Same-Side Gap Runs: 2023 49ers, Part 1

Same-side runs are a great tendency breaker for any offense. In THIS offense, they're an explosive run waiting to happen. Find out why & how in this week's article!

Outside Zone, Outside Zone, Outside Zone. Kyle Shanahan spams his opponent with it on a weekly basis. Nearly everything in his offense works off of it: auxiliary runs, play action passes, screens, etc.

The goal is simple. Defenses are going to have to overplay to stop Outside Zone, and when they do, the other chapters in the playbook are open. If they don’t overplay it (especially with Christian McCaffrey the one running it), they won’t stop it. Everything is made to look like Outside Zone until it’s not, and running from the offset shotgun is no different.

Offenses across all levels of football share a common tendency from the shotgun: the defense knowing the direction of the run pre-snap based on the Running Back crossing the Quarterback’s face to receive the handoff and run the ball. For most of those teams, a move to the Pistol alleviated that tendency. For this offense, it’s a weapon to the tune of 4.9 YPC on same-side Gap runs.

In general, the theme of the Shanahan run game is:

• If the defense overflows to stop Outside Zone, run Inside Zone, and the ball will cut back where the second and third level defenders vacated.

• If the defense overloads to stop Outside Zone, run a Gap run the other way, pinning in the front and punching a hole through the few left on the play-side.

A fantastic way to approach this philosophy is using same-side Gap runs from the shotgun. A defense might overload away from the alignment of the Running Back with the expectation of having an extra, unaccounted for defender in the running lane. Running same-side from the gun either forces the defense to stay balanced (allowing the continued use of cross-face runs), or they continue with the overload and end up outnumbered at the true point of attack on a same-side run.

This will be a two week study. This week will cover a multitude of schemes while next week will dive into a single scheme ran many different ways same-side, so buckle up!

SAME-SIDE POWER

Any conversation about Gap scheme runs has to start with THE Gap scheme run, Power! The 49ers ran same-side Power four times in 2023 for gains of 3, 5, 5, and 7. Running same-side seemingly also opened up a true cutback lane for McCaffrey. On two of those four runs, including the highest gaining one, he bounced outside the back-side Tackle. The way the body orients from taking the handoff on a same-side run can allow for better vision on the back-side of the play than crossing face or even in the dot (under center or pistol).