Perhaps the most popular variant we are going to look at is “drift stalk” and it may look familiar to the reader (more on that shortly) but it’s a full field read for the quarterback with a drift route on the front side and a “stalk-rail” by the slot receiver and “drift-takeoff” by the outside receiver to the back side.
In 2020, I remember the 49ers only running this play one time and it came in week three versus the Giants.
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The 49ers are in 21 personnel but line up in shotgun and motion to a 3x1 with Dwelley motioning left to right to the two receiver side. Aiyuk is the single receiver running the drift route with Bourne out wide running a drift takeoff and fullback Kyle Juszczyk running the stalk-rail route.
The Giants are in cover-3 so Mullens is going to be looking for the drift route behind the linebackers who came up to play the run.
He finds Aiyuk wide open in the window created by the play action and fast flowing linebackers.
The play also has a nice shot play built into it. If the quarterback comes off his first read, he scans across the field to the drift takeoff (2nd read) and then to the stalk rail (3rd read). The 49ers threw this play a half dozen times in the 2021 season and it’s been one of Kyle Shanahan’s favorite shot plays if the quarterback can get to the third read in the progression, the stalk rail route. The stalk rail route has gone for several big plays since 2018 (cut-ups below later).
A variant of the pass concept was called for Trey Lance’s touchdown pass against Seattle in week four and it’s a concept the 49ers have hurt the Seahawks with several times including twice in this week four game from last season.
The 49ers were gift wrapped a touchdown here in part thanks to a coverage bust by Seahawks corner Sydney Jones and thanks to Shanahan knowing and understanding the opposing defense’s rules on the same level as the opposing defensive coordinator.
The 49ers come out in 21 personnel 2x2 initially with the fullback Kyle Juszczyk (No. 44) lining up next to tight end George Kittle (No. 85) before aligning in an offset weak position out of pistol. The threat of a weak off tackle run by the running back or a quarterback zone read weak automatically puts safety Jamal Adams down in the slot due to the extra gap the fullback creates. Adams would have force defender responsibility versus the run and buzz/reroute responsibility versus the pass.
In the Seahawks scheme, this puts him in a buzz flat technique on a pass where anything vertical would have to be picked up by the corner and anything on the seam or in the flat would be Adams’s responsibility.
Shanahan knows this and immediately put the weak side of the defense in conflict. Seahawks corner Sydney Jones guessed wrong and zoned off over the in-breaker from Brandon Aiyuk instead of running to cover Deebo on the rail route, leaving him wide open.
Later in the season, the 49ers also ran this from a shotgun split backs formation with tight end George Kittle running the stalk rail route and completing the pass for a big gain. Instead of running the rail to the weak side, the 49ers run it toward the strong side and put the force/curl-flat defender in conflict.
On the run action, safety Ryan Neal (No. 26) as the force defender has to jump outside the tight end and force any run back inside.
Kittle sells the block so well that Neal gets caught in no-mans land while also still having to carry Kittle through his zone because there is no corner that zones off to carry with the outside receiver running vertical.
Here is a cut-up of all the times I can remember seeing this play last season, including a few that 49ers fans may remember, and not in a good way.
Jimmy didn’t always miss that throw, and here are several in another cut-up I made a long time ago during quarantine. In the above clips, the 2018 and 2019 49ers are running drift stalk where the ball is thrown to the stalk rail. It has gone for big plays each time it was run (once in 2018, three in 2019) including one touchdown to Richie James in week one of 2019 against Tampa Bay (2nd clip) even though it’s primarily run with Juszczyk on the stalk rail, three of the four clips show Juszczyk as the stalk rail route runner.
While hitting the rail route is a good sign of a quarterback going through his progressions, when an offense is moving in rhythm and is on schedule, the pass will almost always go to the first read, the drift route, because it is almost always the one that’s open first.
Drift slot
A lesser run drift concept play is the drift slot play pass where the drift route is run from the slot receiver with a go route or comeback route on the outside.
It’s just one more way to hide their most used play action passing concept.
And some drift slot cut-ups from the 2019 season.
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