SPECIAL BACK
To win Super Bowl, 49ers need to give the ball to Mostert, their best runner
SANTA CLARA >> Kyle Shanahan had a good thing going at the running back position — a three-man rotation that kept defenses guessing and his ball carriers relatively fresh amid a grueling season.
Then Raheem Mostert had to go and start standing out, grabbing yards in big chunks and scoring touchdowns every week. Shanahan’s hand was forced. The Niners had a new No. 1 running back.
“Raheem’s earned it,” Shanahan said following the 49ers’ win over the Saints in December. “I mean, how many games and how many years can you go averaging 6 yards a carry? We keep trying to balance it out, but what Raheem has done these last few weeks, we need to give him more opportunities. He’s given us no choice.”
In the month since that comment, Mostert has, indeed, seen more action. He’s averaging almost 12 carries over the past three games. But the team average in that span is almost 36, so Mostert still is getting only onethird.
That number must increase in the playoffs. Starting Saturday in the NFC divisional round
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NFC divisional playoffs: Vikings at 49ers, Saturday, 1:35 p.m., NBC
playoff against the Minnesota Vikings, Mostert needs his workload to be commensurate with his status as the 49ers’ best running back.
If the 49ers are going to go to the Super Bowl — if they’re going to win the big game — Mostert has shown he’s the guy to carry them there.
The 27-year-old one-time journeyman has given Shanahan no choice because, in answer to the coach’s question about how many games and how many years a guy can go averaging 6 yards per carry, there appears to be no end with Mostert.
Among players with at least 1,000 career rushing yards, Mostert is the only player in modern NFL history to average more than 6 yards per rush. The only other guy to do it was ol’ Skeets Quinlan, a left halfback (ask your grandpa) for the Los Angeles Rams in the 1950s.
Mostert has scored a touchdown in the 49ers’ last six games and scored two touchdowns in each of San Francisco’s two biggest games of the season, road victories against New Orleans and Seattle.
Oh, and Mostert has done all of this while remaining an ace member of the 49ers’ special teams. He finished the season as the 49ers’ leading specialteams tackler.
It’s a two-way story that seems more appropriate for the era that preceded even Skeets Quinlan.
It has been a long journey to reach this point for Mostert, a self-anointed beach bum and surfer from New Smyrna Beach, Florida, also known as the “Shark Bite Capital of the World.” After going undrafted out of Purdue, Mostert bounced around the league before finding a role with the 49ers, his seventh NFL team.
There’s not much glory in special teams, and there’s always a new draft pick that coaches think can justify his spot on the roster by taking on that role. So Mostert kept bouncing around, going from Philadelphia to Miami, Baltimore to Cleveland, the Jets to the Bears.
Mostert finally landed on the 49ers’ practice squad in late November 2016.
Chip Kelly might not have been much of a head coach for the Niners, but he and Trent Baalke — and say what you will about him as the GM — both loved speed and they found plenty in signing Mostert. He ran track at Purdue, winning gold in two events — the 60 meters and the 200 meters — at the Big Ten Indoor championships.
Mostert stuck when Kelly and Baalke exited in the subsequent offseason. Lucky for him, Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch also like speed. Despite injuries that cost him big chunks of the season the previous two seasons, the 49ers gave Mostert a three-year, $8.7 million contract last summer — a deal that’s looking like one of the best values of the Shanahan-Lynch era.
“Everything that’s happened up to this point has put us in the position we’re in today. That said, seeing him break his arm last season wasn’t a whole lot of fun,” Mostert’s agent, Brett Tessler, said via email. “It’s very satisfying to see the rest of the world learn something I’ve known for years.”
Still, Mostert came into training camp this season as the 49ers’ fourth option at running back. Yes, he was a near-lock to make the roster — special teams — but that was all that was guaranteed. Gunning, some run as a change-ofpace back (good for draw plays) — a nice, solid role for a guy who is revered in the 49ers’ locker room.
But now that the breakout is here — now that he looks like one of the best backs in the NFL — his teammates will tell you that we, like them, should have seen it coming from a mile away.
Guard Laken Tomlinson said: “We’ve seen it — I’ve seen the talent every year in just the work he puts in on special teams.”
“The last five, six games, I don’t think there’s been anybody better in the NFL,” right tackle Mike McGlinchey said. “And what an even better person and teammate on top of all of that.”
How did Mostert reach this point?
Opportunity matters. But Mostert also had to adapt his game to fit Shanahan’s system.
“(Coaches say they) can’t plug just any ol’ back into the offense,” Mostert said. “It was just one of those time and essence things where we had to sit down and make sure that we understood the ‘zone.’ ”
The “zone” is the blocking scheme in Shanahan’s offense. Zone blocking is nearly synonymous with the Shanahan family. Kyle’s dad, Mike, won two Super Bowls behind the scheme in an era when it wasn’t as ubiquitous as it is today.
Like father like son,
Kyle Shanahan’s offense is built off the run — specifically an outside, wide, “stretch” zone run. Shanahan is also looking for a specific kind of back for this offense. It’s hardly plug-and-play.
A great Shanahan zone back has plus-level vision and an ability to put his foot in the ground and burst forward with speed. You can’t be a tap dancer back there — it’s three steps and go.
“Being decisive — that’s the main thing,” said Mostert, who was the fastest running back in the league (11.34 miles per hour) this season when crossing the line of scrimmage.
Mostert told me that he was more of a scatback at Purdue — effectively a wide receiver doing a lot of end-arounds. He carried the ball 136 times in four years in West Lafayette. He has 137 carries for the 49ers this season.
But seeing how he only had one regular-season carry in the NFL before Shanahan took over the 49ers, it wasn’t as if changing his style was a difficult decision.
And Mostert — with his rare combination of size and elite speed — figured it out well before this season.
“He just sprints through people’s faces,” tight end George Kittle said. “Guys take angles at him and they realize that angles aren’t good enough because he’s so fast. The burst of speed that he runs with, the physicality that he runs with ...”
In his runs, you can see Mostert’s surfing ability; he claims to have been offered a sponsorship from Billabong in high school, a sponsorship that came through (for different reasons) a few months ago. Stopping and going requires outstanding balance. Hours on a surfboard can help teach that.
His special-teams play has clearly informed his running-back play, too.
“When I have to block somebody on a kickoff return, it’s like, ‘hey look, that’s my guy — I have to make that block, otherwise, he’s going to tackle returner.’ The same thing on a punt,” Mostert said. “I have to go down there and I had to make this play as a gunner. It helps to be reckless. In playing running back position, too. Once you see a hole you literally have to hit it. You can’t wait.”
And, despite being the 49ers’ No. 1 back, Mostert isn’t keen to drop those special teams responsibilities. At this juncture, it’s a core part of his identity as a football player. He went as far as to name his first child Gunnar.
“It’s important for me to always be on special teams,” Mostert said. “I’m still a team guy and I love playing special teams. I don’t take it for granted — that’s where I started. That’s where I made my name and my mark.”
His team-first attitude — echoed by his teammates, so it’s not an empty platitude — is also seen in his touchdown celebrations. Mostert, whose surfing celebration was Shanahan’s favorite, has taken to giving the ball to a 49ers’ offensive lineman to spike in the end zone.
For Mostert, feeding the big men feeds into the bigger picture, one that could well come to pass if the 49ers feed him the ball early and often starting on Saturday.
“It was something I was thinking about because I feel like they don’t really get enough credit for the things that they do,” Mostert said of involving the offensive linemen in his touchdown celebration. “I wanted to make sure they feel they had some worth, some presence. And what better way than to give them the ball and let them have their moment?
“Ultimately that’s just going to help the bigger picture — you know we’re all gonna celebrate holding that trophy up, you know we’re all going to have a great time.”