Supersize the 49ers to Break the McDonalds Defense

The timeline is the tell

Start with the timeline, because the timeline is the tell. On Christmas night 2023, Mike Macdonald’s Ravens picked Brock Purdy four times in Santa Clara¹. About a month later, Schneider hired Macdonald to coach the Seahawks². In between, Schneider had already started acquiring the keystone pieces during Pete Carroll’s final year. The Hawks chose Devon Witherspoon fifth overall³, signed Julian Love in free agency⁴, and traded for Leonard Williams⁵. Then Schneider and Macdonald finished the job together, drafting Byron Murphy II at sixteen, with a mandate to build a wall up the middle⁶. They traded for and extended Ernest Jones⁷ and landed DeMarcus Lawrence in free agency⁸. And to add the crown jewel, they traded up to get Nick Emmanwori, a chaos star a la Kyle Hamilton⁹. Emmanwori technically plays strong safety but lines up at coverage linebacker and edge rusher and ruins the quarterback’s whole week of preparation.

Pick - Seahawks select S Nick Emmanwori

— John Frascella (Football) (@NFLFrascella) April 25, 2025

I want to convert this guy to Linebacker so badly...

— Anthony Nagatani February 28, 2025

My heart sunk when I read the tweet from John Frascella. I had identified Emmanwori as a stud multiplicative player and salivated on BlueSky, imagining him primarily as a SAM linebacker.

Three parts, each aimed at a Shanahan pillar

The wall in the middle, Williams and Murphy and company, doesn’t just stop the wide zone running game, it redirects it, closing the interior and forcing everything to the edges, where fast defensive backs tackle one-on-one in space. Take away the run and the play-action dies with it, because Shanahan’s explosives live off the run fake. Then the four-man pressure. Seattle rushed four and got home anyway, which means seven in coverage, and the four you get aren’t the four you prepared for. Simulated pressures, rotating shells, false man and zone keys off motion. They pressured the quarterback on 26 percent of dropbacks last year while blitzing less than 20 percent of the time¹⁰. The center can’t set the protection because the protection doesn’t know what’s coming. And Purdy, whose anticipation throwing depends on trusting his presnap read, gets reads he can’t trust. That’s where the interceptions come from. Just ask Christmas 2023.

The other half of the formula

Then the other half of the formula, the part nobody talks about. A decent enough quarterback (pour one out for the Minnesota Vikings) in Sam Darnold. A running back in Kenneth Walker who ran Seattle’s own version of outside zone to the sidelines, 116 yards and three touchdowns in the divisional round, every one of them outside the tackles¹¹. They beat Shanahan with his own run. And a slot receiver in Jaxon Smith-Njigba who might be the best in football. None of it has to be great. It just has to get a lead, because a lead is what lets the McDonalds Defense cook. Thirteen seconds into the divisional game, Rashid Shaheed returned the opening kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown, and the game script was written before the 49ers offense took a snap.

The receipts

The receipts are ugly. Thirteen to three in Week 18 at Levi’s¹²: Purdy held to 127 passing yards, 173 total yards, the fewest points of the Shanahan era. Forty-one to six in the divisional at Lumen: the return, the Walker touchdowns, three takeaways, zero for Seattle. Fifty-four to nine across the two games, Purdy for 267 yards and no passing touchdowns¹³.

The honest asterisk

Here is the honest asterisk, and this piece is stronger for saying it out loud. The 49ers were a MASH unit. No Kittle, no Warner, no Bosa, McCaffrey knocked out mid-game in January¹⁴. Robert Saleh was down to bend-but-don’t-break with a roster held together by tape. Seattle had the first-round bye and two weeks to rest. San Francisco played in Philadelphia on Wild Card weekend, dethroning the 2025 Super Bowl champs¹⁵, and then flew north to Seattle on five days of rest. Remember, in Week 1, a healthy 49ers team went into Lumen and won seventeen to thirteen¹⁶. Williams knew exactly what January was missing: “We’re down the best tight end in the world, right? There’s a lot we’re up against, not just Seattle.”¹⁷.

So the question for Sunday, and for the November 10 trade deadline, is whether the 2026 49ers are a different team than the one Seattle buried.

Get there backwards

Shanahan said it himself this week: “You better be able to run the ball... get those 40 runs in. That was how we beat them in Week 1.”¹⁸.

Shanny is clearly right about the number (and also Shanny has forgotten more about football than I will ever know). But if this 49ers season was my Madden simulator, I’d go back to the philosophies of Bill Walsh and use the short passing game as the running game. Three-step drops, quick throws to receivers who beat press-man coverage, possession after possession, until the safeties creep up and the shell softens. Then run it so the play-action freezes defenders. The pass sets up the run, instead of the other way around.

Why three-step drops specifically? Because Seattle’s pressure is confusion, not numbers. They pressured the quarterback on 26 percent of dropbacks last year while blitzing less than 20 percent of the time. They rush four, you just don’t know which four. Ball out in under two and a half seconds and the disguise never matters. The early 2020s Packers did exactly that to our stacked defensive lines with Aaron Rodgers and a younger Davante Adams, and it was infuriating. Quick game, elite man-beater, strong run support. The 49ers don’t have a HEALTHY receiver who can beat man coverage, and that’s exactly the problem to solve.

And it can’t just be short checkdowns, Shanahan warned about that too: “it doesn’t feel like you can dink and dunk them the whole game.”¹⁹ Their defensive backs tackle too well in space. The quick game has to feature receivers who win against press-man and win at the catch, on slants and digs and comebacks, past the sticks on third down. Not just separators, either. Mike Evans wins because he’s a unique body with incredible ball skills, uncoverable even when covered. The criterion is guys Brock can find on third and nine almost automatically, by separation or by sheer unguardability.

Schneider understood something the 49ers need to learn: you don’t just scheme around an elite defense like Seattle’s, you staff against it. He built the roster to create the mismatches. Now the 49ers have to do the same, on both sides of the ball.

The 49ers need to learn from Schneider and Macdonald, and similarly craft a team to create weaknesses and mismatches for the Seattle Seahawks.

So let’s run Schneider’s playbook in reverse. He built a defense to break Shanahan. The 49ers need to build an offense, and a defensive line, to break Macdonald. Every player below does one of three things: beats press-man coverage, wrecks a pocket, or keeps a rival from getting there first. Call it the shopping list. Supersize me.

The shopping list, November 10

One: Khalil Mack

Two moves in one: the player, a 35 year old with three sacks and five tackles for loss in four games²⁰ who carries an expiring contract with about six million left on it²¹. He’s a rental who stuffs the run and rushes the passer for a team with six sacks and a run defense susceptible to duo blocks. He’s this year’s Cam Jordan, the aging star on an expiring deal that Niners fans spent all of last year’s deadline coveting. Lynch lost Khalil to Chicago in 2018²², and then there is historic precedent too. Generations ago, the 49ers acquired an aging Richard Dent and won it all²³. On top of all of that both the Rams and Seahawks are rumored to be in the market for him²⁴²⁵. If the 49ers can simultaneously acquire Mack and prevent division rivals from getting him for a conditional fourth round pick, that would be a HUGE victory.

Two: Brian Thomas Jr.

The ceiling play and a play that blocks the competition. BTJ is 6’3” with real speed, who can beat the jam like Evans, and Shanahan will scheme him open with the green grass in front of him. It doesn’t hurt that the Chiefs want him too²⁶, and for a petty fan like me, that’s reason enough.

Three: Chris Godwin

Godwin was Mike Evans’ former teammate in Tampa, a separator who just so happens to be the exact type Shanahan would covet. Looking at John Lynch’s trade deadline history, he is a guy I can very easily see the 49ers making a move for. The downside is Godwin has an expensive contract, at twenty-two million²⁷, but theoretically the cap room is there to get him (Thank you Brandon Aiyuk, and we look forward to seeing you on the field on Monday Night Football in week six²⁸).

Four: Tuli Tuipulotu

He seems like he might be the most getable. Tuli had thirteen sacks last year, made the Pro Bowl, is on the last year of his deal, is only 24²⁹, and Seattle’s been linked to him too³⁰, which makes it a double blocker. The Chargers probably don’t sell both their edges, so he’s the call you make if the asking price for Mack is ridiculous.

Five: A’Shawn Robinson

Robinson is the cheapest real upgrade on the board. The processors over at PFF (for what they’re worth these days) have him as the highest-graded interior lineman through the first four games, and they’ve computed that he is elite against the run³¹. Robinson also has an expiring ten-million dollar deal, and he directly fixes the 49ers problem with duo blocks.

Six: Daron Payne

Although he would be a pure rental at a price I wouldn’t pay, Payne is a real interior rusher who’d partner well in the rotation of Mykel Williams, Osa Odighizuwa, and Keion White.

Seven: Jerry Jeudy

I consider him a bargain basement pick. I loved him as a prospect coming out of college better than the NFL player he turned out to be, so if I were John Lynch I’d only want him at a Day 3 price. If Shanahan unlocks him, it’s exponential returns. If not, you didn’t pay for the lesson.

Eight: Will McDonald IV

His talent is real and the Jets should be sellers, but his fifth-year option would travel with him, so there would be an upcharge that would likely cause Lynch to balk.

Nine: DeForest Buckner

He’s most 49ers fans’ deadline-day dream but he’s only available if the Colts collapse. Kawakami’s already floated the reunion³². Wouldn’t it be nice?

Ten: the unheralded pass-catching tight end

When Tonges went down with a season-ending MCL tear in Week 1³³, we lost a legitimate weapon who was about to have a breakout season. Finding another diamond in the rough, a la Charles Omenihu would be so clutch. Remember, part of Kyle’s scheming against the McDonalds defense, and yes, that’s what we’re calling Mike Macdonald’s unit for the rest of this column, was having an extra pass catching tight end who would add a wrinkle with a healthy Kittle on the field, giving the offense another way to attack the McDonalds defense the way a chubby kid slams McNuggets. The 49ers could use a seam threat who catches in traffic, the kind of role player who becomes a playoff problem.

The blocker doctrine

Now something I want to note, the “blocker” doctrine deserves its own paragraph, because it’s a philosophy, not a transaction. Deny your rivals the players they covet. The precedents: Stafford to the Rams when the 49ers wanted him, and he won them a Super Bowl³⁴. McCaffrey to the 49ers when the Rams offered a second, a third, and a fifth, and Lynch outbid them³⁵. Mack to the Bears in 2018 when Lynch lost him. When a team gets the player it coveted, it unlocks their scheme. When you block it, especially in the division, they have to face what they wanted. If the Chiefs want Brian Thomas Jr., and they do, that’s reason enough to want him more.

The future is the mirror image

The future is the mirror image. Schneider assessed Shanahan’s scheme and drafted the counters. Lynch should do the same to Macdonald and to the Rams. Assess their schematic weaknesses and draft players who fit the 49ers and pose an existential problem twice a year. The 2027 draft is deep at receiver and thin everywhere else³⁶, which is convenient, because receiver is the need. Charlie Becker, Junior Sherrill, the closest thing to a collegiate Pearsall, but that is a take for the off season…

And remember the Rams traded for Myles Garrett, so the arms race is on³⁷.

Sunday is a test of a healthier roster than what the Niners had in January. November 10 is the test of the front office. John Schneider built the McDonalds Defense to end the Shanahan era in the NFC West. Time to supersize the order.

Sources (37)

1. Ravens 33, 49ers 19, Dec 25 2023 ↩
2. Seahawks hire Mike Macdonald, Jan 2024 ↩
3. 2023 NFL Draft ↩
4. Seahawks sign Julian Love, 2023 ↩
5. Seahawks trade for Leonard Williams, Oct 2023 ↩
6. 2024 NFL Draft ↩
7. Seahawks acquire Ernest Jones, 2024 ↩
8. Seahawks sign DeMarcus Lawrence, 2025 ↩
9. Seahawks trade up for Nick Emmanwori, 2025 draft ↩
10. Seahawks 2025 pressure and blitz rates ↩
11. Seahawks 41, 49ers 6, divisional round, Jan 2026 ↩
12. Seahawks 13, 49ers 3, Week 18, 2025 ↩
13. 49ers vs Seahawks, final two 2025 meetings ↩
14. 49ers injuries, divisional round, Jan 2026 ↩
15. 49ers 23, Eagles 19, Wild Card, Jan 2026 ↩
16. 49ers 17, Seahawks 13, Week 1, 2025 ↩
17. Trent Williams on the Week 1 win ↩
18. Kyle Shanahan, Oct 2026 ↩
19. Kyle Shanahan on the Seahawks defense ↩
20. Khalil Mack 2026 stats ↩
21. Mack contract details ↩
22. Mack traded to the Bears, 2018 ↩
23. 49ers sign Richard Dent, 1994 ↩
24. Mack trade rumors ↩
25. Schefter on Mack as a trade candidate ↩
26. Chiefs interest in Brian Thomas Jr. ↩
27. Chris Godwin contract ↩
28. Aiyuk did-not-report list, cap relief ↩
29. Tuli Tuipulotu 2025 season ↩
30. Seahawks linked to Tuipulotu ↩
31. A’Shawn Robinson PFF grades, 2026 ↩
32. Kawakami on a Buckner reunion ↩
33. Jake Tonges injury ↩
34. Rams acquire Matthew Stafford, 2021 ↩
35. 49ers acquire Christian McCaffrey, 2022 ↩
36. 2027 NFL Draft receiver class ↩
37. Rams trade for Myles Garrett, June 2026 ↩