Analysis from the Atlanta Falcons game coaches film

BTW: Everyone knows how much I hate the off-coverage esp. on 3rd downs and esp. in games where the pressures isn't getting their quick enough (sometimes b/c the QB is throwing so quickly). But this Brock play is HUGE. Why? The Falcons called an AR2 on this one. The goal was to pick off Rogers with Davis inside (which he does easily) and then the outside WR (Douglas) is to slant inside for an uncontested TD. If Brock doesn't pull a Gore/CK here (say's "Eff it! I'm doing my own thing here!") and just sprints to the ball and blows up that play, it's an easy TD! If Brock plays his "man" or off coverage here, he's beat inside and it's clear sailing to the EZ on an all-out blitz.

Side note: Bowman may have been the only other one who would have had a shot on the quick slant.

You see Decoud about to crap his pants ...

jonnydel, from your post #27, it seems that the tight coverage of ATL corners paid off for them. They started playing only 5 yards off our WRs, then post-snap, they even closed the gap more. This move, as you pointed out, took away Kap's first 4 reads, forcing him to go to his 5th read, a dump-off to Gore, which Kap did well to get to. So this seems to me like a "win" for the defense.
On the other hand, it seems to me (and I may very well be wrong), that our DBs usually play about 8 yards off their men, and rely on their closing speed to break on the routes to knock the ball down or tackle their opponents before they can get the first down. The problem is this gives the opponent a good chance to get >5 yards on the play, setting up a manageable down-and-distance situation, or if the WR can slip the tackle, he can easily get the first down.

Originally posted by JiksJuicy:
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

The play looked like we were in better position than we were from the broadcast.



Here the defensive look ATL gave at the snap of the ball. They disguise this play really well. They give the 2 deep safety look over a cover 2 zone, which is exactly the coverage we are looking for with this play. It's an in/out read on the 2 receiver side with VD and Boldin with Gore being the outlet. But, ATL comes with a crazy double corner zone blitz. In reality, they are playing cover 3 zone, the MLB becomes the free safety and the safeties move to the CB deep 3rd. The DT's drop into LB middle coverage with the OLB's dropping into outside coverage. It looks like an all-out blitz, but really, it's a 4 man rush.



We run a play action fake in case they are running a tampa 2 coverage. But, this causes Kaep to turn his back to the defense. This is what keeps him from being able to see the blitz from the defense right away.



You see how all the defenders are in position on the receivers for their streaks. They have separation but the defenders are able to keep their eyes on Kaep from their zones to jump any routes. If he tries to force the ball into one of those guys, it's gonna get picked.



Kaep has to escape the pocket from the blitzing CB and Gore has to stay in pass pro instead of his checkdown because of the other corner.



You see what Kaep saw the moment he turned back around from the play fake. He see's a corner running full speed at him and the DB's in position. He does escape the pocket and almost makes an incredible play to Davis, Boone is called for a penalty cause he tried to chase the DT into coverage thinking he was supposed to be blocking the guy.

Originally posted by ace52:
jonnydel, from your post #27, it seems that the tight coverage of ATL corners paid off for them. They started playing only 5 yards off our WRs, then post-snap, they even closed the gap more. This move, as you pointed out, took away Kap's first 4 reads, forcing him to go to his 5th read, a dump-off to Gore, which Kap did well to get to. So this seems to me like a "win" for the defense.
On the other hand, it seems to me (and I may very well be wrong), that our DBs usually play about 8 yards off their men, and rely on their closing speed to break on the routes to knock the ball down or tackle their opponents before they can get the first down. The problem is this gives the opponent a good chance to get >5 yards on the play, setting up a manageable down-and-distance situation, or if the WR can slip the tackle, he can easily get the first down.

It wasn't that they were playing "bump" coverage, it's that the corners were playing "flat" responsibility(0-5 yards from the LOS, outside the hash marks). We do this, just not as often. Because, it leaves the middle of the field much more vulnerable to attack. Where we've had breakdowns is from our LB's and S's in the flat responsibility. A great example of when we do this is Brock's pick six against Houston, we show the off coverage, then send the CB to flat responsibility trapping the QB. When we played more "press" coverage during the game it wasn't as effective.

s**t, the double corner blitz looks like a crazy hard spot for Kap. Much different than the broadcast look. This analysis is priceless for us junkies. Without these looks, most of us really do talk out of our asses...

i have a massive boner

Some had asked about the pass rush:



ATL uses a 6 man protection against our 4 rushers. Not how Aldon pretty much power cleans the LT



Both Aldon and Brooks beat their men and Justin Smith get's off of his guy as well



This forces Ryan to get the ball out quick. Both the Smith's are closing quick.



You can see Ryan got pummeled right after throwing the ball, the pass was incomplete. This was what a lot of his completions looked like too. We tend to not see these things on the broadcast cause we follow the ball when it's thrown. Also, they were getting the ball out of Ryan's hands pretty quick on most of his pass plays. Quick as in- under 2.5 seconds. On some of the longer plays Ryan either made some amazing escapes from the pocket that we don't normally see from him, or they brought a "max" protection with 7-8 men in to block.

One note about the off coverage as well. I covered it in my first Seahawks thread, but beyond that. Look at the overall results. I know it's frustrating to see short yardage conversions, but if the other team is in a short yardage situation they have an inherent advantage. Our overall results are better than just about everyone else. We haven't given up more than 27 points in any game this year. No other defense has done that. We're near the top in scoring defense and overall defense. The results speak for themselves. It's not about necessarily stopping the other team from converting 3rd and short, but stopping them from getting into the endzone.

Here's another example of the pass rush:


This time they make sure to chip Smith with the back and the T engages him after that, also, they double team Jerrod Eddie.



We have two guys who have got an alley from Ryan by the time he looks at his primary read. His read is taken away and he starts to feel the rush.



Ryan ends up pump faking twice(over this pic and the next) just to keep the rush off of him.




It looks like he should get sacked here.



Ryan somehow escaped and gets the ball away incomplete. The rush may have not gotten there, but it kept him from really being able to go through his progressions and forced him out of the pocket where he isn't comfortable.

Originally posted by NCommand:
BTW: Everyone knows how much I hate the off-coverage esp. on 3rd downs and esp. in games where the pressures isn't getting their quick enough (sometimes b/c the QB is throwing so quickly). But this Brock play is HUGE. Why? The Falcons called an AR2 on this one. The goal was to pick off Rogers with Davis inside (which he does easily) and then the outside WR (Douglas) is to slant inside for an uncontested TD. If Brock doesn't pull a Gore/CK here (say's "Eff it! I'm doing my own thing here!") and just sprints to the ball and blows up that play, it's an easy TD! If Brock plays his "man" or off coverage here, he's beat inside and it's clear sailing to the EZ on an all-out blitz.

Side note: Bowman may have been the only other one who would have had a shot on the quick slant.

I do respectfully disagree about Brock "doing his own thing" there. Every other time in the game when we were in man coverage playing off, our corners did aggressively jump the routes. Sometimes it was thrown to Gonzales instead, other times it was thrown to White who used his big body to shield the ball from the defender. Brock did what both Rogers and Brown had done in man coverage against their receiver running a slant. He just made a little better play. But, if he was "pressing" the receiver, it would've been a walk in TD.

Here's then how our successful passing out of our heavy sets set-up the biggest offensive play of the game.



You see the "22" personnel, with Boldin being the only WR on the field. But, because we had passed so effectively out of this formation/personnel on the previous 2 possessions ATL runs a 2 deep safety defense.



Because they have 2 deep safeties, it's only a 7 man box against 8 possible blockers. That's a win for the offense any day.



We're going to run a power off the TE. Gruden would call this "96 power" Iupati is going to pull and kick out the end man on the LOS, Dixon leads up into the hole on the LB



The O-line walls off the D-line, while Goodwin and Staley get to the 2nd level on the LB's. Iupati destroys the little corner trying to come up in run support and Dixon gets a good block on the LB



Hunter gets through the hole and ends up 1-1 with the safety. This was a great play design and execution after setting the defense up for this look.



Hunter only has to make one man miss and he's off for a 45 yard gain.

This is how Roman stayed one step ahead of the defense during the 2nd half.

Originally posted by jonnydel:
Here's another example of the pass rush:


This time they make sure to chip Smith with the back and the T engages him after that, also, they double team Jerrod Eddie.



We have two guys who have got an alley from Ryan by the time he looks at his primary read. His read is taken away and he starts to feel the rush.



Ryan ends up pump faking twice(over this pic and the next) just to keep the rush off of him.




It looks like he should get sacked here.



Ryan somehow escaped and gets the ball away incomplete. The rush may have not gotten there, but it kept him from really being able to go through his progressions and forced him out of the pocket where he isn't comfortable.

JD, you have analyzed 2 of the 9 incompletions Matt Ryan threw during the game. How did the pass rush do on some of his 37 completions? When an offense keeps in 6-8 blockers per play, you would imagine that our 7 pass defenders would be able to shut down the 2-4 available receivers. With no spy on Ryan.

But, this did not happen consistently. Would rushing 5+ have helped the overall efficiency of our pass d? Would changing rush looks have helped?

Originally posted by brodiebluebanaszak:
JD, you have analyzed 2 of the 9 incompletions Matt Ryan threw during the game. How did the pass rush do on some of his 37 completions? When an offense keeps in 6-8 blockers per play, you would imagine that our 7 pass defenders would be able to shut down the 2-4 available receivers. With no spy on Ryan.

But, this did not happen consistently. Would rushing 5+ have helped the overall efficiency of our pass d? Would changing rush looks have helped?

not counting the 5 completions Ryan had in the last minute of the game(don't really count to me)

Of his 32 completions, 16-17 of those were passes that were thrown in about 2-2.5 seconds. Some even less. You can't really expect a pass rush to get there in that amount of time. ATL, because of the pressure I showed on those incompletions, started using a lot of short, quick passes to slow down the rush. On his other completions, twice he escaped the pocket, they ran play action to slow the pass rush down with 6-7 men blocking, Ryan made some pinpoint throws into tight coverage just as the rush was getting there and there were just a handful of plays where we were just beat.

There were a lot of things going on there. Yes, Ryan had a lot of completions, but, he also had a lot of completions on 3rd down when they didn't convert. Just because we gave up some completions isn't a bad thing in and of itself. If you look at the play by play review, there's a lot of "Ryan passes short" kind of things. In the end, it was two bad calls that gave ATL two of their TD's against us.

We did rush 5 quite a few times, as well as trying different stunts. However, when the opposing team is running a lot of short, quick patterns, blitzing or stunting doesn't help too much because they take longer than 2 seconds to get there. The best defense is usually coverage. We won on the Bowman interception, but that's not something you want to do that often. It was a great call at the right time. But you can't do that all game.

Great analysis guys!