The Niners are known for having a lot of speed on their defense but also being very agressive in their coverages and with their safeties. Their 2 inside LBs are very fast and can go sideline to sideline but also drop back into coverage.
Their Safeties are agressive, they like to come up and make plays, they also like to blitz, they will be over agressive in coverage and try to jump routes.
With no Saquon the offense is going to most likely be more like the one we saw in the 2nd half, ball in Jones hands shotgun sling it around with Breida sprinkled in. Do the safeties and backers for the Niners remain up and play downhill or does no saquon make them back off a little bit?
I think there is some daylight here for Hyatt and maybe Slayton to have a really big impact because of the agressiveness of their safeties. I could see Hyatt getting behind the defense a few times.
Does the Niners scheme change? or do they stick to what they do and if the Giants complete a couple of deep passes so be if?
If they get relentless pressure on DJ with front 4, we're going to get our asses kicked to high heaven, and it won't really matter what they do in the back 7.
Conversely, if our front 4 gets washed off the field, it's going to get ugly. SF plays "avalanche football" - they can put up points quickly on O and their D is really tough. Games can get out of hand quickly. Avoiding that initial death grip is key.
Load up the front, hit Jones and make the Giants sustain drives of 3, 4, 5 yards at a clip.
DJ may need to make some prudent decisions on Thursday night.
The LB crew on San Fran is very good and would love to light him up when he scrambles a bit too far.
This feels right. Although would be basically same with Barkley as well.
Show the F up! Play physical, fast, and smart football. Win the damn game.
What he said^
Matchup-wise, this is as tough as it gets for Wink's D.
No one's running on SF anyway. Teams are averaging 16 rushing attempts per game against them thus far this year.
I think Brieda is a serviceable option in the backfield. Noticed alot of max protect last week vs Cards. Bellinger was left in to block on alot of the big passes Jones hit in the second half.
This assumes Jones even has four seconds to throw one.
Big assumption, imho.
This is correct. Wilks has the great luxury of having the DL that wreaks the most havoc in the league without help.
But seriously, we have to be able to run on them and execute the safe, short pass game. Their pass rush will make the deep pass difficult but if we can run hard and be effective it will open things up.
As for our defense, it must keep their run game in check. Purdy is not an accurate deep passer so can we pressure him and finally get turnovers?
If we want to win we must win the turnover battle; run well, stop their run and hope we get that big play downfield just like last week.
Jones must outplay Purdy and the defense must "own" the right side of the 49'ers OL which is subpar overall.
Load up the front, hit Jones and make the Giants sustain drives of 3, 4, 5 yards at a clip.
I call the big one "Bitey"...
Wilks likes to blitz, Giants will probably leave in the RB and TE to add an additional blocker I would think.
To answer you in one word, aggressive.