Film analysis

Here's the first play from scrimmage for our offense. It was actually designed to be a run. It's a package play, where it's a run with a pass option.



We come out with a Twins left set. Dallas comes out with a 2 deep safety look, they reveal it's going to be a cover 2 zone because the corner at the top is on the LOS outside Davis. If it was man coverage, they would have that corner on the other side of the field on Boldin. So, CK see's that he's got 2 deep safeties and only one defender with 2 receivers - those are good numbers.


You can see that all the lineman fire out in run blocking.



You see how Iupati is completely engaged in run blocking - he's turned his guy and all, but, CK threw the ball. He gets it to Boldin with a blocker out in front and a lot of real estate to work with. The safety makes a decent play on the ball, but Boldin breaks his tackle and gets an easy chunk of yards.

Here's one example of how Wilhoite needs to get better in his pass drops:



On this play we're going to run a cover 3 zone defense. Bethea is going to rotate over to a the single safety and Reid will come down into the box.



Dallas is going to run a skinny post on from at the bottom, a drag from the TE and an out from the top. They run play action to pull the LB's up to open up a zone in the middle of the field. You see how it pulls Willis, Wilhoite and Ward up a little bit.



Ward and Willis recognize the play action sooner than Wilhoite, who's late in his drop.



You see how much deeper Willis is than Wilhoite by this time and how big of a hole is opened up.



You can see both Ward and Willis get good depth on their drops, but Wilhoite doesn't



When Romo throws the ball, because Wilhoite didn't get good depth on his drop, it's left a hole for Romo to get the ball into. If Wilhoite is as deep as Willis, this play is busted.



He tries to make up for it, but it's too late. 18 yard gain.

you are awesome

Originally posted by jonnydel:
got flagged for a couple holds and totally whiffed on a few blocks and gave up some pressures. It will be good to get Boone back. Same thing with Martin, he played better in the first half, but, nothing to make me get excited for - those two guys do provide some better depth though as they are both better at their positions than Snyder was at either.

Absolutely love the summary but couldn' disagree more with this one. We watch the OL play very closely and WRATH has even provided a detailed analysis for reference. But it's OK to agree to disagree on this one.

If everyone in NT read this they might know how to be loud when the team in on defense and quiet when the team is on offense

MIGHT

Here's another example from Wilhoite:



Here we're going to run a different version of a of a cover 3 zone. This is a way that a few teams will run this from time to time. I've seen it in Gruden's playbook when talking about certain defenses. What happens is, it's zone, unless the first guy running through your zone goes vertical, then it becomes man coverage and you follow the receiver through that zone. This is to allow the safety to play aggressively for any over the middle throws. This means though, that the LB on the 2 receiver side has to be very aware and keep in communication with the DB on that side to identify the vertical route and take the flat coverage. It's a tall order, but, one that I've seen both Willis and Bow execute well over the past couple years.

Dallas is going to run a double post pattern on the top of the field - which means Wilhoite should switch to a flat coverage.



You see how the guys at the bottom drop into their zone, Romo is trying to read the safety, but because it's a variation of zone, the safety doesn't drop deep at all (partially because the back of the end zone is there - one reason to run this coverage in the red zone).



Ward squeezes his receiver towards the safety and Willis, this is where Wilhoite has to recognize the play and get on his horse to his flat responsibility, but he continues to drop. The inside post wouldn't be open if Wilhoite heads to the flat because of the shallow safety and Willis's position. This is what is great about this coverage. Because Wilhoite doesn't get on his horse right away, it leaves a huge zone open on the field.



You see Romo flare it out to the RB and how much space the RB has to work with. Here's another difference between Wilhoite and Willis or Bow, those guys have the speed to make up for any mistakes like this - he doesn't.



The RB is able take the ball to the 2 yard line.

could you please break down how awesome Dan Skuta is

Originally posted by NCommand:

Originally posted by jonnydel:
got flagged for a couple holds and totally whiffed on a few blocks and gave up some pressures. It will be good to get Boone back. Same thing with Martin, he played better in the first half, but, nothing to make me get excited for - those two guys do provide some better depth though as they are both better at their positions than Snyder was at either.

Absolutely love the summary but couldn' disagree more with this one. We watch the OL play very closely and WRATH has even provided a detailed analysis for reference. But it's OK to agree to disagree on this one.

Absolutely ok to disagree. My stance just came from a couple things:
He rarely got to the 2nd level on his run blocks, whereas Iupati did very well at that this game. He got beat across his face by the DT several times on both running plays and passing plays. Gore's run that went for -2 yards, Looney got beat across his face and the DT was able to stuff the play. He also wasn't able to move guys around or turn his hips and hook guys like Boone or Iupati can. But, like everything, I don't see everything on every play so it's more an overall impression.

I don't think he played a horrible game, I just felt that his was the least best(if that makes any sense)

Originally posted by SoCold:
could you please break down how awesome Dan Skuta is

Working on it, probably won't come for a few hours though, I worked through a lot of the initial stuff last night and got a lot of the plays ready to post for this morning, so I have a bunch of plays ready to breakdown already.

But, I can say this about what I saw. He plays with good leverage, understands his responsibilities and is a good open field tackler. He's not a game changing pass rusher and doesn't have the physical gifts of Aldon or Lemonier, but, his fundamentals are excellent and he's a smart football player. That's why he's getting the nod, you can tell this is a guy who works at his craft - happy for him to be getting this opportunity.

Originally posted by jonnydel:

Originally posted by SoCold:
could you please break down how awesome Dan Skuta is

Working on it, probably won't come for a few hours though, I worked through a lot of the initial stuff last night and got a lot of the plays ready to post for this morning, so I have a bunch of plays ready to breakdown already.

But, I can say this about what I saw. He plays with good leverage, understands his responsibilities and is a good open field tackler. He's not a game changing pass rusher and doesn't have the physical gifts of Aldon or Lemonier, but, his fundamentals are excellent and he's a smart football player. That's why he's getting the nod, you can tell this is a guy who works at his craft - happy for him to be getting this opportunity.

THIS MAN GETS IT

I look forward to the rest of the breakdowns.

Hands down best thread ever in NT.

well done, keep up the good work

On the VD play that got wiped away due to the BS offensive PI, what was the concept? Just from watching the game live, I was only able to see how wide open he was. Kinda seemed like we got VD on a wheel.

Good s**t jonny. Seemed like last year Miller started out really slow in teh fisrt few games. Just missing blocks like his head wasn't in the game. One question. Hoiw many times did they run towards the right side of the line? Seems like with Boone and Davis that was the better side to run behind. I don't recall seeing too many runs behind Looney and Martin.

Here's our first big offensive play of the game. This play really impressed me with CK, also got a little irritated at a no-call that I saw(but that's beside the point).



Here Dallas comes out with a 2 deep safety look, we're going to run a streak with Crabs at the bottom and double post with Davis and Boldin. With the 2 deep safety look, it's going to be an out/in read for CK. He's going to look first for the zone coverage(which was shown earlier in the drive) which would have Crabs open, then, if it's man - you look for the post to Davis on the LB(the streak will pull the safety out for over the top help), then 3rd to Boldin on the backside post and a RB as the 4th read for the checkdown.



We run play action to pull the defenders up, but Dallas actually rotates into a man blitz scheme. With man coverage and single safety.



The play action fools the LB covering Davis, so the safety has to take coverage on Davis who has beat his defender. On the bottom the corner on Crabs actually falls down and reaches out and trips Crabs as he goes by to not give up the big play. You could actually see him reach out with his arm and trip Crabs as he was falling because he knows he has no safety help.(terrible no call, Crabs actually turns with his hands up to the official after the play like, "really"....)



CK wanted to hit Crabs, but, did a great job of feeling the pressure and climbing the pocket, he briefly glances to Crabs and see's he's gone down, he saw the safety move before climbed the pocket so after checking crabs he immediately moves to Boldin on the post against the man coverage.



You see the hole opened up by the safety having to take Davis, because the corner is going to play with outside leverage - expecting safety help, this leaves the middle of the field open. CK delivers a great ball to Boldin.



Boldin catches it for a big gain.

Thanks