The 49ers offense shouldn’t be what it is. Or at least it shouldn’t put up the numbers it does given what the offense appears to be on paper.
San Francisco at its core is a run-first football team. Of the 1,024 snaps they played last year on offense (sixth-fewest in the NFL), 499 of them (48.8 percent) were rush attempts. Their 491 pass attempts were the fewest in the NFL.
That should mean the 49ers are one of the NFL’s lowest-production passing offenses. They simply don’t throw it as often, ergo they should have fewer yards.
Alas, that’s not how things shake out because head coach Kyle Shanahan and the 49ers’ personnel have cracked the present offensive code that allows them to maintain one of the NFL’s most efficient passing attacks while sticking to their core, run-first principles.
Ryan Heath, a writer at Fantasy Points, posted a graph on Twitter that perfectly illustrates how San Francisco has become a massive outlier in modern football:
A team's CATCHABLE targets per game reveal the size of their offensive pie.
A 15% target share on the Cowboys was worth more than a 20% target share on the Steelers.
They also correlate to total receiving yards per game — aside from the 49ers hacking the league@FantasyPtsData pic.twitter.com/HPNxOMdKkv
— Ryan Heath (@RyanJ_Heath) May 21, 2024
There’s a pretty steady correlation between a team’s number of catchable throws per game and the number of yards they rack up. The one major exception is the 49ers. They managed to rank fourth in the NFL in passing yards despite landing at 32nd in attempts and among the bottom five in catchable targets.
Part of this is because of what the 49ers’ pass catchers are capable of after the catch. They rack up extra passing yards on short throws where most teams might get five or six yards from a certain play, while San Francisco is getting 20-plus yards out of the same play.
The reason this may be sustainable even if the yards-after-catch numbers dip is because of quarterback Brock Purdy’s efficiency down the field. He’s capable of stretching defenses vertically just enough that the 49ers can still take shots and rip off chunk plays in the passing game even if the YAC isn’t there.
Still, it all comes back to their rushing attack. Shanahan “establishes the run” in such a way that defenses have to commit to it which opens up the throwing lanes that lead to easy completions and YAC opportunities.
While most teams have started going toward a pass-heavy offense to ensure maximum efficiency, the 49ers have gone the other way while maintaining their passing efficiency. It’s something other teams in the league are bound to start doing more of as defenses begin adjusting, and that’s why Shanahan’s value as an offensive coach is so high. Staying ahead of that curve is going to be imperative. For now though it appears the 49ers have solved modern offensive football. Whether they can solve the next iteration of it will determine how long their window with Shanahan and Purdy stays open.
