Tag: 49ers seahawks

Anatomy of a Play: Brock Purdy’s ridiculous touchdown pass to Brandon Aiyuk

Brock Purdy’s 28-yard touchdown pass to Brandon Aiyuk against the Seahawks showed a veteran’s understanding of the nuances of quarterback play.

The San Francisco 49ers have more weapons on offense than some teams would know what to do with. When you have George Kittle, Deebo Samuel, and Christian McCaffrey on the field at the same time, and Kyle Shanahan calling the plays, that’s a spicy meatball for any defense.

But with all those weapons, we may be giving Brandon Aiyuk short shrift. The fourth-year first-round pick from Arizona State has become a major factor — he leads the team in targets with 63, only Kittle (46) has more receptions than Aiyuk’s 45, he leads the team in receiving yards with 881, and he’s tied with Kittle for the team’s most touchdown receptions with five.

One of those touchdowns came against the Seattle Seahawks on Thanksgiving night, and it was a fascinating look into how well quarterback Brock Purdy is playing, and how solid his connection with Aiyuk is.

With 7:59 left in the fourth quarter, the 49ers had second-and-7 at the Seattle 28-yard line. At the snap, Purdy read the play from left to right against the Seahawks’ Cover-3 defense. The first read was to fullback Kyle Juszczyk to the left flat out of motion, the second was to Kittle on the deep post, and the third was to Aiyuk on a post that was affected by cornerback Devon Witherspoon.

The nuances of the play were impressive. Purdy ran short boot-action, drifting to his left, as he made the reads. The Seahawks showed a two-high look presnap, but dropped into single-high as safety Quandre Diggs came down to the second level, and linebacker Bobby Wagner dropped into coverage on Kittle. Diggs, Wagner, and safety Julian Love had Kittle boxed in, and Purdy saw that as he dropped to throw. So, the big pay was to Aiyuk, but Purdy had to wait that out, and he had to trust Aiyuk to be where the throw was before Aiyuk even bent the route — which is when he threw the ball.

Add in the fact that Purdy had to short-hop the throw because pressure was coming, and the fact that he hit Aiyuk right on the hands with Witherspoon and Love tightly converging was something else.

“I have all the confidence in the world in B.A.,” Purdy said a couple of days before San Francisco’s31-13 blowout win. “You watch the film, the separation that he creates, you get the ball in his hands, obviously the second gear that he has to pull away from DBs or whoever’s on the field. He does it all. And I think he’s just one of the most underrated receivers I think in the NFL. We have so many playmakers, like Kittle, McCaffrey, and Deebo , but B.A. and what he’s done in his production as a receiver, he’s got it. And so, I have all the confidence in the world in him and he’s always where he needs to be. As a quarterback, that’s all you could ask for.”

Purdy’s sense of anticipation — he already has a veteran’s understanding of how routes will break — has not been lost on his receivers. Aiyuk in particular has said that Purdy just understands what routes he’s going to run. That sounds simple, but if you watch enough bad quarterbacking, you’ll know that it isn’t.

“I know people say this all the time, but it’s just reps on reps,” Purdy said. Practice. It started out I think in camp for us when I got back it was just studying how B.A. runs, how he breaks in and out of breaks. He is different from Deebo, he is different from George. And so, sort of just taking note of that. And then B.A.’s just got length, man, he’s got range. And so, I know where he can get to and where I shouldn’t throw the ball and where he’s not going to be. And then obviously the games and stuff and the experience that we had last year together, we’ve built on that, I feel like. But, throwing with anticipation is huge for me. And so, he understands that. And when I let the ball go, he gets to where he needs to be, and we’ve made it happen.”

They’ve made it happen all season long, they made it happen against the Seahawks, and they’ll try to make it happen again on Sunday when the 8-3 49ers take on the 10-1 Philadelphia Eagles in what might be the game of the year so far.

In this week’s “Xs and Os with Greg Cosell and Doug Farrar,” the guys detail this play, and discuss Purdy’s maturation into a top-tier processor.

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You can watch this week’s “Xs and Os,” featuring all of Week 13’s biggest NFL matchups, right here:

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You can also listen and subscribe to the “Xs and Os” podcast on Spotify…

…and on Apple Podcasts.

Brock Purdy isn’t just a system quarterback — he’s becoming a superstar

You can call Brock Purdy of the 49ers a system quarterback all you want, but the tape tells the story — he’s becoming a superstar.

As we all know, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy was the final player selected in the 2022 draft, and his “Mr. Irrelevant” status has been discussed over and over. Injuries placed the Iowa State alum in the starter’s role in Kyle Shanahan’s offense in his rookie season, and in his second year, Purdy has taken several steps forward, and far beyond where most ever expected him to be.

As we head into the Thanksgiving night game between Purdy’s 49ers and the Seattle Seahawks, the second-year man has some pretty impressive numbers on his resume.

Purdy is also letting the deep ball rip. This season, he has completed 22 of 33 passes of 20 or more air yards for 684 yards, seven touchdowns, one interception, and a passer rating of 136.7. Only C.J. Stroud of the Houston Texans has completed more deep passes this season (23), and only Stroud (144.2) has a higher passer rating on those deep throws.

“He’s done a great job,” Seahawks safety Julian Love said this week. “Every great quarterback that there ever was, puts the ball in the hands of his playmakers, and they have a lot of playmakers. He’s doing a good job of effectively getting it to them. To do that at a young age is pretty remarkable. He’s a tough kid and he presents some challenges, how he attacks. He’s doing his job at a high level this year more than last year.”

Here’s one example of Purdy’s deep-ball acumen. Against the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 10, Purdy correctly read Jacksonville’s spinning coverage, and made the throw to receiver Brandon Aiyuk as his third read, on time, with cornerback Darious Williams and safety Tre Herndon converging.

You can call Purdy a “system quarterback,” and some do, and you can say that he’s just throwing to wide-open guys in Shanahan’s expansive offense, but the tape tells a very different story. Purdy is playing as well as any quarterback in the NFL right now. He’s coming off a performance against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in which he completed 21 of 25 passes for 333 yards, three touchdowns, no interceptions, and the highest possible passer rating of 158.3. That won him NFC Offensive Player of the Week, and the Seahawks’ defense knows what it’s in for.

In this week’s “Xs and Os with Greg Cosell and Doug Farrar,” the guys get into why Purdy has been so effective this season, and why he’s become more than just Shanahan’s latest system quarterback.

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You can watch this week’s “Xs and Os” video, previewing all of Week 12’s biggest NFL matchups, right here:

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You can also listen and subscribe to the “Xs and Os” podcast on Spotify…

…and on Apple Podcasts.

The Xs and Os: Kyle Shanahan and the 49ers rule the run game with motion

In this week’s “Xs and Os with Greg Cosell and Doug Farrar,” the guys pick one play to detail how the 49ers dominate with the motion run game.

With 8:02 left in the wild-card playoff game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Seattle Seahawks, the 49ers already had a 3-0 lead, and they were looking to gain more momentum at the start of their second drive. They started from their own 15-yard line, but they didn’t stay there very long. The first play of the drive was a 68-yard Christian McCaffrey run that took the ball to the Seattle 17-yard line, set up San Francisco’s first touchdown, and helped to facilitate a 41-23 win.

If you’re familiar with the 49ers’ run game and head coach Kyle Shanahan’s offensive tendencies, the most unsurprising part of this particular play was that it had dimensional aspects of pre-snap movement.

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In this week’s episode of “The Xs and Os with Greg Cosell and Doug Farrar,” Greg (of NFL Films and ESPN’s NFL Matchup) and Doug (of Touchdown Wire) talked about how pre-snap motion has become one of the NFL’s dominant concepts. We talk mostly about how it works in the passing game, but certain teams and coaches have devised ways to put defenses out of sorts in the run game as well, and nobody does it better than Shanahan — especially after the trade last October that brought McCaffrey to the Bay Area.

Per Sports Info Solutions, from Week 7 (his first with the 49ers) through San Francisco’s NFC Championship loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, McCaffrey had 146 rushing attempts with pre-snap motion, gaining 732 yards, 399 yards after contact, five touchdowns, 5.4 yards per carry, and an EPA of 11.40 — the highest such number for any back with at least 120 carries featuring pre-snap motion.

This play in the Seahawks game had both a pre-snap shift and a pre-snap motion. First, fullback Kyle Juszczyk shifted from right to left, and then, tight end George Kittle motioned from right to left before the ball was snapped. Both movements were designed to set up a perfectly-designed run play.

“What they did was, they started off in a 3×1 set,” Greg recalled. “Juszczyk shifted across and made it a 2×2 set. And then, all they did was to run one of their basic zone runs. But they brought Kittle in motion before the snap of the ball, and he became a lead blocker. It was simply a zone lead run, which is in everybody’s playbook, but they got to it a bit differently, and Kittle became the lead blocker. Often, you’ll see a zone lead run in the I-formation; that’s how a lot of teams run it. You’re in the straight I, and you have a fullback in front of the tailback, and the quarterback is under center, and it’s a zone lead. The 49ers got to it differently.

“Now, it turned out that Kittle didn’t need to make a great block, because he was going to get the cornerback [Tariq Woolen,] and the cornerback was going to stay outside. But it set up beautiful blocking angles, because on that particular play, the Seahawks were in a two-deep shell, and the safety [Ryan Neal] stayed deep, and [receiver[ Brandon Aiyuk didn’t have to make a difficult block.

“This was a great example of the 49ers using motion in the run game, which they do exceptionally well.”

Laugher at Levi’s: 6 takeaways from 49ers’ wild card win

6 takeaways from the 49ers’ throttling of the Seahawks:

It’s hard to believe the 49ers on Saturday trailed the Seahawks 17-16 at halftime of their wild card matchup. They wound up scoring 25 of the final 31 points and left their playoff opener a 41-23 winner.

Here are some takeaways from a dominant performance by San Francisco:

49ers get some revenge vs. Seahawks with 3rd win of 2022 season

The 49ers got a little revenge on Seattle by dominating the rivalry this season.

Beating a team three times in a season isn’t easy. The 49ers learned that lesson last year when they fell to the Rams in the NFC championship game after beating them twice in the regular season. This year was a different story when they faced a divisional opponent in the playoffs.

After beating the Seahawks twice in the regular season, the 49ers hosted them on wild card weekend. The result was more of the same we saw in the regular season and San Francisco came away with a 41-23 win for their third victory over Seattle this season.

The talent gap was pretty apparent, especially in the second half, and it shouldn’t be a huge surprise San Francisco won all three of these matchups this year. However, recent history against Seattle hasn’t been kind enough to San Francisco to assume they were going to win.

In fact, their third win over Seattle this season matches their total number of victories against them since the 2013 campaign.

In 2013 the 49ers split with the Seahawks. They split again in 2018 and 2019. Every season in between there – 2014-17 and 2020-21 – were all sweeps by Seattle.

If we include the playoffs, the 49ers were 3-16 against the Seahawks entering this season. They’re 3-0 for 2022 though, and now they have a chance to gain back some of the ownership of the rivalry Seattle acquired over the last decade.

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49ers QB Brock Purdy enters rarefied air in 1st playoff start

Only 4 other QBs since at least 1970 have done in the playoffs what Brock Purdy did Saturday.

Brock Purdy overcame a shaky start in his playoff debut to piece together the kind of impressive performance that doesn’t happen often in the NFL playoffs.

Purdy completed 18-of-30 throws for 332 yards with three passing touchdowns, no interceptions and a rushing touchdown. Only four other QBs since at least 1970 have ever posted such a stat line in the postseason:

Patrick Mahomes
Joe Montana
Aaron Rodgers
Matt Ryan

Mahomes did it with the Chiefs in last year’s divisional playoffs against Buffalo. Ryan did it in the 2016 playoffs when he was with the Falcons and Kyle Shanahan was his offensive coordinator. Rodgers did it in 2011 for the Packers, and Montana was the first to do it, in Super Bowl XIX with the 49ers.

It’s worth noting Purdy’s 30 attempts are by far the fewest of the group. Montana’s 35 attempts are the next fewest.

It’s also worth noting it was Purdy’s first-ever playoff start. While he did start out a little shaky, he finished 9-of-11 for 185 yards and two touchdowns and a rushing score in the second half to elevate his stat line into rarefied air.

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Kyle Shanahan: Dirty play by Seahawks DB Johnathan Abram motivated 49ers

Seahawks DB Johnathan Abram made a dirty play on Deebo Samuel. It made the 49ers angry, and their play showed it.

49ers wide receiver Deebo Samuel caught a third-and-7 pass short of the sticks early in the third quarter of Saturday’s wild card win over the Seahawks. He turned upfield and went for 22 yards and a first down that put San Francisco in the red zone when they trailed Seattle 17-16. After the play, Seahawks safety Johnathan Abram tugged and twisted Samuel’s ankle in what became a turning point in Saturday’s game.

Samuel stayed on the ground after the play and eventually walked off the field under his own power, but not before a scuffle broke out in the middle of the field after the 49ers took exception to what they perceived to be a dirty play.

San Francisco slammed on the gas pedal the rest of the way and outscored Seattle 25-6 in the second half to cruise to a 41-23 victory. Head coach Kyle Shanahan after the game confirmed the Abrams play locked his team in.

“I was worried that he was hurt on it,” Shanahan said. “I lost my mind a little bit on that, but yeah I was real concerned that he was hurt on it and I didn’t like how that looked. I thought it looked pretty bad, and the intent of the play. So I think that (expletive) a lot of people off. I think it (expletive) our team off, and I think you could kind of feel our team react to that after. I wish we were like that from the first play always, but sometimes when some stuff motivates the guys, I think it’s cool to see us rally together. I know Deebo was bothered and it’s cool he came back and answered.”

The 49ers on both sides of the ball dominated the second half after that play, and Samuel provided the exclamation point. His 74-yard touchdown catch gave him 133 receiving yards on six catches, and put San Francisco ahead 38-17 with 11:04 left in the game.

If they can find that same energy for the entirety of the playoffs, it may not matter who they play, because they turned into a buzzsaw.

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49ers write back: Notes and observations from blowout playoff win vs. Seahawks

The 49ers wrote back. Onto the divisional round.

The Seahawks had the 49ers in the first half, not gonna lie. Over the final 30 minutes though the home team imposed their will and took home a 41-23 win in the wild card round of the playoffs.

Seattle led by a point, 17-16, at the halfway mark thanks to some poor execution in the waning seconds by the 49ers defense and special teams.  The 49ers poured it on the second half though and outscored the Seahawks 24-6 in the third and fourth quarters.

Here are our observations from each quarter of Saturday’s laugher at Levi’s:

Deebo Samuel: Still good at football

Deebo. Night night.

An injury derailed the end of Deebo Samuel’s regular season. The postseason revived him. Samuel put together a monster performance in the wild card round against the Seahawks, and might’ve sealed the game with a 74-yard catch-and-run that put the 49ers ahead 38-17 on the Seahawks with 10:51 to go in the fourth quarter.

Brock Purdy’s Houdini act leads to 49ers TD

Whew. This TD pass by Brock Purdy was very impressive.

The Seahawks were going to sack Brock Purdy to put the 49ers in a difficult third-and-goal situation, until they weren’t. Purdy escaped a sack on second-and-goal from the Seahawks 7, then kept his eyes up to find a wide open Elijah Mitchell hanging out in the flat. The second-year RB waltzed into the end zone on a play that looked a lot like their first TD. San Francisco capitalized on a takeaway by their defense to make it 31-17.