The Steelers have a lot of issues to cover after their 24-20 loss to the 49ers. But lets get to a very basic facet of the game where the 49ers found comfort and success with their running during their fourth-quarter comeback. The Steelers ended the game giving up 168 rushing yards, and several crucial yards came late in the game.
Let's take a closer look ...
One of the most old-school football strategies is to beat on a defense with the run game so that they're tired late in the game and give up easy yards with low risk plays. The 49ers went to that well quite a bit during the second half of this close game.
This works especially well against defensive fronts that have consistently been on the field for extended time. Coming into this game, the Steelers knew they needed to do better with time management and getting their defense off the field.
The defense played 70 snaps against the Patriots, 79 against the Seahawks and 74 against the 49ers this week. When a defense plays that many snaps, it begins to make more mental errors, has slower footwork to get into position, and comes up short at the point of attack.
Watch how the 49ers open up this nine yard run for Raheem Mostert. They crash their right side of the line down to the left, pushing out Tyson Alualu and Dan McCullers from their gaps. Once that happens it's up to Devin Bush and Mark Barron to make a stop, but they are too late to the hole:
That power run with the pulling guard was seen quite a few times. What helped made it a more effective run was how the 49ers would use multiple options to force the Steelers to think at different levels.
Like this other run from Mostert up the middle. Notice the 49ers have Dante Pettis run behind the play as a decoy. This sets up TJ Watt, because as the edge man he's responsible for outside contain while also being aggressive. Notice how this time it's Stephon Tuitt being driven out of the hole by a double team.
So when Watt realizes the run is coming his way, it's too late because the pulling guard has already gotten to him. That creates the space for Kyle Jusczcyk to come charging up against Bush in space, opening up the hole:
That theme continued in the second half, and as the Steelers continued to get gashed on the ground, the 49ers built momentum. Here's the same run concept from a different look. Only this time there's no fake reverse coming that Watt has to worry about.
And still, the pulling guard gets to Watt and creates the space for Jusczcyk to attack Bush in the same spot, allowing for a huge hole to open up:
The key to stopping these plays is to cut off these runs before they get to the second level. But the more tired a team's defense gets, the more mistakes get made, both physically and mentally.
For example, I've seen Watt close down on pulling guards several times and end up blowing up a play because he clogged the gap. That didn't happen against the 49ers. In addition, you see the defensive line getting blown off the ball and the inside linebackers a step behind following pulling guards.
The Steelers' defense was shutting down a lot of that early in the game when they only allowed a single field goal and 50 yards of rushing offense in the first half.
But that went away when the defense had to be out there for too many plays and the Niners' offensive line started playing downhill football. If the Steelers hope to win games in 2019, they have to avoid putting their defense in these late situations when they're out of gas and giving up easy yards to the run.
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