How the New Orleans Saints defense should slow down the 49ers’ offense

Creating a gameplan

As the run game is the foundation of the offense the key to slowing their offense down is thus to take it away.

Generally, the best way to slow down a teams’ run game is to outnumber them in the box. So, if they have seven blockers, have eight defenders in run support. This is something that the Cardinals used to good effect in their two recent matchups.

In both those games, Vance Joseph, the Cardinals’ defensive coordinator, put Budda Baker, the Cardinals’ strong safety, down into the box in order to make it harder for the 49ers to run the ball effectively.

This led to Garoppolo having two of the best games of his career as he was able to exploit a lot of 1-on-1 matchups. However, as a defensive coordinator, you must be willing to take the risk of Garoppolo beating you as otherwise, the run game will.

I think it’s a no-brainer to use Vonn Bell down around the line of scrimmage on every early down, in a similar way to how the Cardinals used Baker. Bell is perfectly suited to this role as he is exceptional in run defense while pretty susceptible in the passing game.

It will be interesting to see who wins the battle between Shanahan and Allen.