It’s largely accepted that 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan is one of the, if not the, premier offensive mind in football. The same goes for former defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans for the other side of the ball. It’s why both are now head coaches after time as coordinators. One chart from Pro Football Focus gives some clear visual evidence of just what both are capable of doing to the opposition.
A graph created by PFF’s Arjun Menon illustrates how often a team’s defense perfectly covers a play, and how often their offense faces a perfectly covered play.
According to the chart, the 49ers perfectly covered a play more often than every team besides the Bengals, and faced perfectly-covered plays less often than any team by a wide margin.
Kyle Shanahan should've been coach of the year for how good he was at forcing broken coverage from opposing defenses this year. Also, I don't think Nathaniel Hackett was that bad of an offensive playcaller and could be a good hire for the Jets pic.twitter.com/K2ZTzPbr7i
— Arjun Menon (@arjunmenon100) February 11, 2023
This shows that defenses often break coverage while facing the 49ers. Conversely, the 49ers’ defense was not prone to busting coverage.
Good coaching matters in the NFL. For Shanahan, he’s able to manipulate defenses with his bevy of offensive weapons. He breaks defensive rules and gets players running wide open. In turn, that allows a quarterback like Brock Purdy to step in and thrive.
San Francisco is just as talented on the defensive side, but defense is harder than ever in the NFL. Even talented teams get beat, but the 49ers were extremely well-coached and Ryans is terrific at adapting his defense to whatever offense his team is facing.
Adaptability reigns in the NFL. Shanahan makes it impossible to adapt to his offense, and Ryans is always willing to reshuffle the defensive deck to make offenses uncomfortable. Talent matters, but having high-quality coaching does too.
