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Hafley builds on previous wrinkles to Packers Tampa-2 coverage scheme on third down.

The Packers  blew out the 49ers  38-10 in Week 12 in a rematch of last year’s NFC Divisional round playoff game. The defense generated three turnovers (two fumble recoveries and an interception), giving the offense a short field on three drives where the offense scored three touchdowns. It was a sloppy game on both sides of the ball for the 49ers, who could not generate a single turnover and who missed multiple tackles, 21 to be exact.


In this game, the Packers defense faced an offense that was missing Brock Purdy due to a shoulder injury and elbow soreness on his throwing arm, which is also the arm he had surgically repaired after the 2022 season from an injury in the NFC Championship  Game. The 49ers offense was also missing Trent Williams, though his replacement, Jaylon Moore, played well in Williams’s absence.


Also absent was Brandon Aiyuk (ACL) and Christian McCaffrey just came back to the lineup after their bye week. For as much injury as the 49ers were dealing with, they still had ample opportunity to do more than they did with backup quarterback Brandon Allen filling in for Purdy but Hafley’s unit got the best of them and did so by just playing their bread-and-butter concepts on third down versus the 49ers offense.








In this game specifically, Hafley unveiled a new wrinkle to Tampa-2: The corners bailed to the deep half, and a deep middle safety dropped to the middle zone. This was done to delay the quarterback’s processing and truly muddy up the post-snap picture for him.


To Kyle Shanahan’s credit, he had several play calls dialed up to beat Hafley’s disguised Tampa-2 coverages but Allen never looked comfortable executing the offense on third down with drives ending with a fumble, which he recovered, an interception, and multiple plays where took the checkdown, scrambled, or threw incomplete.


First play


On this play on the 49ers first drive of the game, Shanahan, anticipating Tampa-2, called a pass concept that could stress the horizontal coverage of the underneath defenders in the intermediate area.








The play is an all-curl concept, with quarterback Brandon Allen reading the progression from Ricky Pearsall’s over-the-ball route to the deep swirl route from Deebo on the left to the flat checkdown. If the ball is thrown on time, it would go to Pearsall first in the hole in the underneath middle of the Tampa-2 zone.








This is another new wrinkle in Hafley’s arsenal, sending a 4th rusher from the linebacker position, dropping to the two defenders on the line of scrimmage to the right to underneath zones in Tampa-2, and having both corners bail to the deep half.








Above are the post-snap zone drops from the defense. Safety Xavier McKinney becomes the Tampa-2 deep middle zone pole runner.









Allen drops back but the coverage rotation speeds up his processing just a bit too much and he doesn’t take the throw to Pearsall. He tries to reset and looks to Deebo Samuel on the outside curl to the left but there’s no window.


Now he has pressure off the right edge of the offensive line and tries to scramble around to buy time for a throw but defensive end Rashan Gary hit Allen’s arm and he lost control of the ball but recovered it. The 49ers go three-and-out on their first series and have to punt it away.


Second play


This isn’t an exotic Tampa-2 alignment for the Packers and Hafley but it is perhaps a pass that should have been completed downfield to the deep dig route on this dagger concept. And Shanahan called it with Tampa-2 in mind as a 3x1 dagger concept is a great Tampa-2 coverage beater.








There are a few different variants of this type of dagger concept and this is a “break glass in case of an emergency” type of concept with a deep dagger route that needs time to develop.








Dagger is a good concept versus Tampa-2 because the middle pole runner carries the inside deep crosser. This leaves the strong hook defender to play the underneath curl route or sink with the dagger.









The problem here for Allen is he has all day to let this develop as the protection holds up very well. A look off to the curl underneath would draw that defender and open the window to Deebo for a deep conversion, but Allen checked it down.


Third play


Here, Hafley’s play call again is to drop the corners to the deep half with Quay Walker as the middle zone runner.








The defense is mugging the line of scrimmage with seven defenders and four in coverage giving the appearance of a cover-0 pressure. The advantage in doing this is creating a possible free rusher at the quarterback and speeding up his post-snap processing.








The post-snap rotation reveals Tampa-2 again, with the corner bailing to the deep half and the mugged linebackers zone dropping, leaving a four-man pass rush.








The zone drop freezes Allen in his processing and by the time anyone can get open, Allen is bailing from the pocket as pressure around the left edge forces him to step up.









He ends up scrambling but I think the right move here is resetting and lobbing a pass over the middle zone defenders to Jennings while they’re flat-footed. Instead, he tries to scramble for the first down and misses it by about three yards.


McKinney Interception


Later in the 3rd quarter, McKinney intercepted Allen off of a deflected pass that Deebo should have caught.








This is another good design to beat Tampa-2 here, putting the hook defender in conflict and running a dig route behind him.








The defensive alignment isn’t quite cover-0 but is more of a common way to show quarters.








Either way, these alignments help disguise where the coverage will rotate, masking which defender will bail to the deep half and flat areas, etc., and give the defense more flexibility with pressure and rotation.









McKinney bails to the deep half right at the snap with Keisean Nixon as the other deep half defender from the cornerback spot. Isaiah McDuffie is the Tampa-2 middle zone runner. Allen anticipates the coverage and fires a missile in between the zone defenders to Deebo on the dig route, puts the ball just slightly behind him so that if he does catch it, he’s shielded from a big hit.


But the pass went right through Deebo’s hands and had a lot of mustard on it. Rightly so, the window was compressed and closing fast. The ball deflected up and allowed McKinney, who was already closing on the play, to intercept it and return it back down the visiting team's sideline.









Here are two more reps of corners bailing to the deep half. I suspect one of the ideas in doing this kind of zone drop this week here is dropping the safeties to the middle of the field lets better coverage defenders play the middle of the field that the 49ers like to attack with in-breaking routes and crossers. It mostly worked too. And it gives Hafley another tool in chest he can break out at any time.


Outlook


The 49ers had some good designs to beat these coverages but unfortunately, it didn’t work the way they drew it up. Would it have worked with Purdy? Maybe they hit a few more of those throws and keep the 49ers offense on schedule but facing that amount of 3rd and long in this game was largely due to their inability to run the ball, which Green Bay sold out to stop with McCaffrey back.


The gulf between the two teams is bigger than three wins. The 49ers look old and slow and hungover from playing nearly a season’s worth of playoff games and two Super Bowl  losses. The Packers look young and fresh and ready to make a run down the stretch. That starts with Miami in Week 13 (they won).




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