No. 4: Yards after catch can be vital for SF 49ers offense
One of the elements of Kyle Shanahan’s offense is for pass-catchers to pick up yards after relatively easy and short-area throws from quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo.
Despite some gaffes early in Week 1, Arizona’s defense did a good job limiting these pickups during the second half, which influenced the Niners ultimately going 2-of-11 on third downs — a surprising mark, considering San Francisco converted over 44 percent of their third-down tries a year ago.
If there’s good news here, though, it’s the Jets had all kinds of problems giving up yards after the catch, as Pro Football Focus pointed out in its Week 1 recap and how Bills quarterback Josh Allen relied on his receiving corps to do much of the work:
"The receivers made life easy on Josh Allen, who picked up a good deal of his yardage without having to attack much down the football field. Allen’s 6.8 average depth of target was three yards shorter than his average from a season ago (9.8 yards)."
Granted, San Francisco’s wide receiver room is banged up, having missed the presence of Deebo Samuel (foot) and Brandon Aiyuk (hamstring) versus the Cardinals.
Aiyuk could be back in Week 2, which is a bonus. But perhaps the biggest push will be for Shanahan’s tight ends, namely George Kittle, and running backs to get into space and exploit what could be a massive defensive weakness for New York.