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Kyle Shanahan Scheme


tannenballs

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Don't think it can be watered down to "key concepts". Shanahan, like a lot of offensive coaches these days have a wealth of knowledge built up over the years designed to fit what they like to do personally. Maybe you can see what sets that he likes to use more often or not, but I don't think there are key ideas that can be just conveyed without having some inside knowledge. Listening to Shanahan's pressers, it just seems one would have to really have experience working in the league or even better, working with him. 

You can try asking Oscar from Better Rivals. He and David had "scheme month" over on their podcast this past offseason. I think that's the best information you're going to find from the outside. 

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For starters, it all works off of the outside zone run. The idea is to have linemen block an area rather than a specific guy, and have a runner who is fast enough to shoot through the hole and get past a trailing defender, who usually isn't blocked. 

Off of this play, Kyle loves to roll the QB out to the other side of the field. Houston did it a ton back when he was their OC. He gets defenders rolling one direction, through play action or with a jet sweep, and then he hits you with routes going the other direction.

He is the master of figuring out whether you are in man or zone based on alignment, or presnap motions, and then hitting you with concept beaters. Part of it is the fact that literally everyone on the field can catch the ball. Our fullback is good for 5 catches a game seems like, and they aren't just dump offs to him either, he runs routes 20-40 yards down the field. 

It's not just the play designs that are top notch, but it's how/why/when he calls the plays. He sets you up. He doesn't just come with one play for the beginning of the game, he counts on you adjusting to it and already has a counter to your counter. When he gets into a rythm calling plays, there really is no one better. 

He will do things like, play action on the outside zone, to a fake roll out, where the QB stops and then throws a screen pass to the FB or TE towards the initial side of the play action.  So linebackers go that direction, then bail out when they see it's a pass, then the ball finds someone in space with blockers in front.

Kyle is essentially a magician. He gets your eyes moving one way, so that he can manipulate what is actually happening. By the time the defense realizes what happened, its too late. Go back and watch the jaguars game from last year, it's the perfect example of what Kyle can do. He diced them up from start to finish. 

Sean mcvay gets a lot of credit for his creativity. He was Kyle's QB coach in washington and I believe that Sean based his scheme on Kyle's concepts. Sean has obviously been more successful implementing his scheme as a HC so far, but his offense is infinitely more talented right now. 

Kyle is a prodigy. Only a matter of time before our offense is consistently in the top 5 in ppg. 

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11 hours ago, N4L said:

Kyle is a prodigy. Only a matter of time before our offense is consistently in the top 5 in ppg. 

Yeah, I'm not worried about our offense being great, but man do we need someone who knows how to run a defense. Very disappointed with Saleh this year

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On 2018-10-10 at 1:15 PM, struby3 said:

Yeah, I'm not worried about our offense being great, but man do we need someone who knows how to run a defense. Very disappointed with Saleh this year

I'm not worried about the offense overall, but I do think we've overrated Kyle a little. He's great, but I think he has some principles he won't budge on, sometimes to his detriment. He's better at doing more with less than a lot of coaches, but I don't think he's the best or a genius. What I like is his personality, what he brings to the press conference. His scheme is pretty good, and he will have a handful of play designs that will amaze us, but there's also a handful of plays that will leave us saying "Why?!". And as a head coach, I don't know if he's tough enough, or inspiring enough. We've seen a lot of sloppiness this year, and part of it is on the coaches.

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1 hour ago, rudyZ said:

And as a head coach, I don't know if he's tough enough, or inspiring enough. We've seen a lot of sloppiness this year, and part of it is on the coaches.

I don't think it will be a long-term issue and I for one has never been a fan of the "ra-ra coaches" (if that's what you're after with toughness and inspiration?). We have been quite sloppy, I agree, but we're also a young team with some sub-par players and most of our penalties have come from skill- and experience-based stuff like holding, false starts and face masks. We haven't had players losing their head or acting out, which I would be more worried about or taken as a signal that the coach may not have the respect of the team. 

I'm very confident with Shanahan. Less so with Saleh but that's for another topic. 

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On 10/10/2018 at 10:15 AM, struby3 said:

Yeah, I'm not worried about our offense being great, but man do we need someone who knows how to run a defense. Very disappointed with Saleh this year

We need quite a few upgrades on this coaching staff. 

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1 hour ago, rudyZ said:

I'm not worried about the offense overall, but I do think we've overrated Kyle a little. He's great, but I think he has some principles he won't budge on, sometimes to his detriment. He's better at doing more with less than a lot of coaches, but I don't think he's the best or a genius. What I like is his personality, what he brings to the press conference. His scheme is pretty good, and he will have a handful of play designs that will amaze us, but there's also a handful of plays that will leave us saying "Why?!". And as a head coach, I don't know if he's tough enough, or inspiring enough. We've seen a lot of sloppiness this year, and part of it is on the coaches.

I feel with the genius plays you will always get the why plays simply because they usually are the same type of plays which if they work are great and truly amazing and when they fail you really question what is going through his head.

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43 minutes ago, evilflamingo said:

I don't think it will be a long-term issue and I for one has never been a fan of the "ra-ra coaches" (if that's what you're after with toughness and inspiration?). We have been quite sloppy, I agree, but we're also a young team with some sub-par players and most of our penalties have come from skill- and experience-based stuff like holding, false starts and face masks. We haven't had players losing their head or acting out, which I would be more worried about or taken as a signal that the coach may not have the respect of the team. 

I'm very confident with Shanahan. Less so with Saleh but that's for another topic. 

I'm not talking about ra-ra, just enforcing some kind of accountability. We obviously don't know what's going on in the locker room and in meetings, and maybe that's where all of this is happening. I just don't it reflecting on the field. Of course, talent hinders is ability to send a message. You can't really bench a player who has taken a dumb penalty or plays poorly when the next guy up sucks. Well... you can when Jimmie Ward plays poorly. I doubt he was benched because Greg Mabin was pushing him for playing time. But at other positions, there's very little he can do. If Marsh sucks, who are we going to play instead? I don't know. I'm just disappointed with the way the team is looking on the field. As I said the other day, it feels like the players were playing harder on a winless team last year than they are this year. Maybe last year the only way was up, so players were optimistic for the long term. And this year, we had Jimmy G, and were optimistic from the start, and his injuries killed many hopes. But the team was indisciplined before the injury... so I don't know. 

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@rudyZ I hear you.

Kyle has done a good job scheming the offense this year, there has been a lot of plays that we left out on the field.  Theres been some terrible turnovers this year that are simply not his fault. Hes been visibly frustrated, especially early when Garoppolo wasn't executing plays correctly. A few times kittle was wide open and Jimmy just missed him, or kittle dropped the ball. with the injuries, I think his hands are somewhat tied right now. 

To your point, the team has been sloppy. Too many penalties, too many mental mistakes. I dont think his coaching style is one that he is going to go bananas and get in someone's face when they screw up. These guys are smart enough to know what they did. I think the players love playing for him because they know hes going to put them in a good position to succeed on offense, and that he is going to give them a fair shake when things dont go right. He is very consistent. You know what you are getting from kyle on a daily basis. Guys respect that. 

With that being said, he needs to adjust what he is doing because it hasnt gotten cleaned up yet. I think he needs to get a little bit ticked off. Steve Kerr is a perfect example of this. He gives his guys a leash. The warriors play fast and loose and they make plays, but Kerr demands they play within the confines of the system. When they stray too far from the path, he will yell and curse at them and break white boards, throw chairs, etc. He knows how to get his team fired up. Hes very fair, very articulate, but at the same time he isnt afraid to challenge his guys to be/do better. Kyle lacks that last part, but it feels like its only a matter of time before he grows into that role. 

Obviously Kerr has more experience. I mean, Kerr was still playing in NBA when he was Kyle's age. I think people tend to overlook how young kyle is... hes 38 years old. Thats very young for an NFL HC, even if its less unusual than it was 5 years ago

We dont really have any super-experienced guys on our staff. Its a very young coaching staff with a very young team and a very young front office. It seems evident now that there are more growing pains than a lot of us wanted to admit. Doesnt mean I am not optimistic about the future, or that I dont think Kyle has what it takes. 

One thing I will say, his clock management and in-game decisions have been excellent. That is always the worry when you hire a coordinator who has never been a HC on any level.. The fact these really have never been an issue shows that Jed FINALLY got it right.  

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I agree with both of you guys' points. Sometimes you need someone on the staff to go off a bit to bring out some urgency in some players. I don't necessarily feel that it should be the HC though and actually prefer to have some of the assistants, or even better have locker-room leaders among the players, play that role instead. For me, the perfect HC is level headed and keeps that head in the game without having to resort to theatrics to get the attention of players. 

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17 hours ago, rudyZ said:

I'm not worried about the offense overall, but I do think we've overrated Kyle a little. He's great, but I think he has some principles he won't budge on, sometimes to his detriment. He's better at doing more with less than a lot of coaches, but I don't think he's the best or a genius. What I like is his personality, what he brings to the press conference. His scheme is pretty good, and he will have a handful of play designs that will amaze us, but there's also a handful of plays that will leave us saying "Why?!". And as a head coach, I don't know if he's tough enough, or inspiring enough. We've seen a lot of sloppiness this year, and part of it is on the coaches.

Well we had that with Harbaugh, and people apparently got tired of it. Darned if you do, darned if you don't. :)

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That 'ra ra' only gets you so far. You have to be able to actually coach and scheme your way to success rather than yell your way to success. Eventually players get tired of your voice and will start to tune you out. Players will almost always play harder for the guy that will make them better and challenge them from a schematics standpoint than the guy who's always coming with the 'ra ra',  trying to inspire them at every turn.

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12 hours ago, evilflamingo said:

I agree with both of you guys' points. Sometimes you need someone on the staff to go off a bit to bring out some urgency in some players. I don't necessarily feel that it should be the HC though and actually prefer to have some of the assistants, or even better have locker-room leaders among the players, play that role instead. For me, the perfect HC is level headed and keeps that head in the game without having to resort to theatrics to get the attention of players. 

I agree with this so much. Yeah, it's not Kyle's role to yell. But who on that staff is raising his voice? Who's vocal leader? I can't think of a coach who has that kind of personality. Back in the Harbaugh years, we had a lot of vocal leaders on the staff (and on the team). Tomsula spent entire games on the sideline screaming. BLUDGEON! Fangio was a guy I don't feel players wanted to piss off. Jim Leavitt also had a strong personality. We lack strong leadership on the defensive side of the ball for sure. 

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