The 49ers have nothing to play for but pride. They are also not going to improve their draft standing unless the New Orleans Saints or maybe the Chicago Bears win out. That’s exceedingly unlikely.
With that in mind, I asked Kyle Shanahan an admittedly dumb question Thursday: does he view these final two games as an opportunity for experimentation?
“That's not how I look at it,” Shanahan said. “I'll experiment with anything if I think it's the right decision, gives our players a chance to be successful. But I don't just experiment with things to experiment with it. It's got to make sense who we're going against, what you're asking someone to do, and if it helps us have a chance to win.”
A counter is that innovation generally requires high thresholds of curiosity coupled with a will to experiment… and a will to fail. Great innovation in medicine and science often comes from open-ended investment, letting great, curious minds explore what they are interested in through whether or not that exploration has an immediate, practical application. It usually doesn’t.
This is all a long-winded way of saying two things: it’s difficult to motivate players for the final two weeks in a meaningless season, and while Shanahan said Monday that the motivation of doing your job should be enough — and given NFL salaries, sure — it doesn’t hurt to add a sweetener.
Ask players if there’s a play that could be run from a different look, if there’s something around the league (maybe more of the Packers’ “spinner” run) that’s worth ripping off. Perhaps the 49ers are doing that.
Perhaps they believe that this open-door, experimental approach this late in the season would be a sign of desperation. That’s a fair consideration.
The other element of experimenting is that you don’t always know if something actually gives you a better chance until you try it. The 49ers’ lack of malleability with their scheme on both sides of the ball has been evident.
School’s out for the summer. Why not see if something different could be a building block for next year? Straying from the norm for the sake of it might not make practical sense, but in a game you are outmatched against the Lions, it could give you a practical advantage, and, if done for a calculated reason, help motivate a team effectively waiting for the season to end.
Get the rookie receivers involved
One of the fundamental problems with the 49ers this season has been their inability to challenge man coverage. Teams ripped off the Chiefs’ Super Bowl game plan of throwing press man coverage at them and pairing it with overload blitzes (blitzes that attack one side), or simulated (using four rushers rather than five or more) overload pressures.
The Lions run nearly 50 percent man coverage, something that has given the 49ers fits this season. Their defense has taken enormous injury hits, but they still have key pieces in the secondary in Terrion Arnold, Amik Roberston, and stellar safeties in Brian Branch and Kerby Joseph. Ifeatu Melifonwu is their athletic third safety in nickel sets.
Brandon Aiyuk could beat man coverage. So can George Kittle. Christian McCaffrey can absolutely beat man coverage, especially when healthy. Deebo Samuel very rarely beats man coverage. Jauan Jennings is physical and crafty enough to get open in tight windows, but he doesn’t create substantial separation. Two of those four players are out for the year, and Jennings has replaced Aiyuk at the X position, where he has done well, but hasn’t challenged defenses in the same way.
Ricky Pearsall was drafted as someone to attack man coverage. The numbers aren’t there. I have watched his tape. He is winning more often than not, and more often than not, there is real separation. Now, he’s a rookie who missed almost all of training camp — that showed up in his ill-timed illegal formation penalty last week (the other called on him was really on George Kittle) — and isn’t the primary read. But he’s ignored frequently. Last week was a positive sign. He can produce when targeted. Let’s see it.
The same goes for Jacob Cowing. We know what Samuel is. We know what Jennings is. We do not know what Cowing is as a receiver. Coming out of college, he appeared to be more of a vertical and drag route threat, someone who can be dangerous as a short target, or someone challenging safeties to account for him vertically. There’s no better time to try and get him involved.
Give Brock Purdy the green light to change protections on 3rd-and-more-than-5’s
That press-man coverage deployed by defenses has often been coupled with simulated overload pressures or blitzes from defensive backs. Teams will stack the line with anywhere from six to eight players, but only send four or five of them, usually with three or more to one side. This messes with the 49ers’ protections, and tends to leave someone unaccounted for.
That was a common theme this season for an offense that operates with “hot” answers. In short, some teams try and create a clean pocket, sometimes max protecting on those key downs. The 49ers rarely do. Their answers for the quarterback are “hot” throws. When you’re “hot” with a free rusher, you throw to your “hot answer.” Usually, that was Christian McCaffrey.
San Francisco’s rigidity in waiting for McCaffrey to return and solve this problem for them was a glaring flaw. He also didn’t solve the problem.
The 49ers put the protection designations on their center, Jake Brendel. Brock Purdy can technically adjust them, but he rarely, if ever, does. For the most part, it’s because the 49ers have long play calls, with multiple plays built in, and carefully-timed motions. Purdy has to get all that in, make sure the call is going against the right defensive look. There’s a lot on his plate, and it’s hard to adjust the protections when blitz indicators might not come until the play clock is dwindling down.
My proposal, though, is to let Purdy, on key third downs, adjust the protection if he sees fit. At the very least, he can determine where he wants a potential free rusher to come from rather than being forced to throw hot, usually to a short option route, or a Jauan Jennings out-breaker, on a play that’s either short of the sticks or close to it.
It’s even more on Purdy’s full plate, but you’re about to commit to Purdy long term. Why not see if this can help you answer some of the questions you’ve been unable to answer against a man-heavy, aggressive defensive scheme?
Try a fake on special teams
This is probably the dumbest proposal yet. But here’s a question for you. When have the San Francisco 49ers, under Kyle Shanahan, ever run a fake punt or fake field goal?
The answer? Once, and it wasn’t planned, and didn’t count. Mitch Wishnowsky took off on his own in 2023 and it was called back for offsetting penalties. The other time, in 2018, they checked out of it. Here’s Shanahan’s philosophy on fakes on special teams:
"I don't like to trick people into winning the game. You want to have game plan stuff and try to make it the easiest for the players. That's why if something's there and it's consistent and you feel like it, then no doubt. "But it rarely is like that. The time I thought it was, we checked out of it. It's not about rolling the dice. We'll have no problem doing that type of stuff. But you do it if you have to.
"I think why would you do that stuff if you feel you’ve got a bunch of other ways to win the game because to make a risk when those types of things can easily lose you to the game, you got to do that stuff if you feel that's what it takes to win. But I don't think we've been in that situation for a little bit and it's probably like, the one I remember calling was I think our second year when we finished 4-12.”
Here’s the thing. Fakes are pretty desperate. They are gut punches if you fail. But they’re galvanizing if you get them right. And how sweet would it be for Shanahan, who not-so-subtly criticized Dan Campbell’s fourth-down aggression before the NFC Championship, who never calls fakes on special teams, to call one this week?
"But just percentage-wise, they're willing to go for fake punts and all that stuff," Shanahan said in January. "Those guys are trying to steal possessions as much as they can. I'll tell you after the game whether that's a good thing or bad thing for us. Anytime you try to steal possessions, you're also offering an opportunity to lose possession. So those are opportunities for them, but they're also big opportunities for us too. You come up with more than half of them, I feel it's in our favor.”
If the look isn’t there, then don’t run it. But no one is expecting the 49ers to run a fake on special teams. Shanahan explicitly said they're antithetical to his philosophy. You’re probably going to get an advantageous look. If you do, let it rip.