49ers 2017 Season: San Francisco’s new pass defense
By Jonah Burros
Today Niner Noises is going to continue with part three of the five-part series with an in-depth analysis of the 49ers new pass defense. Parts one and two highlighted the offense with a breakdown of the running and passing schemes and how all the new players fit. Part three will do the same but will concentrate on how San Francisco plans to shut down the pass in the first year of the rebuild.
When hearing about the much-celebrated dynasty San Francisco 49ers teams of the 1980s and 90s, the majority of what is mentioned is the innovative offense and the star players that made up those rosters.
What is seldom mentioned is the incredible defenses that allowed those teams to stay in the game and pull out wins time and time again.
For those of you that do remember, the mind behind all those of years of winning on the defensive side of the ball was none other than George Seifert.
San Francisco 49ers
Seifert helped to originate many of the concepts that the current regime will be utilizing in its defensive gameplans in 2017.
The new 4-3 under package has been made famous in the NFL by Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll, and San Francisco’s new defensive coordinator Robert Saleh helped to staff Carrol’s defense before moving on to the Jacksonville Jaguars with Gus Bradley to implement the same scheme there.
Carroll originally learned the scheme from Monte Kiffin in college while serving as part of his staff when Kiffin was DC for Lou Holtz and the Arkansas Razorbacks. In Carroll’s first DC position in the NFL he served and learned from Seifert once the latter was promoted to head coach.
Seifert was the originator of the LEO position and how it is still used today. Back then it was referred to as the Elephant position and made NFL legend Charles Haley, and many like him, famous. Carroll talks at length about the position and how it was named and its effective usage in an interview from 2011 with Seattle Seahawks.com.
When head coach Kyle Shanahan was asked why he was bringing the defense to San Francisco his explanation was that it has always been one of the more difficult for him to coordinate against and is very flexible.
There seems to be a bit more to it than that. In the mid 90s, when Seifert was still running this system, Shanahan’s father, Mike Shanahan was the offensive coordinator for the 49ers and Kyle grew up around it.
The last couple of years with the Atlanta Falcons, Shanahan was part of a team coached by Dan Quinn and the same defensive system. Quinn was a former DC for Carroll at Seattle and helped bolster Shanahan’s opinion of the 4-3 system even further.
For all of us out there that could not think of a sweeter scenario than the great George Seifert returning to the 49ers and addressing our defensive woes, this is about as close as you can get.
Historically things have come full circle in a sense, so let us take a look at the scheme itself and how the personnel that the new regime has accrued will fit into it in the area of defending the pass.