Mike McGlinchey was 15 years old in 2010, the year the Eagles drafted defensive end Brandon Graham in first round. The 49ers right tackle, who’d become a first-round pick himself eight years later, was dunking on his already-famous cousin — Atlanta quarterback Matt Ryan — in the suburban Philadelphia McGlinchey family driveway at around that time.
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The Eagles then selected defensive tackle Fletcher Cox in 2012’s first round. McGlinchey left home to play college football at Notre Dame a year later. So McGlinchey might’ve been away while Philadelphia’s duo terrorized quarterbacks and cemented the city’s first Super Bowl title to close the 2017 season, but he was certainly paying attention to what was happening back home.
“I’ve seen it for a decade,” McGlinchey said of Graham and Cox. “They were guys that everybody looked up to. They were guys that everybody was a fan of and they earned that. Fletcher and Brandon are two of the best in the game at what they do and they’ve had a lot of success on a very successful football team.”
The 0-2-1 Eagles haven’t started strong this year, but that isn’t the fault of Graham or Cox. Even after all these years, the two veterans are still the drivers of a very powerful Philadelphia defensive line that’ll put McGlinchey and the 49ers’ offensive front to the test at Levi’s Stadium this Sunday night.
The Eagles rank third in the NFL with 12 sacks already. Meanwhile, pass protection has been an issue for the 49ers throughout coach Kyle Shanahan’s entire tenure with the team.
Matters aren’t nearly as bad as they were in 2017, when the 49ers last played the Eagles and allowed 35 pressures and a staggering 60 percent pressure rate, the highest recorded in the NFL that season.
“That was the game (C.J. Beathard) got hit by Fletcher Cox and his shoe came off in the back of the end zone,” tight end George Kittle recently said about that game, noting that an avalanche of injuries forced the 49ers to play a pair of backup guards at the tackle spots during that blowout loss. “That was a wild trip. We’re much deeper at every position and we’re way more mature now.”
But protecting the quarterback certainly isn’t yet a 49ers’ strength, either. Through three weeks, the 49ers rank No. 26 in ESPN’s pass-block win rate, which measures the percentage of snaps on which the offensive line sustains its blocks for 2.5 seconds or longer. That’s the same ranking that the 49ers finished at last season.
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The offensive line showed tangible progress during Sunday’s 36-9 win over the New York Giants. After an uneven start, the 49ers settled in to protect quarterback Nick Mullens, allowing only one sack and eight pressures on the afternoon — both season lows. McGlinchey, who’d struggled through Weeks 1-2, delivered a clean sheet to statistically match left tackle Trent Williams, the only 49ers offensive lineman who’s been excellent since the start of the season.
“We’ve gotta keep building on it, for sure,” McGlinchey said after the game. “There’s still too much nonsense going on out there that we’ve gotta clean up, but after that’s done, I think the sky’s the limit for our group.”
The 49ers’ currently pressing issue: Much of that nonsense is happening on the inside, where Cox will line up this weekend and where other star defensive tackles have generated plentiful problems against them over the past season-plus. Last week against the Giants, 49ers left guard Laken Tomlinson allowed four pressures.
| Tackle | PRWR |
|---|---|
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25%
|
|
|
22%
|
|
|
19%
|
|
|
19%
|
|
|
19%
|
|
|
19%
|
That’s ESPN’s early-season leaderboard for pass-rush win rate, which measures how often tackles beat blockers in 2.5 seconds or less. Cox is on it, and he looms this weekend. The other names on that list have all disrupted the 49ers offense at one point or another since the start of 2019. Atlanta’s Grady Jarrett and Kansas City’s Chris Jones even did enough to be difference-makers in two of the 49ers’ four defeats last season.
All-Pro Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald isn’t even listed at this point, but he’ll almost certainly climb into the top five as the season progresses and the 49ers will have to deal with him twice (Donald finished No. 1 in pass-rush win rate last season).
This all means that Cox and the Eagles present a real opportunity for the 49ers to show that they’re making tangible progress toward addressing one of their primary weaknesses.
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“I think we’re ready for the challenge,” Shanahan said on a Zoom media call Wednesday. “Without a doubt. I think we’re ready for any challenge, but I don’t care who’s going against Fletcher Cox. If you become one-dimensional and he can just tee off and he’s getting a lot of one-on-ones and things, it really doesn’t matter. He’s that good of a player and he’s got a bunch of real good guys around him and he has a scheme that completely fits his skill set.
“So it’s a challenge for our entire team, not just our offensive line. We’ve got to be in a situation where we can be balanced and make them play everything, not just the pass and that is a challenge for everyone who’s dressed.”
The 49ers want to ensure that they’re playing downhill, that their line is working against a defensive front that’s at least partially destabilized. Last week, Shanahan and Mullens certainly knocked the Giants off-kilter. That’s the fundamental key for the athletic offensive line Shanahan has built, one that clearly specializes in open-field blocking like the effort that sprung receiver Brandon Aiyuk’s end-around touchdown run.
Brandon Aiyuk's 19-yard rush TD in Week 3 against the Giants had a 93.2% TD probability from the moment of handoff, according to our expected rush yards model.
This was the only run from outside the 15-yard line with over a 75% TD probability since 2018.#FTTB pic.twitter.com/LYAkYVJShC
— Next Gen Stats (@NextGenStats) September 30, 2020
“There’s a certain mold and certain fit that we have here in what we do and how it’s supposed to look and how each guy is supposed to operate, in you are able to move through our offense,” McGlinchey said. “Because it’s a very hard thing to do and a very hard thing to get comfortable with, some of the blocks that they ask individuals to make in our offense.
“Because the stretching of the outside zone, the one-on-one matchups on the edge … those things can be daunting and it takes a long time to be able to do those things. All of us fit a certain mold to what Kyle believes is essential in offensive play.”
The problem is that not everyone is Williams, who can move at 19 mph while simultaneously anchoring like a 330-pound pillar of granite. So struggles against the power rush, seen last week when Giants defensive tackles Dalvin Tomlinson and Leonard Williams combined for six of their team’s eight pressures against the 49ers, can often come as a package deal with speed in space.
It’s about minimizing potential downside and maximizing the offensive line’s strong suit. In this regard, the Eagles might present the 49ers’ front with a very useful litmus test at this early point of the season.
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In addition to Cox, Philadelphia has disruptive defensive tackle Malik Jackson. The 49ers last faced Jackson in 2017, when he was a Pro Bowler on the No. 1-ranked Jaguars defense. Shanahan kept Jackson and his entire line off-balance with motion, play action and lateral offensive balance in a 44-33 win that year.
But even with intricate schematics, the 49ers will have to win their share of straight one-on-one matchups in pass protection. Ultimately, there’s no hiding from that in the NFL, and Graham’s battle against McGlinchey will likely be the focal point of this dynamic.
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End
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PRWR
|
|---|---|
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40%
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|
|
39%
|
|
|
33%
|
|
|
33%
|
|
|
31%
|
Between defensive linemen Derek Barnett and Josh Sweat, the Eagles have considerable talent beyond Graham coming off the edge even with Vinny Curry currently on injured reserve. The 49ers will square off against a Philadelphia defensive line with premier pieces on both the inside and outside. The Eagles have depth to complement their star power.
This will be a proving grounds for the 49ers at a spot that’s key to any ambitious 2020 dreams that they may have.
“This front that we’re gonna face this Sunday is as solid as there is in the NFL,” McGlinchey said of the Eagles. “We’re gonna have our work cut out for us. We believe that we’re very great as well, and we’re gonna do our best to match their abilities on Sunday.”
(Photo: Steven Ryan / Getty Images
