(In this series, Touchdown Wire’s Mark Schofield takes a look at one important metric per NFL team as we look ahead to the 2020 season. In this installment, it’s time to look at how the San Francisco 49ers manage to be so successful offensively out of 21 personnel).
The San Francisco 49ers have just one rung of the ladder remaining above them.
In 2019 the organization secured its first NFC West title since 2012, and rolled through the playoffs en route to an appearance in Super Bowl LIV. Going up against the high-flying Kansas City Chiefs, Kyle Shanahan and company were minutes away from securing the team’s sixth-Super Bowl title, before Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs finished off an impressive comeback.
Despite the loss, the 49ers remain poised to contend in the NFC for the next few seasons. Shanahan remains one of the game’s wisest offensive minds, and he seems to have a perfect quarterback for his offense in Jimmy Garoppolo. On the defensive side of the football, Robert Saleh, who is a head coach in-waiting, has many of the pieces back from the stout defense the organization assembled for 2019.
But it is Shanahan, and his offense, that is held up as the model to emulate. This past draft cycle, the Green Bay Packers shocked most of the football world when their first three selections were in order: A potential replacement for Aaron Rodgers in Jordan Love, a running back in A.J. Dillon, and a tight end/H-Back in Josiah Deguara. Packers head coach Matt LaFleur, when discussion the Deguara selection, made it clear how he wants the Green Bay offense to look in 2020:
I love Josiah. He is extremely versatile. The thing he brings to our offense is, we can be in the same personnel grouping and we can line him up on the line of scrimmage or in a wing alignment or in the backfield. I think that adds stress on the defense. When you watch Josiah, you see such a gritty, tough player…
We will try and emulate some that stuff in terms of how the 49ers use (Kyle) Juszczyk.
What is the model that LaFleur and others are looking to emulate? It begins with this number: 21. Specifically 21 personnel, a two receiver, two running back, one tight end package that San Francisco uses more than any other team in the league. Last season the 49ers used that personnel grouping on 28% of their offensive plays, accounting for 312 snaps. The league average? Just eight percent.
But what were the 49ers able to accomplish when they aligned in 21 personnel? The resulting play was successful a whopping 55% of the time. (According to Sharp Football Stats, the provider of the personnel package information, a successful play is defined as follows: A play is successful when it gains at least 40% of yards-to-go on first down, 60% of yards-to-go on second down and 100% of yards-to-go on third or fourth down). That successful play rate for San Francisco using 21 personnel was much higher than the successful play rate when using 11 personnel – the three receiver package considered the “base” offensive grouping in today’s game – which was just 43%.
Diving into these numbers even deeper, the 49ers were successful both throwing and running out of this personnel grouping. When they kept the football on the ground, the 49ers had nine rushing touchdowns, averaged 5.7 yards per carry, and were successful on 55% of their rushing plays. Furthermore, they ran the football 189 times – 61% of the time – when in 21 personnel.
That flies in the face of what has become conventional wisdom. As discussed previously with the Los Angeles Rams, using 11 personnel to run the ball creates lighter boxes to run against. But the 49ers have defied that logic over the past two seasons.
Yet San Francisco was just as effective – perhaps even more so – when they took to the air out of 21 personnel. Garoppolo dropped back to pass 123 times out of 21 personnel, completing 82 of 115 passes for an NFL passer rating of 103.3, 9.7 yards per attempt and 7.3 air yards per attempt. Those numbers are higher than his season average for yards per attempt (8.4) and air yards per attempt (6.6).
What leads to the organization’s success when using this package? Well, having George Kittle as the sole tight end, and the versatile Juszczyk as the second running back, surely helps. Particularly when throwing the football. The reasoning behind throwing out of 21 personnel – or 12, if you are the Philadelphia Eagles – is simple: Get the defense to play with base personnel, and throw against those packages.
When you have Kittle working against linebackers, or Juszczyk against linebackers, good things will happen for the offense:
There’s Garoppolo finding Juszczyk, who beats man coverage on a throwback design out of the backfield.
More interestingly is how the 49ers are successful running the football out of 21 personnel. If the goal of 21 personnel is to get the defense into a base personnel package and then throw against it, it calls into question the wisdom of then running the football against the base defensive unit. But what Shanahan and the 49ers are able to do is use that second running back – Juszczyk in most cases – to create an additional gap that the defense must account for.
Take this 1st and 10 play against the Atlanta Falcons. The 49ers come out in their 21 personnel grouping, and the Falcons respond with their base defense. San Francisco runs Raheem Mostert to the left end on a toss play, but before the snap they motion Juszczyk to the left:
Looking at the state of play just prior to the snap, you can see how Juszczyk and his movement start to create an additional gap that the defense must defend:
This, in turn, forces the defense to made a difficult decision. Do they respond to the motion? If they slide their linebackers presnap, that exposes them to a potential inside run, which Shanahan is willing to implement if he sees the defense responding in such a manner:
— Raiders Analysis (@RaidersAnalysis) January 2, 2018
As you see, the fullback starts in motion and the Houston Texans respond by sliding the linebackers and dropping a defender into the box. What do the 49ers do? They run inside away from the defensive rotation.
But what if the defense does not respond to the motion? Well, the Minnesota Vikings tried that in the Divisional Round. As Derrik Klassen outlined in this detailed piece, it did not go well for them:
(A difference is that against Minnesota the 49ers often sent a receiver or a tight end in motion pre-snap, but the impact is the same. The Vikings stayed static on the second level, and ended up outflanked to the edges).
Putting this together we see how Shanahan and the 49ers remain effective out of 21 personnel. They have the ability to throw the football with success, but even when they keep the football on the ground, personnel and alignment puts them in positions to gain yardage in the running game. That makes them an extremely difficult offense to defend. How well the 49ers implement that 21 personnel package in 2020 – and how often – will be critical to their success in the season ahead.