Niners equipped to follow a super strategy

The NFL team happiest about the outcome of Super Bowl LV was obviously the champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

But in second place might be the

San Francisco 49ers.

Yes, the

Niners passed on

Tom Brady this past offseason — that stings — but it was the way that Brady came about his seventh Lombardi Trophy that should have the Niners excited.

You see, Tampa Bay had the better roster, top to bottom, and was more disciplined and ruthless in its execution. Every team appeals to those lofty goals. And dive in closer, and you can see that the way the Buccaneers won is a formula the 49ers can emulate as soon as next season.

After all, Tampa Bay was emulating the 49ers’ game plan from Super Bowl LIV. They just did it a bit better in their turn.

The Bucs’ defensive game plan usually involves a ton of blitzing. No one loves bringing the house more than Tampa Bay defensive coordinator Todd Bowles. But in the Super Bowl, the Bucs blitzed only five times the entire game. Instead, they rushed four and dropped seven players into coverage, mixing up man and zone coverage underneath two high safeties.

Remind you of anyone? That exact kind of defense was the backbone of the 49ers’ success in 2019. With Nick Bosa, DeForest Buckner, Arik Armstead, and Dee Ford exploding

off the line of scrimmage, the Niners could create consistent, play-busting pressure while blanketing the field with pass coverage.

It even worked against Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes for three quarters in last season’s Super Bowl in Miami. Then he took a roughly 45-step drop, converted a third-and-15, and the Niners defensive line — known for getting tired late in games — faded from that point on, leading to a Kansas City win.

Tampa Bay’s front four on Sunday was equally ferocious as that of the Niners of 2019, if not more so — though that might appear to be the case because they were, unquestionably, going up against an offensive line that was markedly worse than the one the 49ers saw last year. Regardless, while

Brady might have won Super Bowl MVP, it was the Bucs’ defensive line that decided the contest. On nearly half of Mahomes’ dropbacks, he was pressured in less than 2.5 seconds. No one, not even arguably the most talented quarterback to ever play, can function under those circumstances.

Sure enough, the Chiefs didn’t score a touchdown in the game.

The defensive dominance allowed Tampa Bay to execute its normal offensive game plan. As Tony Romo told us time and time again on the CBS broadcast, the Bucs under Brady are a run, screen, and play-action pass team.

And that’s exactly what they ran on Sunday. There was balance and intelligence to Tampa Bay’s offensive attack — as if you would expect anything less from a team led by Brady. The Bucs didn’t need to press their luck by pushing the ball deep down the field into coverage. They rarely found

themselves in third-andlong situations. Yes, they were probably helped out by the refs a bit, but they executed exactly what they wanted, and their only turnover of the game — a failed fourth-down conversion at the Kansas City 1-yard line — was almost an advantage.

Running, screen passes, and play-action hits over the middle? That’s effectively the 49ers’ offense.

The formula for winning the big one is there on both sides of the ball for San Francisco.

What needs to improve is the execution.

If this team is going to keep Jimmy Garoppolo at quarterback, he’ll need to be more like the guy he once shadowed — precise with his ball placement, masterful with situational football, and unimpeachable when it comes to the playbook. The Niners bet that he could do it when they passed on Brady in free agency and again when they let Matt Stafford go to the Rams, but

the 2021 season is a referendum on Jimmy G. I’m not betting on him, but he gets to determine the outcome of that bet.

The Niners will need to bolster their defensive line this offseason as well if they want to recreate that 2019 defense — a unit that was proved to be good enough, by proxy. So while quarterback might be the sexy pick for the Niners in the first round this year, don’t be surprised if they go with an edge rusher opposite Bosa. This organization really does believe that the defensive line is the most important unit in football.

The Super Bowl might cap the season, but it also sets up the next campaign. Last year, the narrative coming out of the Big Game was that quarterbacks trump all. This year, it’s that defense still wins championships.

The truth, of course, lies somewhere in the middle. And, with the right moves, the 49ers are in a position to find it.