Week 7 Advanced Stat Preview: 49ers a Dominant Team and Yet Another Historic Defense

Looking at the dominant performance of the San Francisco defense, and what aspects of the 49ers offense the Redskins need to prioritize defending.

It took six weeks, but the Washington Redskins finally notched their first victory of 2019 against the Miami Dolphins. A classic somebody's-O-has-got-to-go matchup pitted two of the four win-less teams against one another, though the outcome likely had steeper ramifications for 2020 draft order than the 2019 season outlook. But a win is a win, and mercifully, Washington now avoids a perfectly imperfect season, while Miami joins the Bengals as the only two remaining win-less teams.

A coaching change coupled with a victory could certainly be the type of thing to build confidence and boost team morale, but unfortunately, the 49ers are exactly the type of opponent who can steam-roll that confidence. San Francisco has dominated their schedule thus far, with the closest result being a four-point victory over Pittsburgh, during which San Francisco turned the ball over five times. The 49ers have been so dominant that nearly half of their total offensive and defensive plays have come when they had at least an 80% win probability.

Generally, if a team remains undefeated this far into the season it's a safe assumption that their quarterback is responsible for a large percentage of that success. While Jimmy Garoppolo has been good thus far, it's actually the 49ers defense that has been outstanding.

A couple weeks ago, I looked at how the New England Patriots had performed from a historical context. We can re-run that analysis with the data updated through Week 6 and highlight the 49ers to see just how good they've been to this point.

X-Axis: Opponent performance against other teams, Y-Axis: Defensive Performance

We still see the Patriots leading the charge in terms of overall performance, but San Francisco isn't far behind, and they're achieving this excellence against tougher competition. The 49ers offensive opposition is closer to the historic average than what we see for New England. 

Amidst this success, San Francisco has been exceptionally unkind to opposing quarterbacks. Looking at the graph below, we can see how the 49ers do a terrific job of defending the entire field.

X-Axis: Target depth, Y-Axis: Completion Percentage

Regardless of target depth, San Francisco does not allow many passes to be completed. Couple this with a relentless pass-rush, and it appears things don't bode well for Washington this Sunday. Case Keenum can expect to face consistent pressure, and limited successful plays. If Washington stands any chance, they'll need a stellar performance from Adrian Peterson, and a few big plays from Terry McLaurin.

Finally, I'll present the Stat Sheet:

The 49ers passing attack has been heavily reliant on creating yards after the catch. Fortunately, that's one of the areas where the Redskins defense hasn't been terrible. The strategy against San Francisco's offense is simple: slow down George Kittle and the running backs. But "simple" doesn't always translate to "easy". Shanahan has long shown a propensity for maximizing value for his running backs, and Kittle has emerged as arguably the best tight end in the game. 

At this point, any Redskins victory will require a little (or a lot) of luck. With an intimidating opponent like the 49ers and rumors of a Trent Williams deal looming, the best outcome may simply be avoiding a beatdown and displaying some progress built on last week's win.