3 Ways Jimmy Garoppolo, 49ers Can Improve Offense After Christian McCaffrey Trade
The San Francisco 49ers proved on Sunday why trading for a playmaker like Christian McCaffrey was necessary to save the 2022 season.
Despite having one of the league's most talented defenses when healthy, they will eventually have to have an offense that can win a shootout to get to the Super Bowl.
In McCaffrey's first game with the team, they proved they aren't there yet. The Kansas City Chiefs offense was simply too much for the current version of the Niners' defense as they put up 44 points to San Francisco's 23.
Fortunately, Kyle Shanahan and his staff still have time to figure things out. McCaffrey hasn't even been with the team for a week so the fact that he was able to contribute eight carries for 38 yards and two receptions for an additional 24 yards was impressive.
Still, with the amount of draft capital the team gave up to acquire the running back the offense needs to get much better quickly.
Here are some ways they can make that happen.
More Play-Action
The 49ers are among the top 10 most run-heavy teams in the league right now. Jimmy Garoppolo is seventh in the league in play-action pass accuracy, completing nearly 70 percent of his attempts off of a run fake.
Yet, Garoppolo is 27th in the league in play-action attempts with just 20 on the season.
The presence of McCaffrey in the backfield only emphasizes the need to utilize the run game to set up the passing game from a scheme standpoint. With an explosive runner like McCaffrey executing the fake it forces the defense to honor the run, allows Deebo Samuel and Brandon Aiyuk an extra second to break free on their routes and gives Jimmy G the opportunity to throw in rhythm.
He's done it incredibly well in a small sample size. At this point, Shanahan needs to take what is working and magnify it.
Utilizing more play-action would be a great step in the right direction. Mike McDaniel is gone now but his former employer would be wise to look at how he has unlocked Tua Tagovailoa's potential.
The Dolphins are fourth in the league in play-action pass attempts.
Spread the Ball Around
The 49ers are now unique in the sheer amount of weapons they have on offense. They already lead the league in yards after the catch per reception. Then they went and got one of the most dangerous open-field runners in the game in McCaffrey.
That's going to open up a whole new level of creativity, but Shanahan has to be willing to unleash it.
McCaffrey and Deebo Samuel have the potential to be difficult to gameplan for. Samuel is second on the team in carries with 24 and has the versatility to be a true wide receiver or running back hybrid player. The same could be said for McCaffrey.
Moving the two around the formation and coming up with creative ways to get them the ball is going to be crucial. It should also open up additional opportunities for Brandon Aiyuk and George Kittle.
The latter remains one of the most physical tight ends capable of racking up his own yardage after the catch. And Aiyuk actually leads the team in receiving and has been a more pure downfield threat than Samuel this season.
Garoppolo does not have to play at an MVP level for this to be a dangerous offense. He doesn't have to be great at getting the ball down field. He just has to play point guard and get the ball to his unique arsenal of weapons with room to run.
Cleaner Execution
It might be a slight oversimplification, but the 49ers simply have to execute in clutch situations to take the next step as an offense.
They rank 26th in fourth down conversion percentage and have just been average when it comes to converting red zone trips to touchdowns, ranking 15th.
George Kittle pointed to those kinds of failures as the reason for the poor outing against Kansas City.
“I think it’s a combination of penalties in the red zone, mistakes in the red zone, whether it’s we get a missed target or something like that,” Kittle said, per Marcus Thompson II of The Athletic. “We don’t really have second-and-shorts. We have a lot of second-and-longs."
The 49ers were especially bad in the red zone against the Chiefs. They came up empty-handed in three out of five trips in the loss.
Regardless of personnel or scheme tweaks, the 49ers are an offense with little margin for error. Jimmy G's inability to reliably get the ball downfield and create outside of structure creates a ceiling for the offense.
But that ceiling is still pretty high when Shanahan is creative, utilizing his complete arsenal of weapons and the unit is executing at a high level.
They are going to need to find the next gear if they want to make a run this season and make the McCaffrey trade a good investment.