Digging Deeper into the Box Score: Week 5

Offense

I don’t have much to add here – the complete domination of a pretty good defense has left me nearly speechless.  Turner broke out of his mini-slump, with good runs of 33, 16, 9, 7, and 6 yards to go along with his three TD’s.  Roddy broke out of his slump in a huge way with 8 receptions for 210 yards and 2 TD’s.  Even if you take away his 90 yard TD (which was really about an 8 yard pass, a missed tackle, and 82 YAC), had around 17 yards per catch (and almost all of those had no YAC, so he was getting targeted deeper downfield).  Matt Ryan’s first three passes were incomplete.  Starting with his next pass, and ending at halftime, he went 15-18 for 258 yards, 2 TD and 0 INT – wow.

Jump for the Defensive numbers.

Defense

I expected a good game against San Fran’s impotent “offense”, but nothing like this:

Did anybody else notice the gameplan?  They were almost exclusively in the Nickle package on defense, with Stephen Nicholas off the field, and Brian Williams in there covering Vernon Davis.  The Niners weren’t able to take advantage in the run game – their best play was a QB scramble by Shaun Hill.  Another thing I noticed (I did the charting already, but haven’t compiled the coverage numbers yet) was that this was by far the most aggressive game VanGorder has called with blitzes this season.  Before you say, “I knew they should’ve blitzed the Patriots more”, remember that the Niners don’t have anybody to scare you away from blitzing.  They can’t make you pay like the Pats can.  Here’s the breakdown:

By the way, I counted 45 total pass plays for San Fran (including sacks and scrambles).  Now before you think they should do this every game, be aware that the 61 yard pass play that set up their only TD came on a 7-man blitz, and that the three sacks came on plays with a 3-man, 3-man, and 4-man rush (the interception was on a 6-man rush).  Also, 11 of the 14 total 5-man rushes were the zone blitz that VanGorder is in love with – I’ll have to save that description for another time.

Here’s the list of Special Teams tackles: Weems 2, Tony Gilbert (with the Forced Fumble), Coy Wire and Stephen Nicholas 1 each.