Run Game Coordinator/Offensive Line Chris Foerster Press Conference

Run Game Coordinator/Offensive Line Chris Foerster

Press Conference – October 3, 2024

San Francisco 49ers

There’s recently been a lot made of how teams are playing two-high safeties a lot, what it’s doing to the passing game and what it might mean for the run game. I’m curious what you’re seeing when you watch, obviously your own run game, but around the league in terms of how that’s affecting things.

“It’s hard for me to say I’m noticing a trend. I’m not really, so whatever people are saying, they’re saying. I look at our stuff, I look at the stuff where we’ve got to prepare. I look at teams that are like us. Everybody decides to stop the run game in different ways, some people pressure, some people deep to short, some people show eight-man fronts, base defense. And then most times with us, it’s something different that they haven’t shown. So every week, there’s a little bit of a variance. I think they’ve always been that way with [head coach] Kyle [Shanahan]. I think over the last, it’s been a long time now, I think, where they just don’t want Kyle to really have a beat on what they’re doing. So we’ll get a lot of different things sometimes and they’ll change a pace just to keep us from getting a rhythm.”

What have you seen over the first four weeks, in terms of teams defending you different without RB Christian McCaffrey?

“It’s different. Not something I want to really talk about, but it is different. And obviously because there’s a lot of things you need to do to take care of all the places Christian can line up. So it does kind of limit the things you can do or it opens up your playbook a little bit when he is not out there, because as good as [RB Jordan Mason] JP and the other backs are, they’re just not going to be able to be Christian. And then that does have an effect.”

In a general sense, not specifics necessarily, how do you go about working through that?

“Well, you already assume that because he’s not there, certain things aren’t going to happen. Certain teams aren’t going to want to do certain things because Christian is in the game. You kind of know what those things are, because we saw it happen when he was there, that when he showed up, all of a sudden, things changed. We noticed how defenses changed, how they played us and things that we used to see, we didn’t see as much. Now that he’s not there, we’re seeing things again that we used to see that we didn’t see before, that we saw before Christian was here. It’s a balance. And then, it’s based on the team and their matchups. Some people can do what they do anyway. It didn’t matter whether Christian was there or not. There are so many variables to it. It’s hard to just put your finger on it. I don’t want to say it’s, ‘they play more this, they play less that, they play more –’ Who knows? But it is different.”

You generally have pretty good continuity on the line from last year to this year, only one new starter. Can you see that? Can you tell how that group has continued to develop and get tighter and maybe more kind of locked down?

“Oh, it does, it helps a lot. I’ve always, we’ve talked about in the past, I don’t mind rotating a guy. So, it’s like, ‘Well that ruins the continuity.’ It really doesn’t. It’s still just, they practice rotating, so they get the continuity that way. It is nice when two guys can play like [T] Trent [Williams] and [OL] Aaron [Banks], and you get the continuity with [OL] Jake [Brendel] in there and then obviously, [OL] Colton [McKivitz] and now, you have [OL Dominick Puni] Dom in there and it’s a good balance. But yeah, they do have a chance to develop and get better. If they stay healthy and they work and we see things week in and week out. That’s the goal. And that’s why winning is important and it’s very important. Obviously, it’s the most important thing. We have to win these games, but within that, we have to get better every week. We all know you don’t win the Super Bowl in September or October, to win the Super Bowl, you get in the playoffs, you have to win your division. There are so many steps before you get to that point, but the bottom line is you’re not judged by how many games you win in September. It helps, but you have to get better, and that’s the key. The key is improving through the course of the season. Learning from what’s happened and drawing upon these things. So many times, I’ll spend more time talking about something that isn’t necessarily your question. I do the same thing in my meeting room. It’s like, it might start us down a road of, ‘Now look guys, this really doesn’t talk about this week, but I’m telling you this thing that we’re talking about right now, it will be bigger in six weeks. And this thing that we’re talking about, we have to build on this. So this just isn’t, don’t just learn this for, okay, I got this for this game plan. This is something that’s going to continue to show up through the year. Something that’s consistently showing up that we need to continue to get better at. And there’s other things that, that will fit along with this that we’ll see as well.’ And that’s where my job is. It’s, ‘Yes, we have to win the game. Yes, we have to do everything we can to shoot all our bullets in this game. But at the same time, it’s a building process.’ And that, for me, is what’s so much fun, is to kind of get guys to see the game. As I’ve always said, I want them to own it. They should, after the game, they should walk in and say, it was them. It wasn’t me. They’ve learned the offense and they make adjustments themselves during the game and they come to the sideline and they suggest things, I suggest things, but in the game, it’s their adjustment. They’re owning it. That’s when we become a real football team. That’s when, on Sunday, you’re in the last drive of the fifth quarter of the Super Bowl and everybody comes together to pull it off together as a group, because I can’t be out there. Kyle can’t be out there. They have to pull it together. And that’s what’s cool about having a group that’s played together.”

It seemed like early last year, a lot of questions about Colton McKivitz and those questions kind of died down a little bit as the season went on. How has he come back in year two as a starter? How has he played?

“Really well. Obviously, he had a rough outing a couple weeks ago and he bounced back, like he always has. Last week he bounced back again. I remember last year, I had to have a talk with him after the Pittsburgh game. We talked about it last year, how we had a plan and we had to get away from that plan to help him. And so we just had to take our chances with him on [Pittsburgh Steelers LB T.J.] Watt, and Watt got some sacks and stuff. And I had to make sure he was okay. ‘Hey, the plan was to chip every time, but they went to some different coverages. We needed guys out. And so how are you?’ And that’s the point we’ve said in here before where, when guys fail, when they don’t have success, how do they bounce back? That’s the good thing about him. He has bounced back and he has had some up and down games. He needs to be more consistent. But he has bounced back, and I think he has learned from last season and he’s learned to accept that wasn’t a good game and why. The whys behind it are very important for him as far as, ‘Hey, I’m doing this, this is why I’m getting beat. It’s not any major big, like I’m not good enough or the team, it’s just I’m doing this fundamental flaw that I need to fix.’”

Your redzone production, for touchdowns anyway, is down, I think it was 50%, last year was like 68. It’s only four games, I get that. But what’s making it tougher to get in the endzone this year?

“I can speak to the run game and say we’re not running the ball as well down there. Whatever the looks are, whatever’s been happening, I don’t want to talk about. But there’s been some things that just, we haven’t been, and I blame myself, number one. We had a call the last three weeks, Minnesota, L.A. and New England. Three calls that we made early in a series, in the red zone that just were bad calls on my part to suggest to have them on the list, to even think we could run the plays. Not having enough foresight to think they might do something different. And that’s what they did. We had plays prepped for what we thought they were going to do, they came with something different. They were bad calls. And so, not Kyle’s fault, my fault. I put them on the list as the number one call. I said, ‘Call it.’ Stayed to the list, and then they show up with the defense, it doesn’t work out. And so we end up with some, it doesn’t take much, right? Red zone, there’s so few possessions, so all of a sudden, you have one bad call, you’re behind the eight ball, the next play, you don’t quite complete the pass, and then third down, you are where you are. So we just had some, it’s been a combination of everything. But at least it’s 50%, it could be worse right now. 68 is a very high percentage and we need to get back to that. But again, it starts and ends, I think, with the running game. We’ve got to be more consistent. We’ve had a lot of rushing touchdowns over the last couple years. I think we need to keep working hard at that.”

You guys are averaging 5.7 yards a carry running to the right. Do Puni and McKivitz look like they’re doing a good job in the run game?

“Yeah, they’re doing a very good job. I love the way those guys are playing. Colt’s a very good run blocker, as is Dom. They both do a good job with that, as Trent and Aaron do. We’ve got a good, our guys are a good run blocking unit. I tip my hat to them. They do a nice job. They work really hard and this organization, Kyle, this offense, we take a lot of pride in trying to run the ball well. So those guys do work hard at it. And that’s something that they do. And the right-left thing, and I’m telling you, it can be misleading. Go to the right, cutback, maybe it’s the left side’s doing a better job this year. Vice versa, when we give all the credit to the left side getting the yardage. How they determine the hole hit and where the ball is, I guess it’s consistent throughout the league, but all the guys have done it and it’s kind of a little bit of a crapshoot as to, some guys do some things better than others, vice versa. But yeah, they’ve done a really nice job.”

FB Kyle Juszczyk, like a lot of these guys, is very serious about taking care of himself and taking care of his body and trying to play for as long as possible. Do you have any insight into his passion for that part of it?

“Oh my gosh. I don’t have all the details. I just know he’s obsessed with it and as he should be. I mean, if you think about it, I’m trying to stay healthy and stay alive long enough to keep working and do my job but that doesn’t depend on me blocking guys and tackling guys and staying healthy or playing 15, 16, 17 years in this league. The things they have to do to stay healthy, all the different therapies from red light therapy to where they get the cell thing. They do all that stuff. I mean they, all they do and they should be. Why wouldn’t you? That’s the thing, I want to call Dom in, Puni, and say this thing where you have to take care of your body over this 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 weeks, from July until possibly February, that’s a lot of banging, a lot of things you need to take care of your body and it’s cumulative. It starts now, it’s year one, then okay, what are you going to look like in year six? And I’ve seen guys, veteran players, here’s the cliff and they fall right off it. If they don’t take care of themselves in the off season and properly train and properly prepare their bodies and take care of themselves, and all of a sudden when their career ends that that decline happens fast. Kind of what’s happened to me in the last two years, it feels like, oh my gosh, I’ve aged 10 in the last two. I thought I was getting old, now I really know it. But it truly, these guys and I really admire how hard he, and like guys like [LB] Fred [Warner] and Christian, they’re obsessed with taking care of their bodies. And you think it’s over the top and it really isn’t if you think about what they’re trying to do and squeezing one more year out, it’s a lot. It’s a lot of money. A lot of things go into squeezing that one more year out. And so I really respect the guys how hard they work to do that and it’s hard. The guys have always said to me in the off seasons, the thing that chases guys out of this thing is the off season. The in-season’s great. They all want to play the games and the games are fun and the games are great, but all the work it takes to get ready to play that season, whether you’re here for OTAs or not, it doesn’t change what those Sundays are, how violent they are, how physical they are, the demand that puts on the players now with short weeks, long weeks, 18 game schedules. Finally, they’re saying, I just can’t do all that anymore. And then ultimately when they get older, it catches up with them and they can’t play a young man’s game anymore. So that’s the part that is really hard to do. So a guy that can do it to the extent that they do it, I’m going on and on because I really respect those guys.

Is that a testament to Trent Williams who is now in year 15, really in the NFL and has a veteran rest stay on Wednesday, but because of that, he’s able to take care of his body and get extra years out of his career.

“Yeah, Trent is different. Trent just is learning that all of a sudden at 36, Trent is just now learning that he needs to take care of himself. I’ll take one step back from that. Trent has really, since I remember when I left in Washington, he changed his diet, really changed his body, started taking care of what he ate. But Trent has always recovered from injury faster. He always had very little treatment time, very little time doing the traditional, these things that Juice and those guys do. Trent just works out and trains and he’s just a phenom. But he is at that point now in his career that he does understand that those things become more important. So he has, Juice has kind of brought him along on a couple things and Trent realizes it does have some value. His is purely, he’s a genetic wonder and that vet day is what he needs. And then a couple little things here and there, but I think if he’s going to make it, and he’s talked about it, he’s not quite bouncing back as quick as he did six years ago. It’s not that he’s not healthy, it’s just you’re older and that ankle injury just doesn’t, I get up in the morning, it’s a little bit harder every morning. Same thing with him. It just eventually, after all those snaps. Right now he looks as good as I’ve seen. I keep saying that. It comes from, what am I doing practicing that guy? It’s just how good he is. His is more genetic. He’s blessed with it more than it is what he’s doing.”