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When you look at every game that the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers have played on film this season, it's fairly easy to get a good feel for what both teams like to do. Both the 49ers and Ravens are disciplined, tough-minded teams who have terrific schemes on both sides of the ball and are as fundamentally sound as it gets. What makes both Jim and John Harbaugh great coaches is their ability to create formations to exploit certain matchups.
Let's look at four such situations that could decide Super Bowl XLVII:
San Francisco pistol offense vs. the Baltimore defense
This is the hottest offense in the NFL right now and nobody has really figured out an effective way to stop it. Not only are the blocking schemes very creative, but the "reads" that defenses key on are not typical of most run games and the 49ers seem to have the ability to make a defense guess wrong on almost every play.
The initial premise of the pistol is for Kaepernick to ride RB Frank Gore into the hole on the inside run and read the defensive end or outside linebacker depending on the scheme. If the edge defender crashes inside, Kaepernick will keep it and run wide; if the defender does a good job of setting the edge, Kaepernick can hand off inside. If things were this simple, it might be easy for the defense, but the 49ers add a lot of extra wrinkles to this scheme.
They use a fullback, Bruce Miller, as a very effective lead blocker. They will also pull an offensive lineman, usually a backside guard, which forces the defender to not only read the handoff or option but also deal with a lead blocker. To further complicate things, the 49ers will give the defense some false reads with offensive lineman pulls. In the past two games they have faced defenses who took opposite approaches to defending the pistol. Green Bay overplayed the inside run by crashing inside while playing turn-and-run man-to-man cover schemes with their backs to the ball -- Kaepernick ate them up, both on the edge keeper in the pistol and inside the tackles on designed QB scrambles. Two weeks ago Atlanta was determined to take away Kaepernick and the QB keeper outside, so the 49ers simply hammered the defense with the inside run.
So, how will the Ravens game plan versus the pistol?
First and foremost, they must be very disciplined in their gap control. It is easy to go into an "attack" mode versus the pistol, but they need to slow down their pursuit (which is not a natural thing) and not overplay the ball. Their two OLBs, Terrell Suggs and Paul Kruger, are natural up-field edge rushers and they may have to tighten those rushes to not give Kaepernick a lot of space to keep the ball and run. Baltimore will likely bring physical safety Bernard Pollard into the box in run support and have him concentrate on stopping the dive while the OLBs focus in on Kaepernick and the wide keeper run play.
The problem for the Ravens is that with Pollard in the box that leaves Ed Reed as a single-high safety and Kaepernick can easily go to his play-action package off the pistol handoff fake. As we already mentioned, San Francisco has so much that evolves off the basic pistol play that it can counter whatever Baltimore does defensively.
Baltimore hurry-up offense versus San Francisco base defense
As much as Joe Flacco loves to run the no-huddle/up-tempo offense, the Ravens have been inconsistent offensively, especially since Jim Caldwell took over as offensive coordinator late in the season. While Flacco has good passing targets on all three levels, the 49ers are not an easy defense to exploit in the no-huddle because they have ILBs Patrick Willis and NaVorro Bowman, who are three-down players and not a liability in coverage, which means San Francisco doesn't get stuck trying to get their sub packages on the field.
Baltimore will spread the field with three WRs, one TE and one back or two WRs, two TEs and one back in this scheme -- and they can also flex RB Ray Rice to give them an empty backfield look. The matchups they are looking for are a linebacker on Rice, a safety on a tight end and one-on-one corner coverage against Torrey Smith and Anquan Boldin. If the 49ers are able to counter the Ravens' spread look with nickel/dime personnel, the matchup that Flacco could look for is the deep shot to Jacoby Jones, who would be lined up versus the 49ers' third- or fourth-best corner -- especially if Rice is in the backfield to set up play-action versus the 49ers safeties who tend to bite on those play fakes.
Two-tight end sets
Both of these offenses are very creative with multiple tight ends and they can play them both on the line or flex one or both and use motion. Both QBs are very comfortable throwing to the tight ends, but the play we could most likely see is a two-man combination route by either offense. The outside receiver runs a vertical route to clear out the coverage and the tight end in the slot will run a wheel route to the outside and most likely draw single coverage versus a safety. That is a matchup that Vernon Davis or Dennis Pitta will win most of the time.
Back-shoulder throw
Both of these QBs have quietly shown improvement in this area. Since both QBs have big arms and an affinity for the deep ball, they will face corners who will be very concerned about getting beaten deep -- so they will be in aggressive turn-and-run coverages, which sets up the back-shoulder throw perfectly. Smith, Boldin, Michael Crabtree and Davis are all guys who can run this well.
When you look at every game that the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers have played on film this season, it's fairly easy to get a good feel for what both teams like to do. Both the 49ers and Ravens are disciplined, tough-minded teams who have terrific schemes on both sides of the ball and are as fundamentally sound as it gets. What makes both Jim and John Harbaugh great coaches is their ability to create formations to exploit certain matchups.
Let's look at four such situations that could decide Super Bowl XLVII:
San Francisco pistol offense vs. the Baltimore defense
This is the hottest offense in the NFL right now and nobody has really figured out an effective way to stop it. Not only are the blocking schemes very creative, but the "reads" that defenses key on are not typical of most run games and the 49ers seem to have the ability to make a defense guess wrong on almost every play.
The initial premise of the pistol is for Kaepernick to ride RB Frank Gore into the hole on the inside run and read the defensive end or outside linebacker depending on the scheme. If the edge defender crashes inside, Kaepernick will keep it and run wide; if the defender does a good job of setting the edge, Kaepernick can hand off inside. If things were this simple, it might be easy for the defense, but the 49ers add a lot of extra wrinkles to this scheme.
They use a fullback, Bruce Miller, as a very effective lead blocker. They will also pull an offensive lineman, usually a backside guard, which forces the defender to not only read the handoff or option but also deal with a lead blocker. To further complicate things, the 49ers will give the defense some false reads with offensive lineman pulls. In the past two games they have faced defenses who took opposite approaches to defending the pistol. Green Bay overplayed the inside run by crashing inside while playing turn-and-run man-to-man cover schemes with their backs to the ball -- Kaepernick ate them up, both on the edge keeper in the pistol and inside the tackles on designed QB scrambles. Two weeks ago Atlanta was determined to take away Kaepernick and the QB keeper outside, so the 49ers simply hammered the defense with the inside run.
So, how will the Ravens game plan versus the pistol?
First and foremost, they must be very disciplined in their gap control. It is easy to go into an "attack" mode versus the pistol, but they need to slow down their pursuit (which is not a natural thing) and not overplay the ball. Their two OLBs, Terrell Suggs and Paul Kruger, are natural up-field edge rushers and they may have to tighten those rushes to not give Kaepernick a lot of space to keep the ball and run. Baltimore will likely bring physical safety Bernard Pollard into the box in run support and have him concentrate on stopping the dive while the OLBs focus in on Kaepernick and the wide keeper run play.
The problem for the Ravens is that with Pollard in the box that leaves Ed Reed as a single-high safety and Kaepernick can easily go to his play-action package off the pistol handoff fake. As we already mentioned, San Francisco has so much that evolves off the basic pistol play that it can counter whatever Baltimore does defensively.
Baltimore hurry-up offense versus San Francisco base defense
As much as Joe Flacco loves to run the no-huddle/up-tempo offense, the Ravens have been inconsistent offensively, especially since Jim Caldwell took over as offensive coordinator late in the season. While Flacco has good passing targets on all three levels, the 49ers are not an easy defense to exploit in the no-huddle because they have ILBs Patrick Willis and NaVorro Bowman, who are three-down players and not a liability in coverage, which means San Francisco doesn't get stuck trying to get their sub packages on the field.
Baltimore will spread the field with three WRs, one TE and one back or two WRs, two TEs and one back in this scheme -- and they can also flex RB Ray Rice to give them an empty backfield look. The matchups they are looking for are a linebacker on Rice, a safety on a tight end and one-on-one corner coverage against Torrey Smith and Anquan Boldin. If the 49ers are able to counter the Ravens' spread look with nickel/dime personnel, the matchup that Flacco could look for is the deep shot to Jacoby Jones, who would be lined up versus the 49ers' third- or fourth-best corner -- especially if Rice is in the backfield to set up play-action versus the 49ers safeties who tend to bite on those play fakes.
Two-tight end sets
Both of these offenses are very creative with multiple tight ends and they can play them both on the line or flex one or both and use motion. Both QBs are very comfortable throwing to the tight ends, but the play we could most likely see is a two-man combination route by either offense. The outside receiver runs a vertical route to clear out the coverage and the tight end in the slot will run a wheel route to the outside and most likely draw single coverage versus a safety. That is a matchup that Vernon Davis or Dennis Pitta will win most of the time.
Back-shoulder throw
Both of these QBs have quietly shown improvement in this area. Since both QBs have big arms and an affinity for the deep ball, they will face corners who will be very concerned about getting beaten deep -- so they will be in aggressive turn-and-run coverages, which sets up the back-shoulder throw perfectly. Smith, Boldin, Michael Crabtree and Davis are all guys who can run this well.