The 49ers offense is one of the NFL’s best when its firing on all cylinders. An immense collection of talent on that side of the ball plays a key role in the club consistently producing the league’s most efficient offenses, but head coach and offensive play caller Kyle Shanahan has a significant hand in that as well. Part of how the 49ers find success on offense is by Shanahan calling plays he knows aren’t going to work.
49ers tight end George Kittle joined Slow News Day with Kevin Clark and described the team’s utilization of play action to keep defenses off balance. There’s a prevailing, old-school football theory that says the run game needs to be effective for play action to work. Kittle said Shanahan and the 49ers are proving otherwise.
“Kyle has this thing where if wants to set up a play action or a bootleg type of pass, he’ll just call a play – a run play that he knows is not gonna work,” Kittle told Clark and Steven Ruiz. “I can’t remember what game this was. It might’ve been the Vikings one year or Seattle this year, where we’re running a run play multiple times and it’s averaging like, two yards a carry, two yards a carry, two yards a carry. And then we threw a play action behind it and Deebo goes for 75 yards against Seattle.
“And the whole thing is set up because it’s the exact same motion, it’s the exact same alignment, it looks the exact same. Then all the sudden Deebo’s running this shallow. I’m faking like I’m the defensive end. Linebacker thinks its power, he steps up four yards and Deebo’s uncovered in the flat running for a touchdown.”
George Kittle breaks down the secret to Kyle Shanahan’s explosive plays: “If he wants to set up a play action pass or bootleg, he will call a run play that he knows isn’t going to work…” George is so good at talking about this. pic.twitter.com/LIInE8ZKK8
— Kevin Clark (@bykevinclark) June 14, 2023
The play Kittle described was Samuel’s 74-yard touchdown catch in the team’s 41-23 wild card romp over the Seahawks. That TD made it 38-17 in the fourth quarter and effectively put the game away.
It’s risky to call plays that aren’t going to work, and Kittle pushed back on the idea that Shanahan “wasted” plays on purpose, but it’s still a little bit of a gamble to use two or three plays that aren’t necessarily going to work in hopes of getting a big play out of it later.
For now though, it’s working. San Francisco despite all of the tumult at quarterback has finished top six in the NFL in yards per play three times in the last four years. They’ve not finished worst than No. 16 since Shanahan took over in 2017.
The offensive mastermind who will purposely call plays that aren’t going to work has a glut of talented weapons who can rack up yards after the catch, and that’s something he’ll continue taking advantage of.
“So it’s just stuff like that that’s really fun because Kyle Shanahan’s like ‘hey, if I can get my skill players the ball with space in front of em …’ we’re all running for days,” Kittle said. “And that’s what’s really fun. We have such a great YAC team, and that’s one thing that we always talk about. So, he can scheme us open and it’s just really fun to be part of that offense.”
Moving into 2023 it’s going to be interesting to see how things change for the 49ers’ offense as defenses adjust to an NFL that’s becoming more reliant on play action. Shanahan and San Francisco are among the league’s offensive trendsetters, and YAC will always be part of their success. How they create that running room for their playmakers could change though. Perhaps they even reach a point where Shanahan won’t need to call plays that don’t work.
