San Francisco's defense has slipped the last two games

San Francisco's defense has slipped the last two games

San Francisco's defense held up well through the first two weeks, allowing minus 0.12 EPA per play, 8th in the NFL. Over the last two games it has allowed plus 0.094 EPA per play, 23rd in the league. The success rate allowed tells the same story: 41.7% through two weeks, 45.6% over the last two.

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San Francisco went from 8th to 23rd in EPA per play allowed by rank, a 15 spot drop.

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That is the defense Seattle's offense will see Sunday.

Cover 4 is the one coverage that has shut George Kittle down

George Kittle has caught 294 passes for 4,044 yards and 37 touchdowns on 386 targets since 2022, the first season this coverage data goes back to. That is the reason to measure him since 2022 and not his whole career.

Cover 4, the quarters look, is the one coverage that has shut him down. Since 2022 he has averaged 1.43 yards per route and plus 0.40 EPA per target against it, by far his worst number across the six main shells, with 2 touchdowns on 314 routes. It holds up on first and second down too, 1.41 yards per route, so it is not just a third and long effect.

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Sumer Sports. Cover 4 is quarters. Cover 6 is quarters on one side and Cover 2 on the other.

Quarters safeties sit on the routes he wins with elsewhere. Against Cover 4 his go routes average 0.93 yards per route, targeted on 7.0% of them, and his digs average 0.74. Against Cover 3, the coverage he sees most at 33.7% of his routes, his crossers average 3.66 yards per route and his go routes 3.93. San Francisco's whole passing game is also at its worst against Cover 4, so part of the Kittle effect is a team effect, not just him.

A few other things have slowed him. Dime personnel on first and second down has held him to 0.81 yards per route over 99 routes, well below his 2.83 against base personnel, though dime mostly shows up on third down. He is barely ever pressed when he lines up inline, just 4 pressed routes against 1,153 that were not. Pressing him from the slot or split wide works better: his yards per route drops to 1.38 from the slot and 0.89 wide. His target rate drops too, and when a team still throws it to him pressed, it has cost plus 1.03 EPA per target from the slot.

Sumer Sports. Press means a defender jammed him at the line.

Do not blitz him. Kittle averages 2.56 yards per route against the blitz, against 1.79 without it. Cover 0 alone has cost plus 1.48 EPA per target, with 6 touchdowns on 17 targets.

The Rams have done it best over a real sample: six games, 1.50 yards per route, plus 0.20 EPA per target. Their recipe matches the list above, Cover 4 on 21.1% of his routes and dime on 32.9%, against 14.6% and 14.5% from the rest of the NFL. In this year's Week 1 meeting, the Rams played Cover 4 on 35.3% of his routes and dime on 52.9%, and Kittle caught 2 passes for 12 yards on 5 targets.

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Sumer Sports. Share of his routes run against each look. LA is the Rams.

Seattle has seen plenty of Kittle. Since 2022 he has 25 catches for 336 yards and 6 touchdowns on 33 targets in 7 games, 1.85 yards per route and plus 0.69 EPA per target. The yardage is below his overall rate. The touchdowns are the problem, 6 on 33 targets. His quietest games were 2023's Week 12, 2 catches for 18 yards, 0.62 yards per route, with Seattle in Cover 3 on 69% of his routes, and 2025's Week 18 under Mike Macdonald, 5 catches for 29 yards, 1.00 yards per route, a Cover 4, Cover 1 and Cover 6 mix. He left a 2025 game with a hamstring injury that should not count as Seattle holding him down.

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Sumer Sports. He left the 2025 Week 1 game with a hamstring injury, so that game is a partial one.

Seattle's 2026 defense already leans toward the recipe that has worked elsewhere. Through four weeks it plays Cover 6 on 24.8% of dropbacks against an 11.9% league rate, man coverage on only 9.4% against 23.7%, and blitzes on 21.5% against 30.0%. Its Cover 4 rate, 14.8%, is close to the league's 17.2%. Add Cover 6 to Cover 4 and Seattle is in a quarters shell 39.6% of the time, against 29.2% for the rest of the league. None of that predicts a call sheet. It just means the shells that have bothered Kittle elsewhere are ones Seattle already plays.

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Seattle's defense has allowed almost nothing on long fields

Field position and turnovers have not been the problem for Seattle's defense through four games. Through four games, 28.9% of opponent drives have ended in points, 3rd lowest in the league against a 39.5% average. The short-field and giveaway numbers below are small samples. The long-field numbers are not.

nflverse play-by-play. Rank 1 is the best defense, out of 32. Ties share a rank. The first two rows are shares of drives.

Seattle has allowed 13 scoring drives: 7 touchdowns and 6 field goals. Three began after a Seattle giveaway, four after a punt, and six after a kickoff. Only one started inside Seattle's own 40, the same drive that started at the 21 after a fumble.

A long field is a drive that started at the offense's own 35 yard line or further back, after a punt or kickoff. Opponents have had 32 of those and scored on 7, 21.9%, 5th in the league. The league average is 34.5%.

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Three third-down personal fouls by Seattle's defense kept scoring drives alive this season, the most in the league; the average is 0.6. Two of them, both against the Chargers in Week 4, kept alive long-field touchdowns: Nick Emmanwori's face mask on third and 4 after a 2-yard catch, and Derick Hall's roughing the passer on third and 24 after a 3-yard catch. The third, AJ Finley's unnecessary roughness against Washington in Week 3 on third and 13, kept alive a field goal drive that started at Washington's own 40, just outside the long-field line.

Remove those three plays and Seattle's overall numbers jump to the top of the league. Scoring drives allowed goes from 13 to 10, 2nd fewest; only Jacksonville has fewer, with 9. The share of drives that scored falls from 28.9% to 22.2%, 1st in the NFL, just ahead of Minnesota's 23.9%. The long-field picture moves too, though only two of the three fouls touch it: long-field scores go from 7 of 32 to 5 of 32, and long-field touchdowns go from 3 to 1, the one left a 77-yard New England drive in Week 1.

nflverse play-by-play. After = treating each drive a 3rd-down personal foul kept alive as a stop. Every defense got the same treatment, so the ranks compare like with like.

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Add the one 4th-down penalty too, Chazz Surratt's roughing the kicker in Week 1, and Seattle allows points on 4 of 32 long-field drives, 12.5%, 2nd only to the Rams' 12.0%.

Looking at how drives started rather than where: 3 of the 4 drives that followed a Seattle giveaway ended in points, against 10 of the 41 that did not follow one.

Deebo Samuel leads the NFL in yards after contact from the right side

Deebo Samuel has run 49 pass routes from the right side of San Francisco's formation this season, drawing 9 targets and gaining 69 yards after contact, the most of any receiver in the league with at least 20 routes from that side.

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Against a league average of 7.698 yards after contact in that same split, Samuel's total is 6.7 standard deviations above the field.

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Seattle's defense will see him most often from that side Sunday. Tackling him in the open field, not just stopping the catch, is the job.

San Francisco leans further into gadgets this year, and the red zone numbers back it up

San Francisco is using more pre-snap motion, more screens and more play action than it did last season, and getting more out of all three. Motion is up from 68.4% of snaps to 80.2%. The screen rate is up from 5.9% to 9.8%, and its EPA per screen has climbed from +0.285 to +0.454. Play action is up slightly, 24.2% to 26.2%, with EPA per play-action dropback nearly quadrupling, from +0.101 to +0.392.

Sumer Sports and FTN charting, nflverse EPA. Neutral situations: first and second down, win probability 20-80%, outside the last two minutes of a half.

It's showing up where it matters most. San Francisco is scoring touchdowns on 85.7% of its red zone trips this year, up from 69.3% last season, on a smaller early sample of 14 trips instead of 62.

nflverse play-by-play. A red zone trip is a drive with a snap at the 20 or closer.

Four games is still four games. But an offense adding gadgets and cashing them in once it crosses the 20 is a offense playing with more confidence than a year ago, not less.

Haynes and Stephens are splitting right guard, and the numbers split too

Anthony Bradford played every right guard snap in Week 1 and is now on injured reserve. Since then, Christian Haynes and Beau Stephens have split the spot by drive, with exactly one of them on the field on every snap. Haynes has played 121 snaps, 61%, and opens every game. Stephens takes two or three series, usually one in the second quarter and one or two after halftime.

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Neither has given up a sack. Beyond that, they win in different ways.

Pass blocking, against 86 guards with 30 or more pass-block snaps: Haynes has allowed a pressure on 5.9% of his snaps, 55th of 86. Stephens has allowed one on 7.7%, 74th. Stephens has lost 15.4% of his pass-block reps, 82nd of 86; the median guard loses 7.9%.

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Sumer Sports. Ranks are out of 86 guards with 30 or more pass-block snaps. 1st is the lowest rate.

Run blocking, against 73 guards with 30 or more run-block snaps, flips the order. Haynes almost never loses a run block, a 1.9% low-mark rate, 3rd of 73. But he almost never wins one either, a 1.9% high-mark rate, 73rd of 73. His net positive plays come out at 0.0%, 42nd of 73; the median guard is at +2.3%. Stephens is last of 73 in net positive plays, at -12.8%.

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Sumer Sports. Ranks are out of 73 guards with 30 or more run-block snaps. 1st is best: the highest high-mark and net rates, the lowest low-mark rate.

The offense has passed a little better with Stephens in: +0.186 EPA per dropback against +0.081 for Haynes, and a 52.8% success rate against 50.0%. All three sacks Seattle allowed with Stephens on the field came in Week 4, and none was charged to him. One went to Charles Cross, one to George Holani, and the third to no blocker.

By raw EPA, the run game is less effective with Haynes in: -0.270 per carry against -0.058 for Stephens. Two lost fumbles on his snaps cause the whole gap. Without them it is -0.054 against -0.058, the same. Yards per carry: 3.7 with Haynes, 4.0 with Stephens. Yards before contact: 0.84 and 1.23.

Sumer Sports. Pressure rate is the team's, not the guard's. Two lost fumbles came on carries with Haynes in, in Week 2 and Week 3.

Runs to the right, the guard's own side, have been tough for both. With Haynes: 3.25 yards per carry, 0.30 before contact, 20% of runs successful. With Stephens: 2.59 yards per carry, -0.09 before contact, 32% successful. Runs to the left have gone better for both, 4.35 with Haynes and 5.76 with Stephens.

Sumer Sports. Run side is the direction of the run. Right is the guard's own side.

The samples are small, 39 to 68 snaps per player per block type. One game moves every rate here. Haynes's four hurries allowed against the Chargers show that.

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Jaxon Smith-Njigba and DeMarcus Lawrence are both No. 1 in the NFL at what they do

Jaxon Smith-Njigba grades as the NFL's No. 1 receiver this season, and DeMarcus Lawrence grades as its No. 1 edge run defender. Both lead the next player at the position by a real margin, Smith-Njigba 1.75 to Zay Flowers's 1.66, Lawrence 3.4 to Logan Hall's 2.8.

HB matchup model on Sumer Sports charting. Top 20 cornerbacks: Grade is yards per route he takes away on a typical rep, against the receivers he covered. Top 20 linebackers: Grade is yards per route he takes away on a typical rep, against the receivers he covered. Top 20 safeties: Grade is yards per route he takes away on a typical rep, against the receivers he covered. Top 20 pass-blocking interior linemen: Grade is how much he cuts the pressure rate on a typical rep, in percentage points, against the rushers he faced. Top 20 pass-blocking tackles: Grade is how much he cuts the pressure rate on a typical rep, in percentage points, against the rushers he faced. Top 20 receivers: Grade is yards per route he adds on a typical route, against the defenders who covered him. Top 20 run-blocking interior linemen: Grade is how much he cuts the disruption rate on a typical run, in percentage points, against the defenders he faced. Top 20 run-blocking tackles: Grade is how much he cuts the disruption rate on a typical run, in percentage points, against the defenders he faced. Top 20 edge run defenders: Grade is how much he raises the disruption rate on a typical run, in percentage points, against the blockers he faced. Top 20 interior run defenders: Grade is how much he raises the disruption rate on a typical run, in percentage points, against the blockers he faced. Top 20 interior pass rushers: Grade is how much he raises the pressure rate on a typical rep, in percentage points, against the blockers he faced.

Smith-Njigba has a specific coverage he punishes. Against Cover 2 looks, he has 9 catches on 34 targets and 38 yards after contact, more than half his season total of 69, on just 16% of his targets this season.

Sumer Sports charting

Lawrence has a specific shell he exploits. Seattle has played Cover 6 on 47 defensive snaps this season. Lawrence has rushed on 24 of them and come through completely unblocked three times, three of his four unblocked pressures all season, against a league average of 0.09 for players in that same role on that look.

Sumer Sports charting

Sumer Sports charting

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Both samples are small, 34 plays and 24 plays. But both point the same direction as their season-long grades: Seattle's best receiver and best run defender each have one matchup where they're even more dangerous than their ranking already says.

Leonard Williams anchors one of the league's most efficient pass rushing fronts

Leonard Williams was limited in practice Wednesday and did not practice at all Thursday, with an ankle injury. There is no game status yet. That comes with Friday's report.

When healthy, Williams has been a productive interior rusher from one specific alignment. From the 5-technique, over the tackle, he has pressured the quarterback on 11.3% of his rushes, 25th of 39 qualifying defenders with at least 30 such rushes this season.

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Across every alignment on the line, his pass rush win rate is 10.7%, 77th of 144 qualifying defenders with at least 60 rushes, the middle of the pack.

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Where he matters most is simply being on the field. Seattle has allowed minus 0.197 EPA per play with Williams on the line, 14th fewest of 166 qualifying defenders leaguewide, with at least 100 of his snaps.

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His own pass rush rates are not spectacular. The results around him are. Seattle's defense wants him on the field Sunday against a San Francisco line that has not allowed a sack all season.