use all different skill players on secure the backside of those with sift blocks or motioning somebody in and cutting the edge defender off. They like to create extra gaps with fullback Kyle Juszczyk and keep defenses honest with some jet sweeps as well as a few RPOs with a guy like Deebo Samuel running the slant behind it to bind the respective linebacker.

San Francisco do use plenty of gap schemes, however, such as counter or toss plays. In the NFC Championship game the Packers used a lot of bear fronts with a lineman over everybody on the interior three, buy what the Niners did with switching responsibilities between fullbacks, tight-ends and tackles still allowed them to open up space, such as pinning the edge defender to the inside with the fullback and getting George Kittle out in front against a safety.

They also easily picked up two first downs on drive against Green Bay on end-around to Deebo Samuel, where they have plenty of space and big guys out in front against some of those DBs, who wanted none of that business.

What differentiates the Chiefs from the Packers however is the size and depth they have on the defensive line, which keeps those guys fresh and allows them control their gap as they are shading that way and gives them the energy to disengage and chase from behind. I already mentioned how the KC defense held Derrick Henry to under 70 yards after he was averaging 188 through the first two rounds of the playoffs.

They did so by really corralling him from all sides and not giving him a chance to really get going. Against the zone rushing attack they set a hard edge on the front-side and had Frank Clark for the most part crash from the opposite end, while the linebackers on the interior really shot through the gaps that started to open up to attack the lead-blockers before they could create an additional gap.

What I thought really changed that Titans game was two consecutive snaps when they were up 17-14, when Chris Jones made a couple of disruptive plays, where he wrapped up the 250-pound back for no gain, which marked a turning point, as the Chiefs offense went on a 92-yard drive to take the halftime lead, finished up with that incredible 27-yard scramble by Mahomes.

If Clark, or whoever is coming off the backside, crashes down as hard as they did versus Tennessee, Shanahan’s naked bootleg will be a huge factor in this matchup. Because even if you have those deeper routes across the field covered pretty well and that backside linebacker doesn’t get caught flowing with the run-fake too much, he does not have a decision to make.

The Niners mostly have somebody slipping into the flats to where they are rolling and while Jimmy G isn’t a world-class athlete, he has enough speed to just pick up some of that free yardage, if that check-down option is picked up. I also saw the Titans run one of those “Yankee” concepts in Kansas City, where they had a post-corner coming from one side and a deep crosser coming from the opposite one to make that defender in the deep middle of the field commit.

But that free safety was in perfect position to stay over the top of the post while Bashaud Breeland carried the crosser all the way and came up with the pick, which was later reversed. What Shanahan does differently is that he will have an additional throwback route towards the original side of the crossing receiver, where they have a TE or FB turning up the field on like a drag-and-wheel or whatever. I wouldn’t be shocked if they got a big play out of one of them.

With that being said, I think the Chiefs have show excellent discipline over the second half of the season, specifically in terms of not being drawn in by play-fakes or end-arounds too much or guys coming off their responsibility as they decide to run with somebody going across the field.

One of those plays stood in the AFC Championship game, where the Titans faked a split zone run out of 13 personnel and brought Jonnu Smith across the formation to secure the backside, while the other two tight-ends crossed and they were looking for Anthony Firkser as he turned his route upfield towards the original play-fake side. At the same time, if the Chiefs roll into a single-high look and open as much space between that guy and the linebackers, the Niners receivers will eat it up and YAC their opponents to death.

The question for me is – when you have single receivers in a reduced split and you are in some type of cover-three, do you tell those corners to trail their man and have the linebacker to that side to be alert for somebody coming into the flats to match them? In general, I don’t think you want to be chasing guys coming across the field or slipping into the flats against all these boots and waggles. That’s why I loved it when Tyrann Mathieu blew up Corey Davis in their last game, after he faked a sift block and slipped into flats.

The bottom line for any defense facing the 49ers is that you can not allow Shanahan to take advantage of your tendencies and rules facing certain formations or in certain areas of the field / down & distances.

We saw that two weeks ago against the Packers with how they exposed their gap responsibilities, but also in the passing game in multiple games, when they force the opposition into man-coverage routinely and mess with the leverage advantages they had created with mesh concepts or against split safeties on the two-receiver side, where they run a bang eight (post) on the inside and a square in with the flanker, which forces the underneath linebacker to make a decision to carry or sit.

Steve Spagnuolo does a really good job teaching his defense the weaknesses of the coverages they are and how they trigger when they see quarterbacks looking to attack those areas. The Chiefs defense truly want to force their opponents to beat them outside the numbers with having those safeties around the hashes in two-high looks and that is something the Niners really haven’t done much of all year long.

I’d also like to see them show blitz their inside backers and then have them drop back already looking for any in-breaking routes to force Garoppolo to pull the ball down, which allows the pass rush to get home. However, we have seen that San Fran don’t mind handing the ball off if you have the D-line too wide and present easy run looks, just like what happened on a Mostert touchdown on third-and-long against Packers.