Analysis from the Atlanta Falcons game coaches film

Originally posted by brodiebluebanaszak:
JohnnyD, thanks for putting up this thread. I look forward to your breakdowns and I appreciate the time and insight you provide.

My take on the game was pretty frustrating again, and it appeared to me that it took literally a miracle to get the win last week.

We performed positively on offense in the 2nd half -- I really liked the all run drive. that was the first time I couldn't consistently guess what we were going to do this season.

But, just as we began producing, our defense could not stand up to the competition.

I am very interested in hearing your thoughts on our pass rush, because it seems like it disappeared during the game. Regardless of the analysis, the results were not there. Do you have suggestions for how we could have been more effective against the schemes showed by the Falcons?

Why do you say the miracle play was off coverage -- it looked like designed press coverage due to the all out blitz. Brock was on Douglas right away which made possible the jimmy jammy defending action that made the ball available to Bowman for our xmas miracle.

This is the second game in a row where the other teams qb has had their way with us for a significant stretch of the game. I'm a little concerned about this because 4 games ago I foresaw our defense as being able to close out other teams in the playoffs and that has not happened the last two weeks.

Do you feel that there are any actions we can take -- such altered personnel rotation, or moving away from our reliance on 4 man rush -- that would reduce the incidence of this occurring in the playoffs? Also, do you think we can be adjusting to the other teams in-game strategies faster, more rapidly? Sometimes I think we go dormant because we are not incorporating what we see as quickly as our competitors.

Here's why the off coverage helped:



As most of us know, we ran an all out blitz. Really, it's cover 0 with no safety in the middle of the field. We blitz with playing man-man, anyone who's man stays in pass pro blitzes. They run a 2 receiver set to the bottom of the screen. ATL tries to run a pick type of screen play at the bottom. They run the inside receiver up the field to block on his DB while Douglas cuts underneath. Our off coverage helps in 2 ways. 1- it allows for Brock to read the play, 2- it prevents Brock from getting "picked off" by the inside receiver/DB. That's why the 2 DB's are staggered in their depth to prevent the pick play.



You see how Brock is able to jump the route immediately, Also, because Rogers is farther off the inside receiver can't create a screen to wall Brock off from the play.



A little more of the same from this angle to show how Brock has room to jump the route.



This is how Brock is able to knock the ball free and Bowman peeled off his blitz when he saw the pass thrown, solid defense, run to the ball.

Originally posted by SFsFinest:
Johnny, I'm just curious. How long does it take to break down a full game? How many times do you have to watch one play to dissect the many different position battles you're watching.

It takes about 3 hours to get an idea about the game.

Well, what I usually do is:
1st, just watch the whole game through, with coaches film it's silent. There's not broadcast guy talking and no commercials or timeouts or any stoppages. They show the scoreboard so you can see where in the game it is(quarter, clock, score, down and distance) and then once the offense breaks the huddle and once the play is called dead.
Through that you can get a good feel for the rhythm of the game and play calling. It shows each play from the "all-22" angle and then the endzone angle.

Things move pretty quick so you have to know what you're looking for. But, you get an idea of overall performance of the different positions of the team(o-line, receivers, LB's, DB's etc.)

When a particular play sticks out to me, I might watch it a couple times to see exactly what happened(either good or bad). Then, I watch the game again, this time I'll replay any of the plays I wasn't sure what happened to see all the individual moving parts to see exactly what happened.

All in all it takes me 2-3 hours. If I was doing an extensive breakdown with scouting reports on players and trying to determine exact tendencies, I'd probably spend an hour or two more on each game.

Originally posted by jonnydel:
Here's the play where Kaep got to his 5th read. This was really impressive to me.



Ok, this is a classic WCO play. They run mirror patterns on both sides of the field. This type of play is in all the WCO playbooks I've looked through - I'd show the play art from the playbook, but that'll probably come later as each playbook is like 300+ pages long and it'd take a long time to find the exact play. But, it's a "pick a side" read progression. The QB, depending on the side they pick has the progression as outlined.



At the snap, Kaep chooses the right side of the field(bottom of the screen) he see's the corner's first move is not back, but steps forward to close the gap on Boldin. The LB has good position on the TE(reads 1&2), so Kaep moves on.



On the other side of the field Kaep see's the corner in position to jump Crab's as well as the safety jumping the TE route(reads 1&2) on that side(he's gone through reads 1-4



From there he moves to his outlet RB(Frank) to dump off in the middle of the field(5th read).



You see here how he first looks to his right for his first 2 reads.



Here he's moved to his left(reads 3&4)



Finally, he gets to his outlet to Frank. It's only a 6 yard gain, but, that is a huge step for him, it's really encouraging. These are the kind of plays he struggled with earlier, as well as, this is classic WCO ball control passing.

Just going through the coach's film and finished with 1st half. This play here was a playcall against the wrong coverage. 49ers ran a smash to each side against man coverage. The playcall fails against this coverage and Kap went to the check down. What I wanted to see here was quick coverage recognition, to get to the checkdown. It was okay in terms of how quickly (time) he went to the checkdown. The Oline held up well on this play to allow Kap to get to the 5th option Gore. Kap did well to take the check down. It set up a manageable 3rd and 4 (failed to convert).

Here's an example of what I talked about in the OP about our heavy TE sets setting up the pass plays.



Here I've highlighted the 3 TE, Crabtree is the only WR on the field. This forces ATL into a single safety look with the single safety rotating over to the 3 TE side(we've unbalanced the formation). We're actually looking for a cover "2" here, with the progression as follows against a "tampa 2", the idea is that against cover 2 the read is on the S, if he stays in on Davis you can hit McD outside, if he goes outside, you hit Davis over the middle. That's why we run play action to hold the "tampa" LB(in the tampa 2 the MLB takes the deepest man in the middle of the field so the play fake holds the MLB up). If neither of those are open, you hit the outlet in the flat. Here's where Kaep makes a great pre-snap read seeing ATL is in a cover 3 zone look, knowing his primary route combo is taken, he switches to the secondary route(Crabs) You see by the blue square how much room Crabtree has on that side of the field because of the heavy TE set.



The run fake hold the LB's up.



You see how ATL is playing the cover 3, with the high safety covering Davis' seam route. All the TE's are covered because ATL ran the right defense against this route combo. However, because of the play action and the LB being held up, it leaves a lot of room for Crab's to work his inside leverage over the middle.



You see how the middle of the field is open. Kaep takes advantage and hits Crabtree for a big gain.



Crabs makes a good catch and gets a few yards after the catch. When you think back to the first play I showed, this shows how ATL had to change it's defense because we were running the ball so effectively from our heavy sets, so it sets up favorable matchups in the passing game.

Originally posted by thl408:
Just going through the coach's film and finished with 1st half. This play here was a playcall against the wrong coverage. 49ers ran a smash to each side against man coverage. The playcall fails against this coverage and Kap went to the check down. What I wanted to see here was quick coverage recognition, to get to the checkdown. It was okay in terms of how quickly (time) he went to the checkdown. The Oline held up well on this play to allow Kap to get to the 5th option Gore. Kap did well to take the check down. It set up a manageable 3rd and 4 (failed to convert).

Same thoughts exactly. As a play caller, he's not going to win every time, that's why they have checkdowns. It's just really good to see Kaep moving through his progressions to get to the check down.

BTW the conversion failed because the line gave up quick pressure on the next play and Kaep couldn't set his feet and made a really poor throw, good call on that play, poor execution, which killed the drive.

Here's another example of how the heavy sets allowed for positive pass plays.

This time we run 21 Personnel, but motion into a 22 Personnel look.



I've highlighted the TE and FB with Anquan Boldin at the bottom of the screen.



We motion AB into a "U" (2nd TE)back set and we're going to run a PA fake to the left with a hi/lo read to Boldin and VD. Crabtree is the 3rd option.



The outside corner bites hard on the play fake opening up a huge hole in the zone.



Right when Kaep turns around he see's the corner has bit super hard on the play fake and a WIDE open Crabs. He throws it right to Crabs who sat down in his zone.



We get the catch and a first down. This was the next drive after the previous crabs play I showed. Another example of how our run success opened up the passing game.

Originally posted by Garcia:
Looked like Kap over threw him , didn't look like even if McD didn't fall he wouldn't have had a chance to catch it

Also to OP

Didn't read entire post but most of it, great insight and thanks for the review

You are seriously blind

Excellent analysis.

I really admire your insights and the info you laid out details things I didn't see at all.

I'm with you Jonny on many of this. I did my first half analysis and had VERY few passing completions (7); we blew up so many and credit to Atlanta's scheme as well. And no, the 2Q is not a typo.

Overall, I had:
1Q:
AR1 @ 11:35 Crabtree @ X (wide left) position, VD on the right side of the OL and McDonald in the Y (right slot) and Boldin @ the Z (wide right) position. Crabtree runs a go-route while VD flares out for 2 yards and CK quickly hits Boldin for 5 on the outside as his DB was playing off him.
AR1 @ 10:26 Boldin in motion from the X position to the Y (slot right), VD is on the left side of the OL and McDonald is lined up on the right side of the OL and Crabtree is @ the Z. Quick outside-inside slant to Boldin for 14 while Crabtree runs the typical go-route and McDonald runs upfield a few yards and 90-degrees left pulling the defense slightly. Ball was thrown behind Boldin otherwise, if out in front, Boldin may still be running.
AR2 @ 2:35 Crabtree @ the X position, Celek @ the Y (slot left), McDonald in motion from right slot to left while Boldin is @ the Z. Quick slant to Crabtree while Celek and McDonald are out in front blocking. Crabtree for 3 yards. It seemed like there was confusion between McDonald and Celek on who to block.
AR2 @ 1:50 Crabtree @ the X, VD in the Y (slot left), Boldin out wide in the (slot Y) and Patton is @ the Z. All-out blitz and Patton curls inside picking Boldin's man while Boldin curls outside for a nice gain of 20.
PS @ :22 Crabtree @ the X, Osgood @ the Y (slot left), Boldin @ the Y (slot right) and Gore @ the Z. BTW: The 4 WR set is a dead give-away on a PS passing design (sometimes it resembles a WCO call or Spread). CK in shotgun scans left then comes back to Osgood for 9.

2Q:
AR1 @ 15:00 Jumbo formation (No WR's) with only VD on the left side of the line @ the Y (slot left) and Kilgore on the right side of the OL (right slot). Tukuafu blows up his pass protection and the AR1 (VD) is covered while CK scrambles. Kilgore really isn't a viable option here and VD doesn't come back for the ball. Sack.
PS @ 2:22 Crabtree @ the X, Celek @ the Y (slot left), McDonald @ the Y (slot right) and Boldin @ the Z. Gore flares out and CK hits him for 5!!!!

Read more at http://www.49erswebzone.com/forum/niners/168162-greg-roman-really-good/page149/#2SjvfHCklErPHWQk.99

Originally posted by verb1der:

Originally posted by Bluesbro:

Originally posted by verb1der:

that's me in this thread!

Originally posted by thl408:

Originally posted by jonnydel:
Here's the play where Kaep got to his 5th read. This was really impressive to me.



Ok, this is a classic WCO play. They run mirror patterns on both sides of the field. This type of play is in all the WCO playbooks I've looked through - I'd show the play art from the playbook, but that'll probably come later as each playbook is like 300+ pages long and it'd take a long time to find the exact play. But, it's a "pick a side" read progression. The QB, depending on the side they pick has the progression as outlined.



At the snap, Kaep chooses the right side of the field(bottom of the screen) he see's the corner's first move is not back, but steps forward to close the gap on Boldin. The LB has good position on the TE(reads 1&2), so Kaep moves on.



On the other side of the field Kaep see's the corner in position to jump Crab's as well as the safety jumping the TE route(reads 1&2) on that side(he's gone through reads 1-4



From there he moves to his outlet RB(Frank) to dump off in the middle of the field(5th read).



You see here how he first looks to his right for his first 2 reads.



Here he's moved to his left(reads 3&4)



Finally, he gets to his outlet to Frank. It's only a 6 yard gain, but, that is a huge step for him, it's really encouraging. These are the kind of plays he struggled with earlier, as well as, this is classic WCO ball control passing.

Just going through the coach's film and finished with 1st half. This play here was a playcall against the wrong coverage. 49ers ran a smash to each side against man coverage. The playcall fails against this coverage and Kap went to the check down. What I wanted to see here was quick coverage recognition, to get to the checkdown. It was okay in terms of how quickly (time) he went to the checkdown. The Oline held up well on this play to allow Kap to get to the 5th option Gore. Kap did well to take the check down. It set up a manageable 3rd and 4 (failed to convert).

This is my absolute, most favorite play. Even though it was only for a positive 5 yards it was the IDEA that CK had time to scan the field and then come all the way back to his check down, sees him and fires, taking what the defense gave him. Just getting him to even THINK about the check down is huge! And I hope it becomes symbolic going forward on these PS plays or blown up AR's.

Cant remember when this play was, but I took this shot of my TV. Was hoping you could break it down for me or at least provide better film. Pretty sure it was the beginning of the third or something. I believe he threw to VD in the middle of the field into double coverage and luckily they called a horrible PI. Even Rice said it was a horrible call. I thought he had these guys 1 on 1 and should of went there instead of to the middle of the field. But I could be wrong

On Kaep's TD run, Kaep made a wonderful adjustment at the line to audible for the TD



Here we go with a 3 WR set which ATL counters with a nickel defense. Only, they go with a 3-3-5 Nickel(3 D-Line, 3 LB, 5 DB)



You see here how Kaep is changing the play.



You see here ATL's front. They have 8 in the box, but, 2 of those are DB's and the end man on the LOS is a LB. Kaep see's the opportunity for a mismatch.



You see Kaep has brought Gore over to be the FB on a 94 power play. The Davis' combo on the 4 technique(head up on the T) with VD scraping off onto the LB, Boone Z's down onto the nose tackle Goodwin slides over to help on the backside 3 technique(inside shade of the T). Gore is responsible to kick out the end man on the LOS, the LB. This brings Iupati pulling around 1-1 with the FS Decoud(that's not even fair).



You see how they leave the endman on the backside of the play unblocked, this allows them to get number on the 8 man box.



You see how Gore does a heck of a job kicking out the LB and Davis does a good job of getting to the 2nd level and blocking the LB. This means Decoud would have to stuff Iupati in the hole to stop this play.



You see Decoud about to crap his pants, and the backside safety is the only one in position to stop Kaep, but Kaep's speed is too much.



Kaep dives in the for the score. It was great "front" recognition by Kaep to see the advantage they had against the defense. This is another example of his strong play in this game.