The San Francisco 49ers' game against the St. Louis Rams was closer and more exciting than expected. We can’t tell much from the score alone, but the progress of the game proves it.
The San Francisco 49ers' patched defensive team began to expose problems one after another.
The first is the defensive front line. Although the pressure from the front line still has a strong impact, the data of four sacks, four quarterback collisions and eleven effective pressures are eye-catching enough, and they continue to cause trouble for the opponent's pocket. But they had serious missed tackles.
Either due to coordination errors, personal mistakes, or unexpected situations, for whatever reason, there were at least five obvious missed tackles in the entire game - two of which directly caused the opponent to complete third-speed transition, and the other two were Released a large ground advance of more than 15 yards, which also caused all the advantages established by tactical layout and teammate cooperation to instantly return to zero.
Judging from the overall statistics, the San Francisco 49ers' defensive front successfully limited the St. Louis Rams' ground attack to 124 yards, which was an extremely good performance. But it must be noted that only two missed tackles gave up 35 yards. The serious consequences of the mistakes can be clearly seen at a glance.
Fortunately, the San Francisco 49ers are now facing the St. Louis Rams, whose offense is not very strong. If they face a strong opponent like the New Orleans Saints, a mistake at a critical moment may directly ruin the entire game's efforts. Now the San Francisco 49ers need to be thankful that the St. Louis Rams offense failed to seize the opportunity.
What's more, the five missed tackles mentioned above are not all, these are just obvious serious mistakes. In addition, there were many small mistakes during the game. It was only because of the mutual defense and timely supplementary defense of teammates that the situation was not made worse and the losses were stopped in time, so they were not included in the statistics.
Second is the defensive second line. The originally relatively weak second line is now facing more challenges after missing rookie safety Eric Reed - in this game, St. Louis Rams head coach Jeff Fisher is Aiming at this point, the team changed its ground-based attack style and asked backup quarterback Kellen Clemens to hold high the banner of passing attack, hoping to make a breakthrough from here.
Clemens was a second-round pick in 2006 and is now considered a veteran. He spent the first five seasons of his career with the New York Jets, and then was unemployed for nearly a year, bouncing around between different teams. Finally, he came to the St. Louis Rams at the end of the 2011 season and served as Bradford's backup.
This is a quarterback who has served as a starter many times. He has started more than 20 games so far, which is very rare among many backup quarterbacks.
The disadvantage of Clemens is that his passing accuracy is extremely unstable. The average pass success rate in a single season in his career has never exceeded 60%. He also lacks the ability to pass long passes and mainly relies on short passes. The advantage is that , has sufficient knowledge and understanding of the tactical manual, can firmly implement the coaching staff's tactics, and has a certain level of ability to control crisis situations on the field——
This is an important reason why the Rams were able to defeat the Indianapolis Colts; it is also the reason why Jeff Fisher dared to boldly shift the focus of the entire offense to the passing attack. The accuracy of the ball is not good, but at least he can faithfully implement the coaching staff's tactics, which creates the possibility of winning for Fisher.
Entering the game, the strong pressure from the San Francisco 49ers' defensive front once again shone brightly, forcing Clemens to dance in the pocket as if he were on a tightrope trying to pass the ball, rarely able to find his footing. to complete the pass, which also created more trouble for Clemens.
Throughout the game, Clemens unswervingly implemented the short passing tactics, but even so, his passing success rate was still only a pitiful 51.4%, barely more than half.
In other words, the 49ers' defensive frontline has created conditions for the second-line defense through its own pressure, but... the second-line defensive line has repeatedly made blocking errors and missed tackles.
With the pass defense taking advantage, the defensive second line missed at least three tackles, and all three of these mistakes turned into successful third-down conversions for the St. Louis Rams; to make matters worse, the blocking errors resulted in The number of yards lost is also an astonishing number——
For example, this is a five-yard short pass. If the tackle is successful, it will advance five yards; but in the end, due to my own blocking error, the five yards became eight yards, or even more, and even directly Running toward the end zone.
Don't underestimate the number of yards lost for each blocking error. It seems that the number of yards lost is not much, that is, two yards and three yards. But when you add up, the advantage of the defensive team is gradually eroded.
As a result, facing the St. Louis Rams' passing offense that ranks at the bottom of the league, and facing a quarterback of Clemens' caliber, the San Francisco 49ers' defensive second line allowed a full 198 yards of passing offense. The performance is really not reassuring.
Of course, from a positive perspective, neither the defensive front nor the second line made mistakes at critical moments. On the contrary, they were always able to cheer up at critical moments and eliminate the crisis in time, thus preventing the team from falling into a worse situation. situation.
Judging purely from the score, the defensive team only allowed the opponent to score 16 points, one free kick in each of the first three quarters, and a touchdown in the final stage after the timeout in the last quarter. This data is not as high as " "Bad" level; but after the whole game, the defensive team allowed the opponent to get 21 first downs, which was more than double the last game against the Washington Redskins, which shows the problem.
However, this is not a bad thing, more accurately, it is a good thing, because only when the problem is discovered can the problem be solved, otherwise it may be too late until it is exposed in the playoffs. At least, despite being short of major generals, Vic Fangio still built a San Francisco 49ers defense that has gradually become stronger through continuous tests. This is a positive start.
When the defensive team's status began to fluctuate, the offensive team stepped forward and took over the initiative in the game.
From the fake run in the last game to the fake run and real pass in this game, fake and real, real and fake, Lu Ke took the variety of the West Coast offensive system to the extreme.
During the game, Lu Ke repeatedly used the two running backs Frank Gall and Marcus Lynch to divert the attention of the opponent's defensive front line with fake runs, and then used screen short passes or quick short passes to open up the situation. , Logan Newman and Michael Crabtree, who both returned to the starting lineup in this game, became the focus of attention——
The two receiving players repeatedly took advantage of their size to complete the ball in the short passing area, and then waited for an opportunity to complete a forced breakthrough.
If it were just that, it would be a matter of time before the tactics were seen through and suppressed by the opponent.
Lu Ke's cleverness still lies in defensive reading and tactical layout. When Logan or Crabtree attracts enough defensive power, he immediately passes the football to Anquan Boldin or Garrett unexpectedly. - Selleck, does not focus on the number of yards but focuses on the success rate of the pass. It only takes two to three successful catches, and the defensive players have to start to pay attention to the running routes of Boldin and Selleck. Then... Lu Ke will give full play to the characteristics of the West Coast offensive system again and arrange the entire running route in a dazzling way.
The St. Louis Rams defense finally realized something was wrong with the starting lineup - after Crabtree entered the starting lineup, he replaced Ted Ginn, who was in great form, instead of Anquan Bol, who had a more similar size, style, and type. Ding, because the San Francisco 49ers have no intention of taking advantage of Ginn's speed, short and medium passes are still the focus of the entire strategy.
All four receiving players have the ability to catch the ball in a short passing area, and the matchup advantage can also allow them to create more opportunities to advance.
When the visiting team's defensive team thought they had figured out the opponent's strategy, Lu Ke also completed the test and exploration. After entering the second quarter, he boldly adopted two read option attacks, and both times he held the ball. The first attack was completed by running, further breaking the opponent's defensive team's routine.
Such an unexpected style of play completely disrupted the layout of the St. Louis Rams defense——
Every team in the league knows clearly: Lu Ke does dare to run with the ball in the game, and he will not hesitate or hesitate when the opportunity arises; but in the final analysis, Lu Ke is a traditional pocket quarterback, and all skills and tactics Combinations are all built around passing.
Although Lu Ke tried three read-option offenses against the Washington Redskins last week, compared with the previous hundreds and thousands of tactical combinations, the "three times" sample is really too small, too small, or even insignificant. Reference The value is really not high, and it is impossible for the team to be wary of the illusory "read option offensive possibility" all the time.
As a result, Lu Ke succeeded easily again.
After breaking the fixed routine, Lu Ke's offensive methods became rich and diverse again.
To put it simply, when there is no sudden burst of long passes, Lu Ke uses tight ends and large wide receivers to eat up opponents and carry out the task of advancement head-on - does this sound familiar?
In the last game, Lu Ke used ground attack to open up the situation, and the running back group became the hero of the victory; in this game, Lu Ke used short passing offense to open up the situation, and the tight end and large wide receiver became the protagonists. Both methods reduce the offensive burden on the quarterback and use teammates more to share offensive risks, thereby opening up the situation.
After suffering from injuries, Lu Ke's tactical style is slowly adjusting, and he is exploring different ways to play. This is not an easy task, but it is something that must be started.
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