Niners-Titans similarities
There is a sentiment in the media, as well as from 49ers fans, that the 49ers offense is one of the very best in the NFL. They are so good in fact, that while the Chiefs defense has played in a respectable fashion over the last eight to 10 games, the scheme and talent of the 49ers offense will expose every weakness and destroy them. This is in large part due to the fact the 49ers have dismantled their last two opponents. Surely, they will do the same to the Chiefs.
This sentiment made me rather curious. After all, Chiefs Kingdom had spent the days between the divisional and championship round hearing how the NFL had never before seen an attack like that of the Titans. We were made to believe that because Derrick Henry and the offensive scheme had steamrolled the prior three opponents, it was only natural they’d do the same to the Chiefs. Shockingly, and I say that facetiously, the pundits were wrong. No dismantling was done, and the Chiefs advanced to Super Bowl LIV.
I thought to myself, if the sentiment was that the Titans were so great and the national pundits had any credibility whatsoever, wouldn’t they at least come close to the offensive output of the 49ers? It seemed plausible they could given both offenses are structured to rely heavily on the run game. Based on this hypothesis, I set about gathering the basic situational stats that usually tell the story of a given game in the NFL.
For these purposes I compared the last three games for each team, but excluded the Chiefs game from the Titans conversation for an obvious reason: we want to evaluate how the 49ers have performed in their last three contests before the Chiefs compared with how the Titans performed in their last three contest before the Chiefs. The key statistical categories are listed below.
The very first thing to take note of is Football Outsiders Defensive DVOA of the last three opponents, at the top of the graphic. According to Football Outsiders advanced statistical model, the Tennessee Titans played the best and fourth best defenses in the league in their first two playoff games. In comparison, the 49ers played the seventh and 15th best defenses.
Even when you factor in the very poor defense of the Houston Texans, checking in at 26, the Titans played a better defense on average over the last three games than did the 49ers. If you break it down even further to passing defensive DVOA and rushing defensive DVOA, the discrepancy becomes even larger. In all aspects, the Titans played a tougher defensive schedule the three games before the Chiefs than did the 49ers.
Now that we have that fundamental understanding, let’s take a look at the actual statistical performance of each team. For this, I won’t highlight every single statistic listed as that doesn’t make for good reading. I’ll cover a few of the particular stats and then give my overall assessment of the difference between the two offenses.
Derrick Henry had one of the greatest stretches, against stacked boxes no less, that a running back has had in the modern NFL. He tore through the Texans, Patriots, and Baltimore at a dominant pace. It’s clear from the stats that Henry’s number was called at about the same rate as the 49ers unit of running backs, and he performed better with both a better yards per carry and total output.
One of the tenets preached in the media, when discussing running football teams, is that if they are able to grab the lead early, they can milk the game clock and make things difficult for the opposing team. Chiefs fans heard this all week leading up to the Titans game. How do the two teams compare in terms of scoring?
The answer is nearly identical. Over the last three games the 49ers are averaging 6.7 points in the first quarter and nine points in the second quarter. The Titans were only 1.7 points behind averaging seven in the first quarter and seven in the second quarter. Coincidentally, they are averaging near the the same points per game with the 49ers edging the Titans three game average out by less than a field goal.
Honestly, I could go line by line through this graphic and show you why the 49ers offensive output over the last three games is nearly identical to the offensive output of the Titans three games before they played the Chiefs. I won’t do that, because I think you get the picture. Yes, this 49ers offense has been playing great football the last three games. However, it’s not something the Chiefs haven’t seen before regardless of what the national media and Niners fans may want you to believe.