49ers run over in the red zone by a Dirty Bird
by Fooch on Oct 15, 2009 8:00 AM PDT
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Last week we ran our first red zone post, focusing on the 49ers red zone passing offense and Vernon Davis. This week, as painful as it is, I thought we should look at the 49ers red zone defense, and specifically, the defensive performance against the Falcons. The Falcons entered the red zone five times and came away with four scores, three Michael Turner rushing touchdowns and a Matt Ryan rushing touchdown. The other appearance in the red zone resulted in the Dre Bly interception that was eventually fumbled.
Given those numbers, should it surprise anybody that Football Outsiders ranks the 49ers 31st against the rush in the red zone? On the bright side, the 49ers rank 5th against the pass in the red zone, so that's certainly a plus. Nonetheless, at first glance it would appear to be disheartening to see those kinds of numbers. And yet things are not entirely awful in a manner of speaking. Prior to the Falcons game, the 49ers had not allowed a rushing touchdown all season.
In general, the team's red zone defense had been doing a very solid job. The 49ers opponents currently have a red zone touchdown average of 48.1%, which is good for 8th in the NFL. Prior to this past Sunday, the 49ers had faced Adrian Peterson and Steven Jackson, but not much else in the way of super-talented running backs. And Jackson is solid but the Rams never even got into the red zone against the 49ers. So, while the 49ers shut down Adrian Peterson for the most part, another solid back in Turner ran wild on them.
As we look back at the first quarter of the season, and look ahead to the rest of the season, what kind of red zone defense will we see? I'd imagine it's somewhere in between what Turner did, and what everyone else has done, but who really knows at this point. The Texans rushing attack has been very weak this year, so hopefully the 49ers can take care of business. But another poor performance at Houston would not bode well for this defense.
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McDonald
Was unaware that RayMac went out so early. Balmer is a much bigger drop off than I anticipated.
Maybe we should have made a few counter moves to anticipate Atlanta’s. Football is a game of chess. Singletary and Raye put the Falcons game on auto-move.
By listening to the press conferences and post game interviews, its pretty obvious we “stuck to our guns”. That means we did NOTHING new against a team that was watching game footage for 2 weeks to prepare!!
Cases in point: Vernon Davis Hot Routes.
It actually wasn’t Davis’ fault, like I first though. It never occured to the Niners coaching staff that ATL might make adjustments to the same GD hot routes we’ve been running since last year. HMMMMMM maybe, juuuuuust maybe when they blitz they will keep a linebacker in the middle to take away the slant. WHOA!! Those geniuses.
I’m pretty sure that exact scenario played out 3-4 times during our humiliating loss.
by goatfather on Oct 15, 2009 8:33 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs
I understood the hot route issue differently
VD wasn’t supposed to stop because the Niners expected the line to block their people. You then have VD running down field one-on-one with a LB. Great misathh. But if the guys up front don’t block, nothing will work.
You gotta bring ass to get ass.
by SpurredOn on Oct 15, 2009 10:42 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
Texans red zone rushing
They are terrible at running the ball in the redzone.
They take Slaton out and put in Chris Brown (much less talented back).
If we allow a rushing TD by Brown, we suck.
What we've got here is a failure to communicate.
by chikmagnet_565 on Oct 15, 2009 8:58 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs
with our defense
The opposing team shouldn’t even get to the red zone.
by goatfather on Oct 15, 2009 9:02 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
Our defense is going to have bumps on the road.
Our defense is going to have bumps on the road.We all know that.Our Defense is fine.The problem is with our QB.With Gore out and Coffee going down in the Falcon game.Especially in the NFC West where the ball is thrown a lot.Shaun Hill cannot finish drives because he cannot throw the football.He’s OK,but he cannot finish drives.He doesn’t have zip on the ball.I would rather see Alex Smith who has more arm strength than Hill in there throwing to our receivers.I don’t think none of our receivers have caught 10 balls.They rank 30th in a yes run oriented offense.But with Gore out,Hill still can’t throw the ball to decent WR’s.I think they should address this problem now.
by Smallville49er on Oct 15, 2009 9:43 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
It's the same thing
that we did against AZ that last Monday Night game when we took Gore out and put Robinson in
by Drew K on Oct 15, 2009 9:28 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
its the same thing most teams do
its the same reason I loose fantasy points to MaGahee
by goatfather on Oct 15, 2009 9:38 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
The scale on those
stats above were tipped heavily after the Falcons game. I am not sure what they were before that but 3 rushing TD’s in the red zone in one game will do the trick in making you seem worse than what you really are. I am curious to know how many actual rushing TD’s have been ran against us this year. I’m surprised that the team is ranked 5th against the pass in the red zone.
I hate that we all have to wait an extra week to see the game in Houston.
by Drew K on Oct 15, 2009 10:00 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs
I believe zero rushing TD allowed before Sunday
I don’t think there is one stat of ours that didn’t suffer after Sunday. All around awful. We did get an INT for the fifth straight game but then managed to fumble that away, which means we lost the turnover differential for the first time this season. If Bly decided to run instead of showboat and the refs correctly call Walker down we actually would have won the turnover battle. Wold’ve been a small victory, but nothing was meant to work Sunday. One of them days.
You gotta bring ass to get ass.
by SpurredOn on Oct 15, 2009 10:46 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
I think
that if we see Atlanta again (playoffs), that we have the guys to be able to beat them. The only way that happens is if we are the worst division winners in the NFC and Atlanta gets the wild card behind New Orleans. I know that’s jumping ahead, but that scenario could likely play out
by Drew K on Oct 15, 2009 10:57 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
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