If you want to make a 49ers fan’s blood pressure spike like the temperatures in the Bay this week, you don’t talk about Brock Purdy’s contract, Kyle Shanahan‘s clock-management, or the team’s errant trade for Trey Lance.
No, you say two simple, powerful, and seemingly maddening words:
“Offensive line.”
It’s the part of football that is, for most fans, a complete mystery — a series of grunts and shoves and bodies piling up. The secrets of a zone run or a pass-pro slide are known only to a crazy few with bad backs, oversized t-shirts, dirt under their mangled fingernails, and a permanent dent on their foreheads.
Yet even a 5-foot-5, 150-pound pencil pusher understands that a bad offensive line is an incurable disease for a football team.
Despite that, for years, the Niners have treated it like I treat my home improvement projects:
They don’t spend a bunch of money on it. They don’t use high-level draft picks to help it out. They’ve watched Hall of Famer Trent Williams get older and older and haven’t exactly gotten around to finding his replacement.
Instead, the Niners insist that Shanahan’s offensive scheme and offensive line coach Chris Foerster’s magic touch can turn a pile of mismatched spare parts (and Williams) into a functional front.
And when you see Brock Purdy scrambling for his life on second-and-long, it’s hard to believe them.
But then there’s a game like Sunday’s against the Saints, where the 49ers provided a clear, undeniable reminder that their unique philosophy isn’t a pipe dream, but rather a fully-functioning, if slightly-insane reality.
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Starting left guard Ben Bartch, a journeyman for whom “starter” was still a bit of a stretch, played 10 snaps and left the game with an ankle sprain. And in came Connor Colby, a seventh-round rookie; a kid who was described by his coaches as a “project” in training camp and was in a legitimate battle for a roster spot with an undrafted free agent.
It had all the makings of a football horror story.
Instead, it was a 310-pound fairy tale.
Colby wasn’t just “not bad.” He was outstanding. He wasn’t a liability. He was a force.
And the 49ers’ game plan didn’t shrink with him on the field; it grew.
He was so good, in fact, that it’s fair to wonder if the 49ers just found their starting left guard for the next five years with the 249th pick of this most recent draft.
This, despite offensive lines around the league being so starved for talent that guys like former Niner Aaron Banks can get a $77 million contract.
This is simply not normal.
Unless you’re the 49ers, that is.
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Foerster explained the team’s o-line philosophy last year, saying there’s a line with offensive line play. If you drop below it — the “can’t block anybody” point — it’s a “gaping hole” and you’re in a world of trouble as a team.
But if a lineman — tackle, guard, or center — is at that line, or just above it, the Niners can get by.
The Niners’ philosophy is to find a bunch of guys who can be “at that line.” A bunch of guys who everyone else overlooks, but who, with their system and coaching, become just good enough.
Yes, the Niners are doing Moneyball, but with the offensive line.
Call it Brawnyball.
And, of course, it helps to inherit Joe Staley to play left tackle, and then replace him with Williams in one of the NFL’s all-time trade heists, but look at their starting front now: a future Hall of Famer, sure, but also a seventh-round rookie, a third-round sophomore who started all of his rookie season, and a center and a right tackle who were once practice squad guys. It’s not exactly the Avengers.
Colby fits right in. And he is, unquestionably, above Foerster’s line. His college tape from Iowa showed a kid with excellent movement skills, perfect for the Niners’ offense, but with awful footwork in pass protection. He’d lunge, he’d get too heavy, and he’d be demolished rep after rep.
But on Sunday, against a heavy Saints front, his feet kept moving, he stayed balanced, and he didn’t allow a single pressure. His movement skills were on full display in the run game, as he not only reached second-level defenders, but he also delivered serious force to them.
No one saw this coming from him. Perhaps not even the Niners. And yes, it was just one game, but the performance was undeniable. The kid can play.
The 49ers, it seems, have found another unheralded gem from their dusty, dowdy-looking mine. And in doing so, they’ve proven once again that their externally maligned approach to the offensive line isn’t just a gimmick, it’s a bonafide method.
And it’s a huge reason why they have been able to go from a chaotic month of off-field nonsense and never-ending injuries to a 2-0 start and a season that’s still on track.
Yes, Brawnyball works. Even if you can’t quite understand why.
