
Words don’t mean anything to the 49ers’ offense anymore.
Delay-of-game penalties and being rushed to get the snap off in time at the line of scrimmage should be things of the past for the 49ers under coach Chip Kelly and his new scheme.
And the key is that the 49ers are not talking about it.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Bay Area and California sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
“The biggest thing is grasping it,” 49ers wide receiver Torrey Smith said of the new offense. “It’s like learning a new language for us -- and sign language at that. It’s different, but it’s very organized and very detailed the way they teach it.”
To be clear, it’s literally sign language that the 49ers are implementing to replace the cumbersome words to describe formations, assignments and adjustments.
“It’s a lot of signals and things like that,” Smith said. “So if you don’t know, you don’t know. You have to be on your job and continue to work away from here.”
A week ago, Smith said the offense started to look the way it’s designed as the 49ers concluded a voluntary veteran minicamp just prior to the draft. The 49ers are wrapping up their fifth week of the team's offseason program.
San Francisco 49ers
Find the latest San Francisco 49ers news, highlights, analysis and more with NBC Sports Bay Area and California.
“This offense, I think personally, is easy to learn, once you get it down,” tight end Garrett Celek said. “There’s a reason we can go so fast. It’s a simple offense. Once it clicks, we can just go, go, go.”
And the reason, Celek said, it is easy is because there are no longer lengthy verbal descriptions of the play calls transmitted to the quarterback, who, in the past, would relay the message to the other 10 players in the huddle. Now, there is no huddle, as all players immediately look to the sideline as the play is communicated through a variety of signals.
“In the past we had a lot of delay-of-games because either we’re not getting the play in time from upstairs or it’s just taking the quarterback too long to read the whole play out,” Celek said.
“Where now, it’s a lot quicker. We have hand signals, so you can’t have 15 words through hand signals, stuff like that. It’s got to be boom, boom, boom. So when you got less verbiage, it’s easier to remember. It’s kind of genius.”
Smith, who entered the NFL in 2011 with the Baltimore Ravens from the University of Maryland, has never been in an offense in which the players on the field were required to look to the sideline for play calls. Some of the team’s younger players came from college programs where that was the norm.
“The biggest thing with learning a new offense is speeding it up,” Celek said. “If you have to think a lot, you’re going to slow down. So once you figure everything out, everyone can move faster and make plays.”
The 49ers’ offensive tempo is much faster, even in practice. It’s not that the 49ers are doing more running during their workouts. But there is less time between plays for a player to catch his breath.
“It’s quicker. You’re up to the line,” Smith said. “I like it because I’m always the last person to jog back to the huddle anyway. Now, it’s getting lined up and knowing what you’re doing. You can catch your breath there and catch the defense off guard. (We’re) just getting through the conditioning part and continuing to learn the offense.”
Veteran guard Zane Beadles, a free-agent acquisition, said he played some up-tempo offense during his time with the Denver Broncos and believes it suits his game.
“When you’re playing fast and defenses don’t have time to line up and get their hand in the ground, it definitely gives you an advantage offensively,” Beadles said.
“Everybody is positive about it so far. There’s still plenty to be installed and plenty to work on. But I think everybody can see the benefits. Definitely, at times, you get a little winded and you get a little tired. We’re going to be in great shape, that’s for sure.”