Rush D 32nd?!

[PlinytheCenter]

Nice post Volsung and thanks for the time you spent researching this. Makes me feel quite a bit better than I did after reading that Sando article.

 

[Jiggy]

I wouldn't be too worried about the run game this weekend if it wasn't for the fact that the first back to really take it to us is also the back we are facing this weekend. Compound that with Kapernick being no slouch of a running QB and this weekend could be a nightmare for us.

 

[Sarlacc83]

Volsung's post pretty much nailed it.

Also, we have a pretty young linebacking crew. The middle of the field was definitely a weakness over the middle of the season, but I'm confident the coaches are working to correct the issue. We'll know more on Sunday night.

 

[MontanaHawk05]

Something else everyone forgets is that we were forced by injury to play a backup LB against Adrian Peterson. Despite general impressions otherwise here on .Net, Mike Morgan had a terrible first half against the Vikings, overpursuing and blowing assignments against the worst possible opponent, and that's not an indictment on our overall defense. That one long run by AP accounts for 0.4 YPC in that stat.

For another angle, here is our YPC allowed since the 49ers contest:

3.8 (DET)
9.0 (MIN)
3.8 (NYJ)
6.8 (MIA)
4.0 (CHI)
2.7 (ARI)
5.6 (BUF)

Two of the three worst stats in that list (MIN and BUF) are games we won handily, one of them a blowout. The other (MIA) is a game we didn't lose because of run defense. So while the YPC stat is a bit embarrassing on the surface, it hasn't really affected the season that much.

 

[-The Glove-]

We need those three to be SOLDIERS this Sunday or we have little chance to win. Forget Wilson, Lynch, Rice, Tate...If our DLine can't step up and stop the run, we're done.

Ah, .NET.

Two back-to-back 50+ point games and everyone's talking about an 11-5 finish and a run to the SB. One stat comes out and now "we're done."

Outstanding.

You all want to know what else has happened since that SF game where our run defense began to have issues?

We've gone 5-2. The two losses came by 3 and 4 points, on last second plays, on the road. We've outscored our opponents in those 7 games by 234 to 113.

We've held 3 of our 7 opponents under 85 yards rushing as a TEAM, and held 2 others under 136. What's the big deal about 136, you ask? It's the number of rushing yards we put up on SF in their own house.

We've forced 18 turnovers after forcing only 9 through that SF game. Meanwhile, on offense, we've only turned the ball over 6 times versus 11 times in the 7 games through the SF game.

But wait, there's more...

Our last 2 games are at home. So far this season, the only team that put up more than 20 points on us at home was a Patriots team that happens to lead the league in scoring by nearly 100 points. Here are the opponent point totals for every other game we've played at home this year: 7, 12, 20, 7, 0.

What's more, in our last 3 games (Chicago, Arizona, Buffalo), our offense has put up more than 450 yards and scored 13 TDs. Our defense has allowed 4 TDs, and only ONE of those was on the ground.

Complain all you like about our run D, but they've only allowed 8 TDs all year on the ground. That's 6th best in the entire league. The pass D has only allowed 13 TDs all year through the air, and that's the best in the league.

And if you need context, well here it is...

Opponents MATTER. They do. We're not out on a field against "Random Team A" or "Random Team B" every week. These opponents have their strengths and weaknesses, and those will almost always be reflected in the results we see on the field.

In the first 6 games, we faced the Cards, Cowboys, Packers, Rams, Panthers, and Patriots. The first three of those teams haven't been good rushing teams in years. The Rams have an aging Steven Jackson who has never done well against us. The Panthers' run game has been awful until the latter half of the season. The Pats are the only team that really dedicated themselves to the run that we stepped up and dominated. Since then, look at who we have faced. Adrian Peterson. Frank Gore. C. J. Spiller. Matt Forte. Reggie Bush.

Peterson, Gore, and Spiller happen to be the featured backs for the 2nd, 4th, and 6th ranked rushing teams this year. It's ridiculous to expect a defense to put up similar results against Peterson and Gore as they do against Beanie Wells and Shonn Greene. But still, why is no one talking about how we held Matt Forte to almost EXACTLY the same stats that San Francisco did? Same 21 attempts, and we gave up 3 more yards (63 vs. 66). Should SF be in panic mode over their run D, too? They gave up twice as many run yards to the Rams on their own turf as we did playing in St. Louis.

We've only really had one game where our run defense really performed poorly against an opponent that it should have handled, and that's the Miami game. And that Miami game served as a wake-up call for the team, because we haven't lost since. Plus, we've held teams to an average of under 100 yards per game since. Our YPA since the Miami game has been 4.2, which is lower than our season average.

In the end, we've got 3 games out of 14 that really skewed our run defense stats. Two of those games were against top rushing offenses in SF and Minnesota. The third was the anomaly against Miami. In those three games, our opponents rushed 87 times for 607 yards. That's 7.0 YPA. That's 41% of the total yardage we've given up on the ground ALL SEASON in 3 games. And all three of those games are being included in Sando's stat.

Do you know what the result is when you look at the other 5 games? Our opponents in the other 5 games ran the ball 114 times for 461 yards. That's 4.0 YPA. That average would be good for 7th in the league, and is well below the league average of 4.3.

Now, I'm not saying that we can just ignore the SF, Minnesota, and Miami games. They happened. But what I am saying is that those three games do not DEFINE our run defense. The ugly YPA we've got as a result of those games has not spread throughout each of the games we've had since the SF game. We're not giving up massive YPA against EVERY team we face. We had 3 bad run D games out of 14. That skewed our averages. The sky is NOT falling.

That...was..awesome!

 

[Sgt. Largent]

How can we be tops at run D to start the season and absolutely shit the bed the rest of the season?

Cause we played the Cards, Cowboys, Packers, Rams, Panthers and Pats the first six games of the season..............all mediocre to bad running teams.

SF exposed our poor gap control issues. It's been tightened up a little since, but even Spiller gashed us for big runs. So the gap control problems are still there.......which means expect lots and lots of Gore Sunday night.

 

[HawkFan72]

Nice post, volsung. Great perspective.

 

[AROS]

I agree, nice post volsung, but unfortunately it doesn't make me fear Gore any less Sunday. If Gore has a typical game against the Seahawks it will be a long day.

 

[volsunghawk]

I agree, nice post volsung, but unfortunately it doesn't make me fear Gore any less Sunday. If Gore has a typical game against the Seahawks it will be a long day.

Okay, so what qualifies as typical, then?

Would it be his 131 yard game that he had earlier this year in SF?

Would it be the 83 yard game he had against us late last season in Seattle?

Or the 59, 38, or 25 yard games he had against us the previous 3 times we faced him?

Make no mistake. Gore has been up-and-down against us his entire career. It hasn't always been monster games, even though it seemed that way early in his career.

And his recent performances haven't been all that stellar, either. Yeah, he had a big game against us. And then he dropped off the face of the map, really. Since he faced us last, he has 4 TDs in 7 games (3 rushing, 1 receiving), and has been held under his season average YPA in 6 of those 7 games.

Gore is not to be feared. He is to be stopped, and it will happen on Sunday night.

 

[AROS]

Oh shut up with your sound logic and facts, would you?

Man that surprises me (no not my laziness to dig up the stats myself, that's totally me), I would have sworn Gore has gone over a Benji in every stinkin' game with us over the past three years.

I guess it just feels that way.

Thanks. I do feel a bit more confident then.

 

[volsunghawk]

Oh shut up with your sound logic and facts, would you?

Man that surprises me (no not my laziness to dig up the stats myself, that's totally me), I would have sworn Gore has gone over a Benji in every stinkin' game with us over the past three years.

I guess it just feels that way.

Thanks. I do feel a bit more confident then.

Good! :mrgreen:

We need you amped, ready to make Gore's eardrums bleed... not going in there worrying about what he's gonna do!

If you need more help feeling confident, consider that the 49ers have played back-to-back road games twice already this season. They are 1-1 in both of those pairs. They got the one win against NE. They're getting the loss against us.

 

[AROS]

I'm in!

 

[Sgt. Largent]

Gore is not to be feared. He is to be stopped, and it will happen on Sunday night.

I don't think the Hawks D fears anybody.......but they certainly respect Gore and the 49'er O-Line.

But make no mistake, this is going to to HAVE to be our front seven's best game of the year for us to win Sunday night. You know Harbaugh's game plan to deal with the crowd/not make mistakes is to run, run and run some more. Even more so now that our interior line is super thin with no Jones and maybe Branch.

Bradley and Carroll may have no choice but to bring Cam down into the box to stuff those gaps if we're getting gashed early.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

No doubt, they flat out need to bring their A+ game, w/out it, we lose, plain and simple.

 

[The Radish]

Unfortunately, Wagner has been part of the problem on runs. Yes, he has a lot of tackles by he has been over-pursuing the holes and allowing RBs to get into the 2nd level for big gains.

Shades of Isaiah Kasivinsky

:les:

 

[Scottemojo]

Gore can be controlled. Kaepernick and LaMicheal James could really gash us though. (cue Pehawk...)

 

[kmedic]

The other perspective we've forgotten to look at is how defenses have fared against SF's rushing attack in their LOSSES.

Minn: 89 yards, 4.5 ypc
NY: 80 yards, 4.7 ypc
SL: 148 yards, 4.1 ypc

The only 3 teams that have beaten SF have fared above average against the run in those games, around 4.4 ypc on average. We are currently giving up 5.3 ypc. Sure, we did well against some crappy teams like Arizona and NY, but we're not playing them this Sunday, we're playing SF, the second best rushing offense in the league. In our first meeting against SF we gave up 175 yards rushing at 5.5 ypc.

No doubt the offense is playing exceptionally well and may be able to offset our rush defense deficiencies, but it would be ignorant to say that our rush defense won't be a factor on Sunday in determining whether we win or not. I think it's perfectly justified to be concerned about it.

 

[JrockRichards]

Great posts, good discussion!

Hawks have the guns to hang in this type of contest, as Volsung said, it's the type of teams we have faced...

San Fran also has very similar results against common opponents, so the perspective can be skewed by Sando's stats.

This will play out in the Hawks favor, and if they get a lead on San Fran, watch out!

 

[Sgt. Largent]

This will play out in the Hawks favor, and if they get a lead on San Fran, watch out!

See this is where I think Kaepernick > Smith. Kaepernick's much more of a dynamic QB that can make plays and throw down field to come from behind than Smith.

IMO this game will be no different than any of the previous four with these two teams, it'll come down to special teams plays and mistakes. Also field position played a big part in the first 49'er game this year. I think we started like 10 drives inside our own 20? Not good against a great defense.

 

[roiyair]

Ok so it does make me feel a bit better. But I still feel our D-line is not the same. I just can't seem to forget the picture of our guys blowing up plays in the backfield every time in the beginning of the season. It just hasn't happened the last couple of games.
One thing that the three games that screw up our stats have in common is that they were against top O-lines with the Niners' probably being the best in the league. I still don't feel safe about our D-line facing top competition.