4 Verticals: How the 49ers Attacked the Cardinals with the Deep Ball

Behind the rebirth of a quarterback and a haughty head coach named Jim Harbaugh, the 49ers have revived the Bay Area with a rocking 9-2 record through 12 weeks of the 2011 NFL regular season. The team has just about locked up its division title due to the ineptitude of the teams that sit below them. However, that's no slight on the 49ers, as they have been excellent this year protecting the ball and in the trenches, which are arguably the two most important keys to winning in the NFL. 

Rookie head coach Jim Harbaugh is a mastermind on the offensive side of the ball despite it looking like an offense that once upon a time, was executed by men with leather helmets and a watermelon-shaped football. 

Known for his methodical motions, shifts and trades of his skill players, Harbaugh forces defenses to slowly but surely reveal their intentions in the defensive backfield one movement at a time. Once he's done dissecting the defense, he allows his quarterback to call the play initially given or make an adjustment, an audible, that puts the offense in a position to succeed. 

The quarterback making the calls is Alex Smith. Smith is a former No. 1 overall selection in the 2005 NFL Draft, and up to this season, he was given the dreadful label of a "bust".

However, nowadays, he's a quality quarterback that protects the ball and gives his team a chance to win by making big throws.  

He and his rookie head coach collaborated in efforts to design an offense that fits the strengths of Smith and minimizes his weaknesses. By doing this, they came up with a simple offense that was heavily based off of play action and West Coast offense passing principles. 

But they also knew that they would have to deviate from the horizontal passing offense and ask Smith to make grand throws down the field. One of the concepts they introduced to Smith was 4 Verticals. 

The 4 Verticals concept is well known for its roots in the Air Raid offense, a postmodern offense that was developed in the 80s which strategically tied its quarterback drop backs to the wide receivers routes, as Tim Layden of Sports Illustrated elegantly described in his book, Blood, Sweat and Chalk. 

The concept was used by the Brigham Young Cougars along with a plethora of other pass concepts that picked apart the defense by attacking the areas of the field where defenders weren't present. This concept would be implemented into several other playbooks over the years, including one of Jim Harbaugh's.

In Week 11 of the NFL regular season, the 49ers unleashed this concept on more than one occasion on the Arizona Cardinals defense.

An example of this was seen in the tail end of the first quarter, when quarterback Alex Smith threw a deep ball in the seam—area between the hashes—to tight end Vernon Davis.

Leading up to the big play, the 49ers came out of their huddle in 22 personnel, a package of two tailbacks and two tight ends used to run the ball down the throat of a defense. Both tailbacks were in the backfield at the time, with each tight end aligned along the end of the offensive line to each side.

With one tap of the heel from the signal caller, fullback Bruce Miller motioned to the left from his off-set alignment like a chess piece, and just like that, the offense went from a run based package to one that potentially threatened the Cardinals vertically.

This grabbed the attention of the Cardinals cornerback, who moved back outside once Miller motioned out. This was already an advantage for the 49ers, a checkmate of sorts, as they had occupied one of the Cardinals best coverage defenders with a fullback. 

Moreover, with the two safeties of the Cardinals aligned deep across the tight ends of the 49ers, it would likely be quarters coverage barring a rolling of the secondary defenders in one direction at the last minute. They would be reading 2 to 1, meaning the second receiving threat from the sideline in to the first one.

If the second one, the tight end, went vertical, the safety to that side would be responsible.

If he went away, perhaps into the flats, the safety would bracket—double cover—the No. 1 receiving threat from the sideline, the wide receiver. 

Like other coverages, quarters had underneath coverage. Three defenders, although it would ultimately be a question of which, would be dropping in coverage, dividing the underneath into thirds. Two outside defenders accounting for the flats whilst one dropped down the aforementioned seam of the field, responsible for any hook routes. 

At the snap of the ball, they were off to the races: the 49ers pass catchers exploded from their two and three-point stances, pressing defenders on to their heels in hopes of making them make a snap decision, preferably an incorrect one consequently gaining a passing lane for quarterback Alex Smith to thrown through.

Simultaneously, the Cardinals defensive backs backpedaled rapidly, attempting to minimize the threat of a vertical route from a 49er pass catcher. The two outside underneath defenders of the Cardinals did their jobs, carrying and re-routing the No. 2 threats before releasing them into the vicinity of the safeties.

Meanwhile, the middle linebacker simply dropped into the seam before being brought back downhill by a releasing Frank Gore into the open field. With the middle dropper occupied, there would be a hole in the seam, behind the dropper and in between the two safeties for tight end Vernon Davis to explore.

All four 49ers pass catchers would attack the second and third levels of the Cardinals defense in the 4 Verticals concept with each stride.

The two outside receiving threats to each side of the formation would attack the cornerbacks vertically and draw them away from the middle of the field.

The same would be asked of the No. 2 vertical threat near the top of the image, as he widened the safety to his side, allowing tight end Vernon Davis, the No. 2 from the bottom of the image, to work the middle of the field. 

Whilst Davis was working his route, he was asked to make a read: How many safeties were there deep? Was there one in the middle of the field, or two, splitting the field and leaving the area between the hashes deserted?

Once Davis passed the flat defender re-routing him, he'd be reading two safeties high with the middle of the field open. This meant that he would be "bending" his route and running across the face of the safety, as Dan Gonzalez explained in his book Concept Passing: Teaching the Modern Passing Game, opposed to continuing to run vertical if there was one safety in the middle of the field. 

Davis had made his decision based off his keys. He'd be bending his route into the middle of the field, thus leaving the safety covering him powerless to prevent the deep pass from quarterback Alex Smith.

The play would result in a 27-yard pickup and a first down, enabling the 49ers to continue their drive in hopes of scoring, as well as an easing of the tense face of rookie head coach Jim Harbaugh in what was a close game at the time.

The 4 Verticals concept has helped the 49ers become one of the league's best teams despite fielding a roster similar to the one that won only six games a year ago. This concept does a great job of keeping defenses honest by keeping the safeties out of the box, thus allowing running back Frank Gore running room.  

Moving forward, the 49ers will have to continue to make these big plays to win tough road games, and they will have their chance to because NFL defenses play plenty of Cover 1 and Cover 3.

Cover 1 is a man based coverage with a single safety in the middle of the field playing in zone while

Cover 3 is a three deep zone coverage that has the cornerbacks and single safety splitting the field into thirds.

Both of these coverages are immediately at an disadvantage when the 49ers sent their 4 vertical threats because the defense is outnumbered deep, which increases the chance of a passing lane opening up for the successful throw down the field. 

Along with the use of this concept, the 49ers will have to continue to win in the trenches, as well as get mistake-free play from quarterback Alex Smith, which is a big question mark despite his success thus far.