The San Francisco 49ers have done all kinds of remarkable things on defense this season, but this Deommodore Lenoir sack of Matthew Stafford with 45 seconds left in the 49ers’ 24-9 Monday night thrashing of the defending Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams really stood out.
The Rams had third-and-13 from their own 30-yard line, and San Francisco defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans was dialing up some STUFF. Pre-snap, safeties Tashaun Gipson and Talanoa Hufanga flipped deep coverage, with Gipson coming down from single-high, and Hufanga replacing him. That put Gipson in the right slot, but post-snap, when you think he’d cover Cooper Kupp upfield, Gipson instead carried Kupp to linebacker Fred Warner, who somehow (I don’t know how) matched Kupp 25 yards through the seam over the middle. Warner had come from a blitz look to do so. So, Gipson was now free to come back down and cover the flat, eliminating Stafford’s hot route to tight end Tyler Higbee.
