As I watched the series finale of Task last night, tearing up during Mark Ruffalo’s Oscar bait speech, I got to thinking about what I would do if my son killed my wife.
I moved on pretty quickly after I realised I have neither a son nor a wife and instead started thinking about structure.
Brad Inglesby, the creator of Task, is two for two at creating these incredible little worlds inside Pennsylvania with Task and Mare of Easttown.
The shows are different in tone and in pacing, even in subject matter, but they occupy a similar part of the world and deal with similar themes.
They also each have an established star at the heart of them, with Kate Winslet starring in Mare and Mark Ruffalo in Task.
Those structural posts tentpoles set the stage for a show to flourish.
The stars, who clearly wanted to be entered into the HBO cast of characters (I’d love to see Ruffalo on The White Lotus), come second to the structure that Brad Inglesby has built.
They drop into the structure and elevate the existing, rather than being a structure all to themselves like say Tom Cruise is in…everything.
And I watched it not long after Kyle Shanahan, with his quarterback, top-two receiver, best linebacker, and best defensive end all out, after spending time missing his top tight end, and top tackle, dragged the 49ers to a prime time win against the Falcons all because of structure and a big helping of CMC.
With a team that’s more cursed than Cliff’s attempt to move the dope, Shanahan has the 49ers at 5-2 atop of the NFC West.
Like Inglesby, Shanahan is a genius at creating an ecosystem that allows stars and limited players alike to succeed.
With Mac Jones, the 49ers offensive infrastructure starts with a quarterback who is accurate but has substandard arm strength and is not a great out of structure creator, unlike Purdy.
The receivers that are healthy at the moment: Jennings (ish), Bourne, McCaffrey, and Kittle just returning are mostly not downfield threats.
The running game is limited by an average to bad offensive line built around a fading Trent Williams, and CMC who seems to be missing a bit of the juice he used to have on the ground.
Even with the Falcons game, the 49ers are still 24th in EPA/rush for the season.
So, given that environment, what’s he doing?
He’s throwing the ball short and having his underneath, run after catch threats, run.
Mac Jones is 27th among qualifying quarterbacks in air yards and second in the league in expected completion percentage.
Christian McCaffrey is currently third in the entire NFL in total receptions.
The 49ers lead the league in YAC.
It’s genuine point and shoot stuff for Mac, who is a bit like Grosso in that when it’s working as it should be is very capable, but when he’s left to make things up on the fly people get run over.
Shanahan has always been a guy that prioritises throwing underneath and over the middle to get his guys RAC opportunities, but this with no downfield threats, no creativity and quarterback and no run game, he’s taken it to a different level.
That underneath passing game, rather than complimenting what is usually a dominant run game, has replaced it all while having his backup quarterback at the controls.
It’s almost back to a Jimmy Garoppolo world with more offset runs, a less play action, and fewer stars.
That’s structure.
Shanahan doing a version of his offensive principles, but he’s leant harder into the simplest things, with the limited players that he has at his disposal.
Christian McCaffrey as the one superstar helps, but this is the Kyle Shanahan show.
And here I’m just talking about offensive structure, rather than the overall structure of the franchise that he’s created where he’s become an incubator for defensive co-ordinator talent.
How many players in the entire NFL would you rather have than a guy that can do what Kyle Shanahan is doing for the next two seasons so we don’t take current injuries into account?
Clearly, you’d rather the superstar quarterbacks Patrick, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, and probably Joe Burrow.
I think you’d also rather the next tier of Justin Herbert, Baker Mayfield, and Matthew Stafford.
After that, it’s tough.
You’d still probably rather have Jayden Daniels than Shanahan but after that, you’d be hard pressed to make a case for anyone else.
There’s not a single receiver or lineman I’d take over Shanahan when he can just turn Kendrick Bourne into Jerry Rice and make any offensive line redundant by having his guy throw the ball out quick.
That’s partly because line play feels down generally across the league.
In terms of defensive players, it would need to be a pass rusher. You could make arguments about Myles Garrett or Micah Parsons, or even Nik Bonnito who is the clubhouse leader for defensive player of the year.
You’d lose all those arguments.
It’s hard to score points in the NFL and seems to be getting harder.
Having a guy like Kyle Shanahan, who is kind of the NFL’s Nicola Jokic in that you just open up a can of Kyle and get a top-10 offence by every efficiency metric is almost impossible to replace with any player other than a quarterback.
That’s what the great ones do.
Like Brad Inglesby, he’s a genius at creating an incubator where stars and more limited people can flourish equally.
Unlike Brad Inglesby, he’s unlikely to get sappy and give a rat a redemption arc.