It’s said that the apple never falls too far from the tree.
But in the case of 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan and his dad, two-time Super Bowl champion head coach Mike Shanahan, that apple is actually rolling away from the tree.
“When I first became a coach all I wanted to do was throw it,” Shanahan, in his 12th season as an offensive coordinator and play-caller, said Thursday. ”But the longer you do it, you realize that no matter how cool of passes you can draw up, you’ve got to protect… you can’t put all the pressure on the quarterback. And the thing that does make it a lot easier is being able to run the ball. Running the ball takes pressure off everyone and puts pressure on the defense.”
So Shanahan started to take after his old man, evolving his offense into one that could devastate opponents by exerting their dominance on the ground.
Heading into Sunday’s NFC Championship Game, it’s worth noting that Shanahan’s 49ers offense this season has been defined by a near-perfect run-pass balance. In a league that’s become pass-happy in recent years — the average teams throws 60 percent of the time) — the 49ers, who ran the ball 49 percent of the time, represent something of a throwback.
The 49ers showed that mentality in their divisional-round playoff win over the Vikings last Saturday, when they ran the ball a whopping 47 times, including on eight straight times on a touchdown drive that effectively ended the game.
It was smash-mouth football. “Big boy football”, per both teams before the contest. The kind of football that might not win fantasy football matchups, but does claim real victories in January and February.
But in order to play that brand of football, there needs to be complete buy-in from all 11 players on the field. One half-hearted block, one missed assignment can be the difference between a successful run play and a loss of yardage.
And in Shanahan’s system, there’s a particular onus on wide receivers.
“Our run game goes off them working on the edge for us,” left guard Laken Tomlinson said. “When I say they block, they block.”
“I think he requires more out of our receivers in the run game than by anybody else in the NFL. We do a lot of stuff where they’re involved in blocking linebackers,” right tackle Mike McGlinchey said. “That’s unheard of.”
But heading into this season Shanahan openly questioned if he had the right players at that position to execute the offense he wanted to run.
He questioned if the Niners’ receivers were tough enough.
When the 49ers drafted Deebo Samuel and Jalen Hurd this past April, Shanahan declared that it was in an effort to “get some more physical players on the offense.”
“One thing [Shanahan] says is a physical team isn’t your offensive line and your tight ends, it’s your skill positions,” said tight end George Kittle, team’s shaman of physicality.
“O-linemen don’t have a choice,” Shanahan said after the draft. “They do it every play. Running backs have to do it every play. But you can make a difference when you add some guys like that at the receiver position.”
As the 2019 season progressed, Shanahan still questioned if he had the right players. In training camp and the early portion of the season, the Shanahan referenced the need for more “physicality” so often that it could have become a parlor game.
He’s not asking for it anymore.
Emmanuel Sanders’ arrival from Denver in late October not only provided quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo with a safety blanket to augment Kittle, but also gave the team’s young wide receivers with a clear-cut example of how to be a professional — how to compete on every play. Sanders isn’t the biggest or strongest guy, but his fearlessness and tenacity have separated him throughout his career. He’s a coach’s dream.
Across from him has been Samuel, who has improved weekly during this rookie season, in large part because of increasing willingness to do the little, not-so-glamorous things Shanahan asks of his receivers.
Samuel, as Shanahan believed when he was drafted, was built for contact. Now paired with his incredible athleticism, improved route running, his willingness to go facemask-to-facemask with anyone has made him an indispensable part of the offense.
“I have been extremely impressed with Deebo this year. Just the fact that I think he’s had to play a lot more than expected as a rookie, for him to play with a physicality he
has and just to play like a man throughout the year, whether he’s been hurt or not, has been very impressive,” Shanahan said. “Deebo still has those [rookie] moments… But, he’s been able to overcome them with how physical he’s played, how tough he’s been.”
But the surprising breakout has been Kendrick Bourne.
The Eastern Washington product does look like a modern-era receiver — tall and relatively skinny. He was a long-term project for Shanahan and his staff, but he was nearly a Training Camp cut.
But since Bourne committed to playing “big”, he’s separated himself as the team’s No. 3 receiver. The undrafted free agent beat out players with $19 million contracts and former second-round picks for key snaps.
“The eye in the sky don’t lie,” Bourne said. “If you’re not blocking on tape, if you’re not doing what you’re supposed to be doing, then the opportunities aren’t going to come your way. If you put in that effort every single play. That’s why my opportunities have come.”
If you were wondering what happened to sophomore receiver Dante Pettis, you now have your answer.
“All those guys, they are football players who play like men out there in terms of their [physicality],” Shanahan said of his top three receivers this week. “They are not scared of the moment.”
The newfound trust in the physicality of his receivers has allowed Shanahan to go deeper into his seemingly endless bag of tricks. Shanahan is calling for even more catch-and-run routes in recent weeks, in addition to mixing in man-to-man run-blocking concepts to pair with the Shanahan-special outside zone scheme. Samuel is even becoming a regular ballcarrier on end-arounds.
The consistency in physicality allows the 49ers to be more unpredictable to opposing defenses. Sure enough, with those three receivers in the fold, happy to do the dirty work, the 49ers have averaged 32 points per game over the last 11 contests.
“The advantages that it gives huge,” McGlinchey said of the wide receivers’ physicality. “Our guys have really really stepped up. That’s how you turn the five to seven-yard runs into house calls and explosive runs… It’s a big reason why we were top two in the NFL in rushing.”
And a big reason why they’re playing for a trip to the Super Bowl on Sunday.
