Shanahan brings a unique mindset to his offensive designs
MIAMI >> Kyle Shanahan scoffs at the notion that he is an offensive genius.
But 49ers cornerback Richard Sherman knew as much even before Shanahan took over the 49ers — and long before he and Sherman teamed up to bring them to the Super Bowl.
It dates back to two matchups between the Seahawks and Falcons during the 2016 season.
The teams met for the first time in a thrilling Week 4 game in Seattle. The Seahawks prevailed thanks to some fourth-quarter Russell Wilson magic. But Shanahan’s offense left the Seattle defense stupefied.
“He had drawn up some concepts that we had never seen,” Sherman said. “He had broken a few of our rules. He fundamen
tally broke our defense. Or we fundamentally changed it after that game because the rules he broke were rules that nobody had ever broken before.”
The 24 points and 362 yards were the most Seattle’s renowned “Legion of Boom” defense had allowed up to that point that season. It set up a rematch three months later in Atlanta that would ultimately prove to be the Falcons’ penultimate step to the Super Bowl.
But one play in particular during that NFC divisional game stunned Sherman. It left the Seahawks defense without any answers.
Toward the end of the first half, the Falcons were holding a 12-10 lead and trying to mount one final scoring drive before the break. Matt Ryan had taken Atlanta all the way from its own goal line to inside the Seattle red zone. The clock ticked under 1 minute, and the Falcons called timeout.
Out of the huddle, Shanahan’s offense ran a version of a play Sherman had never seen before.
Shanahan sent one receiver on a “go” route and his tight end into the flat. Tevin Coleman, then the Falcons’ running back, rolled out of the backfield and past Seattle’s linebackers. Then past Seattle’s secondary. By the time he was in the end
zone, he was wide open.
It was a concept called an outside vertical threat.
“(It’s) a normal concept you get against a cover three, but he ran it in a way that was so unique we had never seen it before,” Sherman said.
He went back to the Seahawks sideline and asked the coaches, Hey, uh, what should we do about this play?
Uh, we don’t have an answer, they responded.
“I’ve never heard a coach say that. I’ve never heard anybody say that,” Sherman said. “There was really no answer for what he had designed and how he designed it.”
• Finally, a cross word has been spoken, Leave it to Frank Clark, the outspoken Chiefs defensive end, to break up the lovefest that prevailed during Monday night’s media festivities.
Clark said Tuesday he’s “not really too fond’’ of Dee Ford, the 49ers defensive end who played last season for Kansas City.
“I don’t know nothing about him,’’ Clark said. “I couldn’t name a stat. I don’t know the school he went to.”
Oddly, Clark seems upset about the offside penalty Ford committed in the AFC championship game, a penalty that nullified an interception and gave Tom Brady and the New England Patriots another chance to beat the Chiefs (which they did). That’s odd because Clark wasn’t on that Chiefs team last season. He
joined them this season. In fact, he replaced Ford.
“I just know he had lined up offside and anybody who lined up offside at a time like that I feel like that’s a dumb penalty at the end of the day,” Clark said. “I’m sure he feels the same way. Personally I’ve lined up offside before but not in that type of (situation) ... In any (situation) that’s just something that shouldn’t happen.’’
For the record, Ford agrees it was an”inexcusable” penalty. Oh, and he went to college at Auburn and he had 13 sacks for the Chiefs last season and a team-leading seven forced fumbles.
• Don’t count Troy Aikman among Jimmy Garoppolo’s doubters.
“I really think he’s going to have a much bigger impact on this game than what he had the first two,” the Hall of Famer and three-time Super Bowl winner said Tuesday.
When Garoppolo was still backing up Tom Brady in New England, Aikman reached out to Patriots coach Bill Belichick. Belichick told him that if something were to happen to Brady, he was confident the Patriots could win with Garoppolo.
“And when Bill Belichick says win, that doesn’t mean win Week 3,” Aikman said. “That means win it all. I thought it spoke volumes for the respect that he had for him.”