Greg Cosell's Film Review: Colin Kaepernick vs. Russell Wilson

A very concerning issue for San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick after 41 starts is his lack of clarity in the pocket.

He still struggles to relate route concepts to coverage and quickly isolate where to go with the ball. And there are far too many snaps in which Kaeperick hits his back foot and immediately breaks down with no pressure. There were two examples of that in the fourth quarter against the Seattle Seahawks on Thursday.

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With 8:20 left, Kaepernick hit the last step of his drop and immediately took off to his right, even though he wasn’t under immediate pressure.

He rolled right and threw an incompletion. A few plays later he did the same thing, with even worse results.

Kaepernick took off to his right again, and threw an interception to Richard Sherman. On neither of these plays did he have much pressure, especially by NFL standards.

The Seahawks know of Kaepernick’s tendency to run, and had a plan for it. They had many snaps of “man free” with linebacker K.J. Wright defending Kaepernick. On the Sherman interception in the fourth quarter, linebacker Bobby Wagner was a spy against Kaepernick. The plan was sound. The play of the Seahawks defense (Wagner and safety Kam Chancellor, who have battled injuries this year, played at a high level against the 49ers and that lifts the entire Seahawks defense) was a huge factor in the 49ers’ struggles too.

But Kaepernick – who isn’t a precise thrower generally – had really poor ball location against the Seahawks. The first interception to Sherman was one of those throws. Brandon Lloyd was open to the outside, but Kaepernick was inaccurate to the inside and Sherman had an easy interception.

On the other side, Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson made some plays that were unstructured and improvised. His ability to move and keep looking for plays in the pass game can put a lot of pressure on a defense.

On a 63-yard pass to Tony Moeaki in the second quarter, when Wilson got to the end of his drop he saw a blitzer coming untouched up the middle. He had to move. He spun, eluded the blitz and then moved around. That broke down the structure of the 49ers’ “Cover 2” zone. Wilson flipped it to Moeaki and he had a lot of room to run.

On another play in the second quarter, it was a designed deep pass to take a shot downfield on first and 10, and Wilson had Doug Baldwin open on a vertical seam route. But Wilson wasn’t comfortable with that pass, for whatever reason, then moved to his left in response to late pressure. Robert Turbin was wide open out of the backfield, again because of Wilson’s movement.

On both plays, Wilson moved out of the pocket when he was forced out, kept looking downfield and made big plays in the pass game.

Kaepernick has made many unstructured plays like this too, but a big difference is Kaepernick remains predominantly a pre-determined thrower. If that pre-determined throw is not there his tendency is to break down in the pocket, drop his eyes and look to move.

Wilson can be very good at making unstructured plays in the pass game; the Seahawks’ offense is built on Wilson’s legs and the power running of Marshawn Lynch. As the 49ers found out, you can’t allow Wilson to beat you in the pass game that way.

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NFL analyst and NFL Films senior producer Greg Cosell watches as much NFL game film as anyone. Throughout the season, Cosell will join Shutdown Corner to share his observations on the teams, schemes and personnel from around the league.