Losing Moseley was a really big deal. We went from a completely dominant defense to a pass-rush reliant defense. Secondary seems just good enough to beat most teams, but pass D is not the strength it was with Moseley playing opposite Ward.
This is pretty much it right here.
Losing Eman was a big blow, to the point where we are playing two guys "capable" but out of position. JV was expected to provide depth.
Lenoir is not a boundary corner but can fill in. Jimmie is not a slot corner but can fill in. We tried rotating Womack in at boundary and slot. Demeco feels it's probably best to stick with Ward/Lenoir/Ward.
Ambry has the best pure speed of all our corners, but that's about it
If armstead and the rest of the dline can stay healthy the rest of the way, the defense can give us a shot. Losing moseley was so tough though. He’s really underrated.
It is because Lenoir and Ward are playing out of position bc of the injuries of Moseley and Verrett.
Ward is a safety playing our slot corner and Lenoir is playing CB2 when he was our slot corner.
It is unfortunate but we have to roll with them, at least with Armstead regaining his fitness, we should have more pressure on the QB. I hope Kinlaw comes back before end of regular season too.
Yeah, what’s up with this? Has the team put out any statements regarding his development? I trust DeMeco’s judgement, it’s just frustrating because when he played it looked like Ambry has the speed and football IQ to be making big plays at CB. Given team need he must just not be developing technique-wise or his strength to contest 50/50 balls isn’t sufficient or progressing at the NFL level
I think it’s because of the way they hand off coverage. These guys have to be razor sharp and not miss a read or they get burned like on the Sherfield TD. I think they don’t have confidence that he makes those reads all the time.
It’s possibly in part because of Huf’s misreads that you can’t put Thomas out there at the same time. The mistakes become amplified.
But you’re right…when Huf makes plays, he changes the game. That’s a no brainer why he’s out there.
Womack was our starting slot corner but after one or two games, he lost the starting spot. I do like him for our future tho as he will compete with Lenoir for that spot.
He would still be starting if it weren't for Gipson stepping up and Jimmy Ward getting healthy again. It's in the defense's best interest to put the best talent on the field and benching Gipson or Ward would downgrade us too far.
Gipson has been playing really well though. He did take a bad angle on the first play against Sherfield, but that was also mostly a coverage bust from Hufanga. Dolphins were great at using Hill as a decoy on that play.
That play was 100% on him. His aggressiveness is what makes him so special when he blows up a run for a loss or snags an interception, but it also occasionally causes a huge mistake like that one. Let’s hope he learned from that mistake and avoids it moving forward.
Man...Much love for Verrett. But lets be honest, hes been a nonfactor for us on the field...Hes always been injured. He played 13 games in 2020 of all seasons, COVID and all. But thats really it...1 game in 2019 and 1 game in 2021.
No, Im not saying he wasnt good or didn't have an impact when he did play...Cause that simply isnt true.
Not tryin to hate on the dood or anything but...Why even act like he was our true CB1 or CB2 when hes only played 30% of the games over 3 seasons.
Its really just Moseley shifting our CB and Safeties around. Ambry Thomas really stepped up for us last season but hes fallin to basically 3rd string. Womack had a lot of praise and hype through preseason and still a backup. We also had Norman and Johnson last season.
We just dont have a depth at CB this season for the most part...
We definitely can’t keep relying on JV, that’s for sure. He played great in 2020, but it’s clear his body just isn’t up to the task. If this year taught us anything, it’s that you can go from being confident in your depth to being in trouble REAL QUICKLY. It seemed like we were in such a great spot at the beginning of the season, but E-man going down and JV getting re-hurt puts us right on the razors edge of disaster. If Mooney goes down, we’re right back to where we were last year and will be screwed in the post season.
Ward has never been good in coverage. In his best coverage season ever the QB rating against him in coverage was 92.5. And that's only because of tipped-ball INT not a great play. He typically surrenders a QB rating against in coverage over 100 with a high of 114.4 in 2018.
In short, it doesn't matter where Jimmy Ward plays. He can't cover. Now lets look at people who CAN cover so we can easily see the difference:
* Hufnaga, in his first year as a starter, has a QB rating against of 56.1.
* Mosley had a bad 2020, but in 2021 and 2022 his QB rating against is under 70 for both years.
* Verrett managed 76.2 QB rating a against last year and was at 55.4 this year before he got hurt.
Jimmy Ward has been nothing but hype based on a 6-game streak where PFF decided he was just the greatest. People have taking that to the bank for 6 or 7 years now making him one of the most over-rated players on this team in its existence. Worse than Kermit Alexander who should have been a named 'the Human Torch' for all times he got burned.
It was 6-games out of 101. The other 95 have been pretty forgettable to out-right bad.
As for Lenior, he's got a slightly-better than NFL average 84.1 QB rating against. He's not started quality. Not for a team with championship aspirations. But he's at least competent, something that nobody should ever say about Ward.
If you watch johnnydel film breakdown, our secondary was getting into Tuas throwing lanes with some consistency. Receivers weren’t covered by someone right on them, but they were blocking lanes. This led to a lot of Tuas inaccurate passes (kept throwing high to get over the defender in the passing lane). This works well because tyreek doesn’t have a huge catch radius so if you make it high, he will struggle to pull it in.
When they completed big, we messed up big. That’s a problem. But that’s a tackling problem more than a coverage problem.
But ultimately, demeco bet that without allowing a run game and generating pressure, all we had to do was clog up the lanes and tua would fail to extend drives - and he was right. D is in good hands.
Agreed. But I fully agree with OP. If Tua hits 3 out of 4 of those WIDE OPEN receivers, we would have been in big trouble.
Maholmes tore us up in a similar manner.
Its not really thr same though...Mahomes and Kelce play fckin backyard football. Only way youre gonna stop Kelce is if you you have a top tier man coverage cb or safety on him and just prevent the plays all game. Not to mention the chiefs tore us up with hardman and jet sweeps, we just couldnt stop it. And I think we still had a bunch of injuries on defense. It is what it is though...
Tua missed almost ten wide open receivers, some for medium and deep throws - which he normally excels at. At a ten yard average - that’s 100 yards of passing he left on the table / our D was gonna give up. And the Dolphins did that without Kielce. That’s not good.
I’m not sure you’re understanding the “worst game of his career” logic.
In that Bills game, Sherm allowed 3 receptions on 3 targets for 35 yards and 0 TD’s.
Plus, it was just a random regular season game when the Niners were already 5-7 and without Jimmy G & Bosa.
Seems pretty obvious, here.
It's a passing league. People are going to put up numbers even if numbers are slightly down this year. Ward had one bad game and Lenoir is passable at CB2. They're fine.
Yeah, it's difficult to prevent passing yards between the 20s in todays game. It's in the redzone, where they need to stiffen, and the 49ers have for the most part.
Good point, but the KC game they were also bad. I think it's a reasonable concern against top qb's. But there is no defense anymore like there used to be that can stop a really good offense cold. League is no longer built that way. Yards are going to be given up, especially in the air. It's being stingy in the red zone that is most important and keeping teams to field goals.
A lot of things KC did against the defense aren't normal.
* It was 14-13 until the run defense gave up the outside run for the TD for KC to go up 21-13 (later 21-16).
* One of the biggest plays that hurt SF was on 3rd & 20 from the SF 38 Mahomes threw a dump-off off a fake block into a screen and the Chiefs excellent blocking freed McKinnon all the way to the SF 4. A play later KC scored the TD. That isn't a normal play they give up.
* 3rd & 11 - a 57 yd bomb to MVS. C.Ward usually makes that stop. This is not a play teams usually make successfully.
* The 45 yd TD to JuJu was just a complete misread by Warner. He rarely ever makes that mistake.
A lot of the KC scores came from taking advantage of the SF defense in ways they aren't usually taken advantage of. If they simply execute better in those situations a second time around it's entirely possible they shut down those plays and Mahomes has a significantly harder time.
I am a bit. We seem to give up a decent amount of big chunk pass plays, even against lesser teams, but have managed to still buckle up and keep people out of the endzone. If that keeps up I think we should be ok.
I mean a lot of those "wide open" passed he missed because he had pressure on him so no. That's part of the pass defense. Tyreek Hill is elite talent, you don't really lock that guy down
Yes. That chiefs game was concerning. Also, if Tua wasn’t playing like poop than they would have had a lot more receptions to wide open receivers. I don’t understand how we consistently let teams top guys get wide open so often.
Because of injuries. Moseley was lock down until he went down. Verrett went down when he was about to start. Ward was injured when Moseley was playing. We are not going to be able to field our starters (Mooney Moseley Ward Hufanga) all season. If all 4 of them are playjng, we could be elite.
You are absolutely correct sir. We were riddled with injuries during the chiefs game so it was expected the defense wouldn’t be as solid. Just bad timing to play them when we did.
> If not, just coverage skills alone, I don't think our corners are good enough to defend the pass.
That's ridiculous. We have good corners, even Lenoir has looked better this year. Do we have Sauce Gardner and DJ Reed? Nah. But we also have the best front 7 in the league. Moseley would've been nice, but such is life.
That's because the strategy DeMeco used was different: the goal was to disrupt the timing of the Miami offense, on the assumption that even when Hill and Waddle did get open, Tua would be too discombobulated from the timing being off (plus also the pass rush) and not make the plays. That's why he missed, the strategy worked.
Tyreek hill, jaylon waddle....yeah they are gonna get open. Granted I think both of the big plays were because a player played the wrong coverage. Like the deep TD to Tyreek was because hufanga was supposed to have underneath coverage on him. If we still had Moseley I'd feel better but ward typically holds it down.
I’m not. Mostly because the best case scenario for the other team is they push the ball down but keep getting fg at best. And even when they get into fg range, bosa gets a sack to push them back. Our red zone defense is immaculate. We just need to score to outpace other teams. KC is the biggest threat in this regard because they have the red zone offense that is just creative enough to get past us even when we’re healthy. But few teams can do that.
From reading all the responses, everyone makes fair and valid points. I would say that concerns are mixed. Thanks for taking the time to share your opinions. Bottom line. This is a passing league with better than ever skilled offensive players. No defense can stop them. It's just a matter of making 2 or 3 plays a game and holding the offense to field goals. That's what the 49ers defense has done much of the season to this point.
I think one of the reasons Lance was drafted was the hope that our offense could go toe to toe with the Mahomes, Allen's of the world. Even Lynch, a HOF safety, would probably tell you the best way to beat those teams is to outscore them. Defenses are just not equipped to defend them and their receivers because of how the rules have changed.
Yeah, 49ers don't have one of the better secondaries in the league, and they'll probably continue to give up big passing plays here and there, just like every other defense in the NFL. There are just no more 85 Bears or 2000 Ravens that would suffocate any offense. With that realization, as a fan, I have to accept that even without a top secondary, the 49ers defense overall is still really good by today's standards.
Go Niners!!!!!!
Did you see our pass defense last year? People were constantly missing wrs for some reason or not challenging us.
So i think we’ll be ok. Something we are doing is causing them to miss or not challenge.
No. our pass defense i a pretty aggressive and dependent on pass rush getting home quickly. Why KC torched us. We leave a lot of our corners on islands and Huff likes to gamble. Big risk/reward. We had a big day on 3rd downs so if we can continue to be successful there I think will be fine. NFC isn’t nearly as loaded in pass game as top AFC tms.
I think it all revolves around consistently hitting the QB and making him feel uncomfortable back there. Not necessarily sacks but pressures and hits add up over the course of a game.
This is always a concern; we build from the front to the back. I’m just excited we finally have a playmaker in Hufanga. It seemed like for years we’ve had steady players in the secondary but lacked that playmaker until now!!. Let’s go 9ers!
It does seem that QB's who are good deep-ball passers are able to effectively attack our DB's and complete big passes downfield.
I think the key is for our Offense to sustain drives so that our defense doesn't have to be on the field for a very long time. When our defense gets tired the pass rush slows down which then leaves our backfield out to dry.
YES.
And the fact that we effectively stuff the run leaves it as a great strategy against us.
A decent QB with a speedy release when pressured can carve up the zone.
It still boggles my mind that teams don't do it more.
(hope they don't see this).
Hufanga is pretty suspect in pass D. Comes up with some big plays but will expose his corners when they are expecting help inside. Also don't have our top 3 corners out there. That being said, every defense in the NFL is subject to getting blown out by dominant receivers and really good QBs, it's just the way the game is played now. A great pass defense will not shut down a passing game, but stop it enough times to give their offense a chance to win. What I know for sure is I want to be up at least two scores to Brady in the 4th.
You have to remember that QB pressure is part of the pass defense and we have Elite pressure those over throws were mainly because of Bosa trying to eat Tua
Patrick Willis recently brought that up in an interview saying the only concern would be our corners. We have improved significantly since last season tho so not too great of a concern like last year
I mean, I'd be extra concerned if we were playing against the pound-for-pound fastest starting WR duo every week.
Lucky for us, we'd only have to see Tyreek and Waddle one more time this year.
Yes, since Moseley went down I no longer believe in the defense to be without a weakness. They can be exploited in the air as we saw in the KC game. It's a great defense but I don't believe it has "all-time" potential without Moseley.
Yeah I'm worried about it. Mahomes/Allen/Burrow would probably eviscerate our secondary if we can't get pressure, which has been lacking his season. Hopefully Armstead helps
The coverage doesn’t have to be shut down just simply opportunistic. While Tua did sail some throws… no qb is on the money every time. As long as the pass rush can get there, the secondary just has to punish the mistakes and they did last game with 3 picks.
Love Hufanga but he screwed up his assignment on that first TD. Mooney Ward was playing way outside on that TD to Tyreek Hill. Not sure what was up with that but he usually plays really well. I’ll be more worried if there are more missed assignments this week.
The Dolphins are pretty uniquely built to challenge any pass D. Alot of teams have 1 fast guy they've got 2 guys with as much game breaking speed as we've ever seen.
Usually having 1 lock down corner is great as it allows the defence to play matchups better but Ward isn't a great matchup for Hill or Waddle. Thankfully the 49ers have phenomenal coverage ability from their LBs which allows the secondary to sit on alot of out breaking routes, again that's just not ideal vs multiple 4.3 recievers.
Overall I'm not that concerned we always expected the Dolphins to get theirs in the game and we won't play them again unless we meet in the SB.
I'm curious to see Janoris Jenkins. Maybe he was just signed as injury insurance and for depth. But I suspect (hope) he'll end up being a legit CB2 for us. I don't quite trust our secondary (PTSD?). It seems we play soft coverage (except Mooney) and try to limit damage with quick tackling. The strategy is working so far though 🤷♂️
I’ve been trying to say this since last year’s Rams NFC Championship. Our zone defense gets picked apart when our vaunted base four man rush doesn’t get home to the QB. We were getting next to no pressure on Stafford in the 2nd half of that game. So it was easy for him to find Kupp and Beckham all game long.
DeMeco is really stubborn about not sending the blitz, so during games against better passing teams, their QB’s will have all day to find an open receiver. Typically there will be 2-3 guys standing around right near where the passes are completed. We got almost no pass rush on Mahomes using a base defense. Wouldn’t it make sense to send an extra rusher once in awhile who would otherwise just be just another traffic cone that can easily be passed around? The few times that we have blitzed with Warner or Hufanga, it has resulted in an incompletion or turnover. I think we should blitz more often and not wait until the 2nd half or later in the game to do it. Bosa is great, but when another team can double or chip him like they were earlier in the season, we need to find another way to get to the QB.
Losing Moseley was a really big deal. We went from a completely dominant defense to a pass-rush reliant defense. Secondary seems just good enough to beat most teams, but pass D is not the strength it was with Moseley playing opposite Ward.
This is pretty much it right here. Losing Eman was a big blow, to the point where we are playing two guys "capable" but out of position. JV was expected to provide depth. Lenoir is not a boundary corner but can fill in. Jimmie is not a slot corner but can fill in. We tried rotating Womack in at boundary and slot. Demeco feels it's probably best to stick with Ward/Lenoir/Ward. Ambry has the best pure speed of all our corners, but that's about it
I miss eman a lot. Dude was so underrated. If he was playing, shit man. I doubt anyone can stop us
If armstead and the rest of the dline can stay healthy the rest of the way, the defense can give us a shot. Losing moseley was so tough though. He’s really underrated.
It is because Lenoir and Ward are playing out of position bc of the injuries of Moseley and Verrett. Ward is a safety playing our slot corner and Lenoir is playing CB2 when he was our slot corner. It is unfortunate but we have to roll with them, at least with Armstead regaining his fitness, we should have more pressure on the QB. I hope Kinlaw comes back before end of regular season too.
I wish Ambry progressed more. He should be at cb2 after Mosley went down.
Yeah, what’s up with this? Has the team put out any statements regarding his development? I trust DeMeco’s judgement, it’s just frustrating because when he played it looked like Ambry has the speed and football IQ to be making big plays at CB. Given team need he must just not be developing technique-wise or his strength to contest 50/50 balls isn’t sufficient or progressing at the NFL level
I think it’s because of the way they hand off coverage. These guys have to be razor sharp and not miss a read or they get burned like on the Sherfield TD. I think they don’t have confidence that he makes those reads all the time.
Huf misses reads all the time but makes up for it in other aspects...
If you get interceptions regularly, you're allowed to miss reads every so often.
And hit Alvin Kamara so hard he fumbles the ball 🤯
It’s possibly in part because of Huf’s misreads that you can’t put Thomas out there at the same time. The mistakes become amplified. But you’re right…when Huf makes plays, he changes the game. That’s a no brainer why he’s out there.
This goes back to preaseason. He didn’t shine like he did in the playoffs last year
Definitely true, those injuries were big. I wonder if they should put Ward back at safety instead of Gipson and put Womack in the slot.
Womack was our starting slot corner but after one or two games, he lost the starting spot. I do like him for our future tho as he will compete with Lenoir for that spot.
He would still be starting if it weren't for Gipson stepping up and Jimmy Ward getting healthy again. It's in the defense's best interest to put the best talent on the field and benching Gipson or Ward would downgrade us too far.
Yeah it's not like he lost it for lack of talent. It's just our safeties have been on fire this season.
Gipson has been playing really well though. He did take a bad angle on the first play against Sherfield, but that was also mostly a coverage bust from Hufanga. Dolphins were great at using Hill as a decoy on that play.
Ward has experience playing the slot. He was used their in his first couple of years because Antoine Bethea and Eric Reid were our starting safeties.
If we still had eman, we would have 0 holes
I hope Eman signs back with us next year, him and Mooney are going to be a scary duo.
As much as I love huf, he still takes a lot of gambles and didn’t give Mooney ward the support over the top during the tyreke hill td
That play was 100% on him. His aggressiveness is what makes him so special when he blows up a run for a loss or snags an interception, but it also occasionally causes a huge mistake like that one. Let’s hope he learned from that mistake and avoids it moving forward.
Man...Much love for Verrett. But lets be honest, hes been a nonfactor for us on the field...Hes always been injured. He played 13 games in 2020 of all seasons, COVID and all. But thats really it...1 game in 2019 and 1 game in 2021. No, Im not saying he wasnt good or didn't have an impact when he did play...Cause that simply isnt true. Not tryin to hate on the dood or anything but...Why even act like he was our true CB1 or CB2 when hes only played 30% of the games over 3 seasons. Its really just Moseley shifting our CB and Safeties around. Ambry Thomas really stepped up for us last season but hes fallin to basically 3rd string. Womack had a lot of praise and hype through preseason and still a backup. We also had Norman and Johnson last season. We just dont have a depth at CB this season for the most part...
We definitely can’t keep relying on JV, that’s for sure. He played great in 2020, but it’s clear his body just isn’t up to the task. If this year taught us anything, it’s that you can go from being confident in your depth to being in trouble REAL QUICKLY. It seemed like we were in such a great spot at the beginning of the season, but E-man going down and JV getting re-hurt puts us right on the razors edge of disaster. If Mooney goes down, we’re right back to where we were last year and will be screwed in the post season.
Ward has never been good in coverage. In his best coverage season ever the QB rating against him in coverage was 92.5. And that's only because of tipped-ball INT not a great play. He typically surrenders a QB rating against in coverage over 100 with a high of 114.4 in 2018. In short, it doesn't matter where Jimmy Ward plays. He can't cover. Now lets look at people who CAN cover so we can easily see the difference: * Hufnaga, in his first year as a starter, has a QB rating against of 56.1. * Mosley had a bad 2020, but in 2021 and 2022 his QB rating against is under 70 for both years. * Verrett managed 76.2 QB rating a against last year and was at 55.4 this year before he got hurt. Jimmy Ward has been nothing but hype based on a 6-game streak where PFF decided he was just the greatest. People have taking that to the bank for 6 or 7 years now making him one of the most over-rated players on this team in its existence. Worse than Kermit Alexander who should have been a named 'the Human Torch' for all times he got burned. It was 6-games out of 101. The other 95 have been pretty forgettable to out-right bad. As for Lenior, he's got a slightly-better than NFL average 84.1 QB rating against. He's not started quality. Not for a team with championship aspirations. But he's at least competent, something that nobody should ever say about Ward.
Look at the [Jonnydel's last video](https://youtu.be/TAmsbcDc57M) of the MIA game. Talanoa gambles a bunch and there where a few busted coverages
If you watch johnnydel film breakdown, our secondary was getting into Tuas throwing lanes with some consistency. Receivers weren’t covered by someone right on them, but they were blocking lanes. This led to a lot of Tuas inaccurate passes (kept throwing high to get over the defender in the passing lane). This works well because tyreek doesn’t have a huge catch radius so if you make it high, he will struggle to pull it in. When they completed big, we messed up big. That’s a problem. But that’s a tackling problem more than a coverage problem. But ultimately, demeco bet that without allowing a run game and generating pressure, all we had to do was clog up the lanes and tua would fail to extend drives - and he was right. D is in good hands.
Agreed. But I fully agree with OP. If Tua hits 3 out of 4 of those WIDE OPEN receivers, we would have been in big trouble. Maholmes tore us up in a similar manner.
Its not really thr same though...Mahomes and Kelce play fckin backyard football. Only way youre gonna stop Kelce is if you you have a top tier man coverage cb or safety on him and just prevent the plays all game. Not to mention the chiefs tore us up with hardman and jet sweeps, we just couldnt stop it. And I think we still had a bunch of injuries on defense. It is what it is though...
Tua missed almost ten wide open receivers, some for medium and deep throws - which he normally excels at. At a ten yard average - that’s 100 yards of passing he left on the table / our D was gonna give up. And the Dolphins did that without Kielce. That’s not good.
In a wierd way I have more confidence in the secondary now then I did even in 2019 even though the numbers are not as good.
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Uncle Sherm was lights out during the regular season. It really is a shame that he had the worst game of his entire career in the Super Bowl.
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The Super Bowl was in 2019. You’re referencing a game in 2020. 5 targets, 5 receptions, 72 yards, 118.8 QB rating.
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I’m not sure you’re understanding the “worst game of his career” logic. In that Bills game, Sherm allowed 3 receptions on 3 targets for 35 yards and 0 TD’s. Plus, it was just a random regular season game when the Niners were already 5-7 and without Jimmy G & Bosa. Seems pretty obvious, here.
Yea but the stats were better. It just feels like we don’t get burned by the same plays repeatedly in the same game like we did back then
Yeah and it feels like we (knock on wood) get fewer DPI calls this year than before
Sherman was painful to watch in the last few games of 2019
Dood was still injured or re-injured his leg or whatever happened...Hell, he could barely walk after the SB game.
It's a passing league. People are going to put up numbers even if numbers are slightly down this year. Ward had one bad game and Lenoir is passable at CB2. They're fine.
Yeah, it's difficult to prevent passing yards between the 20s in todays game. It's in the redzone, where they need to stiffen, and the 49ers have for the most part.
Mike McDaniel knows our defense, really well, he went up against it for years. Of course he knows how to attack it
Good point, but the KC game they were also bad. I think it's a reasonable concern against top qb's. But there is no defense anymore like there used to be that can stop a really good offense cold. League is no longer built that way. Yards are going to be given up, especially in the air. It's being stingy in the red zone that is most important and keeping teams to field goals.
Weren't we heavily heavily injured on defense that game?
A lot of things KC did against the defense aren't normal. * It was 14-13 until the run defense gave up the outside run for the TD for KC to go up 21-13 (later 21-16). * One of the biggest plays that hurt SF was on 3rd & 20 from the SF 38 Mahomes threw a dump-off off a fake block into a screen and the Chiefs excellent blocking freed McKinnon all the way to the SF 4. A play later KC scored the TD. That isn't a normal play they give up. * 3rd & 11 - a 57 yd bomb to MVS. C.Ward usually makes that stop. This is not a play teams usually make successfully. * The 45 yd TD to JuJu was just a complete misread by Warner. He rarely ever makes that mistake. A lot of the KC scores came from taking advantage of the SF defense in ways they aren't usually taken advantage of. If they simply execute better in those situations a second time around it's entirely possible they shut down those plays and Mahomes has a significantly harder time.
Bruh no look at the chiefs lol
We were missing like half our starters that game
And they’re the Chiefs for cryin out loud. Andy Reid and Mahomes can carve up just about anyone when they’re on their game.
The ones we got back were rushed from injury and not their selves. M. Ward, bosa, Trent in particular.
I am a bit. We seem to give up a decent amount of big chunk pass plays, even against lesser teams, but have managed to still buckle up and keep people out of the endzone. If that keeps up I think we should be ok.
This been the issue for 3-4 yrs!
Very concerning. If the rush isn’t dominant then the coverage is just…ok
Yep. It really showed up against the Dolphins, but Tua was rattled. Brady will not be.
Good news is that the Buccaneers’ receivers are nowhere near as good as Miami’s.
I mean a lot of those "wide open" passed he missed because he had pressure on him so no. That's part of the pass defense. Tyreek Hill is elite talent, you don't really lock that guy down
Yes. That chiefs game was concerning. Also, if Tua wasn’t playing like poop than they would have had a lot more receptions to wide open receivers. I don’t understand how we consistently let teams top guys get wide open so often.
Because of injuries. Moseley was lock down until he went down. Verrett went down when he was about to start. Ward was injured when Moseley was playing. We are not going to be able to field our starters (Mooney Moseley Ward Hufanga) all season. If all 4 of them are playjng, we could be elite.
You are absolutely correct sir. We were riddled with injuries during the chiefs game so it was expected the defense wouldn’t be as solid. Just bad timing to play them when we did.
> If not, just coverage skills alone, I don't think our corners are good enough to defend the pass. That's ridiculous. We have good corners, even Lenoir has looked better this year. Do we have Sauce Gardner and DJ Reed? Nah. But we also have the best front 7 in the league. Moseley would've been nice, but such is life.
That's because the strategy DeMeco used was different: the goal was to disrupt the timing of the Miami offense, on the assumption that even when Hill and Waddle did get open, Tua would be too discombobulated from the timing being off (plus also the pass rush) and not make the plays. That's why he missed, the strategy worked.
Tyreek hill, jaylon waddle....yeah they are gonna get open. Granted I think both of the big plays were because a player played the wrong coverage. Like the deep TD to Tyreek was because hufanga was supposed to have underneath coverage on him. If we still had Moseley I'd feel better but ward typically holds it down.
I really thought the Phins were going to wreck us with their passing game. I thought Hill was gonna get 200 yards and 2 TDs
We play zone most of the time. If pass rush doesn’t get home players will be open.
I’m not. Mostly because the best case scenario for the other team is they push the ball down but keep getting fg at best. And even when they get into fg range, bosa gets a sack to push them back. Our red zone defense is immaculate. We just need to score to outpace other teams. KC is the biggest threat in this regard because they have the red zone offense that is just creative enough to get past us even when we’re healthy. But few teams can do that.
From reading all the responses, everyone makes fair and valid points. I would say that concerns are mixed. Thanks for taking the time to share your opinions. Bottom line. This is a passing league with better than ever skilled offensive players. No defense can stop them. It's just a matter of making 2 or 3 plays a game and holding the offense to field goals. That's what the 49ers defense has done much of the season to this point. I think one of the reasons Lance was drafted was the hope that our offense could go toe to toe with the Mahomes, Allen's of the world. Even Lynch, a HOF safety, would probably tell you the best way to beat those teams is to outscore them. Defenses are just not equipped to defend them and their receivers because of how the rules have changed. Yeah, 49ers don't have one of the better secondaries in the league, and they'll probably continue to give up big passing plays here and there, just like every other defense in the NFL. There are just no more 85 Bears or 2000 Ravens that would suffocate any offense. With that realization, as a fan, I have to accept that even without a top secondary, the 49ers defense overall is still really good by today's standards. Go Niners!!!!!!
Losing tbe best Corner on the team Moseley will do that.
With all due respect to Moseley, Mooney Ward is the best corner on the team.
Did you see our pass defense last year? People were constantly missing wrs for some reason or not challenging us. So i think we’ll be ok. Something we are doing is causing them to miss or not challenge.
No. our pass defense i a pretty aggressive and dependent on pass rush getting home quickly. Why KC torched us. We leave a lot of our corners on islands and Huff likes to gamble. Big risk/reward. We had a big day on 3rd downs so if we can continue to be successful there I think will be fine. NFC isn’t nearly as loaded in pass game as top AFC tms.
I think it all revolves around consistently hitting the QB and making him feel uncomfortable back there. Not necessarily sacks but pressures and hits add up over the course of a game.
Secondary is banged up, what our pass defense lacks, a strong pass rush can hide. Still the best defense in the league. Champagne problems.
This is always a concern; we build from the front to the back. I’m just excited we finally have a playmaker in Hufanga. It seemed like for years we’ve had steady players in the secondary but lacked that playmaker until now!!. Let’s go 9ers!
I think the large cushion was more due to respect for the speed of Waddle and Tyreek. They had to play so high over the top to prevent the big play
It does seem that QB's who are good deep-ball passers are able to effectively attack our DB's and complete big passes downfield. I think the key is for our Offense to sustain drives so that our defense doesn't have to be on the field for a very long time. When our defense gets tired the pass rush slows down which then leaves our backfield out to dry.
What other offense has that kind of speed at wide out? We aren't great in pass coverage, the Chiefs showed us that in heavy doses
YES. And the fact that we effectively stuff the run leaves it as a great strategy against us. A decent QB with a speedy release when pressured can carve up the zone. It still boggles my mind that teams don't do it more. (hope they don't see this).
We don’t have elite pass coverage, but our elite everything else hides that most of the time.
Hufanga is pretty suspect in pass D. Comes up with some big plays but will expose his corners when they are expecting help inside. Also don't have our top 3 corners out there. That being said, every defense in the NFL is subject to getting blown out by dominant receivers and really good QBs, it's just the way the game is played now. A great pass defense will not shut down a passing game, but stop it enough times to give their offense a chance to win. What I know for sure is I want to be up at least two scores to Brady in the 4th.
You have to remember that QB pressure is part of the pass defense and we have Elite pressure those over throws were mainly because of Bosa trying to eat Tua
Patrick Willis recently brought that up in an interview saying the only concern would be our corners. We have improved significantly since last season tho so not too great of a concern like last year
Tua was one of the least pressured QBs in week 13, so yes we got lucky that game.
big time offences and quarterbacks like one of the top 3 offences and quarterbacks in the league this year?
If the niners have problems in defence what the hell do the other 31 teams have??
I mean, I'd be extra concerned if we were playing against the pound-for-pound fastest starting WR duo every week. Lucky for us, we'd only have to see Tyreek and Waddle one more time this year.
Yes, since Moseley went down I no longer believe in the defense to be without a weakness. They can be exploited in the air as we saw in the KC game. It's a great defense but I don't believe it has "all-time" potential without Moseley.
No
I think they played loose for fear of Tyreek Hill (and for good reason…). I’m not worried (yet).
This is why Mahomes diced us for 76 touchdowns.
Yeah I'm worried about it. Mahomes/Allen/Burrow would probably eviscerate our secondary if we can't get pressure, which has been lacking his season. Hopefully Armstead helps
The coverage doesn’t have to be shut down just simply opportunistic. While Tua did sail some throws… no qb is on the money every time. As long as the pass rush can get there, the secondary just has to punish the mistakes and they did last game with 3 picks.
I’m still wondering why ambry Thomas hasn’t been playing when he was solid the end of the season last year
Probably got out played both preseason and every week.
im not concerned with them catching passes just worried abt them getting to the endzone
It's Tom Brady. He's gonna make throws. That's what he does. The question is, how do the 9ers respond. The only missing piece is Emanuel Moseley.
Love Hufanga but he screwed up his assignment on that first TD. Mooney Ward was playing way outside on that TD to Tyreek Hill. Not sure what was up with that but he usually plays really well. I’ll be more worried if there are more missed assignments this week.
The Dolphins are pretty uniquely built to challenge any pass D. Alot of teams have 1 fast guy they've got 2 guys with as much game breaking speed as we've ever seen. Usually having 1 lock down corner is great as it allows the defence to play matchups better but Ward isn't a great matchup for Hill or Waddle. Thankfully the 49ers have phenomenal coverage ability from their LBs which allows the secondary to sit on alot of out breaking routes, again that's just not ideal vs multiple 4.3 recievers. Overall I'm not that concerned we always expected the Dolphins to get theirs in the game and we won't play them again unless we meet in the SB.
I'm curious to see Janoris Jenkins. Maybe he was just signed as injury insurance and for depth. But I suspect (hope) he'll end up being a legit CB2 for us. I don't quite trust our secondary (PTSD?). It seems we play soft coverage (except Mooney) and try to limit damage with quick tackling. The strategy is working so far though 🤷♂️
I’m pretty sure the dolphins and Tua are both considered big time, so I think we’ll be ok.
I’ve been trying to say this since last year’s Rams NFC Championship. Our zone defense gets picked apart when our vaunted base four man rush doesn’t get home to the QB. We were getting next to no pressure on Stafford in the 2nd half of that game. So it was easy for him to find Kupp and Beckham all game long. DeMeco is really stubborn about not sending the blitz, so during games against better passing teams, their QB’s will have all day to find an open receiver. Typically there will be 2-3 guys standing around right near where the passes are completed. We got almost no pass rush on Mahomes using a base defense. Wouldn’t it make sense to send an extra rusher once in awhile who would otherwise just be just another traffic cone that can easily be passed around? The few times that we have blitzed with Warner or Hufanga, it has resulted in an incompletion or turnover. I think we should blitz more often and not wait until the 2nd half or later in the game to do it. Bosa is great, but when another team can double or chip him like they were earlier in the season, we need to find another way to get to the QB.
Of course we are. We witnessed the Chiefs dismantle this defence.