When Patrick Mahomes is healthy, two things happen: The Chiefs score a lot of touchdowns, and the opposing quarterback must at some point be responsible to provide the kinds of game-switching shot plays than can answer Mahomes and Kansas City’s offense in a compelling fashion.
The Houston Texans discovered this in the divisional round of the playoffs, when they put up a 24-0 lead on the Chiefs, and then watched their season end ignominiously as Kansas City scored touchdowns on seven straight drives, Mahomes threw five touchdown passes, and tight end Travis Kelce caught three of those scores. Houston decided to stay in man coverage through most of the game, which did not work at all. The 51-31 final was proof of concept in reverse.
Then, the Tennessee Titans got up 10-0 on the Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game, only to see Mahomes piece through defensive coordinator Dean Pees’s advanced zone concepts and three-man rushes for three more touchdown passes. The result: A 35-24 loss for the Titans in which 2019 rushing champ Derrick Henry carried the ball just three times in the second half.
So, whether it’s man or zone, it’s clear that Mahomes has the tools, and the weapons, to pick your defense apart. And as good as the San Francisco 49ers’ defense has been with the healthy return of starters Dee Ford, Kwon Alexander, and Jaquiski Tartt, defensive coordinator Robert Saleh is well aware of the challenge ahead in Super Bowl LIV.
“They’re very explosive,” Saleh said this week, compering the current Chiefs to the 2018 Chiefs that beat his team, 38-27, in Week 3 of that season. “Mahomes has gotten better. At every position, it almost looks like they got their roster from the Olympic relay team and threw them all on the football field. Not to say they can’t run routes and catch either, because they can do that. They’re a special group and you can see why they’re there.”
When the 49ers get there — that is, to the field at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami on February 2 to try and win the Lombardi Trophy for the franchise’s first time since the end of the 1994 season, they’ll have to deal with Mahomes and all those track stars. That particular matchup merits its own tape study, but for our purposes here, let’s assume that, as good as that San Francisco defense is, it’s not going to shut down Kansas City’s offense to the point where Kyle Shanahan can call 47 rushing plays, as he did against the Vikings in the divisional round, or 42 as he did against the Packers in the NFC Championship game. Mahomes is neither Kirk Cousins, nor is he the current version of Aaron Rodgers. He has the ability to change offensive game plans, and force coordinators and coaches to do things they’d rather not.
It has become abundantly clear that one thing Shanahan would rather not do is to put the game in the hands of quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo. Following a near-interception and an actual interception thrown to linebacker Eric Kendricks against Minnesota in that eventual divisional win, Garoppolo was yanked, Gong Show-style, from the game plan. He has rarely been seen since.
In the first half of that Vikings win, Garoppolo completed eight of 13 passes for 105 yards, a touchdown, and that interception. In the second half, though the 49ers were only up 14-10 at that point, Garoppolo attempted just six passes, completing three for 26 yards. Head coach Kyle Shanahan didn’t need Garoppolo to go off because he had a great running game and a clampdown defense that had an easier time against less explosive offenses, and that trend absolutely continued into the conference championship round. Then, Garoppolo threw the ball just eight times, completing six passes for 77 yards. Per NFL Research, that made the 49ers the third team of the Super Bowl era (the 1971 and 1973 Miami Dolphins were the others) to finish a playoff game with fewer than 10 passing attempts..
“Got to talk to Kyle or something,” Garoppolo said, when asked what he’d need to do to get more throws. “I mean, we were running the hell out of the ball tonight. It made my life very easy back there. I think we had, like, eight pass attempts. A fun night.”
“We had an idea going in,” Shanahan said after the 37-20 win over the Packers, which was really a 34-7 win before the Packers scored a couple touchdowns in garbage time. “We were hoping to do something like that going in. But, you never plan for it to be like that. When you’re watching how the guys were running and everything, and then watching how our defense was playing, it made it very easy to stick with, even the third downs and stuff. The guys played as aggressive as any team I’ve been on, and they made it very easy to call plays.”
As we’ve said, it will likely be more difficult against the Chiefs, and the odds of Shanahan successfully going all vintage Don Shula against Kansas City’s offensive frenzy are not good. So, with that in mind, how will the 49ers be able to keep pace strapped with a quarterback who’s thrown zero touchdowns in a game (four) as many times as he’s thrown more than two? Shanahan will have to maximize Garoppolo’s strengths while minimizing his limitations, and here’s how to do it.
Make play-action the focus of the passing game.
Per Pro Football Focus’ metrics, Garoppolo has thrown 10 touchdowns to five interceptions, completing 67.9% of his passes for 10.4 yards per attempt and a quarterback rating of 109.4 when using play-action. When he’s not used play-action, Garoppolo has thrown 18 touchdowns to nine interceptions, completing 69.3% of his passes for 7.3 yards per attempt, and a quarterback rating of 96.8.
One reason for Garoppolo’s increased efficiency when using play-action is that he struggles at times to discern coverage from the middle of the field to the seams — this was the case in both the near-Kendricks interception…
…and the actual Kendricks interception.
Play-action adds to the probability of displacing linebackers and safeties in coverage, giving Garoppolo the more favorable reads he requires — especially in Shanahan’s advanced route concepts, which create openings as few other passing games do.
This 75-yard touchdown pass to Emmanuel Sanders in San Francisco’s 48-46 Week 14 win over the Saints shows how defenders can react to the prospect of the run when an offense is passing — especially when the rushing offense is as successful and diverse as San Francisco’s is. Uncertainty everywhere, and Garoppolo needs defensive uncertainty to succeed consistently.
Linebackers Craig Robertson and Demario Davis are kept near the formation by both play-action and pre-snap motion (which we’ll get to in a minute), cornerbacks Eli Apple and P.J. Williams adhere to running back Tevin Coleman on his release route, safeties Von Bell and Marcus take turns falling down as Sanders goes through his deep route, and that’s how a touchdown is created.
There are several things wrong with New Orleans’ defense on this play; Shanahan created enough of the problems with the design. Play-action will be a must against Kansas City’s defense, which allowed 11 touchdowns, an opponent quarterback rating of 111.5, and had just one interception against play action in the 2019 season, per Sports Info Solutions.
Use motion to displace and give Garoppolo easier reads.
Also per PFF, the 49ers used pre-snap motion on 79% of their plays this season, first in the league. This plays to type for Shanahan, who has raised his motion percentage in each of the last five seasons as either an offensive coordinator with the Falcons, or as the 49ers’ head coach.
Shanahan doesn’t just call pre-snap motion to move a player from one side of the formation to the other, though he does that a lot. He’ll also move receivers from outside the formation to the backfield, and move running backs from the backfield to outside the formation. When he was calling plays for the Falcons, it was always fun to watch fullback Patrick DiMarco motion from the backfield all the way out wide, and see how linebackers reacted. Not a great situation for the defense.
But for Garoppolo, the main advantage to pre-snap motion is that it allows him to discern whether the defense is setting up to play man or zone coverage. If a defender moves with the motion player all the way across, it’s likely man coverage. If you see defenders checking to each other with less movement, you’re probably going to get zone coverage. To be more specific, motion can disrupt zone, man, and match coverage responsibilities by putting different defenders on different skill position players. Defenders should know and respond to the fact that, for one example, they have the “2” receiver instead of the “3” receiver in trips if the “3” receiver moves to the other side, but it doesn’t always work that way.
This 10-yard touchdown pass to receiver Kendrick Bourne against the Seahawks in Week 10 was set up by motion and coverage reveal. When Sanders moves from left to right pre-snap, and cornerback Tre Flowers moves with Sanders, the 49ers know they’re getting man coverage. So, when Sanders takes Flowers deep, Bourne gets an inside release on defensive back Jamar Taylor, making it easy for Garoppolo to hit his target in stride.
Take the deep shot early.
This season, the Chiefs have been pretty good against the deep ball, allowing just two touchdowns and amassing three interceptions on throws of 20 or more air yards. But that doesn’t mean the 49ers shouldn’t take one or more deep shots right off the bat, just to get Kansas City defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo wondering if that’s going to be a more common part of the game plan in the Super Bowl. Garoppolo hasn’t thrown a lot of deep balls this season — he ranks 30th in the league among quarterbacks who have taken at least 20% of their snaps with just 32 attempts of 20 or more air yards, but he’s completed 20 such passes for 673 yards, seven touchdowns, and three interceptions. It’s worth keeping the Chiefs on point for explosive plays.
On this 21-yard pass to rookie receiver Deebo Samuel against the Seahawks in Week 17, Seattle linebacker Bobby Wagner and safety Bradley McDougald double tight end George Kittle, and everyone else has a man assignment. Samuel has cornerback Shaquill Griffin playing right on top of him in aggressive coverage, and he does a great job of selling inside movement and losing Griffin along the way.
It’s likely that the Chiefs will double Kittle frequently, so it behooves Garoppolo to find the weakness in coverage elsewhere. He’s not going to match Mahomes blow-for-blow, but a few shot plays will be necessary.
Get Garoppolo outside the pocket.
As was the case for Shanahan’s father Mike when Mike Shanahan was calling offenses in the NFL for decades, boot-action and the overall bootleg passing game is a big part of Kyle Shanahan’s arsenal. In Garoppolo’s case, boot gets him away from the pass rush, cuts the field and his reads in half, and allows him to use his athleticism to extend the play and try to break coverage apart and get a receiver open through unexpected movement.
On this six-yard touchdown pass to Bourne against the Saints, Garoppolo finds his targets in trips left to be covered in man on first reaction. So, it’s his job to move left, extend the play, and wait for a receiver (Bourne, in this case) to get open outside of structure. Bourne is able to do this against cornerback P.J. Williams by extending his quick comeback route back to the goal post from the middle of trips.
Kudos to Garoppolo here for making a throw while rolling against his momentum to his left. He may be asked to make a similar big-time throw in Miami.
Use trickeration to further upset the defense.
Back to the Saints game — a 48-46 win for the 49ers in which Drew Brees threw five touchdown passes, and Shanahan had to keep his foot pinned to the gas pedal all the way through. The Chiefs will likely present a similar scenario. Garoppolo threw four touchdown passes in that game, and Emmanuel Sanders added another with this 35-yard throw to running back Raheem Mostert. Here is the full Shanahan reveal — play-action, motion, and trickeration. Kansas City’s defense has improved drastically in the second half of the season, but any defense can be upset by the right surprise.
It’s my belief that Kyle Shanahan is the NFL’s best play-caller and play-designer, especially when it comes to giving his own guys a schematic and spatial advantage, and putting defenses in discomfort. He is limited to a point by a good quarterback in Jimmy Garoppolo who has specific things he doesn’t do well, but this challenge isn’t anything Shanahan can’t handle. It will simply be up to him to put Garoppolo in the optimal situation on every play.
Because one thing’s for sure: If Garoppolo throws eight passes in Super Bowl LIV, he won’t be the quarterback heading home with a ring.
Touchdown Wire editor Doug Farrar previously covered football for Yahoo! Sports, Sports Illustrated, Bleacher Report, the Washington Post, and Football Outsiders. His first book, “The Genius of Desperation,” a schematic history of professional football, was published by Triumph Books in 2018 and won the Professional Football Researchers Association’s Nelson Ross Award for “Outstanding recent achievement in pro football research and historiography.”
