Will play for burritos

McNolan has regularly stated that the 49ers are a team that will "build through the draft" and not through free agency. Yet, the team has been among the most active free agent buyers in the league over the last three seasons. This last offseason has proven the most fruitful free agency period for the team. Here's a look at just how fruity their FA acquisitions have been so far this season:

• Isaac Bruce: Leads the team in receiving yards, receiving touchdowns, and yards per catch. Currently 8th in the league in receiving DVOA. More importantly, by singing Bruce the 9ers won't have to play against him this season. Over the last five seasons, Bruce has averaged 75 yards/game against the 9ers, compared to 60 yards/game against the rest of the league over that same span.
• DeShaun Foster: He hasn't done anything spectular thus far, but that's a good thing. Foster's role on the team is that of insurance policy for Frank Gore. In my opinion, he's a better insurance policy than was Maurice Hicks. Hicks, by the way, has returned four kicks and hasn't touched the ball on offense in Minnesota.
• Bryant Johnson: Johnson has been underwhelming thus far, but has the potential to bust a big game. It may be his turn this week against New England, whose pass defense DVOA ranks 24th in the league against #2 receivers and 32nd in the league against 3rd and 4th receivers. Johnson is also the only receiver O'Sullivan has connected with in a designed red-zone route.
• J.T. O'Sullivan: If you measure a free agent signing by production per dollar spent, O'Sullivan was has to be one of the best free agent pick ups in years.
• Allen Rossum: Based on what we saw in the preseason, it's fair to assume that Rossum will break a return for a touchdown at some point this year. And something tells me the team wouldn't run a reverse on 4th and goal to Maurice Hicks.
• Barry Simms: I was shocked, SHOCKED when Jonas Jennings was injured. In replacing Jennings, Simms has been far from perfect. He whiffed a few blocks last week and may have cost the team points. But he's looked good in run blocking. Maybe Simms is just a whiter version of Kwame Harris, but there's one key difference between the two players: 49ers fans don't loathe Simms.
• Justin Smith: When the 9ers signed Smith in the offseason, skeptics repeatedly pointed to the fact that his sack numbers were never particularly high. But he's already matched his sack total from last year and he's 3rd on the team in tackles.
• Takeo Spikes: Spikes was a bit rusty when he arrived in the offseason. In week one, Spikes couldn't catch a kickoff that floated into his arms like a feather. Last week, he pulled down a low-flying Cruise missile. Now that he has definitely beat out Jeff Ulbrichshithouse for the starting Ted linebacker spot, he's likely to start contributung more and more each week.

Of the eight players named above, only Foster is not a starter. (While Rossum is a specialist, I include him as a starter as I would a punter or place kicker.) Using Sando's NFC West Roided-Out Roster for week five, I can tell you that no team in the division has this many starters from the '08 free agency crop. For this post's empty promise, I pledge to take a look around the league at other teams that made a splash in free agency last offseason to see if anyone has added as many starters to the lineup as the 9ers. I suspect the only teams that will be remotely colse are the Dolphins and Falcons -- not exactly good company.

There are good things and bad things about this many free agents cracking the starting lineup. The good thing is that most of these players are quality players, some are Pro Bowlers (non-PBA), who came to the 9ers because they wanted to play here. There's the right mix of a willingness to pay big contracts and a chance at success. There was a time when the team was signing vagrants off the streets of San Francisco to fill the holes in their remarkably shitty team. That's where the 'Fins and Falcons are now and the 9ers are differently situated.

The bad thing is free agents can corrode a roster. They are generally old, expensive, and transiet. Sure, Alex Smith costs more than O'Sullivan, but that's the exception to the rule. Guys like Bruce, Foster and Spikes are more common. They're in their 30s, earn about $2M/year, and may leave as soon as their contract runs out. That's not helping anyone beyond this season. But maybe that's all the management is thinking about.

Life on Martz: Part 1

There have been rumblings that the defense isn't playing up to snuff so far this year. Looking at the scores against the Cardinals and the Seahawks, that would appear true. But in watching the first two games, I've been impressed with the defense. They've haven't been gashed for big plays, save one long pass to Steve Breaston in week 1 and the TD run by Julius Jones on a safety blitz in week 2. In fact, the 49ers defense is currently in the top 10 in the league in yards allowed/play and 20 + yard plays allowed. Plus they've got sacks and turnovers. What more could you ask? So if they've been so good at limiting opposing offenses, why are they allowing so many points?

The answer, like all things this year, has something to do with Mike Martz. Specifically, the Martzian offense is not giving the defense much help in terms of field position. Field positions is a simple metric, but the implications are more complex. If a defense has the offense pinned back against their own goal line, the defense can be more aggressive with blitzes, stunts, and coverages. Conversely, when the offense has the defense near their own endzone, the defense has to play more conservatively and can't afford exotic and risky blitzes. Welcome to life on Martz.



To illustrate how the defense has been given a shitty lot the last few weeks, I'm using two field positions stats. First, I looked at how many the points the defense has given up when the opponents' offense starts with a turnover-induced short field. Second, special teams has been putting the defense in terrible situations with poor coverage on punts, so I looked at the drive charts to see where the other teams are starting their drives after the offense punts.

When looking at these numbers, keep two things in mind. First, the average starting field position for most teams over the course of a season is between their own 25- and their own 30-yard line. Second, the team that averages a better starting field position than their opponent almost always wins. Pat Kirwan ran a nice story documenting this last year and the guy at Advanced NFL Stats (a nice site) gave the argument a more mathy support.

First, turnovers. The Martz offense has turned the ball over six times in two weeks. Here's the opponents' average starting field position after turnovers and how the defense has fared in response.

Opponents' avg. starting field position after turnovers: 49ers' 26-yard line
Total points allowed by the defense after 6 turnovers: 10 ... total!

That's pretty impressive if you ask me. Yes, the stats are skewed because the Seahawks recovered a fumble and scored without ever letting the defense take the field, but even subtracting that turnover from the calculation the defense has still responded well to turnovers.

As for the punting unit, the comparison is simple because there have been just as many punts (six) as turnovers. Here are the stats.

Opponents' avg. starting field position after punts: Own 44-yard line
Total points allowed by the defense after 6 punts: 23

There are two things that lead to this abnormal starting field position the punting unit is allowing. First is the punting unit itself. Andy Lee's 45-yard average is good for 13th in the league. That's not terrible. It's the coverage that's killing the team. In spite of Lee's decent average punt, the punting unit is 30th in the league in net avg. That means they are allowing big returns. And from who? Steve Breaston and Michael Bumpus? WTF? The other thing that leads to this field position is the place on the field from which the team is punting. This is on Martz. If the offense is punting from deep in its own territory, the aren't helping the defense. I should mention here that 6 punts ties the offense for 3rd fewest punts in the league. Thank god.

These numbers are nothing to sneeze at - field position is important. Consider the average starting field position the offense is giving the opponents. Excluding kickoffs, the opponents' average starting field position is the 49ers' 41-yard line. That's just awful. Against the Cardinals, the 49ers gave up starting field position of the 49ers' 47-yard line INCLUDING KICKOFFS! There's no way you can win a game when the opponent starts in your territory more than they start in their own.

I have a deep fear that one of the side effects of the Martzian offense is a tendency to give up the ball deep in your own territory. If that's the case, look for the defense's numbers to sag this year even though they are playing well. As well as can be expected, anyway, for a defense with its back pinned against the wall. Hopefully, the offense can pick up the slack and keep the defense off the ropes. If not, every week is going to be a shootout.

Play the kid

An e-mail exchange with 49ers super-genius Ofercofer brought about the following comment:

[...] the defense created good pressure for a half but has to create turnovers one way or another. It's time to gamble on Goldson at free safety.

He's right in two respects. First, he's right that Goldson is a gamble. For one thing, he's only been in the big leagues for one year. According to Barrows, Nolan trusts Mark Roman and is not likely to hand the reigns of the defense to an unestablished player. Apparently, while Roman has 5 interceptions in 8 years and had 0 interceptions last year, he is wise in ways undetectable to the common fan.

Along these same lines, Goldson may leave the defense susceptible to the big play. In the Cardinals game last week, Steve Breaston beat Goldson over the top for a 40-yard play to the 1-yard line that lead to the Cardinals' first touchdown.

In spite of that fact, Ofercofer is also right that now is the time to get Goldson into the lineup. In '07, the 9ers gave up 51 pass plays for more than 20 yards. That was good for fourth worst in the NFL. They can't do much worse with Goldson in the lineup, can they?

Goldson's upside, of course, is his potential to be the ball hawk Roman is not. Maiocco juxtaposed the two in the early pre-season. Essentially, his comparison boils down to this,

[Roman] is a solid all-around player [while Goldson] seems to have a flair for being in the middle of the action.

Another argument that Goldson is ready now is his pedigree. By and large, Pac-10 defensive backs arrive in the league NFL-ready. Here's a list of some other Pac-10 DBs who have made it big, along with the year in their career they cracked the starting lineup:

• Nnamdi Awesom-O 4000 (2)
• O.J. Atogwe (2)
• Antoine Cason (Rookie)
• Erik Coleman (Rookie)
• Michael Johnson (2)
• Ricky Manning (2)
• Deltha O'Neal (2)
• Jarrad Page (2)
• Troy Polamalu (2)
• Marcus Trufant (Rookie)

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of Pac-10 defensive backs who never see a snap. I put together this list to show that many Pac-10 defensive backs who do make it into their team's starting lineup are ready to do so early in their pro careers. I assume that this has something to do with the Pac-10's tendency to emphasize pro-style offenses and disciplined passing games. That's my best guess.

As this applies to Goldson, consider the offenses he faced in college. He saw USC with Leinart, Cal with Aaron Rodgers, Stanford with Trent Edwards, Oregon State with Derek Anderson, Oregon with Kellen Clemens and Dennis Dixon, and the list goes on. Having seen these offenses before arriving to the NFL, it's no wonder he does so well on the practice field. Now's the time to let him take that onto the game field.