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Not sure if you guys read this article below from ESPN today but thought it was interesting how they are looking at Metrics and saying because of these trends we will struggle to make it past GB. What I found more interesting was what they said about Vernon Davis and blocking. They said he is the worst blocking TE. I always thought of him as being one of the better blockers on the team. Just curious as to all your thoughts on this article and what they said. Its an insider article so I put the link here in case you have that as well as pasted it below.
Last season the San Francisco 49ers very nearly took the tried-and-true formula of a tough defense, powerful rushing attack and highly efficient pass offense all the way to a berth in the Super Bowl.
This year, the 49ers still have those same characteristics and have now augmented them with quarterback Colin Kaepernick, whose superb dual-threat talents helped vault San Francisco from 26th in offensive yards per game in 2011 to 11th this season.
With that level of improvement, it would seem like San Francisco should be a hands-down favorite to win the NFC Championship Game and have a strong chance at claiming the Lombardi Trophy.
As compelling a case as this seems to be at first glance, the truth of the matter is the 49ers will need a lot of sudden improvement on offense to even make it out of the NFC divisional round, as the game tape and metrics indicate San Francisco has more than enough trouble spots on that side of the ball to preclude a Super Bowl run this year.
To illustrate this decline, let's start by noting the Niners are the lowest scoring team in the entire NFL playoff tournament.
To be fair, they are only one point behind the Baltimore Ravens and within 22 points of three other playoff clubs, but they are also trending worse than just about every other playoff team.
For proof, consider that in the last five games of the regular season San Francisco scored 121 total points and scored 13 points in two contests.
Denver, New England, Atlanta, Green Bay and Seattle all scored more points in those five games and the Falcons were the only club to have scored fewer than 20 points in a game (and they did that only one time).
Houston and Baltimore were the only playoff teams to score fewer total points in that time frame and yet these teams posted fewer than 13 points only a single time between them.
One of the main reasons San Francisco's offense has faltered is a lack of strong downfield targets in the passing game.
The 49ers do have Michael Crabtree, and his 15.9 vertical YPA on passes from Kaepernick this year indicates he is holding up his end of the long-ball bargain. (Note: vertical passes are aerials thrown 11 or more yards downfield.)
Having noted that, take a look at the YPA totals posted by Randy Moss and Vernon Davis on passes thrown by Kaepernick:
Vernon Davis w/ Kaepernick
Route Depth Comp Att Yds TD Int Pen Pen Yds YPA
Short (1-10 yards) 10 12 59 1 0 0 0 4.9
Medium (11-19 yards) 4 7 84 0 0 0 0 12.0
Deep (20-29 yards) 2 3 49 0 0 0 0 16.3
Bomb (30+ yards) 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Total 16 25 192 1 0 0 0 7.7
Vertical (11+ yards) 6 13 133 0 0 0 0 10.2
Stretch Vertical (20+ yards) 2 6 49 0 0 0 0 8.2
Randy Moss w/ Kaepernick
Route Depth Comp Att Yds TD Int Pen Pen Yds YPA
Short (1-10 yards) 5 10 47 0 0 1 -10 3.4
Medium (11-19 yards) 7 9 103 0 1 0 0 11.4
Deep (20-29 yards) 2 4 49 1 0 0 0 12.3
Bomb (30+ yards) 0 4 0 0 1 0 0 0.0
Total 14 27 199 1 2 1 -10 6.8
Vertical (11+ yards) 9 17 152 1 2 0 0 8.9
Stretch Vertical (20+ yards) 2 8 49 1 1 0 0 6.1
The first item that stands out is each player has a dismal short pass YPA. It really isn't worth it to an offense to throw a pass if the return on the risk is less than 5 YPA and that is the case with each of these players on those types of throws.
The second item is the very low stretch vertical YPA marks by Moss and Davis. A double-digit showing in this category is barely acceptable and neither of these two big-name targets has come close to that level.
The third item of note is how few passes these two have seen at the downfield depth levels. This type of thing is par for the course for Kaepernick, as he has averaged only 8.8 vertical passes in the games he has started this year.
To put that number into perspective, consider that it prorates out to roughly 141 vertical targets over a 16-game period. Since the league median for that metric is usually around 150, it means that Kaepernick is airing the ball out on long passes at a slightly lower-than-average pace. This goes against the idea that he could keep up in a shootout, which is something that could definitely take place given the high-powered state of most of the other offenses in the playoffs.
One factor that is likely impacting the lack of success on downfield throws is the 49ers' faltering run blocking.
[+] Enlarge
Michael Zagaris/San Francisco 49ers/Getty Images
The Niners' run blocking has dropped off late in the season.
This part of the offense fared well during the first half of the season, as San Francisco's run-blockers posted a 52.8 percent good blocking rate (GBR) during that time frame.
GBR measures how often a team gives its ball carriers good blocking (which is very roughly defined as when the offense does not allow the defense to do anything to disrupt a rush attempt). To put that 52.8 percent GBR into perspective, it is just more than 3 percentage points higher than the league-leading 49.6 percent GBR posted by Minnesota in 2011.
The issue for the 49ers is their run blocking hasn't been anywhere near as good over the past eight weeks, as the team's GBR during those contests fell to a 44.9 percent level. That number gets even worse if the measurement is limited to the Week 11-17 contests in which San Francisco managed to post a 43.1 percent GBR.
A big part of the problem here is Davis, as he is one of the worst run blocking tight ends in the league.
The number of mistakes he makes in this area are overwhelming but not limited to his being the master of the very ineffective push block, not finishing his blocks well and sometimes putting his head down when initiating a block. This last item is physically dangerous and has the side benefit of not allowing him to see how to react to where the defender is moving. Davis also looks like he does not want to initiate contact with defenders and that trait may explain a lot of the aforementioned technical issues.
Fullback Bruce Miller is much better than Davis in his willingness to get after a defender but he gets overpowered at the point of attack so often that he really can't be counted on to lead runners through the line of scrimmage. This is almost certainly why the 49ers have been rotating defensive and offensive linemen into the backfield at the fullback position but it really hasn't helped that much since those linemen have not displayed the requisite ability to read the line of scrimmage with a running back's eye. For them it is usually run upfield and hit the first defender who shows up and that often isn't the highest percentage move for the run play called.
Add in the fact guards Mike Iupati and Alex Boone and center Jonathan Goodwin have all seen significant declines in their run blocking over the past eight weeks and it indicates this isn't a matter of just picking up the pace in the backfield and edge blockers.
If all of that wasn't enough, the 49ers also have to deal with the fact their starting kicker, David Akers, had the second worst field goal percentage in the league this year. His struggles of late have been enough of a concern that San Francisco recently added Billy Cundiff to their roster, although Cundiff's five misses in 12 attempts were enough to get him released from the Washington Redskins squad in October.
Put all of these troubling trends together with a defense that gave up 89 points over the last three games of the regular season and it means that San Francisco's future plans are not likely to include a trip to New Orleans for Super Bowl XLVII.
HTML:
http://insider.espn.go.com/nfl/playoffs/2012/story/_/id/8831864/2012-nfl-playoffs-overrated-offense-short-circuit-san-francisco-49ersLast season the San Francisco 49ers very nearly took the tried-and-true formula of a tough defense, powerful rushing attack and highly efficient pass offense all the way to a berth in the Super Bowl.
This year, the 49ers still have those same characteristics and have now augmented them with quarterback Colin Kaepernick, whose superb dual-threat talents helped vault San Francisco from 26th in offensive yards per game in 2011 to 11th this season.
With that level of improvement, it would seem like San Francisco should be a hands-down favorite to win the NFC Championship Game and have a strong chance at claiming the Lombardi Trophy.
As compelling a case as this seems to be at first glance, the truth of the matter is the 49ers will need a lot of sudden improvement on offense to even make it out of the NFC divisional round, as the game tape and metrics indicate San Francisco has more than enough trouble spots on that side of the ball to preclude a Super Bowl run this year.
To illustrate this decline, let's start by noting the Niners are the lowest scoring team in the entire NFL playoff tournament.
To be fair, they are only one point behind the Baltimore Ravens and within 22 points of three other playoff clubs, but they are also trending worse than just about every other playoff team.
For proof, consider that in the last five games of the regular season San Francisco scored 121 total points and scored 13 points in two contests.
Denver, New England, Atlanta, Green Bay and Seattle all scored more points in those five games and the Falcons were the only club to have scored fewer than 20 points in a game (and they did that only one time).
Houston and Baltimore were the only playoff teams to score fewer total points in that time frame and yet these teams posted fewer than 13 points only a single time between them.
One of the main reasons San Francisco's offense has faltered is a lack of strong downfield targets in the passing game.
The 49ers do have Michael Crabtree, and his 15.9 vertical YPA on passes from Kaepernick this year indicates he is holding up his end of the long-ball bargain. (Note: vertical passes are aerials thrown 11 or more yards downfield.)
Having noted that, take a look at the YPA totals posted by Randy Moss and Vernon Davis on passes thrown by Kaepernick:
Vernon Davis w/ Kaepernick
Route Depth Comp Att Yds TD Int Pen Pen Yds YPA
Short (1-10 yards) 10 12 59 1 0 0 0 4.9
Medium (11-19 yards) 4 7 84 0 0 0 0 12.0
Deep (20-29 yards) 2 3 49 0 0 0 0 16.3
Bomb (30+ yards) 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Total 16 25 192 1 0 0 0 7.7
Vertical (11+ yards) 6 13 133 0 0 0 0 10.2
Stretch Vertical (20+ yards) 2 6 49 0 0 0 0 8.2
Randy Moss w/ Kaepernick
Route Depth Comp Att Yds TD Int Pen Pen Yds YPA
Short (1-10 yards) 5 10 47 0 0 1 -10 3.4
Medium (11-19 yards) 7 9 103 0 1 0 0 11.4
Deep (20-29 yards) 2 4 49 1 0 0 0 12.3
Bomb (30+ yards) 0 4 0 0 1 0 0 0.0
Total 14 27 199 1 2 1 -10 6.8
Vertical (11+ yards) 9 17 152 1 2 0 0 8.9
Stretch Vertical (20+ yards) 2 8 49 1 1 0 0 6.1
The first item that stands out is each player has a dismal short pass YPA. It really isn't worth it to an offense to throw a pass if the return on the risk is less than 5 YPA and that is the case with each of these players on those types of throws.
The second item is the very low stretch vertical YPA marks by Moss and Davis. A double-digit showing in this category is barely acceptable and neither of these two big-name targets has come close to that level.
The third item of note is how few passes these two have seen at the downfield depth levels. This type of thing is par for the course for Kaepernick, as he has averaged only 8.8 vertical passes in the games he has started this year.
To put that number into perspective, consider that it prorates out to roughly 141 vertical targets over a 16-game period. Since the league median for that metric is usually around 150, it means that Kaepernick is airing the ball out on long passes at a slightly lower-than-average pace. This goes against the idea that he could keep up in a shootout, which is something that could definitely take place given the high-powered state of most of the other offenses in the playoffs.
One factor that is likely impacting the lack of success on downfield throws is the 49ers' faltering run blocking.
[+] Enlarge
Michael Zagaris/San Francisco 49ers/Getty Images
The Niners' run blocking has dropped off late in the season.
This part of the offense fared well during the first half of the season, as San Francisco's run-blockers posted a 52.8 percent good blocking rate (GBR) during that time frame.
GBR measures how often a team gives its ball carriers good blocking (which is very roughly defined as when the offense does not allow the defense to do anything to disrupt a rush attempt). To put that 52.8 percent GBR into perspective, it is just more than 3 percentage points higher than the league-leading 49.6 percent GBR posted by Minnesota in 2011.
The issue for the 49ers is their run blocking hasn't been anywhere near as good over the past eight weeks, as the team's GBR during those contests fell to a 44.9 percent level. That number gets even worse if the measurement is limited to the Week 11-17 contests in which San Francisco managed to post a 43.1 percent GBR.
A big part of the problem here is Davis, as he is one of the worst run blocking tight ends in the league.
The number of mistakes he makes in this area are overwhelming but not limited to his being the master of the very ineffective push block, not finishing his blocks well and sometimes putting his head down when initiating a block. This last item is physically dangerous and has the side benefit of not allowing him to see how to react to where the defender is moving. Davis also looks like he does not want to initiate contact with defenders and that trait may explain a lot of the aforementioned technical issues.
Fullback Bruce Miller is much better than Davis in his willingness to get after a defender but he gets overpowered at the point of attack so often that he really can't be counted on to lead runners through the line of scrimmage. This is almost certainly why the 49ers have been rotating defensive and offensive linemen into the backfield at the fullback position but it really hasn't helped that much since those linemen have not displayed the requisite ability to read the line of scrimmage with a running back's eye. For them it is usually run upfield and hit the first defender who shows up and that often isn't the highest percentage move for the run play called.
Add in the fact guards Mike Iupati and Alex Boone and center Jonathan Goodwin have all seen significant declines in their run blocking over the past eight weeks and it indicates this isn't a matter of just picking up the pace in the backfield and edge blockers.
If all of that wasn't enough, the 49ers also have to deal with the fact their starting kicker, David Akers, had the second worst field goal percentage in the league this year. His struggles of late have been enough of a concern that San Francisco recently added Billy Cundiff to their roster, although Cundiff's five misses in 12 attempts were enough to get him released from the Washington Redskins squad in October.
Put all of these troubling trends together with a defense that gave up 89 points over the last three games of the regular season and it means that San Francisco's future plans are not likely to include a trip to New Orleans for Super Bowl XLVII.
