Week 6 GDT - Los Angeles Rams at San Francisco 49ers

[49erurtaza]

Just now, Forge said:

May as well just keep them on IR. Can re-sign Blair on the cheap again next year lol

 

[Forge]

1 minute ago, 49erurtaza said:

 

For years a torn patellar tendon was a career killer for the most part. Had one of, if not the lowest recovery success rate out of major injuries. It's almost always been worse than an ACL. Its been a lot better in recent years, though careers tend to have shorter survival spans afterward (Victor Cruz, for instance) 

[757-NINER]

Its crazy to me how these two teams this season mirror their O-Line play and how vital the interior play is to both schemes.

Lambs O-Line has really overachieved in my eyes. They didn't make one upgrade to their line during the off-season, yet they are CLEARLY one of the best O-Lines in the league thus far. And its kinda crazy considering they were bad last year, with virtually the same group. I expected their O-Line to totally handcuff their offense and that hasn't happen at all. Their line has actually catapulted their offense. 

Meanwhile, one could say we had a elite run-blocking O-Line last year and were a good in pass-pro minus RG and C. We replaced Staley with arguably the best LT in the league and yet we've been absolutely horrendous upfront. Both in run and pass-blocking, we have yet to play up to our 2019 level, despite returning virtually the same O-Line. Its really one of the strangest role reversals I've witnessed this year.  

Edited October 16, 2020 by 757-NINER

[stl4life07]

1 hour ago, 757-NINER said:

Its crazy to me how these two teams this season mirror their O-Line play and how vital the interior play is to both schemes.

Lambs O-Line has really overachieved in my eyes. They didn't make one upgrade to their line during the off-season, yet they are CLEARLY one of the best O-Lines in the league thus far. And its kinda crazy considering they were bad last year, with virtually the same group. I expected their O-Line to totally handcuff their offense and that hasn't happen at all. Their line has actually catapulted their offense. 

Meanwhile, one could say we had a elite run-blocking O-Line last year and were a good in pass-pro minus RG and C. We replaced Staley with arguably the best LT in the league and yet we've been absolutely horrendous upfront. Both in run and pass-blocking, we have yet to play up to our 2019 level, despite returning virtually the same O-Line. Its really one of the strangest role reversals I've witnessed this year.  

Its called scouting and coaching. The Rams knew what they had in their building with Noteboom, Blythe, Edwards, Evans, and Corbett. Those guys were young and just needed experience and developing. Meanwhile someone like Havenstein who was already established and pretty good WHEN HEALTHY, wasnt healthy last season and just needed to get healthy and he finally is. Thats why I said the Rams didnt NEED to go out and spend a high pick on an OL or pay up for one. Yes it wouldve been nice but they believed in what they had. They believed in the their OL coach in Kroemer who is one of the best in the league. They also believe in the scheme too. I dont think the Rams OL overachieved at all. They are playing to the capabilities of what the coaches thought they can play to.

What people saw last year was an injured unit that threw in two rookies in Edwards and Evans, a guy who barely had a cup of coffee on the team in Corbett in the starting lineup and asked that unit with no chemistry or experience together to go block the Niners elite front seven, the Cards elite pass rusher Jones, the Steelers elite front seven, the Browns elite pass rusher Garrett, and other talented pass rushers. That wasnt a great recipe. They took their lumps, they grew, they got healthy, and they are better now. 

Havent paid much attention to the Niners OL but I have no idea what happened to it. I thought trading for Williams would make a strength even stronger. It could just be one of those years where the Niners can reevalute that unit and think it was either just a down year or they arent as strong as they thought they were.

Edited October 16, 2020 by stl4life07

[49erurtaza]

7 minutes ago, stl4life07 said:

Its called scouting and coaching. The Rams knew what they had in their building with Noteboom, Blythe, Edwards, Evans, and Corbett. Those guys were young and just needed experience and developing. Meanwhile someone like Havenstein who was already established and pretty good WHEN HEALTHY, wasnt healthy last season and just needed to get healthy and he finally is. Thats why I said the Rams didnt NEED to go out and spend a high pick on an OL or pay up for one. Yes it wouldve been nice but they believed in what they had. They believed in the their OL coach in Kroemer who is one of the best in the league. They also believe in the scheme too. I dont think the Rams OL overachieved at all. They are playing to the capabilities of what the coaches thought they can play too.

What people saw last year was an injured unit that threw in two rookies in Edwards and Evans, a guy who barely had a cup of coffee on the team in Corbett in the starting lineup and asked that unit with no chemistry or experience together to go block the Niners elite front seven, the Cards elite pass rusher Jones, the Steelers elite front seven, the Browns elite pass rusher Garrett, and other talented pass rushers. That wasnt a great recipe. They took their lumps, the grew, they got healthy, and they are better now. 

Havent paid much attention to the Niners OL but I have no idea what happened to it. I thought trading for Williams would make a strength even stronger. It could just be one of those years where the Niners can reevalute that unit and think it was either just a down year or they arent as strong as they thought they were.

Biggest issue has been for years both guard spots Shanahan has ignored it fornyears. throw in McGlinchy losing massive weight and not being a good pass blocker in general, Trent Williams I expect to get back to form. Center well we are starting a backup while our starter probably won't play this year. My guess is the line gets better but our season will be lost when they improve.

[49erurtaza]

 

[Forge]

11 minutes ago, stl4life07 said:

Havent paid much attention to the Niners OL but I have no idea what happened to it. I thought trading for Williams would make a strength even stronger. It could just be one of those years where the Niners can reevalute that unit and think it was either just a down year or they arent as strong as they thought they were.

TL; DR version:

Richburg's career is possibly over, they elected to think that Brunskill was a guard because of his success at tackle and the contingency plan there was horrific. Mike McGlinchey decided to lose a bunch of weight at basically looks like Zach Ertz now and can't hold up on an edge. I don't know why he did this, or who thought it was a good idea, but watch him this weekend. It's crazy. Dude looks sleek and lithe almost lol. Laken Tomlinson has just imploded. Obviously he was never great, but he was fine...and this year he's not. Could be nothing more than a bad season. It happens. 

Also, people were grievously misjudging the line previously. For some reason, in general, people thought we had a good offensive line. The truth is we have always had a really, really bad pass blocking offensive line and an elite run blocking line. 

[49erurtaza]

Take it with a grain of salt cause it's Cohn but kinda funny.

 

[jrry32]

8 hours ago, 757-NINER said:

Its crazy to me how these two teams this season mirror their O-Line play and how vital the interior play is to both schemes.

Lambs O-Line has really overachieved in my eyes. They didn't make one upgrade to their line during the off-season, yet they are CLEARLY one of the best O-Lines in the league thus far. And its kinda crazy considering they were bad last year, with virtually the same group. I expected their O-Line to totally handcuff their offense and that hasn't happen at all. Their line has actually catapulted their offense. 

Meanwhile, one could say we had a elite run-blocking O-Line last year and were a good in pass-pro minus RG and C. We replaced Staley with arguably the best LT in the league and yet we've been absolutely horrendous upfront. Both in run and pass-blocking, we have yet to play up to our 2019 level, despite returning virtually the same O-Line. Its really one of the strangest role reversals I've witnessed this year.  

Continuity and health matter a lot. Our OL played decent football near the end of the year, but we had to basically throw a new unit together midway through the season due to injuries. We acquired Corbett and almost immediately made him a starter. Blythe struggled at RG between an ineffective Allen and an injured Havenstein. Whitworth was playing injured and less effective. Edwards and Evans were rookies pressed into action. Demby sucked something fierce and got benched nearly immediately. Ultimately, near the end of the year, we found a decent unit with Whitworth-Corbett-Blythe-Edwards-Evans. Havenstein returned healthy this year and is back to form. Whitworth is healthy and back to his form. And the interior has really gelled well (Corbett and Edwards flipped sides). 

[jrry32]

7 hours ago, Forge said:

TL; DR version:

Richburg's career is possibly over, they elected to think that Brunskill was a guard because of his success at tackle and the contingency plan there was horrific. Mike McGlinchey decided to lose a bunch of weight at basically looks like Zach Ertz now and can't hold up on an edge. I don't know why he did this, or who thought it was a good idea, but watch him this weekend. It's crazy. Dude looks sleek and lithe almost lol. Laken Tomlinson has just imploded. Obviously he was never great, but he was fine...and this year he's not. Could be nothing more than a bad season. It happens. 

Also, people were grievously misjudging the line previously. For some reason, in general, people thought we had a good offensive line. The truth is we have always had a really, really bad pass blocking offensive line and an elite run blocking line. 

Might be the Center. I know Blythe looked competent next to Sullivan, but when Allen stepped in, Blythe turned into straight trash (until we moved him to Center; now, he's competent again).

[FrantikRam]

So who all will be out in this game from who should be starting?

Bosa

Ford

Kwon

Sherman

Who else?

[Forge]

21 minutes ago, FrantikRam said:

So who all will be out in this game from who should be starting?

Bosa

Ford

Kwon

Sherman

Who else?

Richburg. 

K'Waun Williams is the starting nickel...which may or may not be a "starter" depending on what formation you come out in, but basically is a starter. 

Seems like Moseley is good to go...but concussions are icky and non linear, so I don't want to say for sure. I think he's still listed as questionable. 

 

 

[N4L]

@FrantikRam 

To add to forges list last week we were also down akhelo Witherspoon last week. Mosley may or may not play, anyone's guess. These were our #2 and #3 boundary corners coming into the year. We already lost our nickle corner. So the secondary might not be as thin this week as it was last week 

lets not forget tevin coleman who is our RB2. McKinnon should only be our third down back imo. he is a 'weapon' but not a good RB

The main issue is that we basically have no DEs. Arik armstead is a tweener DT who is good on basedowns at DE. He only has so many pass rush moves from the edge. Kerry Hyder is a good player but he isn't meant to be a full time edge rusher either. So the pass rush isn't what it was with no bosa, Ford, and Buckner. Kinlaw is a beast though, my comp for him is Chris jones, y'all will see 

So we are definitely 'more healthy' than we were a few short weeks ago when we had guys dropping like flies, but we have a lot of guys trying to work themselves back into rhythm. It hurt that we had multiple guys out at the same position. 

Not having your QB is a gamechanger. McVay has only ever had one QB as a HC. Thats so big.

ALSO - we were not healthy for most of our training camp. Kittle, juicecheck, aiyuk all missed time with hamstring injuries IIRC and there were other guys in and out at the time as well. 

Edited October 17, 2020 by N4L

[N4L]

I just dont see any way in which aaron donald doesnt completely wreck the interior or our OL. They have been very bad this year. Thats the first thing for me. Garoppolo doesnt trust his OL and doesnt handle pressure well (which wasnt the case before the ACL. he had good-great awareness and pocket presence back then, now he has regressed here to the point I dont know if he will be able to find that again, sadly). So we are going to have to figure out a way to get him comfortable.

To me, that starts with rolling him out of the pocket. They say the ankle is good, well lets roll him out on play action. thats supposed to be a huge part of the scheme but we havent done it hardly at all. Its time. 

The other thing I would do is get the ball out of his hands quickly early in the game. Get the rams secondary to start to think they can jump routes, and then hit them with a pump fake and hit them deep. Idk why he never pump fakes. 

Its funny, because last year the Rams had a ton of issues with their OL. Goff is getting rid of the ball faster, and throwing more underneath passes this year than he has in previous years (8.8 yards in the air per attempt last year, and 5.9 yards in the air per attempt this year, which apparently is the lowest since this they started recording this in 2016) I think they are trying to mask the deficiencies with their OL. I would look to this as something we can take advantage of.

Goff has a very slow release. Its not the slowest ive ever seen, but its slow. big windup. He has a good arm but a slow release and throwing a lot of short passes is exactly how Fred warner got his only career pick 6 last year in week 15. I would like to see us mix in some cover 2 and allow our corners to be hyper aggressive on the underneath passes knowing they have help over the top. We wont do it, but we should. We need to have our guys like Kinlaw and armstead who are very tall anticipate these passes and try and bat them into the air

Goff is completely different QB when he is pressured. @jrry32 always says that every QB struggles when they get pressured. While true, Goff feels the heat more than most. He is incredible when he never has to adjust his footwork to be anything other than completely on script. What I mean by that is that he is good at throwing on the run on designed roll outs. He is good at throwing the ball in a clean pocket. As soon as any defender forces him to adjust his footwork in a way that would be different than exactly how he would do it 1000 times while he was alone in his own backyard, he struggles. His mechanics break down and he is inaccurate. Goff does not know how to use different arm angles. He knows one way to drop back, one way to roll out, and one way to throw the ball. So a huge part of the gameplan needs to be getting goff to hold the ball and then getting him off his spot. 

Need to run the ball, and ride our three horses. kittle, deebo, aiyuk. Ramsey will probably get matched up on aiyuk a lot. Interesting matchup based on skill set and body type. Ramsey isnt afraid to tackle and aiyuk is tough to bring down

[TecmoSuperJoe]