New 49ers OC Jimmy Raye Will Lead the Way on the Ground

As the 2009 offseason continues to grind onward, many teams are adjusting strategies based on some new faces on their coaching staffs.

The San Francisco 49ers are no exception, even though their biggest change took place in the very midst of last season.

That move was the firing of then head coach Mike Nolan, and promotion of Mike Singletary to the position of Interim Head Coach.

Immediately post-2008 season, Singletary lost the ‘interim’ to his Head Coach title. Even with an entire offseason ahead of him, Singletary wasted no time in making a change which could prove to be the most critical one he makes the entire 2009 season.

That change—the hiring of former Jets running backs coach Jimmy Raye to serve as offensive coordinator—will shape the 49ers offense for years to come.

A year ago, the San Francisco 49ers were a team run by ‘Mad’ Mike Martz’s vertical attack, one that often leaves the quarterback open to injury and depends upon fast, dynamic wide receivers.

This pass-based offense also tended to limit the run game as well, in fact often minimizing it.

Without the run to keep the opposing defenses honest, the receivers often found themselves in traffic and blanketed by coverage, while the offensive line and quarterback faced blitzes that came without hesitation.

The offensive line had issues anyway, and certainly the scheme didn’t help.

Niner quarterbacks were sacked more than any other team (55 times), and the pressure contributed to three lost fumbles.

To make matters worse, the pass attack remained mediocre at best, ranking a middling 13th in the league with 3,379 yards total and only 21 touchdowns to 19 interceptions.

So little abuse for so little gain was an issue that needed to be addressed and Singletary did so pretty quickly.

At the end of the 2008 season, Martz followed Nolan out the door, and Singletary brought in Raye.

To be sure, one thing Raye can do is improve the run game. He helped Jets running back Thomas Jones to a pair of 1,000 yard seasons and in 2008, his first Pro Bowl.

This hiring clearly signaled that the 49ers offense intends to run the ball in 2009.

In many respects, they simply have to. As I pointed out earlier, when the defense knows your predominant plays will be throws, it allows them to worry less about the run game and focus on hindering wide receivers at the line, doubling coverage with a safety or sending a safety in on a blitz.

It also frees the defensive line and linebackers to focus on batting down passes, blitzing at will or dropping back to assist in coverage.

In short, it makes it very tough to throw the ball.

A solid run game, even if it is not the focus of the offensive scheme, makes it harder on the defense. It keeps them honest, making them wonder whether that apparent handoff is actually that or a play-action pass.

It opens up the secondary a little for the receivers to do their work, which in return stretches the defense and opens lanes for better yards on the ground.

There has been some debate as to how dominant Singletary wants the run game to be in the San Francisco offense. Some media outlets have said he wants the offense based around the run game completely.

Others have quoted Raye as saying that he doesn’t see his new offense as focusing primarily on either the run or pass.

"What we are doing is installing both run and pass equally,” he told Greg Beachem, a writer for the Associated Press, earlier this month. “Ideally, when we get to the point where we are playing football, we would like to determine what our best facet is."

Regardless of how much running the team wants to do, Raye has his work cut out for him. As bad as the pass game was under Martz, the rushing attack was worse.

As with the pass attack, part of the failure of the run game was certainly Martz’s scheme, and some more of the blame could again be placed on the offensive line.

All the problems with the line did result in the dismissal of offensive line coach George Warhop and promotion of assistant offensive line coach Chris Foerster. The line play was better after that move, but improvements must continue to be made if both the run and pass games are to improve.

If the line can play more effectively, it will be up to Raye to use that blocking more efficiently or at least more often.

Only five teams tried to run the ball less than the 2008 49ers, who totaled just 397 rush attempts.

The low number of attempts contributed to a meager yardage total—a mere 1,599 yards —and left the team ranked a terrible 27th in the league in overall rushing offense. The team was also unable to score on the ground, squeezing out just 10 touchdowns.

Contrast that with the ground totals from Raye's former team, the Jets. New York was ranked ninth in the league in rushing offense, with 422 attempts for 2,044 yards and 20 touchdowns.

You may recall that they did that with an offense, which basically stopped running the ball late in the season, as then Head Coach Mangini chose to have quarterback Brett Favre throw more often.

Even if the 49ers don’t intend for the offense to be a run-first scheme, the numbers must come up and Raye appears to have the pedigree to do it.

If Raye was able to get Thomas Jones the numbers he did the past few years, one can imagine what he will accomplish with a guy like Frank Gore.

But Gore cannot do this alone and the 49ers realize they have to give him some rest and some help. The problem in 2008 was that the back-ups did not particularly seem able to pull their share of the weight, nor have they for the past few seasons.

Which leads us to Glenn Coffee, the rookie running back out of Alabama. Some pundits call where he was drafted a reach, but that does not take away from his ability. Coffee is a tough, hard-nosed runner who attacks the hole and runs hard.

Coffee isn’t a premiere running back straight out of the gate. He needs to add some more weight and has some other issues, like ball security, an upright running style, and average speed.

However, Raye has had some success shepherding young running backs, having helped Leon Washington to totals in 2006 which ranked fourth overall amongst rookie running backs.

While Washington started out with more upside, Coffee has the tools to be a good backup for Gore and save wear and tear on those legs. He could also potentially help the 49ers get the all-important yards which eluded them so often last season in third and short or goal line situations.

The result of some extra help for Gore and a better short game will help reverse the low touchdown count on the ground.

Raye has been a coach in the league for more than 30 years, and has been able to get the most out of a run game at each stop in his career.

But don’t think that because he has a penchant for improving run games that he won’t help the pass attack out.

Raye comes in with more than a few stints on his resume, where he helped a passing offense excel, most recently while with the Oakland Raiders as an assistant head coach/offensive coordinator.

While he was there, the Raiders ranked eighth in passing during the 2004 season, and 10th in passing in the NFL during 2005.

So while Raye is known for getting a ground game firing on all cylinders, he knows his way around the pass game as well.

Of course, this is the fifth offensive coordinator in Alex Smith’s career, one that has been marred by injury and under-performance. He will battle with Shaun Hill, former Kansas City Chief Damon Huard and incoming rookies Nate Davis and Kirby Freeman for the job.

Regardless of who wins the job, the pass game needs to improve as much as the run game does. Again, Raye has had success doing that before.

But it still comes back to improving the run game. A good run game can buy a passing attack time to improve and that appears to be what Raye and Singletary have planned.

There is still a long way to go, though.

The 49ers have lacked an identity on the offensive side of the ball for so long that the new head coach and his new offensive coordinator have their work cut out for them.

But with Singletary’s desire to have a rushing attack, which can take over a game and Raye’s penchant for turning out solid backs, the 49ers may finally be on the right path.

A path which, like so many we walk, lies on the ground.