49ers 10 - Bills 3: Mike Singletary's Formula for Success

by Fooch on Dec 1, 2008 12:00 PM PST in News Comment 7 comments

A running theme of the Mike Singletary era has been his reliance on 5 specific keys to victory, which he calls "49ers Formula for Success." It's been discussed over and over again by the beat writers and was featured early in yesteday's game on Fox. It's brought up repeatedly in practice so clearly these are things he strongly values. Singletary's keys to victory are:

1. Total Ball Security
2. Execute
3. Dominate the trenches
4. Create great field position
5. Finish

I'm thinking that as long as Singletary is running things (and as long as he doesn't change them), the morning after a game will involve a run down of his 5 keys to victory and how the team performed in each area. I'll even throw out arbitrary grades. Feel free to do the same.

Total Ball Security
Given the weather, ball security figured to be a big issue. In the end the 49ers fumbled the ball four times and the Bills fumbled twice. The good news is that the 49ers only lost one of those fumbles. Given the nasty, rainy weather it's not surprising that there were ball security issues. At the same time, one problem that continues to appear is on the center-QB exchange. This is at least the third game where Heitmann and Hill have had an issue. For the most part they've been able to recover the ball, but it's something that needs to be addressed. I'd say all things considered, for Total Ball Security, the team probably deserves about a B-. It'd be worse but I'll give them a pass becaus of the weather.

Execute
As Barrows wondered, what does this mean? On offense the team executed quite impressively on their opening drive but struggled to execute much of anything the rest of the way. Nothing really got going for them so I'd suppose that's not "executing." The defense gave had issues with bending, but in the red zone they absolutely executed. The 49ers have done fairly well in not giving up touchdowns in the endzone. That proved huge given Rian Lindell's field goal struggles. Special teams certainly executed as Nedney drilled an important 51-yard field goal and Andy Lee continued to drop punts inside the 20. All in all I'd say offensive execution is probably a C+ or B-, defensive execution gets an A (the red zone defense makes up for Marshawn Lynch running wild in my opinion) and special teams execution gets an A+.

Dominate the trenches
On the offensive side of the ball, there was not a whole lot of domination. Frank Gore simply could not get going, averaging a mere 2.8 yards per carry. Given what Gore has proven he can do, I consider this as much an offensive line issue as anything else. Shaun Hill was sacked 3 times but on the scoring drive he was provided enough time to make some big throws. Offensively I'd give the team a C+.

On the defensive side of the ball, the 49ers didn't get a ton of pressure on the QBs, but they definitely got it when they needed it. It certainly helped that Losman more or less created the pressure for the 49ers by running around when it wasn't necessary. Marshawn Lynch had a big day running the ball, which would indicate poor performance in the trenches. The good news on that front though is that when the Bills got into the red zone they couldn't punch the ball in. Once again, the red zone domination of the trenches more than makes up for the earlier struggles in that regard. Defensively I'd give the team a B.

Create great field position
Since losing Allen Rossum, Delanie Walker has done a decent job on kick returns but nothing spectacular. Nate Clements is back on punts and had one small return. Clearly the team misses Allen Rossum. Hopefully he'll be back for the Jets game. The 49ers started inside their own 20 twice and in Bills territory twice although that was due in part to turnovers and not due to the return men. All in all, I'd give the team a B-. Nothing special but no mistakes.

Finish
In winning the game, this section brings kudos to the defense. The defense bent quite often this game, but always finished things when the Bills got into the redzone. More importantly, the Bills got the ball three times late in the game with a chance to score and the defense stepped up big time. The first time the Bills drove to the 49ers 7 and turned it over on downs thanks to some timely pressure. The second time the Bills started on the 49ers 25 thanks to a big Parrish punt return and a personal foul. A 3 and out later and the Bills missed a field goal. The third time was the Bills final possession in which Losman faced a ton of pressure and couldn't make the necessary plays.

Again, the defense's red zone performance is what makes this an A performance. The offense struggled, but for the most part they didn't do anything too stupid. In a knock-down, drag-out battle sometimes thast's all that's necessary. The offense will obviously need to put points on the board against the Jets, but as long as they can avoid turnovers, I think better weather will lead to improved offense.

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"Execute"

Has to be the opposite of “coach” or “game plan”. Say you need to convert on a 3rd and short. You can either out plan (trick) the opposition, or do exactly what they expect you to do, and get it anyway.

You cannot judge the 49ers execution, unless you know their game plan (although you can guess). If their game plan was to control the the ball on the ground, I would say that they failed to execute that (<3 ypc is bad). If their plan was to get pressure on Edwards, I would say they partially succeeded (B/B-).

Going back to last week – they had a plan to contain TO with man coverage using Clements. That failed. But I think not only was the execution lacking (modulo some uncalled OPI), it wasn’t a great plan.

Did the Niners red zone defense out-execute the Bills offense, or did they have a better scheme? Hard to say without knowing the minds of the Buffalo coaching staff…

FIRE BRIAN SABEAN... UNLESS HE KEEPS DRAFTING WELL. .. AND SIGNS UNDERRATED PLAYERS LIKE AFFELDT OR PHELPS. .. OR ALRIGHT WHO'S PLAYING WITH THE ALIEN MIND-SWITCHING RAY?

by zenbitz on Dec 1, 2008 4:03 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

preface: this is the sport psychology phd in me talking here...not the statistician

execution is simply performing the play that’s called by the coaches. it’s what i said a couple of weeks ago that bill walsh based his entire coaching philosophy on. draw up a play, practice the play to the point of flawless execution, call the play in the game, reproduce the flawless execution that occured in practice.

execution is not production or performance. a team might execute a play perfectly, but it still might not gain many yards or be successful in a general sense because football is played against an opponent. it’s not a results-based thing, but the teams that execute better than others will end up being more successful than others. i guess the point here is that it’s better to execute well but not be successful on a given play than to be successful on a given play but not execute well. in the long run, consistent good execution trumps sporadic poorly executed success.

there are several readily apparent examples of execution in football: correct presnap motion, starting the play on the correct snap count (aka not false starting), running the right route, attacking the correct hole on a running play, picking up a blitz in pass protection, staying in your zone in pass defense, attacking the correct gap in run defense, etc.

bottom line is that the coaches are the strategists who put in a game plan and call the plays, and the players have to go out and execute those plays like they did in practice during the week. if they do, then the team has executed well. if not, then the team has executed poorly. over the long run, the teams that execute well win, while the ones that don’t lose.

one last thing…good execution is so important for winning because it translates into more success in clutch situations. when the pressure is on, the first thing that goes is a player’s attentional focus. they have all these distracting thoughts that are irrelevant to the task (read play) at hand. also, they start focusing on, and thinking about, their responsibilities on the play rather than just playing the game instinctually. the teams that execute well train themselves to be like automotons (think walsh 49ers and belichick patriots). they become totally unaffected by pressure because the execution of a play does not require them to think about what they’re doing. they’re not thinking about the consequences of failure (or success).

an analogy to this is hitting a golf ball (sorry for another golf reference). it’s a task that you practice and, if you’re good, can execute flawlessly on the range. then you go out and play a round of golf and you do really well on the first few holes, let’s say on pace for your best round ever. so far you’ve executed the golf swing as well as you ever have. what usually happens? you start thinking about how this could be your best round ever, and how you reeeeeally want it to be your best round ever. this leads you to start focusing on the actual motion of your swing, making sure everything’s where it’s supposed to be. all of a sudden, your execution drops off and you bogey (or worse) the next five holes, and then your round is shot because you think about how you ruined your best round ever. it just spirals down from there. point here? this happens to even the best golfers in the world, but being able to execute the swing flawlessly is a prerequisite for shooting that great round. no golfer goes out on the course and shoots a great 18 holes despite executing their golf swing poorly.

hope this goes a little bit of the way towards clarification.

by Florida Danny on Dec 1, 2008 9:39 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

clutch situations

As a stat guy, I’m intrigued by your thoughts on the existence of clutch situations. In baseball it’s argued that they really don’t exist, as many players perform on par with their career numbers in supposedly clutch situations. What are your thoughts on its application to football?

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by Fooch on Dec 1, 2008 10:07 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

i think the problem with "clutch" situations for a statistician...

…is that, as i kind of alluded to above, a player’s response to pressure is idiosyncratic, and therefore not amenable to large sample stat analyses based on certain situations being defined as “clutch.” for example, is RISP w/ 2 outs during the first inning of a June game really a clutch situation? and if so, can you assume that it’s a clutch situation for everyone? that’s kind of how statisticians treat the whole idea of clutch.

the problem is that “clutch” is not a property of the situation. rather, it’s a property of the player’s mind when he’s in the situation, and that’s kind of hard to quantify through statistical analysis alone.

by Florida Danny on Dec 2, 2008 8:22 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

I would think also that, statistically speaking, when you’re dealing with a team sport the idea of clutch sort of evens the playing field. Say it’s the bottom of the ninth with two outs, a man on second, and you’re down by a run (or any situation, for that matter, that can generally be agreed upon as a high pressure, or mentally distracting situation). So as the batter in this scenario, you’re dealing with the strains of the high pressure situation. However, the pitcher you’re facing is dealing with the same things. So you’re swing might break down a little, but on the same token, the pitcher’s mechanics are just as likely to break down in the same situation. And when there are similar breakdowns on both sides, the statistics should even out.

Something along those lines.

My Dave Righetti is better than your Dave Righetti.

by howtheyscored on Dec 2, 2008 8:55 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

that's a good point...

…definitely true. it can even out for sure, and the dynamics of 11 on 11 do make for a lot of interactions between the stress levels of specific players.

one thing i’d argue with, though, is that, in sport psychology research (and psychology research in general) that examines coping with stress, researchers study situations that are perceived as stressful by the player because stress, and how a player deals with it, is a property of both the person and the situation, not just the situation. it’s methodologically flawed to say that sitations are generally stressful. that’s a far too simplistic treatment of the phenomenon.

a perfect example of this is tony romo muffing the hold two years ago in the playoffs. he had held for a field goal/extra point a million times in games and practices, but the stakes of that situation (i.e., extending vs. ending their season) made him perceive it as stressful, and that stress made him muff the hold (probably due to lack of attention). that kind of situation, though obviously stressful for romo in particular, would not be thought of as generally stressful because the overwhelming majority of players in that situation have no problem with the hold.

by Florida Danny on Dec 2, 2008 9:28 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

I think the currently accepted dogma on baseball clutch goes as follows:

1) Stat guys were SURPRISED that clutch does not appear to be a skill, at least by every situation that has been defined. For example, ability in various clutch situations does not correlate year-to-year (like say, BA or HR/PA). Another, more precise way of putting it is that “ability in the clutch appears to be small compared to the noise in the sample”

2) One explanation offered was that by the time you got the ML level, all the chokers have been weeded out (since as anyone who has ever played sports knows – it’s easy to choke in the clutch)

3) The other argument that it’s a two player (or rather 1 player vs. 9 defense) is also good.

Aside, I think this has not been studied much for pitchers… although it’s presumably just the inverse.

FIRE BRIAN SABEAN... UNLESS HE KEEPS DRAFTING WELL. .. AND SIGNS UNDERRATED PLAYERS LIKE AFFELDT OR PHELPS. .. OR ALRIGHT WHO'S PLAYING WITH THE ALIEN MIND-SWITCHING RAY?

by zenbitz on Dec 3, 2008 2:18 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs