The Ringer NFL Show - The Play Sheet [VIDEO]: The Defining Matchups of Super Bowl LVIII

Episode Date: February 5, 2024

The Ringer's Ben Solak takes a look at the matchups that could swing Super Bowl LVIII this Sunday. The San Francisco 49ers boast some of the NFL's most potent offensive weapons, but the Kansas City Chiefs have a championship pedigree and a fearsome new-look defense. Subscribe to the Ringer NFL YouTube channel and 'The Ringer NFL Show' on Spotify to catch more Super Bowl preview content this week. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey howdy. I'm Ben Solac. This is the play sheet. This is an episode we've been doing all season. If you just got here sick, but I don't need to do the whole intro, you know the drill by now. Open the Spotify app, watch the video and enjoy. The opening script, the matchups that will decide the Super Bowl. We've got a Super Bowl, folks. Niners Chiefs, two of the best offensive minds, league-defining coaches, two of most of the aggressive defenses in the entire league, one elite quarterback and also Brock Purdy. It can be a good game. I'm not here to pick on Purdy, who is a huge part of the reason why, The 49ers are back to a game that they appeared in but lost five seasons ago to these Kansas City Chiefs. Now, both teams are dramatically different now than they were then.

The Niners haven't just moved on from Jimmy Garoppolo to Brock Birdie. They've also added Christian McCaffrey left tackle Trent Williams. There's been a huge innovation in the Kyle Shanahan offense. This is a dramatically better team than they were last time around. And the Chiefs have changed so much from that game as well. When the Niners last played the Chiefs in the Super Bowl, Mahomes had just dawned on the league, right? that he was the trick shot artist, the magician, that access any area of the field at any time, scramble around, throw it behind your back, like wizard demigod quarterback.

This version of Mahomes can still achieve that, but has matured, fine wine, Patrick Mahomes. He can take the simpler stuff, take the faster stuff, let the offense work for him, just hand the football off, throw the screens, he plays so much more within himself than he used to. Meanwhile, the chief's defense has gone from somewhat occasionally good enough to down the right dominant over the last few seasons with the talent acquisition and development of such players as Ligarius Sneed and Trent McDuffie, Justin Reed, and the secondary, Nick Bolton-A-Lio-Chinell at linebacker, George Carlothis, Charles Ame-Henahue along the defense of line and Noah Menahue for this game he's injured. But in general, this defense is now one of the best ones the 49ers

will have faced all season. So there's a time to watch. And it's super exciting and like every player on the field has a chance to be the player that wins the game. But I want to highlight two matchups, one with the Niners hold the ball and one when the Chiefs hold the ball that might decide this game for the final time of the 2023 season, folks. Let's go to play action. Let's go! Shanahan is going to get up to the same old tricks and shenanigans. The Shanahan Ananagan's. They're going to run a ton of condensed sets, right? No team in the league runs tighter formations than the 49ers do. They're going to do pre-snap motion at an extremely high rate, and they're also going to get yards after the catch at like a league leading rate.

And if the league were like 132 teams, they would still lead the league in yards after the catch. This is the Shanahan offense. They do these tight formations. In the past, they've been really play action heavy, not so much this year, but still tight formations. They look like they're going to run the football. They use pre-snap motion, and then they get yards after the catch. Now, the chiefs do have some answers to that.

One of the drawbacks of running really condensed tight formations is that it becomes harder to identify which defensive players are doing what pre-snap. Versus like if you spread things out, it's very clear who's aligned where and where they're going to go. Remember, the Spag's defense is a disguise heavy and blitz-heavy. defense. They want to send surprising rushers from surprising places. And when you give them condensed sets, it makes it a little easier on them to achieve that. So this is Chiefs Niners, 2022. Jimmy Gropolo under center, dark times for Niners fans. We're going to send George Kittle in motion. And it's interesting. When we send Kittle in motion, the deep safety follows him, right?

Like initially it looks like deep half, deep half. Maybe we're playing zone. Maybe we're locking guys up in man coverage. Who knows? But this looks like two deep safeties. When we get the motion here from George Kittle, Justin Reed, the safety follows him across. But then this safety, stays deep half, which is weird. That should feel tricky, right? If this were really like a low safety going to play man, he should be working in the middle of the field. The reason he's staying here is because he's actually in man coverage over Jawan Jennings because Ligerius Sneed and Nickel is coming on a rush and Nick Bolton the Mike is coming on a rush and Willie Gay. This linebacker here is coming off a rush with the edge peeling off to take the back in coverage, right? This, you see this

happened just before the ball snapped, right? When Kittle gets settled on his motion, the chiefs get in position to Blitz. And Jawan Jennings right down here is like, ah, he's trying to call it out, but the ball's getting snapped. What is important about the condensed formation is that if you had Debo out here and you had Jawan out here, this path for Sneed would take longer, right? He'd have to be lined up initially over here. And that would give Jimmy, firstly, a little bit more time to see it. And then also, it would just mean that Sneed is a longer path to take on the rush. And it would just take longer for him to get there, right? But because you condense this formation, it's easier for Spag's say, okay, we're going to send the nickel and we think the nickel can get there in time,

right? What ends up happening is since Sneed gets tight to the line of scrimmage, we get two coming off the edge, right? We get Dunlap staying outside and then Sneed here comes inside. Dunlap ends up being the free rusher. So you got a free rusher from an initially defensive and aligned person, right? Like, that's optimal. That's amazing. And so Jimmy drops back and he tries to throw this late to the back. All right, well, this is wide open, right? This is Frank Clark peeling off with Jeff Wilson, like this is a touchdown. But because it's Jimmy, not as easy to make those throws under pressure and it's an incomplete pass. So here we are now in a spread formation, right? And this is, the Niners will do this a little bit in 2023 with Purdy,

right? Well, they would spread things out for him because they like him in the dropback pass a game more than they did Jimmy Gropos. We're in three by one. All right. And the one receiver, it's a tight split, but he's still off the line of scrimmage, right? We have a little bit more room here now to see what's going on. The problem is that if Spax can't disguise his blitzes super well, and he's still going to send him, right? Like it's not an issue of like, oh, I can't disguise it. Now it won't come. No, they're still going to, they're still going to send pressure. So this safety again is going to tell us, tell us what's going on, right? He walks over to what we call cap this three receiver. It like, usually we see, all right, there's a receiver. And then the guy was covering him is

directly over top of him. Now all of a sudden, we're going to end up with the safety, also being directly over top of him, right? And what this is telling you is, this safety is really the guy who's capping this receiver because that nickel's coming, right? They're bringing that slot corner. They're also bringing linebackers again, as per usual. And so when we snap this, we're going to see free rush off that left side again, right? And it's because they are sending one and two. They are sending more than you can block on that side where you have no tight end in the back is over here, right?

The back is away. So now we're going to get free rusher again on Jimmy Groplo. Here come the linebackers plus one, right? We're going to be more than you can block. and we're just going to play man coverage behind. And this is something the Chiefs this year, better than last year. This is something the Chiefs are doing, but they are locking in press coverage, press coverage, right?

This is Legerius Sneed and Trent McDuffie this year, and they are just winning. Our guys are better than your guys. And they have been consistently correct up to this point at the Super Bowl. And so we're going to get plus one in the rush, and even if you can see it coming. Jimmy sees it coming the whole way, tries to buy time. We think we can force a bad thrott of you pick on the goal line. Now, these two reps we looked at were with Garoppolo at quarterback.

It was important to look at them, because this is how Spags is going to blitz this Niners offense when he blitzes them. But Garabolo was not as good against the Blitz as Purdy has been. Anybody who's been following Purdy this season knows the numbers against the blitz are amazing. According to the next-gen stats, Brock Bertie averages 10.4 yards per attempt against the blitz, which is first by a mile. He has 53.2 total expected points added against the blitz, which is like 22 more than second place, right? He's been cooking it.

Now, Brock's been very good against the blitz, especially relative to Jimmy, because he is a good second reaction player. He can make plays outside of structure. Really fun. Brock Brutty and Kyle Shanahan play here. The Niners love to do this this year where they, okay, put a guy in motion. All right. Now this formation, what are we doing? Right. We got multiple tight ends. That's Kyle you shook fullback. So we get two tight ends. Tight, right? Tight splits under center, back dot in the eye. This is a run formation, right? And then, Christian McAprich just leaves. I don't know what this is. It's empty backfield under center. I don't it's very weird and confusing and hard on the defense's rules and I don't fully understand it so I'm not going to comment on it all I know is it's really funny to see this particular picture of just a quarterback under center with no one behind him it's like 1940 anyway snap of football this ends up being a simulated pressure right they're going to bring these three down defensive linemen and then one more off the edge while this defensive lineman drops right and this right here is this is Jamal adams they're bringing a safety this gives them an interior one-on-one-one-one

one the Seahawks and they get quick pressure on Brock, right? Right here, he gets to the top of his drop. You have your right guard lost, right? So you now have pressure coming right here. So this isn't like a Chief's overload pressure seven are coming, but this is still immediate pressure on the concept. Brock is going to just get out of pocket, move to his left, and then while moving to his left, on the 20-yard line, flip his hips and throw upfield. Take Brandon Ayuk, man. You want this dig, right? You're always trying to throw this dig in this offense. You can't. can't get to here because you got coverage right Seattle's on it and also you're pressured. So now outside of structure find a second play and not just find the receiver, throw him open, right?

Look at where coverage is. You in order to hit this, you can't throw this here because coverage is going to remain underneath it. You have to throw it up field and pull him away from the defender and that's exactly what Brock does on this throw. That challenging throw man. Beautifully done. End zone view. Okay, here's your hilarious motion by Christian McAfree. Here comes the proper off the right side. We get color in our face. Second reaction now. Fine Brandon Iyuk. Up field throw. Gorgeous. Explosive game. Now that play constitutes a blitz and it constitutes a good second reaction play from Purdy. The thing is like Purdy's against the blitz numbers are kind of jacked up because he sees a lot of five-man rush because the Niners just get a lot of five down

defensive lines, right? They get defensive lines that are trying to stop these condensed formations and all these running plays. And so it's like five in the rush, but it's not really five in the rush. If you look at snaps on which Purdy sees at least one defensive back rusher, like a true blitz from depth, he's still quite good. He's fourth in success, right? He's 12th in EPA. But he is pressured on 50% of those dropbacks, right? This offense structurally is going to allow those blitzers to win. And that pressure number is high. Purdy's still successful because he often gets rid of the ball two athletes who can catch in space and who can run. Christian McCaffrey might have heard of him. Now the chiefs lead the league.

in unblocked pressures generated when blitzing. When they send guys, someone gets home. Their top five and EPA allowed when they blitz. And critically, they are the only defense that allows fewer yards after the catch over expectation when they blitz. The only defense in the league. And that's how the Niners make their hay is that Purdy gets rid of the football and players make plays after the catch. This right here is the sort of play. You just cannot beat the 49ers if you allow this sort of play, which is funny because the Vikings allowed this play.

and then they beat the Niners. But it's very hard to stop the 49ers if you lose on plays like this. What are the Vikings doing? I mean, this is a clear pressure look, right? This is first and 10. They have so many bodies at a line of scrimmage. They think they can just live in man coverage with these big cushions and their rush will get home before you can punish them.

So what do the Niners do? And do a little motion with Christian McCaffrey. And then we go RPA, right? We go, this could be a run, potentially. Really, we want to throw this swing to Christian McCaffrey. Because now we have our best yards after the catch-offrey. in space, two blockers, three defenders. Now it's just space, it's tackling in space, right?

Wait, the moment this pass is completed, if McCaffrey beats one guy, it's six. McCaffrey usually beats one guy and it's six, right? And so if you, you can blitz them and Kansas City, that's your identity, you can get after them that way, but you have to be able to make your tackles in space. So when the 49ers have the ball, it's about the way that the chiefs blitz,

those condensed formations and the way that the 49ers try to punish them. When the Chiefs have the ball, it's a lot simpler. It's about running the daggone ball. The 49ers are not a very good run defense. And this has been true of them in seasons past, and they've obviously been very successful. But often when they lose in the postseason, they lose to teams that are willing to run the football.

And maybe you're like, well, Ben, they're playing the Chiefs, right? Patrick Mahomes. The Chiefs are one of the most pass-happy teams in the league, whether they're leading, trailing, doesn't matter what you're doing coverage-wise, they're going to throw the football. And all that's true. But over the last couple of seasons, the Chiefs have really been investing in their offensive line,

Creed Humphrey, Trey Smith, Joe Tooney, and they have an excellent back in Isaiah Pacheco. A huge story of the Chief's offense this season has been their running game. Now, in last year's Super Bowl preview, we talked about the Chiefs running multiple tight-end sets, heavy personnel, 13 personnel. Look at me, I was so young that,

I was so beautiful. Bright-eyed, bushy-tailed writer I was. They're back to it this year. They have doubled their rate of 13 personnel in the postseason relative to what they ran in the regular season, they are willing to get more blockers on the field to invest in the running game and the play action pass game. Now against those multiple tight-in sets, and particularly against those extra blockers attached to the tackles, the 49ers will give you base defense.

They'll put four down defense alignment on the field and three linebackers. And they do this because while most teams have like five down fronts they can get to to kind of try to gum up some of these running lanes, the 49ers are religiously. They are dedicated to being a four-down defensive line team, and that creates easily exploitable weaknesses in the running game. The first, we've seen a few times over the last couple weeks of Niners football. This is a pinpole run action. This is how you neutralize a one-speed attack, aggression, downfield edge rusher like the 49ers have in Nick Bosa and Chase Young.

We saw this against the Packers. First and 10 for the Packers, pinpole action, right? We have four down defense alignment. One, two, three, four. What you have to worry about as a linebacker, right? three linebackers right here in this defense is if they go double team double team and then right now they have two tight ends over here and then this extra receiver they can go double team right here if they want and then if all these double teams start working to the second level right or if they go

double team double team in a zone and they start getting flow this way to the second level you have to be worried as a linebacker about this gap this gap these are the gaps that you're responsible for but the packers will also block down right right here on Nick Bosa with Dantavian Wix, wide receiver on an edge, and then they can pull this tight end, they can pull this tackle, and they get to the boundary on you.

So now as a linebacker, you are responsible for this and this, but you suddenly become also responsible for this and this, you gotta run and chase this, you're the second level. That, this conflict right here, those pulling forces in different directions, that it's a huge ask on your linebackers.

If you are not willing to put extra bodies down here to make these guys jobs easier, man, they really got to be good. And Fred Warner's very good, but he is not Superman. So we're going to see. We get that motion, Dantavian Wicks blocking down onto Nick Bosa, two pullers. We get outside of Bosa. So now we don't have to worry about any, oh, their Devenza's the line so good.

We have leverage and leverage on these blocks, and we have a puller in space for Drey Greenlaw. This is pinpole, and it's beautiful, and it's 10 unblocked yards before we even get into contact. Lions first drive, four down front. Right? When you're in this four down front, what you are giving up as a defense is bubbles. Look at this bubble right here. This unblocked gap between these two outfits linemen call this a bubble. Look at the size of this bubble.

Big bubble between the center and the right guard. Fred Warner is responsible for that. Drey Greenlaw is responsible for right here. What's Drake Greenlaw afraid of? Look where his eyes are. He's cross-key. He's watching this guard because he's afraid of a polar right here. They double team this defensive tackle and climb to Fred,

and they give this ball to David Montgomery, right? Especially if they pull Penny Sewell, they love to pull Penny Sue. They'll meet you in the whole Penny Sewell. So that's what you are worried about is Drey Greenlaw in this B gap. snap the football. There's the poll. I mean, he's down right now, right? He is down.

Safety is down. Chase Young is collapsing in. They are worried about that, this power run right here. This is what all of the energy is in towards. Safety's coming down. Fred Warner's got into your responsibilities.

Look at Nick Bosa. Fast into the core of the formation, right? That's what they fear. And you just flip this thing to Jameson Williams. And now you get pull this into the boundary, right? Josh Reynolds, the wide receiver right here, was supposed to be sealing off Nick Bosa. Bosa didn't even see it because these guys play so,

aggressively on the defensive line. And so now you just flip this to Jameson Williams. Where are you at? You're right where Aaron Jones was. You're on the boundary with pullers. James and William's a little faster than Aaron Jones, didn't he? Look that man go. Survise some contact.

Oh, Drey Greenlaw wants to the tackle. And there's your touchdown. You can get to the boundary on this 49ers defense because the linebackers have to be so aggressive downhill given their run responsibilities. Now, we know the Chiefs will do this to the 49ers with success, right? Too many offenses have already done it, but the Chiefs themselves have done it.

This is against the Jets. Robert Sala, who's the Jets head coach, is the old defensive coordinator of the 49ers. Forward down front. Everybody's in a gap, right? And then we have additional players in the second level for additional gaps. Chiefs run 13 personnel.

They've really liked it this postseason, send the tight end of motion, snap the football, and we get pin or she rides down on the edge and pull, right tackle, and Travis Kelsey lead blocking, right? The Jets actually defend this up pretty well, right?

They go and they squeeze this thing back inside where the defensive help is. But Isaiah Pacheco, man, Isaiah Pacheco. Good little back. Bang, Kareen off of content. Go get you some dirty yardage, young man. So they will pinpole this and be successful. But the Chiefs won't just say like, oh, let's get to our shenanigans,

you know, Miko Hardman handoffs and our pinpole nonsense. No, if you want to give us four down front, I mean, we will take these double teams with our interior, man. Joe Tuny, Creed Humphrey, Trey Smith. We will take these double teams until the cows come home. And we will beat you on the end. interior with Isaiah Pacheco running up the middle, we will win. And they're, they are right more often than they are wrong. This is actually duo, right? They'll run zone where it's like, climb this to the second

level, climb this second level, but this is all zone flow this way. But they're actually, they're running duo here, which is weird. Usually when we see duo, which is just sit on this double team, sit on this double team, lock this tight end to this defensive end and then read these backers. Usually when we see this, we're either under center and the, and the back is dotting the eye, or the back is here to the same side as the tight end. You run this plate to the tight end side. That's how you read this out. The Chiefs work really hard on their shotgun running game, though. They've invested in it.

And so they can run this with the back opposite of the tight end, which is weird and like not how most teams do it. And it's cool. So the story here, though, is the double teams. That's what we're watching. Snap the football. Displacement, right? We win this.

And now because we have control over this double team, but Jackal has three potential paths. And there are two unblocked second level players. Remember, for the Niners, these players play fast down here. Hill, they're used to shooting into gaps. So now Pacheco can just read out these players and choose who he wants to make wrong, right? Wherever they don't go is where he goes. And then because his I say, Pacheco, he's still up four yards after contact.

And you rip it off an explosive gain through the interior. Four down again, tied out away from the back again, double team here, double team here. Pacheco's going to push the line of scrimmage and then read things out. Watch the way Pacheco moves the backers. Watch how he makes them wrong. It's poetry in motion, dude. It's so cool. As you can see the Eagles linebackers,

are they present in these two gaps, right? So you're here and you're here. As Pacheco gets this, they're going to bounce over a gap each. And Pacheco's going to push them right and then appear suddenly to the left. Like this is just great freaking running back play, man. Open space.

And then he actually goes down to first contact. Shout out, read, blanket ship, good tackle. But this is what the chief can do to do. If you say, okay, we're going to be a four down front team, we're going to be a pass rush from a homes team. even when you, okay, like we have a body for every single gap here. Listen, we're just going to win with our double teams and our back is going to make you wrong. We have a talented and valuable player on Isaiah Pacheco.

No, he's not the running back they took in the first round. No running back is not a premium position. Patrick Mahomes is incredible. Like, oh, it's very silly to be talking about Isaiah Pacheco and it's the Mahomes offense. I get that. This is a great play. And it allows the chiefs to be this underneath passing yards after the catch offense they become because they can consistently chunk the football on the ground.

Run the daggone ball, son. So who's going to win? I don't know. I got like five more days to decide. Leave me alone. I'm leading chiefs right now, but I don't have to pick just yet. What I do know is this.

When the Niners hold the football, the Blitz matchup is the one to watch for. Steve Spagnolo against condensed sets, hiding his blitzers, playing whack-amol, generating free rushers and the responses of Brock Purdy. Brock Party, the playmaker, Brock Party, the second reaction thrower.

More than Jimmy ever was for the Niners, can he make the big plays to beat the Blitz from Spags? And when the Chiefs hold the football, football, it's about the running game. It's about power on the interior. It's about a predictable defensive front from San Francisco and the myriad of ways that Andy Reid can beat that schematically, pinpole and reverses, and the players on the field, the jimmies and the Joe's, Joe Tuny, Creed Humphrey, Trey Smith, Isaiah Pachecoe, that interior, that core of the Chiefs' running game, just winning in the middle of the field. If the Chiefs can just chunk their way down,

score seven instead of three and shorten this game for the Niners, they have control of it. And that'll do it for us here on the play sheet. Thank you so much for watching this season. We have more episodes coming. Super Bowl week. Then it's usually one per week. Not for the Super Bowl, baby. We got more. So make sure you subscribe.

The new feed, ring our NFL feed. Wish you thank Cory McConnell for producing the episode for running the feed, for being a great guy. And watch the next ones that come out. You got to watch them. I love you. Bye.