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Cowboys vs. 49ers: What’s the Game Plan for San Francisco

By Rich Madrid

August 23, 2015; Santa Clara, CA, USA; General view of the line of scrimmage during the first quarter between the San Francisco 49ers and the Dallas Cowboys at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
August 23, 2015; Santa Clara, CA, USA; General view of the line of scrimmage during the first quarter between the San Francisco 49ers and the Dallas Cowboys at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports /
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2. RUN DEFENSE

Seattle gashed the 49ers for a ton of yards on several long running plays. Is the lack of an effective run defense a question of talent or of coaching? My inclination is to guess coaching and three plays from last weekend illustrate this idea.

First Play: 14:24 first quarter, 1st and 10 from the 49ers 41

Seattle hit San Francisco with their outside zone running game and zone read on several plays. For more on the outside zone run, see here. The strength of the Seattle formation is set to the right but here they run outside zone to the weakside.

Nose tackle Mike Purcell is shaded just to the left of side of the center, and presumably responsible for the weak-side A-gap. At the snap, you can see he picks the wrong run fit, attacks the strong-side gap, and leaves the linebackers exposed to the blockers.

Purcell should have pinched that weak-side A-gap and this would’ve spilled the running back to Bowman who could’ve made the play. Instead, Christine Michael goes untouched for a 41-yard touchdown.

Second Play: 11:58 first quarter, 2nd and 8 from the Seattle 40

The failure of this play lies solely with the defensive coordinator. Jim O’Neil did not have his team adequately prepared to face a similar zone running scheme offense to their own, one they see every day in practice. Wilson has limited mobility due to an ankle injury in week one and should’ve been viewed as a non-factor in the zone read.

Seattle was not going to risk a “keep” read for the quarterback on this particular play at any point until he’s 100%. Instead, the 49ers’ game plan called for taking the quarterback run away from Wilson and the results were disastrous.

A key to defending the zone read is the linebacker “scrape-exchange” where a linebacker fills the void by replacing the crashing defensive end. Except the 49ers did not crash their ends and the linebackers did not scrape to fill their gaps. They allowed the offensive line to get up on their blocks. Fortunately for the 49ers, this 18 yard gain was negated by holding penalty.

Third Play: 4:11, 3rd and 1 from the 49ers 4

Same as the play above, Seattle takes advantage of a 49ers defense seemingly content to give up the lane to the running back.

No scrape exchange and bad pre-snap alignment by O’Neil in having Buckner playing head-up on the left tackle in the 4-technique position. Buckner is best as a three or five-technique defensive lineman who plays a single gap. However, from the 4-tech position (2-gap) he picks the wrong gap and gets pancaked by the double team block.

Against Dallas, who runs a similar zone running scheme with Ezekiel Elliot, the 49ers will have to clean up their assignments while facing a much better offensive line. Dallas, in addition to running zone, will also run power and counter similar to Chip Kelly’s offense.

The 49ers will have certainly have their hands full with this rushing attack.