When it mattered most the Seahawks turned into ball hawks. Many will focus on Richard Sherman’s tip that led to the Malcolm Smith pick in the end zone with 22 seconds left on the clock in the NFC Championship Game. But an earlier INT dealt a huge blow to the San Francisco’s hopes, and shows just how wily the Hawks were in forcing 49er mistakes.
All told, Seattle’s top-ranked defence forced Colin Kaepernick into three fourth-quarter turnovers. The first came when the San Fran quarternback was stripped and lost a fumble on the 49ers’ first possession of the final 15-minute frame. He got away with it, though, as his defence held tough and didn’t surrender any points.
Kaepernick got the ball back with eight minutes and 18 seconds left on the clock—lots of time—his team needing just a field goal to tie the game at 20 or a touchdown to put the 49ers in front. But Seattle’s defence rose to the occasion once again.
Pay close attention as we break down a superb defensive call and execution by the Seahawks that helped secure the team a berth in Super Bowl XLVIII.
On first and 10 at San Francisco’s 26-yard line, the 49ers line up in a tight formation with two tight ends, two receivers and one running back. Because of the offence’s alignment there are 10 defenders in and around the line of scrimmage. We’re going to focus in on three defenders in particular: No. 41 Byron Maxwell (1), No. 31 Kam Chancellor (2) and No. 25 Sherman (3).
As San Francisco receiver Anquan Boldin splits out to the left side of the formation, Maxwell bumps out and points to him to indicate he’s responsible for Boldin in coverage. Meanwhile Chancellor rolls up to the line, appearing as though he’s going to blitz. Based on Seattle’s defensive configuration Kaepernick most likely made a pre-snap read of man coverage with one safety (Earl Thomas, out of the snapshot) in the middle of the field to help in deep coverage. The correct football lingo for the described coverage would be “cover one,” but that’s not actually what the Seahawks are running. They’ve just done a good job of misleading San Fran’s young quarterback.
As the play develops, the Seahawks are actually playing a combo coverage of man and zone. Sherman is locked man-to-man on Michael Crabtree, as he was most of the game, and the rest of Seattle’s back seven are playing a rotated version of a two-deep zone. There are four defenders playing the underneath zones and two deep defenders, Thomas and Maxwell, splitting the field over the top.
Shifting the focus back to Chancellor and Maxwell, each has done an excellent job of bailing from their original pre-snap positions to get to their zone responsibilities.
Chancellor and Maxwell have perfectly bracketed Boldin underneath and overtop. From there, either Kaepernick trusted his pre-snap read of man-to-man coverage, thinking Chancellor was rushing at him, or he actually saw Chancellor sink underneath the route and tried to fit in a perfect throw. Either way Kaepernick made a terrible decision to make the throw, and Chancellor came up with the easy pick in the flats.
Seattle led the NFL with 28 interceptions during the regular season. With a trip to the Super Bowl on the line, the talent and speed of the Seahawks’ defence made their mark once again.
