By PHIL BARBER

Is the Pistol offense here to stay in the NFL? It has been one of the most popular big-picture questions all week in New Orleans.

Two days ago, ESPN analyst Trent Dilfer got a chance to weigh in on the topic. Dilfer was an average NFL quarterback, but I hope you will agree that he is among the very best talking heads when it comes to breaking down trends and tactics in the league.

Does Dilfer like the Pistol? You could say so. He calls the system “the greatest tactical advantage offense has had in years.”

“I know it’s here to stay,” Dilfer added, “because there’s no answer for it.”

To study the subject a couple years ago, when zone-read plays were just starting to pop up in the NFL, Dilfer studied what defenses were doing against those plays at their source: high school and college football.

“The answers for college and high school defenses, if you don’t have superior personnel – which, in the NFL, you’re never gonna have a superior personnel advantage across the board – is to play what we call Cover 0, is take your safeties out of the coverage element,” Dilfer said. “If you do that in the NFL, you’re giving up 70-yard touchdowns. … If the corners have no help, it’s over. So that’s the answer. Well, nobody in the NFL is gonna play Cover 0 consistently.”

Dilfer made a distinction that I think has been blurred by a lot of fans and writers this year. The Pistol is a formation, with the quarterback in shallow shotgun formation, and a halfback right behind him. (The 49ers like to run theirs with another back next to the QB, or one on each side in diamond formation.) The read-option is a play on which the quarterback stuffs the ball into the halfback’s gut, and uses the actions of the defensive end or outside linebacker to determine whether to keep the ball or hand it off.

Some NFL teams, including the Niners, are using both in concert, to dramatic effect.

“The Pistol enhances all your other plays that you’ve been running forever,” Dilfer said. “It enhances your play-action, it enhances your zone game, it enhances your power game. It enhances your movement game. You saw (Washington’s) RG3 kind of fake right and boot left off of it.”

But it’s really the read-option that had Dilfer foaming at the mouth.

“Zone-read itself is genius because it’s mathematics,” he said. “It’s addition and geometry. You have a numbers advantage, that’s the addition. But more important than that, you have geometry, you have angles. And in the NFL, when you’re scheming up ball plays, when these mad scientists are in the room and they’re drawing up XO, they’re looking at front differentials. OK?

“They’re looking at how people line up in fronts, backers displacements, blah-blah-blah. And what they’re looking for is angles. Can we get angles to get to the right people to create lanes? That’s all they’re looking for. And they drop all these different plays to get angles. Well, the zone-read part of the Pistol creates automatic angles for your tackles. And I’ve talked to Anthony Davis and Joe Staley about this, and they said, ‘Our lives have changed forever, because we have an advantage on almost every snap we take in the Pistol, because we have these incredible angles.’ ”

Dilfer said he recently filmed a piece for ESPN in which he broke down film of the 49ers’ offensive line in the read-option.

He saw “Anthony Davis take (Green Bay’s) B.J. Raji, one of the best defensive tackles in football, and move him three gaps. Twice. And then Joe Staley on the other side moving another defensive tackle three gaps the other way. That doesn’t happen in the NFL. Or it hasn’t happened for years. And that’s what this offense is allowing them to do. Oh, and by the way? They can throw the ball out of it, and there’s wide-open passing lanes out of it because there’s so much attention trying to cheat the side they think the zone-read’s coming at.”

There are two main counter-arguments you hear from people who say the Pistol and zone-read are fads. One: Remember the Wildcat? It was all the rage three or four years ago. Then NFL defenses figured it out, and it’s already practically obsolete. Dilfer disagrees, saying offensive coaches can always outpace defensive coaches.

The other argument is that your quarterback will get hit too much running the read-option. He will break down over time, and you’ll be forced to abandon the scheme. Dilfer isn’t buying that one, either.

“Teams that have tried to come and hit the quarterback have got torched,” he said. “Because as soon as you bring the unblocked player – we’ll call him the defensive end – up the field at too steep of an angle, you’ve created a running lane for the back, with the angles of the tackle and guard working up to the next level, where the first one who’s gonna touch him is the safety coming from 8 to 10 yards deep.”

Is the Pistol here to stay? If you believe Trent Dilfer, you’d better get used to seeing it.

By PHIL BARBER
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

NEW ORLEANS — Defensive lineman Justin Smith is on the cusp of something he has spent the past 12 years chasing: a Super Bowl championship. Just don’t expect him to talk about it in any detail.

Asked this week to remark on how close he is to fulfilling a dream, Smith replied: “I think that’s something you think about after the season. But right now, just getting as familiar as we can with Baltimore and what they do, and how we’re gonna try to beat ‘em.”

That’s Smith, the Missouri native, the man they call “Cowboy.” Why analyze a situation or open up about your feelings when a simple “yup” or “nope” will suffice?

“One thing, he’s not like a science professor,” defensive lineman Ricky Jean Francois said. “Most dudes when you ask a certain thing, they’re gonna give you a breakdown. He’s a straight shooter. He’s gonna tell you what it is, he’s gonna tell you how to get it done. He’s not gonna break it down to you. Hopefully you get it when he’s giving it to you.”

Fortunately, Smith’s teammates are willing to venture where he will not. They will tell you exactly what he does for the 49ers’ defense, and what his steady presence brings to the locker room.

“He means a lot,” cornerback Carlos Rogers said. “His experience, his ability to draw a double-team for the line — him and Aldon (Smith), the little connection they got up there. … And his experience, his attitude, his work, his leadership, to have other guys follow in the direction that he’s in. He’s a lot to this team.”

Asked how it feels to have Justin Smith in his corner, Aldon Smith replied: “Other than him being a threat and a badass out there, where we all know we got a guy who’s ready to go to war with us? Feels good.”

On the field, Justin Smith affects pretty much every other player on the defense. His ability to tie up blockers was one of the big reasons Aldon Smith was able to set a franchise record with 19½ sacks this season. And the push he gets against offensive linemen, frequently straight up the middle, tends to deform the pocket, which means the defensive backs have to cover their men for one second less.

Justin Smith was a very good player during his seven seasons in Cincinnati. But his abilities weren’t truly showcased until he came to San Francisco and found himself amidst more talented teammates. He has made the Pro Bowl each of the past four seasons. And this year, like last, he was voted All-Pro at two positions, defensive end and defensive tackle.

“He’s a great player,” Jean Francois said. “Hands down, he’s possibly one of the best — I don’t know what they list him as. D-tackle? D-end?”

Told that Smith usually carries a slash on the depth chart, Jean Francois said: “Well, he’s gonna be the best slash player that we have.”

Of course, Smith’s value has always strayed way beyond the field. He is a serious worker in practice, and his weight-room workouts are legendary, as revealed by his barrel chest.

“When I got here, I was like 270, 280 pounds,” Jean Francois noted. “I said, ‘I gotta be like this guy. Every time I walk in the weight room, I gotta make sure I beat him.’ … There’ll be days I go in there, I squat seven plates, and then later that day I try to find out what Justin did. … Even though he’s an older guy, he’s still trying to show that he can hang with you younger guys any time of day.”

Jean Francois, in his fourth NFL season, says it was Smith who taught him to lift through the pain on Monday and Tuesday, which helps the body stay loose later in the week, and later in the season.

Despite being a walking how-to manual on strength and fitness, Smith’s own body betrayed him this season. He tore his triceps against New England in Week 15 and missed two games.

Like Peyton Manning in Indianapolis in 2011, Smith’s value was even more apparent when he wasn’t on the field. The Patriots nearly staged an epic comeback in the second half of that game, and Smith’s injury dovetailed with Aldon Smith’s sack drought; he hasn’t recorded one in five games.

Justin Smith has been wearing a bulky brace on his left arm during practice and games. He doesn’t expect the two-week layoff preceding the Super Bowl to make much of a difference in his recovery.

“That thing is what it is,” he said. “So it’s not gonna heal.”

It would take a lot more than a torn triceps to keep Smith from playing against the Baltimore Ravens — like maybe ebola. This is a guy who doesn’t like to miss regular-season games. He isn’t about to skip the Super Bowl.

“I mean, these don’t come every year, and it’s gonna be tough to keep these type of teams together as well,” Smith said. “So we feel the pressure to get it done, and get it done now.”

Asked if his career could be considered a success without a Super Bowl title, he retreated again.

“I mean, I’d definitely like to win one,” Smith said with a laugh. “Yeah, it’d be good. I’m really not too concerned about … You play as long as you can play, and you’re thankful for the amount you can play and all that.

“I’m not really looking at my career like it’s a legacy or anything.”

Others are, including many of his teammates. Smith is more than an all-pro slash. His work ethic and his passion for the game make him the heartbeat of the 49ers’ defense. And perhaps the ultimate role model during a week in a city that offers an NFL player way too many temptations. “He’s gonna be the common-sense guy,” Jean Francois said. “You know what’s right, you know what’s wrong. You know what you need to do and what you need to not do.”

And if you don’t? Just mimic Justin Smith’s actions. They say a lot more than his words.

By PHIL BARBER

NEW ORLEANS — For an NFL fullback, life is one long meet-and-greet: Meet a linebacker

OPTING TO RUN: Colin Kaepernick ran for 415 yards on 63 carries, averaging 6.6 yards per attempt, during the regular season. In the playoffs, he has 18 rushes for 202 yards, good for 11.2 yards per carry. (JOHN BURGESS/ PD)

in the running lane, and greet him with a helmet to the sternum. The 49ers’ Bruce Miller has gotten to know some very nice linebackers that way, and this Sunday’s game against the Baltimore Ravens will present a unique opportunity.

“There’s a lot of good players in this league,” Miller said, “but to get to go up against Ray Lewis, who’s one of the greats, is exciting for me.”

It’s likely that no player on the Superdome field will draw as much media attention as Lewis, who has announced his intention to retire after a stellar 17-year career that has analysts debating whether he is the best linebacker in NFL history — or possibly the best defensive player at any position.

Miller played linebacker in high school (Woodstock, Ga.) and college (Central Florida), and always followed Lewis’ career closely. Who didn’t? Playing solely for the Ravens, Lewis is a 13-time Pro Bowl pick and a seven-time first-team All-Pro. The only other time Baltimore played in the Super Bowl, after the 2000 season, he was named the most valuable player.

But Lewis has a difficult assignment in Super Bowl XLVII. He’s part of a cast charged with getting a handle on the 49ers’ pistol offense — and, even more specifically, on the zone-read option plays that have been bedeviling defenses.

The Niners aren’t the only team to run the read-option these days. Carolina and quarterback Cam Newton had great success with it in 2011, as did Washington and Robert Griffin III this season. Russell Wilson has run it for Seattle, too.

Each team varies the system in subtle ways — as Baltimore safety Ed Reed noted, the 49ers’ method is different because there is no pitch man — but the basic concept is the same: The quarterback puts the ball in the halfback’s gut while watching the outside-contain man (a defensive end or linebacker), and has the option of either handing off up the middle or keeping the ball and racing to the outside.

Nobody has done it better than Colin Kaepernick and the 49ers. In an NFC divisional playoff game three weeks ago, the Packers keyed on Frank Gore and Kaepernick destroyed them, setting an NFL-quarterback record with 181 rushing yards. Not all of those yards came on the read-option, but many did, including the 56-yard run that gave San Francisco its final lead.

The Falcons learned from the Packers’ mistakes and worked to keep Kaepernick contained in the NFC championship game. So Gore and LaMichael James combined for 124 rushing yards.

The Ravens would seem to have a stronger defense than either of those two NFC opponents. But NFL Films senior producer Greg Cosell, renowned for his rigorous film study, thinks the 49ers have an edge.

“I really believe — and I know this may be blasphemy to some — but Ray Lewis is going to struggle against this offense,” Cosell told Bay Area radio station KNBR last week. “Because they’re going to make him have to run. And I don’t think he’s at the point in his career, in fact I know so, where he’s gonna be able to do that really well. Now, he’s still a terrific between-the-tackles run defender. But the 49ers give you so much more than just ‘here’s Frank Gore up the middle, stop him.’ ”

The 49ers have been speaking more reverently about the veteran linebacker.

“I think he’s playing at a very high level,” offensive coordinator Greg Roman said. “And a lot of our coaches, we all kind of get together and we spend about half a day diving into the opponent. And then we all kind of get together and start talking about it. So the other day one of the comments was just how good he looked.”

For the third time in his career, and the first since 2005, Lewis missed an extended period of time with an injury. He tore his right triceps against the Cowboys on Oct. 14, and the Ravens used the new “designated to return” tag to put him on their injured reserve for the remainder of the regular season. Lewis was back for the playoffs and immediately returned to form. He leads all NFL players with 44 tackles this postseason; next most is 26, by teammate Corey Graham.

“I’ve always said that anytime you can give your body a true rest — not just your body, anytime you can give your mind a certain rest from the game from the every-week wear and tear — when you come back, you come back just as fresh as ever,” Lewis said. “For me right now, I feel fresh. My mind is fresh, my body is fresh and I’m just excited to really be able to end this thing up the right way.”

Of course, Lewis won’t be taking on the 49ers single-handed. Reed is a future Hall of Famer as well, and guys like outside linebacker Terrell Suggs and defensive end Paul Kruger are playing at a high level. All of them are gearing up for the challenge of stopping Kaepernick and the read-option.

“We’re going to have to tackle him,” Baltimore coach John Harbaugh said. “We’re going to have to keep him inside and in front of our defense. We’re not going to be able to run past him. He’s fully capable of putting 200 yards on you in a second, just as capable as Frank Gore is, or any of their running backs. … Assignment football is going to be really important for us.”

To help in those assignments, the Ravens have enlisted a pair of mobile quarterbacks, Tyrod Taylor and Dennis Dixon. Taylor, a second-year player from Virginia Tech, is backup to starter Joe Flacco. Dixon, who ran a vicious spread offense at Oregon, is on Baltimore’s practice squad. You can bet both of them have been running plenty of read-option this week as they do their best to imitate Kaepernick in practice.

“They’re having fun being him,” Suggs said. “It’s a fun offense to run. It’s not a very fun offense to play against.”

(You can reach Staff Writer Phil Barber at phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com.)