The 49ers have the best defense in the NFL, according to just about every statistical category. They allow the fewest points (15.3) and yards per game (290.3).
But their pass defense has been a bit susceptible, as the Washington Commanders showed on Saturday. There were a handful of long third-down conversions, many of which took shots at outside corner Deommodore Lenoir.
While San Francisco allows by far the fewest yards and rush yards per game, they allow 215.3 pass yards per game, which is 16th in the league.
Donte Whitner, who played defensive back for the 49ers for three seasons, joined Dieter Kurtenbach on Tuesday, identifying Lenoir as the clear weak spot on the defense.
“I’ll say right now, [Lenoir] is the biggest, glaring weakness on the 49ers’ defense and everybody can see it,” Whitner said. “But when you actually look at the data and the numbers, he’s playing better than what you would think. I think sometimes it boils down to consistent — I wouldn’t say effort, but I will say attention to detail, the need there, the pace in your pedal, realizing what they’re trying to do to you.”
Offenses are going to look to attack Lenoir, who was once expected to play in the slot, starting out his career there.
But Whitner said defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans can make adjustments to help out Lenoir.
“Pre-snap looks, I think the defensive coordinator in Ryans can help them out by not allowing them to know when he’s playing one-on-one over there and just take a shot downfield,” Whitner said. “So I think that it all ties in together. I think that when you play championship football, it’s not just the players, it’s the coaches putting you in the situations where they know you can win and take the stress off of some of those guys that are really struggling and putting the onus on other guys.”
It doesn’t necessarily have to be major changes.
Whitner laid out what he saw as important tweaks Ryans can implement to make things easier on Lenoir. It’s about hiding when Lenoir is in man coverage:
If you show a lot of those coverages when you’re playing man-to-man on the outside and you allocate another guy in the box and you show it pre-snap, [the offense] can check to that at the line of scrimmage.
But if you keep the safeties back with depth and width, somewhere around the numbers, and they can just walk down into their coverage responsibilities, it takes a lot of stress off the cornerback because you have a guy like Bosa coming to the quarterback.
[The quarterback] can’t read the rotation and the shoulders of the safety. So it’s small tweak like that that can even elevate this defense even more. It’s just small things that can get those shots off of Deommodore Lenoir.
Per Pro Football Focus, Lenoir, with a 55.3 coverage grade, ranks 92nd in coverage out of 126 corner with at least 150 coverage snaps this season. Emmanuel Moseley ranked 21st, while Charvarius Ward is 19th.
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