2022 49ers offense vs Seahawks Defense, Attacking the Middle of the Field.

The Seahawks struggled at times in 2022. Part of it was they struggled stopping the run. The other is they play a very conservative style of defense, really not blitzing too often and playing cover 3 as their primary defense. To put things in perspective they only blitz 14% of the time, 31st out of 32nd in the league. Only the Jets blitzed less. Which without a very good pass rush caused some issues.

They also like to play cover 3, which Kyle knows and went play action often and early in their matchup. I had them for 11/12 throwing the ball early downs in the playoff game vs cover 3. Most of it was vertical passing game. When they got cover 2, they ran the football. That’s part of who Kyle is and his identity the last 6 years. (I’ve watched more film on him than anyone just because I love what he does. Chip Kelly a close 2nd.)

Here’s 2 runs vs cover 2.

Which leads to the fact that in the 2 games Brock Purdy started, they didn’t get 1 interception off him They had a few chances but he was way too comfortable, especially in the 2nd game where he there for 332 yards.

I went back and watched week 15 of the Seahawks vs the 49ers and wanted to see where the Seahawks went wrong in the wild card game. In fairness, when they played week 15 the Seahawks offense did very little but the defense played very well:

Week 15 Stats:
Purdy 17/26 for 202 yards and 2 TD's
Rushing 30 for 172 but 2 of those were big chunk runs
WR caught only 5 balls for 50 yards, Compare that to game 2 and you'll see that number go to 11 for 247 yards.

Wildcard Game
Purdy 18/30 for 332 yards and 3 TD's and could have thrown for 400 but missed 2 easy TD on a few reads. 
Every WR & Kittle  averaged 18 yards or more per reception. That is terrible. 13//284 yards. Most of the damage was done between the hashes. 
RB were 18/151 as they beat them in every aspect. 

But when I look back I guess the key to the week 15 game was Deebo Samuel didn’t play so it changed the game plan a little bit. But, the funny thing is with Deebo out, they became more 2 high and played a very good game, especially defending the middle of the field. You figure with him out you may sell out more against the run game and bring the safety down more.

A few observations of the 2 games.

Week 15

#1  the Seahawks played more 2 high concepts.
#2 ,They also used Diggs down more in the box week 15. In the wildcard game, he was always the deep safety and Ryan Neal #26 was always in the box. For some reason they decide to play it that way in the playoff game.
#3 Used 2 man lurk concepts and even dropped 8 at times.
The point is they didn't just primarily sit in a cover 3 look and get exploited over the middle. 

Mixing up coverages

2nd & 10

Kyle goes in motion and they lock the backside in cover 24. The safety now reads #3 to the strong side with the motion. The backside CB on the right is in man coverage .This helps with the dig routes as they have answers to it.

Nice design as the safety is there to play the crossing route.

You see the motion and the safety pointing, His eyes go now to the slot on the other side as they checked to lock on the backside.

Neal is reading the slot the whole way. The CB up top stays on #1

The safety is driving as Brock wants to throw it but sees the safety there and ends up getting sacked.

The film with it.

3rd & 8

Man Free Lurk,Man free lurk is a coverage that starts as a 2 high look with a safety dropping down to take away the middle of the field.

The safety drops down to take away the dig

Diggs is the deep safety driving on the comeback route. If its thrown inside it may be picked. Great read by him

Pass incomplete, good coverage.

3rd and 3

They almost get Purdy as they drop 8 and Diggs is flying and almost makes another great play. Watch the clip below as he starts as a 2 high safety drops to the middle of the field and the nickel lb drops to the deep 1/2

Below they get 2x2 and they play cover 2. It turns out to be a screen but they are in position of they get the dig/ post route. Dagger route.

220 inc c-3

255 complete 20 c-3

340 inc c-3

1740. complete 22. c-3

1902 inc c-3

2550. complete miss read c-3

3029 32 yard completion c-3

3129 inc c1 rat

3146. 14 yard completion c1 rat..more shallow

3748 25 cover 2

3850 25 1 rat

4937 c 1 rat

5620 cover 3 for 75

Wildcard Game

I noticed that Diggs played mostly a deep 1/3 safety and Neal was the drop down guy. Diggs wasn’t much of a factor like he was week 15. They also didn’t disguise too much in their coverages as I thought the pre snap and post snap picture was easy for Brock to pick up. You figure with a young qb you may want to create some cloudy pictures, and disguise coverages more like week 15.

Of the passes Brock completed for 20 yards are more 5/6 were vs zone coverage. 4/5 vs zone were vs cover 3. Their was 1 cover 2 and 1 man free rat coverage.

Coverage breakdown of passes attempted over 20 yards:

5/8 vs cover 3

0/1 vs cover 2

2/4 vs cover 1

So theoretically, they called many vertical passing concepts when they saw a single high safety.

In the wildcard playoff game, the 49ers attacked the middle of the field and took advantage of the cover 3 and cover 2 coverage they were getting. In this game, the Seahawks played a ton of cover 3 strong and weak with the safety really trying to get involved in the run fit. This was different from week 15, where I thought they played a very solid football game, playing more cover 3, lurk and 2 read and were less predictable.

The 49ers went max protection and ran many dig routes working to the middle of the field. The Seahawks tried to bring an extra defensive back into the box to play the run and they were aggressive with Purdy off play action throwing the ball between the hashes. It was a very solid game plan.

The 49ers really had a good coverage scheme and plan and you can see the routes below.

Here’s some of the clips and detailed explanation of how they accomplished this in their playoff win.

Here are most of the clips of that game and how they exploited the middle of the field.

I hope this video and analysis gives you an idea of what the coverage concepts were for the 49ers offense vs the Seahawks defense.