The Details That Matter: Nuggets From 49ers Coaches
"Off the charts," "IT factor," "Better than any center that we've had"
My favorite day of the 49ers calendar was Tuesday. Reporters get an hour-long window to chat with 49ers position coaches, split into half hours for coaches on either side of the ball.
I am not here for generalized questions. I want a sense of where the scheme has been, where it’s headed. What are these guys excited for? Who are they stoked about? And crucially, why? (especially if they are not enthused). This is the day that informs some of that, and at minimum, allows you some time to pick the minds of the 49ers’ coaching staff. It’s as valuable to me as any day there is.
There are always some duds, but that makes the stuff with weight stand out.
Take Gus Bradley. He is now the 49ers’ assistant head coach of defense… otherwise known as the the Honorary Former Chargers Coach Fellowship (previously mantle taken up by Anthony Lynn and Brandon Staley).
Bradley was Robert Saleh’s mentor in Seattle and Jacksonville, and is the likely succession plan if Saleh leaves for a head coaching job. He was awfully mum on Saleh’s shift from Cover-3 to quarters. He spoke in grand generalizations about how sometimes we do this, sometimes we do that, sometimes you learn things from different places… not much to parse.
I get it. Grand schematic plans stay close to the vest. It’s not a criticism of Bradley’s knowledge whatsoever. But you’d love a little insight on his former protege’s evolution away from his Cover-3, the system that defined and founded the Legion of Boom era.
I only mention it because it’s the one thing I would’ve loved some more insight on from Tuesday. Alas.
But enough of the meh. There was pleeeeeenty to chew on. We’ll begin on offense, with an assessment that’s sure to buck consensus.
Jake Brendel… the best center of the Shanahan era?
So, Jake Brendel, a man who has been maligned and criticized substantially (including, especially to begin last season, by yours truly), graded out last season as the best center Kyle Shanahan’s 49ers have ever had.
That’s what OL coach/run game coordinator told me Tuesday. I followed up after he said Brendel had one of his best campaigns last year.
“Fewest amount of [missed assignments], his pass protection was the highest grade, his run grade, pass protection grade and his mental errors were the best they've been since he's been here,” Foerster said. “They've been better than any center that we've had playing here up to this point.”
That includes a younger Brendel, a season of Alex Mack, and a couple of seasons of Weston Richburg, albeit after a torn patellar tendon.
Brendel, in my view, was dreadful to begin last season. He got pushed around in pass protection and wasn’t climbing to the second level effectively. The first few games of the year, I thought there should be a discussion about benching him. But he improved substantially over the course of the year, and I would assume that’s what Foerster was speaking to.
Amongst the 43 centers with at least 257 snaps last season, Brendel ranked 19th overall, one spot behind my rookie draft crush, Tanor Bortolini, per PFF. In the run game, he was 12th. In the pass game, he was 35th.
I do not hold up PFF as the arbiter of football analysis. But it is one of the only places that measures offensive line play with some sort of quantifiable output. I happen to side more with PFF in this case than with Foerster, who I have immense respect for.
I pushed Foerster to explain how his assessment of Brendel worked out.
It's interesting how he's rated outside of the 32 centers by whatever the grading system is. But I'm not knocking it, because my point is that everybody looks at something different.
So you can knock what I look at and say, 'Oh, you don't know what you're talking about.' That's fine. I know what we asked him to do on every given play and what his role is, what his job is, so I can grade it.
But that doesn't mean that that's how everybody else grades it. Other people have other grading systems, if they grade him 65th out of 32, and that's their choice. And mine is, I know what I see, and then my job, obviously, is to weigh him against all the other centers in the league, all the other centers coming out in the draft, and then knowing what we ask players to do and how they fit our scheme.
More from Foerster: Bartch, Burford hierarchies and the rookies
Foerster talked about a number of other subjects. Here were my takeaways:
Spencer Burford is playing tackle this year. It seems he may end up as the 49ers’ swing tackle. But don’t count out Austin Pleasants. They’re sneaky high on him.
Expect Ben Bartch to start at left guard.
Don’t expect much from Connor Colby.
Here’s what Foerster said on Colby, after I said his tape was frustrating to watch:
Yeah, that's why he's a seventh-round pick. He's not quite everything you want with the position, but yet, he's got a ton of ability in there. Not saying that Iowa didn't get it out of him. It's just all these guys are developing players. They develop in college, and they keep coming to the NFL and they keep developing if they have the right work ethic and they work, so he'll keep developing as a player.
But we saw some of the base skill sets that you need to play in our offense. He's got excellent length and range for pass protection for a guard. Just whether he can continue working on the run game. Early, early signs are that he does have it, and you're showing some signs of it, but we'll have to see.
Don’t expect Colby to compete with Bartch at left guard. Nick Zakelj, though, will.
Ben has more, at this point, has more ability and has a better upside, and has a chance to be a better long-term starter than Connor does at left guard. That doesn't mean Connor won't be that. If you look at where Ben was drafted, if you look at Ben's ability, I do think that you see it. Nick Zakelj will compete there. Ben will be there. And then obviously we've got Connor and Drew [Moss] that we picked up Colorado State guy, post-draft free agent. There's always guys in the mix.
What about Moss, that bursty — albeit stumpy — interior lineman out of Colorado State? The question, as mentioned in our 49ers draft guide, is anchor:
Drew's got great quickness. Drew's question is going to be his size and anchor? Not that he's not big enough. It's just his anchor. We'll see how he anchors at this level. I can see some things mechanically that he's doing out there in drill work that's going to lead to maybe him having some problems.
It's just for him, how quick he fixes it, when the pads get on and you can sort of see play. Things change a lot. So it's way early, but we did like his quickness. We thought he was a good scheme fit, run game wise, protection wise, good, good, athletic, quick kid that we like.
Luke Farrell, result of a market inefficiency
The 49ers’ most expensive addition of the offseason was not Mac Jones, nor Demarcus Robinson. It was Luke Farrell, a No. 2 tight end, on a three-year, $20.25 million deal. It’s been a glaring need for the 49ers, who have been horrendous at drafting tight ends since selecting Kittle, with the mediocre exception of Charlie Woerner.
With a need on defense at literally every single position, they eschewed drafting one and moved on Farrell early in free agency.
Tight ends coach Brian Fleury told me that the calculus there is two-pronged: 1. Farrell was undervalued because he was underutilized, if not misused in Jacksonville, and 2. the tight end market as a whole is undervalued because the league has a fetish for 11 personnel (that is… not a direct quote).
“I think the best way to describe Luke is he has a skill set that I think was underutilized in Jacksonville based on what their philosophy was offensively and the personnel and the things that they were trying to do,” Fleury told me.
Farrell was targeted just 47 times for 318 yards (and zero career touchdowns) over four years in Jacksonville, with the Jaguars making Evan Engram a primary target. They then selected Brenton Strange out of Penn State in 2023 (one of my draft favorites), who had 40 catches on 53 targets for 411 yards and a couple touchdowns in his second season.
Farrell was also a 2020 COVID Draft player, which meant that there were no in-person meeting opportunities, so he had “less exposure” generally.
That, and the limited usage in Jacksonville affected what the league thought of him.
“I saw a certain level of talent there, and looked forward and he was productive on what he was asked to do,” Fleury said. “But he wasn't asked to do a lot of the things we would ask him to do. So we felt like he might have been undervalued by the rest of the league as a free agent because of that, and so we were really excited to pursue him and get him here, just kind of see if we can maximize all the talent and the things we think he has.”
Fleury said he believes that Farrell’s route-running capabilities offer the potential for “more production than what he’s shown so far” in the league and that there’s substantial room for him to develop.
While the league moves aggressively towards being 11 personnel heavy, the 49ers zag from the trend. The 49ers were 28th in 11 personnel usage (47.86 percent) and first in 21 personnel usage (34.8 percent) last season. The Raiders, using 12 personnel (35.49 percent), were the only team to use a non-11 personnel grouping more than the 49ers.
That 11 personnel obsession created what the 49ers believe to be a market inefficiency at tight end.
“Think about it from this standpoint,” Fleury said. “If the rest of the league wants to go to 11 personnel, then the talent pool of 11 personnel players with the receivers is getting exhausted faster and faster. There's less at the bottom to maybe potentially help your team, whereas, the tight ends and the fullbacks, less people are using them, so the talent pool is a little bit heavier at the top, and if there's an opportunity there to make a different move. That's just me.”
It begs the question whether the 49ers could zag again and incorporate more 12 personnel this season. They employed it just 7.46 percent of the time last year, and used 22 personnel 4.29 percent of the time.
For reference, they used 12 personnel 13.48 percent and 22 personnel 8.59 percent of the time in 2023. That’s a combined 10.32 percent drop off in two tight end sets in the season after Charlie Woerner went to the Falcons, and the Eric Saubert experiment (except for his glorious season opener) failed.
Going to 12 personnel requires a quality blocking tight end, which they did not have, and ideally someone who’s a theoretical receiving target. If defenses have to realistically account for two tight end as receivers, it changes how numbers are accounted for.
So, might 12 personnel see an uptick this season?
“Or even 22 personnel, right? God forbid anybody do more of that,” Fleury told me. “Yeah, it definitely, it creates some matchup problems for defenses, I think, and it definitely gives us a lot more flexibility. That's the great thing about having both [Farrell] and [Kyle Juszczyk], is we can take it a different direction, even on a week-by week-basis, and still get a lot of production out of all those guys.”
Of course, this all opens the door for the 49ers to utilize the newly-extended George Kittle in more of a receiving role. Kyle Shanahan pointed to that earlier in the offseason.
With Brandon Aiyuk recovering from a brutal knee injury and no clear timeline, Demarcus Robinson potentially unavailable for the first three games of the season (no suspension handed down yet for a DUI arrest in November), and Ricky Pearsall recovering from a hamstring injury… it’s sure setting up a situation where George Kittle is the clear No. 1 target to start the season.
“Definitely could be,” Fleury said. “Yeah, there's definitely some consideration given to if you're going to put your most veteran, experienced, reliable players on the field as pass catchers, and it's really George and Jauan would be the top of that list. And then after that, there's some unknown. So it's definitely, potentially a situation where we can make some decisions like that.”
Now, to defense. If there was one thing I came out of Tuesday feeling on the defensive side of the ball, it’s that the 49ers think Marques Sigle has capital E, ELITE football IQ.
Marques Sigle, genius… and Jimmie Ward clone?
You may not know much about Marques Sigle. I, too, was not well-versed in Sigle’s travails despite putting together a 147-page draft guide and watching plenty of his Kansas State secondary partner, Jacob Parrish (I still think the 49ers could and should have taken him over Nick Martin at 75 and then gotten Martin at 100).
I reviewed Sigle’s tape in detail, both at Kansas State, and at the Shrine Bowl, where the 49ers said they were impressed. That can be found in the 49ers draft guide, which, along with the full guide, can be found here:
Welcome to the 49ers Rookie Draft Guide
Folks, if you are a loyal Dieter and Hutch subscriber, you will have found yourself here likely having read our Dieter and Hutch 2025 Draft Guide. I put it together by staring into the void that is college football tape and coming out on the other side with 147 pages and more than 225 player evaluations.
But when I watched the Shrine Bowl, I saw Sigle employed in nearly every capacity. He was in the slot, single high, literally playing middle linebacker at times.
I talked to defensive passing game specialist/defensive backs coach Daniel Bullocks and defensive backs/cornerbacks coach Ray Brown (fresh from Bill O’Brien’s Boston College program), and the thing that stood out was his IQ.
First, Bullocks compared him to Jimmie Ward:
I think he has Jimmie Ward versatility, both the same size, speed wise, he's a little bit faster, 4.3-[second 40-yard dash]. I know Jimmie was drafted in the first round and Marquise wasn't, but what you're looking at as far as his play style, the versatility of being able to cover. He can play free safety. He can play nickel, he played corner. He can play every position on the back end. He's a good tackler. He got range. He can make plays on the ball.
But the IQ?
“The kid's football IQ is through the roof,” Bullocks said. “He's very smart. He's a fast learner, he pick’s it up. So I can't wait, and I'm excited by him. I can't wait to get him on the field.”
I pushed him to expound on that.
“I knew he was smart, but I didn't think that his football IQ was that smart, and he was just going through the plays,” Bullocks said. “I'd be like, ‘Talk me through this play.’ He telling me everybody's responsibility, all 11 on the field, the whole secondary, what's the holes in the defense. I left that meeting — you can ask Ray Brown. We [were] both impressed with him, outside his athleticism. That's before he ran the 4.3 and we liked him even more leaving that interview.”
Some praise can ring hollow. This didn’t.
As Bullocks suggested, I then talked to Brown, who had a similar experience talking to Sigle at the Shrine Bowl.
He laughed and shook his head in a sort of disbelief when I asked about that IQ.
“Off the charts. Off the charts,” Brown said. “That dude loves ball, but he knows it. He knows it extremely well, just being able to have the versatility of playing three different positions, and to be able to understand the information, not just repeat what you say, but he can take it and he can apply it. Like, the dude's just unbelievably smart.”
It’s evident on the Shrine Bowl All-22 tape that Sigle — again, playing as a quasi-MIKE linebacker at times, along with every other conceivable role — was getting players he’d never played with aligned properly.
Bullocks also referenced his relationship with Kansas State defensive passing game coordinator and cornerbacks coach Van Malone (both former Lions, about a decade apart) as a factor in their background on Sigle. Clearly, Malone gave them some nuggets to chew on in addition to their interview experience.
Chris Kocurek’s cause for optimism on Bryce Huff, and view of Alfred Collins’ fit
It just didn’t work for Bryce Huff last year in Philadelphia. There was a clear situation of square peg, round hole. Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio wanted him to be a complete player, which Huff has never been. He’s a pass-rush specialist. I discussed it in detail here:
The other issue was that Huff suffered a torn ligament in his wrist, which hampered him throughout the course of the year. The 49ers clearly believe that the 27-year-old, who thrived under Saleh, can recover that 2023 form, when he had 10 sacks.
It’s why they traded a conditional fifth-that-could-be-a-fourth for him, and are taking on a north of $7 million salary (they have the second-most cap space in the league, so that’s not a concern).
Defensive line coach Chris Kocurek explained that Huff’s wrist injury and usage in Philadelphia didn’t suit him:
[He had] an injury that kind of stunts that growth, but you still saw a good player on tape. You still saw a player that could win one-on-one. It's a little bit different than the hand-in-the-ground role that he played with Robert and the Jets.
So still a good player, and we're gonna get him back to being a little bit more with what he's comfortable with, with putting his hand in the ground and getting off and getting him out of a two-point stance and back into a three/four-point stance. And it's where he's excelled at and what he feels the most comfortable with.
That talk of stance begged a question with the 49ers’ second draft pick, Alfred Collins. He’s nursing a calf injury that could take some time, especially for someone at his size.
When he does get healthy, the question is what the 49ers will ask of him. The 49ers typically ask for gap shooting aggression from their defensive linemen rather than two-gapping, which is a lot of what Collins did last year. He’d play from a four-point stance and get extended, reading the play and attacking ball carriers rather than trying to drive upfield with any consistency.
I asked Kocurek about how much projection they had to do with him (especially given some poor explosive testing scores and that usage) and how much development he’ll need to fit the system:
You look for the skillset on tape that he has the ability to play within our scheme. We don't want to just ever just draft a big guy just to draft a big guy. He still has to have the skillset that that we call for within the scheme. So you see enough of it on tape.
You're right. He did play more of a frog stance, read. But then there are times in passing situations where they kind of turned him loose, and you saw the explosiveness in his body. You saw his ability to really change directions and the speed to pursue the ball, the change of speed to go fetch plays downfield and use him length.
So yeah, it's going to be a little bit of a learning curve. 17 years in the NFL, dealt with that a lot, but he'll be alright. We have time to camp to adjust to it, and he'll be fine.
Kocurek added that Collins has a “3-technique body” but that he has the mass to be able to play in the A gap. He’ll probably play anywhere from nose (true nose is rare for the 49ers) to 5-technique at times.
Other notes: “It factor,” Upton Stout + a telling Mykel Williams quote
Jordan Watkins has the “it factor.” I asked Leonard Hankerson what the team likes about Watkins:
Jordan, obviously, he has to speed the win at the first level, being able to take the top off, get downfield. And on top of that he's got great hands and just his mentality after the catch, he's always trying to score, which we pride ourselves on guys who can run with the ball in their hands. And he's done that.
Jordan, being that he's still raw, but he has that it factor being the speed that we can use. So I'm excited about having him here and he's taking a step in the right direction, and I'm excited to see where he can get to.
Hankerson raved about Watkins’ hands, saying he hasn’t had a drop yet. But an area for growth is getting in and out of his breaks. He may be too deliberate, losing too much speed when he cuts.
I still think that's the area where he still has to improve. Maybe a little bit quicker. Most guys, especially speed guys, sometimes, because they're moving at a faster pace, it takes them a little bit of time to get in and out of the breaks.
My thing, especially we're always talking about speed, as long as I can get out of the cut faster than that defender, it doesn't matter how long it takes me. But number one is speed. He has that. And we're gonna continue to work.
Should we worry about Upton Stout’s size? I asked new defensive backs/cornerbacks coach Ray Brown, and he referenced Ronde Barber:
“How big is Ronde Barber?” Brown asked me.
Barber, I checked, was roughly 5’10” and 184 pounds. Stout is 5’8 1/2” and 181 pounds.
So when you look at Upton, the fact that he is a little bit smaller, when you just look at his stature, is probably the thing that motivates him the most. And so I've always said it's not always the biggest dog in the fight, but it's the realest dog in the fight.
So when I tell you with Upton is — you guys heard him when he got the call [that he was drafted]?
That's Upton. But that's Upton every single day. There is nothing about him that's going to settle. He is in the office over and over and over and over, because not only does he want to know his job, but he wants to understand what everyone else is doing. He wants to know what DB knows. He wants to know what I know. He's going to be in Kyle's office asking Kyle what Kyle knows. And so I think with Upton, I think he's a guy that is extremely motivated, and I think it's what he said, ultimate competitor. So he won't ever settle.”
If that wasn’t enough on Stout’s character, I asked Brown for a comparison for him. His answer, with a grin? “Honestly, he reminds me of Upton.” The point is, Stout is one of one. We’ll see if he can be the right kind of outlier.
It wouldn’t be complete without a Mykel Williams quote, which comes from… Brian Fleury, whose tight ends will have the joy of having to block him.
“Looking forward to the challenge of going against him in training camp. I think it'll be good for the tight ends to be going against somebody of that caliber, player with that length and that power as an edge setter. I think that'll help prepare us as well as anybody, for the guys we're going to go against.”
Thanks for subscribing, folks. Stay tuned for more good stuff throughout the offseason and season. And if you have not gotten the 49ers draft guide, find it here:
