49ers look to ramp up red zone success vs. Seahawks and beyond

The 49ers are the envy of 31 other NFL teams for their offensive weaponry.

An efficient and accurate quarterback in Brock Purdy. The league’s most celebrated touchdown machine in Christian McCaffrey and another dual-threat wild card in Deebo Samuel. A classic wideout in Brandon Aiyuk and an old-school sure-handed tight end in George Kittle.

That doesn’t even include fullback Kyle Juszczyk, a seven-time Pro Bowler who can produce offensively when overlooked amidst the galaxy of stars.

The 49ers are tied for sixth in red zone offense with 24 touchdowns in 40 trips to the 20-yard line or closer. That’s 60 percent. Miami, with former 49ers running game coordinator Mike McDaniel running the offense as head coach, is first at 73 percent, followed by the L.A. Chargers (66.7), Buffalo (65.9), and Baltimore (65.2) with Indianapolis also at 60 percent.

Tied for sixth isn’t bad. In fact, it’s good.

But if the 49ers have made anything clear in 2023, it’s that being good isn’t good enough. They aspire to greatness, and if there’s an area where the available personnel suggests the 49ers should be the best in the league, it’s scoring touchdowns in the red zone.

Steve Young, the former 49ers quarterback and Hall of Famer, is fond of saying kicking a field goal just moves you three points closer to losing. Field goals are necessary, of course, but the mindset is to score touchdowns. That belief was distilled in Young by Mike Shanahan, the former 49ers offensive coordinator and Kyle Shanahan’s father.

Over the last four games — two of them one-sided wins — the 49ers are just 5-for-12 scoring touchdowns in the red zone.

It’s an area where the 49ers (7-3) will look to improve Thursday night when they visit Seattle (6-4) in their first Thanksgiving game since 2014.

McCaffrey, who leads the NFL with 14 touchdowns, has half of the 49ers’ team total of red zone touchdowns with 12, the outliers being a 65-yard scoring run against Pittsburgh in Week 1 and a 35-yard scoring pass from Purdy against Minnesota in Week 6.

He thinks the 49ers can do better in close, although to be fair he thinks that about pretty much every aspect of every game.

“You can always get better, especially when you have high expectations for yourself and a high standard,” McCaffrey said. “That’s the beauty of the game. It’s hard to win. It’s hard to play perfectly, but that’s what you strive for. You look at what you can fix, how you can fix it, and get better every week.”

As good as the 49ers are on defense, it’s an offensive-minded league and red zone failures often mean the difference in games that evolve into high-scoring shootouts.

You can assume that part of the reason the 49ers took Jake Moody in the third round of the NFL Draft is his longer range than predecessor Robbie Gould. Because anytime the 49ers get anywhere near the 20-yard line, they’re thinking touchdown and not field goal.

“There are going to be games where we’re playing opponents where we can’t always rely on our defense to stop them,” Kittle said. “I assume they’re going to, but the NFL has other offenses that are really good. So we always put pressure on ourselves to go down and score points and specifically touchdowns because if you don’t score touchdowns, it’s kind of hard to win games.”

McCaffrey leads all NFL rushers in the red zone with 138 yards and eight touchdowns on 45 attempts and has 10 receptions for 62 yards and four touchdowns.

One of the more dubious play calls by Shanahan this season came against the Bengals on a play that saw McCaffrey leading the way as a blocker after Purdy neglected to get the ball to Kittle on a backside toss at the 8-yard line. Purdy compounded the first mistake by throwing an interception to linebacker Germaine Pratt on the play, which would have been called back anyway because linemen were downfield in anticipation of a run.

For a team that prides itself on crisp execution, the play was as smooth as a grammar school fire drill.

The 49ers were just 2-for-5 scoring touchdowns in the red zone in that 31-17 loss that stands as the most one-sided of the season.

That was the low point, but the Purdy pick aside, Shanahan should consider similar play calls that get the ball to someone other than McCaffrey, who is the focal point of every defense anywhere near the goal line.

Here’s a breakdown of the 49ers’ red zone touchdowns through 11 weeks:

Rushing: McCaffrey 8, Purdy 2, Samuel 1, Mason 1, Juszczyk 1

Receiving: McCaffrey 4, Aiyuk 3, Kittle 3, Bell 1