How Brock Purdy helped the 49ers prepare for the Rams “It’s been awesome having Brock in there. He’s kind of splitting the reps of the scout team with Adrian. But just having two quarterbacks in there,
especially Brock, who can make some of these plays, look people off, do some of the things Stafford does, it definitely gets them ready for him.
“Each quarterback’s different, but those guys have helped out a lot this week.”
When reminded what a rare luxury it is to have someone of Purdy’s caliber helping with the scout team, Shanahan smiled.“
49ers’ special teams had players-only meeting after Week 4 flop: The message sunk in (paywall)
“Gifford noted that most of the players on San Francisco’s coverage units are either new or didn’t play a lot of special teams last season. He said it takes time to gel and noted that when he went from the Dallas Cowboys to the Tennessee Titans in 2023, the Titans’ units sputtered early, too.
“It took some time to adjust,” he said. “And I didn’t feel like I was who they’d paid me to be, you know? So it was frustrating. But halfway through the year, I really felt like we kind of hit a stride.”
While the players are learning Boyer’s techniques and blocking schemes, Boyer has been figuring out the best roles for each player. The 49ers’ torrent of injuries hasn’t helped. For example, when George Kittle was out with a hamstring strain from Week 2 to Week 6, it meant more snaps on offense for fellow tight end Luke Farrell and fewer on special teams. Kittle’s back now, and on Sunday, Farrell had a season-high 20 special teams snaps and two solo tackles.
“When we played against him last year with the Jets, we couldn’t block him,” Boyer said of the 6-foot-6, 251-pound Farrell. “He’s done a really good job. That whole tight end group — they’re so smart you can put ’em anywhere. They can play six different positions on the punt team.”
Each week, the special teams goes into a game with 15 or so goals, a list that might include having no penalties, ensuring the opponent’s best coverage ace gets no tackles or holding the opponent’s average starting position to the 30-yard line. At the start of the season, the 49ers didn’t make good on many of those goals. Lately, however, they’ve been hitting more than half, and Sunday’s outing against the New York Giants was the best one yet.
“And the standard keeps going up each week,” Gifford said. “It’s like anything else — you can’t take a breath. If you take a breath, you’ll get whupped.”
