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Last night, Collingsworth made a big deal about how this is the way the Packers run screen and swing passes. The wideouts simply go downfield and block, making no effort to run a pass route. Collingsworth said it’s very difficult to defend. It also looks suspiciously like offensive pass interference to me.

from the NFL rulebook

Actions that constitute offensive pass interference include but are not limited to: 

(a) Blocking downfield by an offensive player prior to the ball being touched. 

[…]

Aldon Smith’s Funky Alignment

While listening to Greg Cosell and Doug Farrar’s weekly podcast yesterday morning, Doug Farrar mentioned something that I had noticed as well. There were a few times that Aldon Smith lined up with his back to the sideline, feet and body perpendicular to the line of scrimmage. Farrar, who is much more knowledgeable than I am about these things, said he hadn’t seen that set before, and asked Cosell what was going on. Cosell said he didn’t rightly know, and they moved on.

I went ahead and looked through all the defensive snaps for the 49ers in that game, and here’s what I found. This is a pass rush alignment. Aldon lines up 2 yards outside of the outermost potential blocker (TE or OT), turns his feet, and faces the center of the field. It is only used in clear passing situations, generally 3rd-and-long, but once in 2nd-and-20 while up significantly in the 4th quarter. It sets up a speed rush to the outside, with a counter-move to the inside, and it’s only been used in shotgun. Whether that last bit is essential to the move, or simply co-variant with the fact that these are clear passing downs anyways, is unclear. Finally, this technique is used from either side of the field (RDE and LDE), and does not appear to be associated with any broader defensive alignment.

In the Bears game,  Aldon used this four times with dramatic success: Q1 9:15 (3-6, sack), Q3 5:22 (QB hit), Q4 10:22 (sack), and Q4 9:38 (sack fumble, safety). These last two plays were consecutive. On the first two, he was lined up on the right defensive side, and on the last two, he was lined up on the left.

Here’s a screenshot of his alignment in Q3 5:22. This is a 3rd-10 play, the Bears are playing catch-up at this point, and while it looks bad, there’s still enough time for a dramatic comeback if the offense gets on track. The running back is offset to Aldon’s side, but I’ve seen this technique with the RB offset to the other side, and later in Q4 with an empty backfield.

And a moment later in the play. The tackle blocks down on Justin Smith, and the back steps forward, leaving Aldon unblocked. Campbell throws the ball away, but not in time to avoid a monstrous hit from Aldon Smith.

Aldon has shown this look before on film. He used this technique twice against StL the week before (Q3 7:21, OT 0:04 [aborted by penalty]), and probably other times as well through the season, though I haven’t had time to look through all the games. In Q3 7:21, Aldon is simply blocked out of the play, with the guard coming in late to help the tackle on inside moves. Here’s a screenshot of the alignment.

49ers Run Game (SF@SEA 2012)

I’m in the middle of an internet argument with the crazy knowledgeable and always respectful Karl Cuba in the comment section over at FootballOutsiders. I claimed that every 49ers run in the 1st quarter in the SF-SEA game was against an 8-man front, generally with Earl Thomas dropping down as a 4th LB. I should hedge that I made this claim from memory, as I watched the game yesterday, and that this was one of my mental notes.

Mr. Cuba, however, re-watched with a fresh eye, and concluded that the niners did not run into 8-man fronts. Whenever an 8-man front appeared, they threw. He did concede, however, that there might be some disagreement as to what constitutes an 8-man front.

So now, without further ado, I present screenshots of the alignment just before each 49ers run play of the 1st quarter of SF@SEA.

1 - (14:55) Gore Left Guard 7 yds

2 - (14:17) Gore mid 6 yards

3 - (11:30) Gore Right Guard 4 yards (on 2nd-10)

4 - (4:33) Gore Right Guard 18 yards

5 - (3:50) Hunter middle 6 yards

6 - (3:08) Hunter Right End 9 yards (this one is a little unusual, so I’m posting two pics from different angles

7 - (1:46) Gore Left Tackle 1 yard

So, all in all, 7 run plays in the first quarter. Cuba’s point about it being tough to tell what SEA means to do because of SF overloading on linemen and tight ends is well taken; only two of these images show the 49ers lining up with more than 1 wide-out. Those are runs 2 and 6.

In run 2, Thomas is clearly lining up as a 4th LB, in what looks like a cover 3 coverage. Run 6 is complicated because the niners did two sets of motions to get to a 4-wide look. That said, it looked to me like they were lined up to do a two-deep man under coverage, with the SLB cheating inside the TE who motioned out, expecting a run.

Of the remaining runs where the 49ers were in some sort of jumbo set, whether balanced or not, only run 1 looked like the Seahawks were operating with two high safeties. On that one, it looked like they were planning to bracket Vernon Davis with a LB and the safety who was 10 yards off the line of scrimmage. On all the others, one of the safeties came down to at most a 5-yard depth to present wither a 4-4 or a 5-3 look against that jumbo line.

The way I’m scoring this is, with 7 runs, 5 were against a defense that had loaded the box (mostly in response to the 49ers loading their line), and 2 were against defenses that had not loaded the box. Since both Karl Cuba and I made absolute statements, I say we’re both wrong.