For the last couple of seasons, the San Francisco 49ers have been one of the best teams in the NFL. They have gone to the Super Bowl twice since 2019, and have always been in contention every single season, despite not getting a Lombardi yet. This year, they find themselves once again as the defending NFC Champions, but their play so far has not been indicative of the team we are used to seeing.
After the first five weeks of the 2024 NFL season, San Francisco finds themselves with a 2-3 record, with multiple huge upsets already. They just lost outright as a -7 favorite this past weekend against the Arizona Cardinals, a game in which their offense couldn’t muster much against a poor Cardinals defense at home. However, the 49ers have never been a team that has relied heavily on their offense, but rather, their defense.
It has not gone very well for them on that side of the ball this season, which is a large part of why they have struggled so much. According to Scott Barrett of Fantasy Points and Data, the 49ers defense struggles particularly when they blitz the opposing quarterback.
When they blitz, they have allowed a whopping 150.2 passer rating, which is the worst in the league by a mile. When they don’t blitz, they have allowed just a 72.0 passer rating, which is the third-best in the NFL.
“The 49ers doubled their blitz rate against Kyler Murray (36%, up from 16%), and Murray made them pay for that.”
I have some simple advice for San Francisco: don’t blitz, because it is actively making your defense much worse.
They will get a tough task this week on Thursday Night Football when they have to face off with the Seattle Seahawks on the road, a team that has put up at least 20 points in every single game this season. QB Geno Smith has thrown for nearly 1,500 yards and five touchdowns in five games, and while he has thrown four picks as well, he has generally been putting up some serious numbers each game through the air.
If the 49ers continue to blitz and don’t pay attention to some of these advanced stats that are telling them that is a bad idea, they might get torn to shreds. Of course, they have seen this stat, I can almost guarantee it. I would expect them to be much more conservative when it comes to their blitzing attempts in the future.
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