Here’s what Doug Farrar and Greg Cosell said Friday on the Week 12 Shutdown Corner podcast about the 49ers offense with Colin Kaepernick.
FARRAR: Watching the 49ers offense against the Bears, it reminded me a little bit of what Washington does with their offense, although there are very different principles.
The 49ers switched pre-snap from a full house to split backs. I thought I was watching the 1975 Cowboys.
The 49ers are so multiple in their run game, and then Kaepernick comes in, and he understands that pistol offense. So much of why that works is because he’s the perfect quarterback for that offensive scheme.
COSELL: Well, here’s what struck me watching it: They dictated, by the use of personnel and formations, they dictated matchups.
I thought the 49ers did a phenomenal job knowing they would get man-to-man and feeling very good about those matchups. Kaepernick did not do a lot of reading – and that’s not a knock on Kaepernick. That’s good coaching. They set him up. They knew they’d get those matchups. Davis became the focus of the offense for the first time in a number of weeks. They knew they would get specific matchups based on personnel formations, shifts and motions. You’ve got to make the throws, so I’m not taking anything away from Kaepernick, because he clearly made a couple of throws that I’m not sure Alex Smith could make.
FARRAR: A lot of people are saying Colin Kaepernick played against eight in the box all game. His first long throw of the game was to Kyle Williams, and Williams was in the slot. It was one of those long, quick slot plays that the Giants love to use. The Bears were using nickel – it looked like 2-man.
COSELL: They started out in 2-man, and they tried to disguise and shift late and they went to man-free. It was not a difficult read, but they tried to disguise it and Kaepernick comfortably read it and delivered a beautiful touch throw to Williams on the deep corner route against Hayden, who was playing for Moore who was inactive.
FARRAR: The point was, that’s five defensive backs. They were set up to defend the pass.
COSELL: That was a big time throw, too, by the way.
FARRAR: Oh yeah. Right over the guy’s head, bang. In the basket.
COSELL: And the other great throw was the 32-yarder to Vernon Davis in the second quarter. That was a great example of the design I was talking about. They had 22 personnel on the field – two backs and two tight ends – they shifted to empty. They had Davis on the inside slot on the throw receiver’s side, and they got him matched on Lance Briggs. They knew that was going to happen with that 22 personnel and that shift to get Davis on the inside slot on the three-receiver side. And Davis of course beat Briggs, but it was a big time throw by Kaepernick.
FARRAR: When we talk about the Redskins and the Niners, we’re talking about offenses dictating to defenses, offenses forcing defenses to do things they don’t want to do or aren’t good at.
COSELL: Correct, and at the very least, talking about defenses being reactive as opposed to proactive.
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By saying that Kaep didnt do too much reading and that the offence was designed for him to get matchups is he saying that on other weeks AS is left to fend for himself without scheeme help from the coaching staff? I thought on the Crab TD CK did just that. He read that his first 2 options on the right were covered and then he bought enough time to scan the field and find a late breaking MC. As for the crazy shifts and formations they have done that with AS in at QB as well. Just not in recent weeks
He’s not saying anything CK didn’t say in the post-game presser.
Steve Young said the same thing. It was scripted.
They knew the Bears have a tendency to do certain things on defense and they took advantage of it.
This Saints game will be a nice challenge for CK because they may be able to script a few looks but there will be some blitz packages that may be disguised and that CK won’t be comfortable with. If he can audible out to some deeper drops to avoid the gap overloads and some of the end stunts then we’ve got some good stuff happening. But the Saints will show some of that stuff and not commit so again, a fun cat and mouse game.
It will be exciting to see.
I was glad to see the return of the whacky formations shifts. For some reason the 49ers had gone away from that in recent weeks and looked sort of vanilla on offense. At least, it felt that way to me.
Maybe the Smith injury jolted Harbaugh and Roman out of a bit of complacency? The gameplan against the Bears was brilliant.
I liked the throwback Cowboys stuff with the line shifts, made me think of the old, old rivalry when Landry was still around.
I have a buddy who is a huge Michigan fan. Every time he watches the 49ers he swears he sees Schembechler’s ghost. He’s almost convinced me that Bo’s spirit inhabits Harbaugh.
With Kap, Niners offense looks more explosive and less gimmicky.
The simple winning formula in football to me is:
You win games with explosive plays on offense and your defense creates more turnovers than the opposition.
Kaep looks to me Eli, with his pin point accuracy.
Eli? Why would you give that kiss of death to CK? Now he’ll go out and toss 12 interceptions.
Right now isn’t probably the best time to compare him to Eli
If the niners can put faith in Alex, They can do the same thing for Colin, He show how good he can be, Alex is like a set of waves, So much up’s and down, This maybe his best year, But plane and simply that just not enough, Colin time is now, 8 years has come and gone. Time for a change.
Nice to hear some guys that actually know something mention that The Kaeptain wasn’t just facing 8 in the box. He made excellent reads, perhaps easy, perhaps not. Regardless, he made some thows that AS could not make. That fact will never change.
Grant, you left out the best part of that podcast.
Farrar: “Why was Aldon Smith looking at the sideline?”
Cosell: “Maybe he saw John Candy.”