Lowell Cohn: Yes, 49ers can win in Seattle: Here's how

SEATTLE

The 49ers can beat the Seahawks, but Chip Kelly has to make adjustments. To himself, as an offensive game planner.

We’re still learning about him. He has an even demeanor and he praises his players and he is well-prepared and smart. All good things.

One other thing. This relates to the kind of coach he is. Synonyms for “kind” would be “style” or “philosophy.” Yes, in the NFL, there are different kinds of coaches. Two kinds in particular.

There are game-plan coaches and there are system coaches. A game-plan coach writes a new playbook for each opponent. A system coach uses the same playbook, the same plays no matter who the opponent is. It’s his system.

Of course, this generalization, this dividing coaches into two styles, is simplistic and crude. It’s merely a working model to aid discussion.

Most coaches fit somewhere in the middle of the continuum - where they should be. Being in the middle shows they have a system they believe in, but also are flexible on a game-by-game basis.

Like Bill Walsh. He was game-plan specific. I’ll get to that in a moment. But he also had a definite system. The three progressions the quarterback reads, scanning his eyes across the field. The short passes to the flat or to Jerry Rice running across the middle. The short passes functioning as a kind of running game, moving the chains forever forward.

But Walsh game-planned for every opponent, designed new plays based on what the opposing defense did, who its players were. Walsh could not help himself. He was a lyric poet who heard his muse 24/7. At 49ers headquarters, he sat at a table, sometimes in a little closet-like room that was not his office, and wrote longhand on a legal-sized yellow tablet. Wrote left-handed.

Once in 1992 when he coached Stanford, he and I watched the tape of his 23-9 win against USC. Watched the first 20 plays - the ones he had scripted. He would show me a play, then explain why he used it.

Maybe he wanted to see how a cornerback reacted, or a linebacker. Stuff like that. And if he liked what he saw, he’d use the play again later - in a critical game moment.

So, Walsh used system and game planning. Was in the middle of the continuum, but veering toward the game-plan side.

What about Jim Harbaugh, a flat-out great coach at every level - college, pro, pee-wee if he gave it a shot?

Harbaugh lives in the middle of the game-plan/system spectrum. He uses a classic under-center, power running game. He uses that running game no matter the opponent. That power is who Harbaugh is - on the field and in his life.

But Harbaugh supplements the system stuff with new wrinkles and surprises every week. He is extremely creative and very smart and he was, after all, a quarterback. He loves the inventive part of offense. And he game plans his new wrinkles and surprises for the specific opponent.

Bill Belichick is different from Walsh and Harbaugh. I’m not saying better or worse, although it’s hard to find anything “worse” about Belichick.

He is way to the game-plan extreme. This is his genius. His offense can look completely different from one week to the next depending on the opponent and the matchup.

Sure, he has certain tendencies. Tom Brady throwing to a tight end, etc. But he is difficult to prepare for because it’s not clear who he will be. On Thursday night, he was reduced to starting his third-string quarterback, Jacoby Brissett, and still found a way to beat the Houston Texans 27-0. A game-plan guy.

Now we come to Chip Kelly. He is the other extreme from Belichick. He is a total system coach. Doesn’t even inhabit the middle like Walsh or Harbaugh.

He changes very little from week to week, and doesn’t make significant halftime adjustments. His philosophy is his system will work if he sticks with it. It’s a matter of application and patience.

Take his running game. He will run the same read-option run play all game, even if it isn’t working. He tells himself the run game will conquer the defense if the Niners do it enough times, and if they do it right.

His run game is incredibly simple and does not contain lots of plays. He wants to do the basics right. That is the key. He is determined and strong-willed, and that is good and that is bad.

Walsh would not stick with things that didn’t work. That was the whole point. He would find something else. He loved finding something else.

If Kelly sticks with his system against Seattle, there could be trouble. For him.

Pete Carroll is an excellent defensive coach who understands Kelly’s system. Has understood it for years. Carroll almost certainly has a sound plan to stop it, just like the Panthers did last week.

The Seahawks are expecting the same old system from Kelly. But he has a chance to grow, to excel, to add new wrinkles to his formula, to present something - anything - the Seahawks won’t be ready for. That’s how to win.

So, come on, Chip. You’re too far to one extreme. Move toward the center. Just a little. You’ll find good company there.

For more on the world of sports in general and the Bay Area in particular, go to the Cohn Zohn at cohn.blogs.pressdemocrat.com. You can reach staff columnist Lowell Cohn at lowell.cohn.pressdemocrat.com.