Fun Bunch Friday: 2023 DIV & CONF Playoffs!
Breaking down two weeks in one: the Divisional Round between the Packers & 49ers, and the 49ers offense against the Lions in the NFC Championship!
49ERS ZORRO BIG CAT
There is a lot of nuance in this play to break down, starting with the motion (or lack thereof). We can’t see the play clock in the clip, but it is winding down dangerously low. In the play call, the Tight End was supposed to motion across to the other side. In fact, you can see Juszczyk telling him to motion. In order to get the play off on time, Purdy overrides him and tells the Tight End to stay in place.
It turns into what I believe they call Zorro Big Cat. Big Cat puts the WR on the linebacker instead of the Safety as in regular Cat. Both entail the Y/F combo pushing to the CB. I imagine they were trying to run Zelda Cat with the expectation that when the Y motions, the front shifts in such a way that the Offensive Line and now back-side Y can handle the front, the X crack the Safety, and the FB and RT combo to the CB, leaving nobody unblocked to the play-side. However, because the Y doesn’t get to motion, the Strong Safety (#26) is unblocked. In this offense, that isn’t generally supposed to happen as the unblocked defensive back is almost always designed to be the CB (except for Cat runs).
This is evident on the back-side and is the unsung part of this play that springs it for a TD. Instead of cutting of the CB blitz, Aiyuk goes to cut off the back-side Safety. If he isn’t blocked, it’s pretty close to an every-day-drill Vice tackle for the two unblocked safeties, but because he is blocked, McCaffrey is offered a third level cutback lane away from the unblocked safety and scampers in for 6. This, to me, is one of the primary beauties of condensed formations, especially in the high school game. With how wide the hashes are, there is no way for a Wide Receiver on the far numbers to block a Safety, and so often we see tackles made by that Safety as the only player between the ballcarrier and the endzone. Compress the formation to give space for the Receiver to get to the Safety, force Cornerbacks to crack replace and make the tackle (which if they could in high school, they’d likely be playing Safety anyway), and get that last man blocked!
49ERS PEEL CROSS WIDE
On 3rd & 6, the 49ers run a beautiful Mesh concept behind a Post-Wheel for the first down. I like to use Mesh as a back-side answer for any coverage. Call the front-side concept (Peel: Post-Wheel, in this case) that beats the coverage I expect to see, and if we don’t get that coverage, Mesh is generally “good vs. anything.” Another example of a bask-side concept I like to use like that would be Y Cross. That’s exactly what Shanahan dials up here. Post-Wheel is a good concept against Cover 3 and Cover 4, but the Packers run what looks to be Cover 1 Hole to me and cover the Peel easily. One of the reasons Mesh (and Y Cross) are so effective when used like this is the third read in the progression (or second, if the deep route is an alert) comes across the formation into the QB’s field of view. Mesh worked exactly as it was intended – create a downfield traffic jam, freeing up the receiver running underneath.
Not to be missed is the nuance of where the mesh was set. It’s 3rd & 6. The mesh happened around 7 yards to allow for the underneath receiver to catch the ball at the sticks and in a worst-case scenario, still pick up the first down.
PACKERS CRACK TOSS
Like the 49ers, the Packers only had one explosive run play in the entire game: a Crack Toss on 1st & 10 in the shadow of their own endzone. Wide Receivers that can block completely change the math on offense, similar to having a mobile QB. The point receiver in the bunch blocks down on Chase Young just enough to seal the edge of the first level for the offense. The pulling TE kicks out the CB, and the LT wraps around for the play-side linebacker.
If I had to guess, the Packers actually didn’t get the defensive reaction they were expecting to the motion by the wide receiver. Nobody on the bunch side bumps with the motion. In fact, the defense rotates from a single high alignment to a two safety shell, allowing the original middle field Safety to bump out and come downhill into the alley unblocked. In my opinion, the play would have been better off without the motion at all and simply keeping the third wide receiver in the blocking surface. This would have allowed him to seal in the front instead of the LT, who then would have been able to wrap to the Safety and get all front-side defenders blocked.
PACKERS YANKEE
A perfectly timed and schemed play pass nets the Packers an explosive play on 1st & 10. This concept is similar to a traditional “Yankee” concept, featuring the Field Post with a High Cross underneath it. The difference here is the Go on the same side as the Field Post to make sure that any threat to come downhill on the High Cross is carried off by the two deeper routes. Against most defenses, this is either going to force a Cornerback with outside leverage to carry the High Cross in man coverage or a Linebacker to do the same in zone coverage.
The defense here appears to be running Cover 3, to which Yankee is a top concept. The CB at the top of the screen has the Z essentially manned on anything except a shallow route, and the Strong Safety is responsible for the vertical of the Y. Both are carried off, by the Go and Field Post respectively. The Field Post also occupies the Deep Middle Free Safety, “taking the top off the defense” to allow Jayden Reed to layer between the second and third levels of the defense, as wide open as can be in the NFL.
I also like the Ghost action called here, faking the end around, and you can really see how the entire concept works together as a result. The deep routes take the deep defenders, and the run action freezes the Linebackers. Once the run action is completed, the Linebackers see two things: 1 – the RB on the Check Over, 2 – the WR on the Ghost coming out of the backfield. With the deep defenders essentially run off and the second level being brought down by the backfield eye candy, a massive void is left on the High Cross for an explosive play.
49ERS ZAP CAT
This formation by the 49ers is case in point as to why I don’t like thinking about personnel groupings on offense in terms of the numbers. This presents as a 13 personnel formation (1 back, 3 tight ends), but for the 49ers, it’s their 22 personnel (2 backs, 2 tight ends) with Kyle Juszczyk doubling as a Tight End on the weak side. Personally, I use the numbering system in terms of how the formation presents to the defense. Is there 1 eligible receiver in the backfield and 1 eligible player aligned as a tight end? That presents as 11 personnel. As an offense, I can take that same group of players on the field and take that player lined up at tight end, move him into the backfield, and now I am presenting 20 personnel, but I haven’t actually changed the players I have on the field. Therefore, I prefer the traditional West Coast language: Regular, Zebra, Tiger, etc. to describe my players on offense and only think about the numbers in terms of presenting alignments to the defense. This formation is a perfect example as to why.
The play itself is 18 Zap Cat. This is a cousin to the Zorro play we discussed earlier in the article and often throughout the season, which is part of why they both start with ‘Z’. Zorro features the FB aligned in the backfield, comboing with the Y from depth, whereas Zap also features the FB/Y combo, just with both on the line in a 4 man surface. The “Cat” tag doesn’t change between Zorro and Zap. Without the tag, they will work to the support defender/Strong Safety, and with it, as called here, they work to the CB.
49ERS CHOICE KNIFE
This has to be one of my favorite plays to break down all season: a front-side Choice concept for McCaffrey with a back-side Y Cross (I call Knife, an adaptation from their version of “Knife”). The Choice concept is extremely simple in theory, much more difficult in application and execution in that both QB and the Choice runner have to make the same post-snap read while the bullets are flying as the Choice has an option to do three things: break to the flat, sit down in the curl window, or angle to the hook. The job of the Wide Receiver on the side of the Choice is to carry off all of the deep coverage, isolating the Choice on a single underneath defender, whom the Choice will break away from.
Knife is a fantastic compliment to the front-side Choice as it is going to bring the late-progression reads into the QB’s field of view in the event that the Choice is covered. Not many coverages could cover a Choice: maybe some form of Cover 2 Trap where the Corner releases the Wide Receiver to be carried alone by the Safety, allowing the Trap Corner and Hook-Curl Linebacker to squeeze the Choice. However, if the Safety has to cover the WR and both the CB and Hook-Curl defenders are covering the Choice…who is covering the High Cross coming from the back-side? Probably not anybody that has a combination of athleticism and leverage enough to carry the route. Fred Warner is the only Linebacker that comes to mind that fits that description, and he’s on the team that’s running the play. This is a fantastic design, and one that I have in my own system, just with a C.O. concept instead of Choice. The only difference is that C.O. (Choice-Out) is a predetermined out-break on the Choice so the QB and RB are on the same page post-snap, much easier for high school.
I do want to dive into the pass protection here as well because it dictates the throw that Purdy makes. Because this is a 5 man route, Shanahan is going to call for Scat protection. This tells the OL that they are the only 5 players in pass protection (as opposed to Jet, which is a 6 man protection with a RB or FB inserting where the OL splits in the half-slide). Because there are only 5 blockers, the OL is going to focus on working inside-out on the defense. If any rusher is going to come unblocked, he is going to be the widest player by alignment, and thus have the farthest road to the QB and allowing more time to get the throw off. This is also opposed to Jet, where the OL is going to work outside-in with the expectation that the Protection Back is going to pick up any second-level interior rusher. An integral part of the West Coast offense is the marriage of the protection and the route combinations due to the nature of the Quarterback potentially needing to make a “Hot” throw.
In Scat protection, the QB is going to be “Hot” if he gets two rushers to the offensive line’s slide as they will only be able to pick up one (assuming a 4 down front and not a sim or creeper pressure), but if the QB gets any extra second-level rusher away from the slide (commonly called the “man” side, but I don’t like that term as we will still pass of twists, etc.) he has to make his Hot throw because there is nobody there to pick it up.
The Offensive Line is going to slide to their right here, and with a B gap bubble, it’s going to be a 4 man slide. This leaves LT Trent Williams 2-on1 with Aidan Hutchinson and Alex Anzalone, and they twist. Because Anzalone is off the ball, Williams is going to take Hutchinson. Anzalone is the first key for Purdy to make. If he blitzes, Purdy knows that there is nobody in protection for him and needs to throw Hot.
The Choice route is the first built-in Hot route in the concept, and since that’s where the pressure is coming from, that’s where the ball is going. If you go back and watch the clip, you can see McCaffrey get out of the backfield, look to make his read on where to break based on the leverage of the defender, and seeing that he is blitzing, snaps his head around the other way while breaking into the flat to provide a safe Hot throw for Purdy with pressure in his face. Because the Safety had to play him from depth, CMC had time to catch the ball and square the defender up with about 5 yards of space, a matchup that I don’t know if he ever loses. He makes the Safety miss, then both receivers on the Go and High Cross block their DBs down the field to give McCaffrey even more room to run. What a play, start to finish.
If you want to dive deeper into Scat protection, I do have a video covering the basics and what it looks like against common fronts we see at the high school level on my YouTube channel. Check it out!
If not, stay for the explosive plays! You have actually already seen all of the explosive runs, as each team only had 1 in each game. I still put them altogether here for you anyway. While there wasn’t much in the way of explosive run plays, there were plenty of creative and explosive pass plays that weren’t covered in the article, so be sure to check those out below as well.
We will have one more week of explosive breakdowns covering the 49ers offense in the Super Bowl in two weeks, and then after that, we’re diving into trends, situations, maximizing different positions within this offense, and much more, so be sure you’re subscribed and ready for the off-season!