3 heroes behind the 49ers’ perfect record
A look at some of San Francisco’s outstanding underrated players
It took a few weeks, but the 49ers have turned skeptics into believers after manhandling the Rams 20-7 Sunday to move to 5-0 on the season.
In the Niners’ rise from the team that picked No. 2 overall last year to a bonafide playoff contender, there’s plenty of praise to be passed around.
But here are three players that I think deserve more:
Jaquiski Tartt Let’s be real: the MVP of the Niners’ defense is really coordinator Robert Saleh.
While, yes, it’s much easier to work with talented players, and there’s no doubt that the 49ers’ talent level has jumped significantly from Saleh’s two years, I’d argue that Saleh’s tactical adaptations have played a larger role in the 49ers’ leap from terrible to elite than the additions of Nick Bosa, Dee Ford, or Kwon Alexander.
In Saleh’s first two years in charge, the Niners were a quintessential Cover-3 team, and Saleh, who came from the Seattle school of defense, was rather rigid in sticking with that Cover-3.
This season, he’s loosened up. Make no mistake, the Niners are still a Cover-3 team – they terrorized the Rams with the look on Sunday – but they have not shied away from getting weird, especially on third down.
“With us, on first and second down, philosophically we’re going to play it as sound as possible with our coverages,” Saleh said last week. “Then when we get to third down, you’ll see all the different exotics that we’ll create week to week.”
But to run those exotics – those pressures that see defensive end Dee Ford lining up as an A-gap linebacker or nickel-back K’waun Williams blitzing off the edge, all in the name of confusing and sacking the quarterback – you need versatility, particularly in the secondary.
Going into the season, I questioned if the Niners were building their defense the right way. Everyone loves a good defensive front, myself included, and the Niners unquestionably gained that this past offseason, but in the modern, pass-happy NFL, a great front means nothing if the back-end isn’t covered. I wondered if the Niners, who didn’t add a top-flight player to their secondary in the offseason, were setting themselves up for a repeat of 2018, only with a few more sacks.
What I didn’t expect at the time was that the secondary was already in a position to be elite, because I didn’t see Jaquaski Tartt becoming a Pro Bowl-caliber player.
Weston Richburg Last year, Richburg played through a thigh injury that made it appear as if he constantly had a chair pulled out from underneath him in pass protection and prevented him from driving forward in run blocking.
Needless to say, it was not a good season.
But after an offseason surgery and rehabilitation that lasted through Training Camp, Richburg has been outstanding for the 49ers in 2019, particularly in the run game.
Niners coach Kyle Shanahan doesn’t value guards in his offensive scheme, but he does require an elite-level center – that’s why Richburg was signed to a $47.5 million contract. This season, it’s clear why that’s the case.
Richburg is the on-field leader of arguably the best run-blocking offensive line in the NFL – a unit that has held together, despite being down two starting tackles.
It hasn’t always been pretty – Jimmy Garoppolo was under constant siege in the passing game Sunday – but this Niners’ line has been effective.
And Richburg has been immense, particularly in that run game.
Going into Sunday’s game, the Niners had the best adjusted line yards in the NFL, per Footballoutsiders, while ESPN pegged Richburg at winning 94% of his pass-blocking assignments (and against the Rams, he held his own against Aaron Donald, whose only sack Sunday came from the edge).
It’s hard to say if Richburg is back to the elite level he was at with the New York Giants, but there’s no question that he’s proven to be a massive asset for the Niners this season.
George Kittle The NFL’S best tight end is unsung? Absolutely. Because “best” doesn’t mean fantasy football points.
Kittle hasn’t been the pass-catching machine that he was last year, when he set the NFL record for reception yards by a tight end, but that doesn’t mean that he’s having a down season – merely his impact isn’t showing up on the stat sheet.
With left tackle Joe Staley and now right tackle Mike Mcglinchey out of the lineup, the Niners have been leaning on Kittle, an elite blocker at his position, to help out the line both the run game and sometimes even the pass game.
What we learned in the Raiders’ London win: Playoffs? Why not?
And with Juszczyk out for Sunday’s game and beyond, we even saw Kittle line up as a fullback against the Rams.
Kittle played 83% of snaps on Sunday the most of any skill position player, because he’s increasingly being asked to not be a skill position guy, despite catching 10 passes against LA.
You might think this is minimizing his impact, but it’s really just a channeling it into several fields. Kittle can do it all, well, and that’s been a boon for the Niners’ offense. This is a team sport, after all, and you can’t argue with the team results.
Kittle remains an elite player – in fact, if you look closely, you can argue he’s been even more impactful for the 49ers than he was last year – even if his fantasy football output is not.