All in the hands: Cardinals face 49ers coach’s wide zone running game

TEMPE, Ariz. — Getting off blocks has been one of the Arizona Cardinals’ trending defensive deficiencies through four losses to start the season.

It has opened up wide gaps for opposing running backs when Arizona is stretched horizontally. Sunday against the San Francisco 49ers at Levi’s Stadium, the challenge comes against second-year head coach Kyle Shanahan’s offense that last year had the fourth most plays categorized by Pro Football Focus as outside zone runs.

It’s a chess-match for Cardinals head coach Steve Wilks and defensive coordinator Al Holcomb, who’ve become quite familiar with Shanahan’s wide zone run game, as Holcomb calls it, from the San Francisco head coach’s days as offensive coordinator in Washington, Cleveland and Atlanta.

Arizona’s biggest defensive concern does not bode well against the scheme, and that’s why the Cardinals spent this week focusing on the fundamentals, specifically when it comes to using their hands to maneuver and get off blocks.

“Really staying alive, staying on your feet, using your hands, not getting cut,” Wilks said of how to combat San Francisco’s running game. “They do an excellent job backside trying to cut you off. Because what they’re doing — they’re just trying to run you wide and trying to look for that cut-back lane.

“We got to do a great job of penetrating, number one, and then use our hands to make sure we stay alive and stay on our feet.”

This offseason, the Niners inked free agent back Jerick McKinnon, hoping to use that zone running attack to then hit big downfield throws in play-action from Jimmy Garoppolo, who signed a mammoth extension to make him the franchise quarterback. But McKinnon injured his ACL at the beginning of September, while Garoppolo went down two weeks ago with the same season-ending injury.

The status of San Francisco’s offensive line for Sunday’s game is tentative with left tackle Joe Staley, center Weston Richburg and right tackle Mike McGlinchey questionable with knee issues.

Additionally, running back Matt Breida remains limited with a shoulder injury, though he’s been excelling at less-than-100 percent health splitting carries with Alfred Morris.

Breida ranks third in total rushing yards (313) through four games on just 41 carries, which is the 29th-most in the NFL so far. That’s 7.6 yards per carry. He’s also caught three passes out of the backfield in each of the past three games.

“I tell you, they look good,” Wilks said. “The two running backs they have …  they haven’t missed a beat. They’re still running the football well. We can’t sit here and say, ‘Who’s not in here?'”

And now the priority for Arizona players is getting off blocks, using their hands to stay engaged in plays and avoiding getting swallowed up by blocks as the 49ers attempt to stretch the field horizontally to open up lanes for their running backs to cut upfield.

“To be quite frank with you, we’re not doing a good job playing with our hands on the edge of the defense,” Holcomb said Thursday. “We talk to our players all the time about not trading one for one, in terms of if there’s a blocker there, I have to be ready to set the edge, but I have to stay alive. I just can’t run sideways and get knocked out of there because it creates a huge running lane inside.

“You have to buy time for the rest of the pursuing defense to pursue inside-out. A lot of it is our hand violence, plain and simple.”

While those concerns show in the numbers — the Cardinals have been most vulnerable this season on runs outside the tackles — San Francisco uses that stretching threat to take advantage on cutbacks as defenses lose control of lanes while on the move, to Wilks’ point.

49ers directional rushing production

And once success starts to come with Breida and Morris, then Shanahan won’t be shy about dialing up Garoppolo’s replacement, second-year quarterback C.J. Beathard. The Iowa product went 23-of-37 for 298 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions — one on a tipped pass and another when he was hit while throwing — last week in a 29-27 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers.

“The angles to the ball and the play-action off of it is a challenge as well because, historically, Kyle knows that we play down-hill,” Holcomb said. “By playing down-hill, they’re going to try to suck the linebackers up — the second-level defenders — and then hit the little in-breaking routes behind them.

“That’s kind of been the M.O. when he’s gone against our style of defense: the play-actions, the boots and then the run game. It is effective. I think he’s a really good play-caller, I think he’s an aggressive play-caller.”

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