It shouldn’t be an achievement to do what you’re supposed to do. But for the 49ers, a team which has all too often been the architect of its own failure, that is an achievement.
In a 31-13 win, they beat up on an Atlanta Falcons team which has no business sniffing the playoffs. But somehow, if Atlanta had won on Sunday, despite having the fifth-worst point differential in the league, they would have leapfrogged the 49ers in the Wild Card picture.
San Francisco made sure that didn’t happen, and while there were some notable points for correction — especially on special teams, a unit which provided its third abysmal game in the last four — it was a convincing win. Kyle Shanahan was so obsessed with securing the win that he had Deebo Samuel running the ball up the middle inside two minutes with zero Falcons timeouts remaining.
Shanahan said he didn’t consider taking the starters out, recalling the last time the Falcons visited:
“All I was thinking about is the last time we were up by 14 versus these guys in the fourth quarter, we lost.”
You can pick out any handful of plays and say they define the 49ers. There were plenty of Kittle run-after-catches (six receptions for 93 yards), Jeff Wilson Jr. (21 carries for 110 yards) cutbacks and driving runs at defenders and key blocks from receivers. The defensive line got home, yet again, with the regularity that was yearned for from the start of this season.
All of those plays are part of the 49ers’ reaffirmation of their identity as an aggressive, physical team. A few plays, in particular, typify this.
In the third quarter, Deebo Samuel took a slant for 21 yards and knocked out A.J. Terrell’s mouthpiece. One play later, Jeff Wilson Jr. punched home a 5-yard rush to extend the lead to 14 points.
Late in the fourth quarter, Jaquiski Tartt bulldozed Atlanta right out of the game. On a third-and-goal, he clocked Matt Ryan, who had scrambled successfully once before. Tartt ensured he wouldn’t do that again. On the very next play, Tartt knocked wide receiver Christian Blake into a 360-degree mid-air somersault, and ended whatever deluded thoughts the Falcons may have had of a fourth-quarter comeback.
Buoyed by a defense which was staunch and brutally physical around the goal line, and an offense which looked unstoppable at times thanks to committed blocking from every position on the field, this team secured a deserved win.
Invoking the 2019 season for comparison can sometimes seem forced, given how easily the 49ers ran through some of their competition. But as the lone successful season in Kyle Shanahan’s tenure, it is the only example this team has of sustained success.
At this point, some of the similarities are starting to become more clear cut.
Jauan Jennings is similar to Kendrick Bourne in a variety of ways. He’s taken on the heavy blocking work, and suddenly become the reliable big slot target Garoppolo feels more comfortable turning to on key downs. Offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel noted the similarities this week, saying they both bring a similar energy to the game.
Despite a couple of drops, Jennings had a touchdown this week (three receptions for 28 yards) and a massive reception against the Bengals last week to continue the 49ers’ game-winning drive. His blocking unleashed Kittle’s toe-tap sideline touchdown, too, and those key blocks are becoming the norm.
Kittle said the effectiveness of the 49ers’ receivers as blockers reminds him of 2019, and is the key to unlocking the offense. It puts an undue burden especially on the secondary to quickly react and shed difficult blocks.
Via Kittle:
I think I was up here like week three or four talking about [how] the best that we were, 2019, we were at our best when our wide receivers blocked downfield. And I talked about [how] Emmanuel Sanders brought that and he blocked on every single play, he put his head in there.
The last five, six weeks I think our wide receivers blocked their tails off every single snap and you can see it when you watch the film. You’ll see Aiyuk and Jauan sprinting in, digging out safeties, corners, linebackers, they don’t really care who it is, but they’re in there giving full effort.
And it’s hard for a safety to [think], “Hey, is this a play action, is this a run?’ And all of a sudden, Jauan Jennings smokes them inside. That’s a lot to think about as a safety or as a defensive player. And when they have to think about that, they’re not just thinking about the ball or what play is going on, it definitely makes it a lot harder on them.
So when our wide receivers are blocking like that, it kind of opens everything else up.
That’s a major key to the Shanahan offense. Even back in 2004, a Mike Shanahan Broncos install emphasized “accountability” and the first instruction to receivers says the following:
“Be physical and relentless in the run game blocking scheme. We will be committed to the run game or you won’t be on the field!”
That requirement of receivers to block starts with Shanahan, but those outside blocks don’t exist without excellent offensive line play. The tandem of Trent Williams and Laken Tomlinson can well be argued as the best left side in the league, and while Alex Mack, Daniel Brunskill and Tom Compton have flaws, especially in pass sets, they have been consistent in the run game.
The pass rush isn’t where it was in 2019, but it’s getting home regularly, and plugging gaps especially on key run downs.
Jimmy Garoppolo, of course, is still Jimmy Garoppolo. He looks mostly good, and sometimes great — usually in games with limited passing attempts — except for the couple of mind-boggling, turnover-worthy plays per game. He’s been great in clutch, two-minute situations this season, as he was in 2019.
But there are also evident distinctions. The corner situation is far more dire than it ever was in 2019, though there’s some debate about Ambry Thomas, who seems to stay in phase and tight to receivers, but struggles at the catch point. And the use of Deebo Samuel as a bona fide running back was not present in 2019.
When you have a group of offensive minds who can figure out what a defense is expecting and create counters to those expectations, it’s a deadly combination. Offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel talked this week about a minor detail of the 49ers’ offense; they’ll sometimes toss the ball straight back to the running back on inside carries.
Typically, a toss to a running back will be for an outside zone or power run. McDaniel spoke, indirectly, to a defense’s expectation that a toss will be for a run outside the numbers.
“You do that when you feel like there’s something that the defense is keyed on,” McDnaiel said. “And when the quarterback reverses out and tosses the ball that you might get overplay… that can be the difference in three yards or 15 yards.”
It’s that obsession with minutiae in tandem with a battalion of highly skilled and physical position players that creates impossible propositions for defenders. Falcons linebacker Foyesade Oluokun spoke to that quandary after the game.
“They may have posed different challenges,” Oluokun said. “Getting you to give one look they’ve shown for weeks and then play something off of it.”
Throughout all of this, Garoppolo was very effective. He had his once-a-game near-interception to a linebacker which he got away with, but otherwise finished 18-of-23 with 235 yards and a touchdown.
Shanahan said that Garoppolo has been fairly steady this season. The real difference he pointed to was the emergence of Jennings and Charlie Woerner, the resurgence of Brandon Aiyuk, and Deebo Samuel, George Kittle and Jeff Wilson Jr. all being healthy. Kyle Juszczyk’s in there too somewhere.
“Jimmy hasn’t been much different to me all year,” Shanahan said. “I think we’ve gotten better around him throughout the year. I think we’ve gotten more continuity on the offense. I think we’ve, with the skill positions and tight ends, they’ve gotten healthier and been out there more consistently than they were at the beginning of the year.”
He also highlighted what he feels is a stronger commitment to the running game, which was evidenced in that three-game win streak against the Rams through the Vikings in which they averaged 41.7 carries per game.
As Chargers head coach Brandon Staley said earlier this season, the effect of the run game is to burden opponents with your physicality.
“What you need the running game for is the physicality of the game,” Staley said. “There’s a physicality to the game that’s real. If you’re just a passing team, there’s a physical element to the game that the defense doesn’t have to respect. And that’s the truth.”
The 49ers have found that physicality on both sides of the ball.
Hell, they ran a fullback dive for a touchdown. Their wide receiver is one of the league’s best backs, and now leads the team with seven rushing touchdowns. Samuel, Kittle, Jennings and whatever running back they use seem to shed tackles on every possible opportunity.
The left side of the offensive line of Trent Williams and Laken Tomlinson is ruthless, and the other side is functional, and above average in the run game.
With a defensive line that’s now pressuring quarterbacks consistently (pressured Matt Ryan on 16 of 39 dropbacks – 41 percent), a linebacker group of Fred Warner and Azeez Al-Shaair that plays with relentless speed, and a hard-tackling safety duo of Tartt and Jimmie Ward — who stood up the 6-foot-2, 227-pound Cordarrelle Patterson on fourth down — this is a team which has found its identity.
That identity is wearing out teams mentally and physically, and it has the 49ers pounding on the door of the playoffs, and probably more.