“The 49ers defense is setting the example of what an elite defense looks like”

By law, have to show you when NFL Network’s Brian Baldinger breaks down the 49ers. Baldy spent the better part of his morning going through Sunday night’s game and highlighting the dominant defensive performance by San Francisco. In the four-minute video below, Baldinger talks about all the playmakers on the Niners defense.

The 49ers already had the advantage, but once offensive tackle Brian Bulaga went down, that was all she wrote. Green Bay didn’t have a prayer. We saw the linebackers flow all over the place and prevent big plays. We also saw the secondary eliminate the Packers’ wideouts — a truly dominant performance by San Francisco. The most impressive part to me was the open-field tackling. Each defender closed in a hurry and brought down the ball carrier right away. That helped keep Green Bay in third and long situations. When the 49ers get you in long down and distances, you’ve already lost. Flipping to the other side of the ball, the offense was as efficient as you could ask. Here’s Baldy talking about a few of the 49ers explosive plays:

The attention Kittle commands makes life easier on the other wideouts. You have no choice but to respect Kittle. Baldy has a good point about Jimmy Garoppolo’s accuracy. If Deebo Samuel has to reach back for the ball, he’s forced to slow down, and that likely allows the defender to tackle him. The ball hits him in stride, and that’s usually good news for Samuel.

As you can see from the two play-action plays, Kyle Shanahan prefers to take a shot out of “run-heavy” personnel packages. Thirteen and 22 personnel allow you to protect your quarterback, while the play-action fake sucks up the linebackers. On Kittle’s touchdown, it’s him with the entire field against a safety with six seconds to get open. Nobody is defending that.

The play below is a coverage sack, but this is what happens when you double Nick Bosa. That creates a 1-on-1 for somebody else.

Bosa jumping up and down is awesome. He knows. He knows that if you double him, someone else is going to get home. That’s precisely what happened.

This play is why I want Warner to blitz more. I understand that’s not Saleh’s game, but it feels like whenever Warner blitzes, something good happens.

“All they want is the damn ball”

Here is Baldy talking Shark Week:

Finally, the speed of the 49ers closing running lanes in a matter of moments:

There wasn’t any love for D.J. Jones from Baldy, but we all know the impact he had. The entire defense made their presence felt Sunday night.