After losing the past four games by a combined 65 points, and scoring just 54 points in those games, it’s hard to imagine the 49ers have improved in any area since their promising start to the season. Yet one facet of San Francisco’s offense has surprisingly shown marked improvement, and exists as a positive takeaway from a portion of the 49ers’ schedule where they have rarely looked competitive.
Kyle Shanahan, like his father Mike before him, has been known throughout his career for the success of his zone running scheme. This is a man who turned Steve Slaton into a 1,000 yard rusher, got 4.2 yards per carry from Ryan Torian and twice was top five in the league in rushing with Alfred Morris as a feature back. After finishing fifth in the NFL in rushing with the Falcons last year, it was assumed that the paring of Shanahan and Carlos Hyde would make the San Francisco rushing attack a force to be reckoned with, and could potentially make the 49ers’ offense an above average unit.
Things didn’t go according to plan, however. Hyde’s counting stats looked decent through the first five games of the season — 4.5 yards per carry — but a deeper dive into the numbers seemed to indicate that the 49ers’ rushing attack was largely ineffective.
It was situational metrics that told the real story. San Francisco’s rushing success rate (RSR) — defined by Looker as the amount of time a team gains 40 percent of yards to go on first down, 60 percent on second down, and 100 percent on third down — through the first five weeks of the season was a paltry 38.72 percent, a number that was eclipsed by their opponents in all but one of those games.
Interestingly, through their last four games, the 49ers’ rushing attack has been far more effective, even if the counting stats show that Hyde is averaging a yard per carry less than he was in the first five games. From Week 6-9 the 49ers’ RSR has jumped nearly 20 percentage points to 56.15 per game.
Unfortunately, this positive trend hasn’t had an effect on the results, largely due to the fact that the 49ers have been forced to throw the ball, in an attempt to come back from large deficits. This has allowed opposing defenses to tee off on C.J. Beathard, who has been battered in three and a half games, rendering the 49ers’ passing attack even more ineffective than it was with Brian Hoyer.
The fact that the 49ers are rushing the ball more effectively is an indication that the players are slowly getting used to the zone rushing scheme under Shanahan, and at least provides a glimmer of hope that improvements are being made. Through in Jimmy Garoppolo and better protection from the offensive line, and San Francisco might actually have something to work with in 2018.
All the facts and figures used in this piece were gathered using the analytics platform called Looker. Make sure to check them out for user friendly dashboards, visualizations, and data analysis.