NOBODY Wanted to See 49ers Rookie Start Doing This..

NOBODY Wanted to See 49ers Rookie Start Doing This..

Seemingly every single year in the NFL, there appears to be a team that’s just destined for greatness. No matter the adversity they go through, they just find ways to continue to win. And that team this year so far has clearly been the San Francisco 49ers. In this most recent Rams game, for example, not only were they without their starting quarterback, their tight end, their wide receivers, and their star defensive end to Nick Bosa, they also lost their starting defensive tackle and Kalia Davis midame with a broken hand. Despite all of these obstacles though, San Francisco’s young team continued to find ways to get it done, moving to 4-1 and first in their division in large part due to their rookies, as I was alluding to, with one of the most notable players being Alfred Collins, the rookie defensive tackle out of Texas. With Davis’s injury, he had to rise to the occasion, essentially being thrust into the starting lineup in this most recent Rams game. And he did just that, making probably the biggest play of this entire game, punching out the ball with only 67 seconds remaining. and stopping the Rams from scoring a touchdown. And even outside of that play, things just continued to click for Collins on the field. He showed off a pretty dominant pass rush, and I overall was surprised by his growth in this game. So, in this video, I wanted to dive into his most recent film. With no better place to start than being his run, stuff, and fumble on the goal line, really saving San Francisco the game. On this play, the Rams are actually attempting to double team Collins up to the second level. Then this back on this play is going to be coming through right on this double team attempting to score. But Collins ruins everything here. The 66 330lb defensive lineman isn’t getting driven down the field at all. Then he isolates 65’s block and uses his momentum to start to throw him up the field and then comes through with his agility to really beat him on this play. And look at his eyes. He’s identifying where the ball is, then coming through hard on this punch to punch it out. Collins did phenomenal on this play. Another impressive aspect of Collins run defense against the Rams was just how active he was keeping his hands throughout the ref. Here on this play, for example, the Rams are trying to run right up the middle once again towards Collins. But because of Colin’s active hands, he’s able to beat 69’s block. First, he uses a swim move, which starts to get 69 moving up the field. Then he uses a pole move to throw him into the ground right here. and then he explodes through this gap which ultimately causes 23 to bounce to the outside here. The final aspect of Colin’s run defense I wanted to touch on against the Rams was how he never gave up on the plate here. He’s initially hook blocked decently, but because he’s able to read where this back is going, he keeps his hands active, comes through on his swim move, and is able to work his way across this defensive line to help bring this back down here. As great as Collins was against the run, honestly, he probably was actually better against the pass against the Rams as he routinely found his way into the backfield and put a ton of pressure on Matthew Stafford throughout this game. What’s most impressive about this to me is that Collins is working on his pass rush week in and week out, and it’s becoming obvious on this film. Week one, he really struggled with his hand usage. But on a play like this, he hits 69 with a double hand swipe, gets 69 to lunge forward, comes through on swim move, and then facing 65, he uses his pure power to push his weight into the backfield, elevates, and bats down this pass. Maybe Colin’s most impressive aspect of his pass rush against Saramzo was just the variety of moves he was able to pull out. During his college days, you really saw him just be overly reliant on just a pure swim move. But in this game, we saw a lot of interesting variations to his game. To really illustrate this point here on this play, Colin shows a true sophisticated passers plan as he’s attacking this guard with a pushpull technique before using his length on a swim move to beat him. And he’s doing everything to high level here. He locks out his arms, driving this guard back. And you can see how he quickly snaps him down, forcing the head of this guard down, and then he comes over with his length on the swim. But he doesn’t stop there as he shows off his insane athleticism of making his way into the backfield and getting the quarterback hit on Stafford here to further illustrate his growth as a pass rusher here. Initially, he’s facing the double team. So, he isolates 69 and in a similar way we saw last play. He’s able to throw his momentum towards the offensive tackles block come through with his long arms and put the pressure on Stafford. Once again, LIGO is mentioning though, it wasn’t like Collins was overly reliant on his swim move, but rather pulled out a plethora of moves to keep the offensive lineman guessing. Already in this video, for example, we’ve seen Collins use a pushpull technique in interesting ways to create separation for his swim move. But here, he’s going to be using a pole move to actually come through on a rip, which will keep this offensive lineman guessing throughout the game. When a pole is coming, is a rip coming next, or is it a swim? or is it going to be a completely different move he pulls out right here. He pulls out the rip and is able to put the pressure on Matthew Stafford. In the future though, it may be a bull rush or a handwipe. And this is really one of my biggest complaints about Collins entering the league. He didn’t have the most refined pass rush, but here you get to see him working on it. In a similar way on this play, Collins is going to be trying to work on his bull rush, but with it stalling out against 65, he’s able to block out his long arms right here. He uses a hand swipe to disengage and causes 65 to fall to the floor. The final pass rush move that I was pretty impressed to see Colins pull out in this most recent Rams game was a bull rush. He really struggled at this at the college level despite his 66 330 lb stature, but against the Rams, you could see him collapsing the pocket. To really illustrate this point here on this play, Collins is once again going against 65. And to set up his bowl rush, he’s going to fake like potentially he’s going to be coming on the swim move. But as soon as 65 punches, Alfred Collins is able to get a full extension and starts to walk him back into the backfield. And watching it one more time, you can see how his hand usage forces off 65’s arm right there and allows him to get this long extension. Collins is truly growing as a player. The final aspect of Colin’s pass rush I wanted to touch on is something you’re probably not going to hear a lot of people talk about, and that’s the versatility he offers as a defensive tackle. In this most recent Rams game, for example, he was actually dropping into his own coverage. On this play, for example, Salah is dropping him into the hook curl zone and reading Matthew Stafford’s eyes. And honestly, he’s doing a pretty great job for a player that weighs 330 lbs. He’s reading Stafford’s eyes. Sees this tight end potentially coming on little drag pattern. So, he starts to shoot that direction. Takes away Stafford’s read right there. And ultimately does a pretty solid job here. With all these positives to Alfred Column’s game though, he is a rookie so he definitely has some areas of concern with one of the most notable in my opinion just being his overall technique. Sometimes he can stand up which allows smaller offensive linemen to get underneath him and drive him down the field. Collins can also sometimes be overly reliant on his swim move. So, I do want him to continue to add tools like we saw in this most recent Rams game. On top of that, since he is a rookie, he can do a better job of identifying running plays and he also needs to prove he can remain healthy for the remainder of the season. Even with these concerns to Alfred Column’s game, though, when I’m looking at him as a player, I think he has a potential to truly be elite in San Francisco’s defense. Already this year, we’ve seen him work on his game and improve every single time he’s gone reps. So, I don’t think that’s going to change headed forward. But ultimately, these are just some of my thoughts on San Francisco’s second round pick out of Texas and Alfred Collins. And I want to hear your thought about the 66, 330 lb rookie. Do you think he has a chance to develop into a truly dominant defensive tackle like I do, or do you think inconsistencies in his technique will continue to show up on his tape and eventually he’ll be a pretty good run defender? but never develop into a truly elite pass rush specialist. It would also mean a ton to me if you did enjoy this video if you could go ahead and like and subscribe. It truly helps out the channel a ton. And as always, I hope you guys have a great rest of your

With The San Francisco 49ers wrapping up their fifth game against the Los Angeles Rams, arguably the most underappreciated player on the field was the Rookie DT Out of Texas, Alfred Collins. In this video we breakdown Alfred Collins’s performance and why he changes everything for the San Francisco 49ers and can potentially be their next dominant DT.

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