NFC west (from 6/11)

from PFF, Defensive scheme analysis for all 32 NFL teams: https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-defensive-scheme-analysis-32-nfl-teams-2021#LAR

ARIZONA CARDINALS

2020 Defensive Pass Efficiency Rank: 17
2020 Defensive Rush Efficiency Rank: 16
2020 Base Coverage: Cover 1
2020 Third-Down Mentality: Blitz and play Cover 1

Once upon a time, Vance Joseph was a zone-coverage fiend who liked to show many different zone coverages with a dash of man coverage mixed in. His results were commendable, too, as his Miami defense finished 18th in defensive efficiency in 2016, and his unit in Denver finished sixth in defensive efficiency over his two years there.

The former Broncos head coach and current Cardinals defensive coordinator has since reversed course. Now he is going to blitz you and play man-to-man coverage behind it.

Joseph called Cover 1 on early downs at the fifth-highest rate in the league last season, choosing to blitz at the fourth-highest rate. The problem was that they couldn’t quite get to the quarterback in those blitzing situations, as they managed a 22nd-ranked 38.4% pressure rate on those snaps.

SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS

2020 Defensive Pass Efficiency Rank: 9
2020 Defensive Rush Efficiency Rank: 5
2020 Base Coverage: Cover 3 and quarters
2020 Third-Down Mentality: Blitz and play Cover 1

DeMeco Ryans takes over for Robert Saleh as the 49ers’ defensive coordinator for 2021. Ryans worked under Saleh, so we can expect the defense to stay relatively stable. The 49ers played one of the highest rate of quarters coverages on early downs to go along with basing out of Cover 3. They have a low blitz rate on early downs but then turn up the pressure on passing downs. San Francisco ranked 19th in early-down blitz rate and third on third down last year. Overall, the unit ranked in the top 10 on early downs and third downs in EPA allowed per play.

SEATTLE SEAHAWKS

2020 Defensive Pass Efficiency Rank: 19
2020 Defensive Rush Efficiency Rank: 10
2020 Base Coverage: Cover 3
2020 Third-Down Mentality: Blitz and play Cover 1

Under head coach Pete Carroll, the Seahawks will always be a Cover 3 team. They’ve never finished below fifth in Cover 3 usage rate in any season over the past five years. But offenses have seen this defense for a decade in some shape or form, so the Seahawks have had to find some changeups.

On early downs, they ran Cover 3 at a rate that was 6.4 percentage points less in 2020 than in 2019, and they saw their biggest increase in Cover 2 rate. A lot of those Cover 3 snaps went to Cover 2, which was Seattle’s second-most-used coverage, surpassing Cover 1 for the first time in recent years. With safety Jamal Adams in the fold, the defense’s third-down blitz rate jumped by seven percentage points from 2019 to 2020.

With that said, the Seahawks did not improve their efficiency in those situations, going from an already bad .257 EPA allowed per play in 2019 on third-down blitzes to an even worse .336 mark in 2020.