Crabtree vs Gaines

A post about the Gaines play in
the SF game
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Junkman (via Rams43)

I watched that play again to see Gaines’ technique.

2nd and 8 from the Rams 32, only down by 3, less than a min left in the 3rd Q. Rams called an all out blitz with 7 guys rushing the passer. Hayes / Langford / Brockers / Quinn rushed, Laurinaitis and Dunbar came immediately, Ogletree came delayed. Kaep took a simple 7 step drop from under center. The 49ers picked up the blitz, and amazingly at Mississippi 3, Kaep still had a clean pocket to step into and make the throw.

3 49ers went in the pattern who were all single covered. TJ McDonald stayed in the shallow middle part of the field, presumably to cover anyone who leaked out of the backfield and provide inside leverage for any WRs who went into the middle of the field. But with no 49ers coming out of the backfield and the very deep 49er routes, McDonald was just in no-man’s land.

Crabtree ran a deep post/corner/post on Gaines. Gaines was totally committed to maintaining outside leverage throughout the route to take away the quick out passes and deep sideline passes, and he did this admirably. He was surely expecting a safety to be in the middle of the field, but McDonald was much too shallow to be of any help.

The failure on this play was not on Gaines, or at least not purely. The fact that the 7 player pass rush still could not come close to Kaep even with 3 Mississipi… that’s just embarrassing. If the front 7 got any pressure, there would not have been for Crabtree to run such a complicated route, nor for Kaep to do a 7 step drop, in which case McDonald’s depth would have been about perfect. I’m also wondering why they had an 8 yard CB cushion, putting Gaines at the mercy of whatever Crabtree wanted to run on him.

The net effect off all this was that the Rams D did absolutely nothing to disrupt the timing of this very simple looking 49ers play, but I wouldn’t hang that on Gaines. I blame Williams for a poor design and a poor situational play call. I blame the pass rush for just…. well… sigh.

• This topic was modified 10 years, 2 months ago by wv.