49ers QB Blaine Gabbert: “It was set up by all the throws we had underneath early on, all the runs we ran out of that formation. It worked perfectly.”
49ers WR Torrey Smith: “We knew they were sitting. We didn’t take too many shots this game. They were sitting on us so what are we waiting for? Let’s go get it.”
Smith was lined up in the slot and ran a deep corner route as part of a high-low combination with Anquan Boldin. Tracy Porter was the cornerback on the outside and he appeared to be communicating with safety Adrian Amos just before the snap. Boldin ran a deep curl route and Smith kept going, getting wide open with Amos passed him off to no one. Fellow safety Chris Prosinski came over late but he was arriving from the other side of the field.
“Cover Three is what we wanted,” Smith said. “We didn’t know if they were going to play it. It puts the corner (Porter) in a tough spot. They probably thought I was going across. We’ve made some big plays out of that formation.”
Porter: “They came out in a formation that they usually take a shot in, you know, and they just flat-out executed. It was simple and plain. We were out of position on the back end and they were able to capitalize on it. We’re supposed to have a guy carrying the seam. You know, for whatever reason, miscommunication, miscue, and it didn’t happen. The quarterback saw it and he put it up.”
Was the defense in Cover Three?
“Yeah,” Porter said. “Pretty much.”
Blaine Gabbert
49ers quarterback Blaine Gabbert celebrates a touchdown during the second half. (Nam Y. Huh / AP)
Amos, who said the Bears were in Cover Three: “It just got away for us. We have to communicate. We gotta talk it out.”
Prosinski: “I’m not going to point fingers. We’ll watch it tomorrow. I’m not going to talk about it. We were in a form of single high.”
In the second half of the season, they can’t have breakdowns like this. It’s no longer a new system being installed by defensive coordinator Vic Fangio. Smith was the only real vertical threat in that offense and he just burned them when the Niners were beginning the drive at their own 29-yard line.
Who’s got responsibility for the coverage? I wish I knew. If it was true Cover Three, it might be Porter. He seems to imply pretty directly that Amos was responsible for continuing to run with Smith. It’s unusual for a safety to carry a corner route, especially in Cover Three. The bottom line is mistakes like this get you beat and it’s happened twice in three weeks. The reason a bigger deal wasn’t made out of the Thomas touchdown was because it occurred in the first quarter and not on the final play of overtime.
For four quarters, the defense stuffed San Francisco’s running backs and really put a lid on Gabbert and the passing game. But the quarterback ran 44 yards through the middle of the defense for a touchdown with 1:42 remaining in the game and then took the top off the defense in overtime.
I can't find it but I read later in a free agency article regarding porter that the Niners game was by far his worst game for the Smith gaffe gift TD
