I didn't want to leave the game without touching on the biggest run of Hyde's career and the biggest offensive play of the game. I love this play from top to bottom.
I'd talked a lot the past couple months about how I believe Shanny isn't as much an outside vs inside zone guy as much as I see him attack the "bubble". I've highlighted the "bubble" here - it's the gap along the defensive line which isn't covered by a defender. What he'll do is, attack the "bubble" over and over again and then set everything else off of that. It's the basis of the stretch run concept. You attack the 'bubble'(hence 'bubble screen'). When you do this, it makes the read on the RB simple, if the defense slides to cover that gap, you cut it back, if they stay at home, you drive it in to the gap because you'll have the most space in that gap.
Some stretch runs focus on the gap between the DE and CB or S and we'll focus on those as outside zone runs, others do it inside the tackles and we'll call those inside zone runs, some don't care, they just attack where they feel they will be strongest at the point of attack. In ATL, what I saw was that more teams would compress alignments against them to help guard against the middle of the field and so the 'bubble' was usually outside. But, against teams that didn't, he ran inside. I think that's where the stats of a more outside zone dominant run scheme came from.
Anyhoo, too much talky.
Here, we're going to come out in 21 personnel with a twins formation and motion to an offset "I" in Shanny's WCO this formation is called "Near Left zoom". This does a few things. By motioning the FB over it changes the strength of the formation and by putting the receivers in a twins formation vs zone from SEA they're forced to flip their coverage. The SAM backer is now away from the TE and because Chancellor was over the TE, he now switches to the high safety which moves Thomas down into the box.
We're going to run an inside split zone run. The split zone differs from your regular zone in that you aim to block the EMLOS away from the play side, whereas a regular stretch run the EMLOS is usually left unblocked and held by the boot action of a QB after the handoff. I goofed on my play art and meant to show Fusco attacking the DE and Brown going after the SAM. In a stretch run, Brown would go after the DE and Fusco would help combo and then move the the Mike #54. "Juice" then will come across the formation and seal off the EMLOS(#20). The key read for Hyde will be K.J. Wright. In a weakside run, he's responsible for the "C" gap, in a strong side run, he's responsible for the weakside "A" gap - right where the bubble is. This run will give strong side action, but be a weakside run as it's targeted to the weakside "A" gap(the bubble). This will put Wright in a position where he has to make a split second choice, fill the "A" or "C". Whichever he chooses, Hyde chooses the opposite.
Tomlinsen is going to help Staley combo on the DT and then look to move to whichever LB shows his head first into the "A" gap - that could be Wagner, could be Wright, his job is to block the first guy in the "A" gap zone.
From here you see the defense reaction to a strong side run, Kilgore has taken on the DT, Fusco is running at the DE and Brown to the SAM. Wright is left unblocked for now and he's looking to fill the "A" gap - wrong choice, sir.
From this angle, you can see that instead of a QB boot, we fake a reverse handoff to Goodwin, which Chancellor bites on big time.
Here, Wagner has recognized it's a split zone, not a stretch zone, so it's a weakside run and he turns to fill his "A" gap responsibility(strong side B, weakside A) Wright hasn't recognized the play and fills the "A" gap. You see Hyde reading Wright and so he'll cut back to the "C" gap. Tomlinsen and Staley do a great job combo-ing the DT and Laken moves to the A gap.
You see both of SEA's LB's end up in the 'bubble' and Juice is about to kick out the CB as the EMLOS. Chancellor is still thinking he's gonna kill Goodwin on a reverse, lol.
"Juice" lays a perfect kick out/seal block on the EMLOS and because there's no LB to fill the hole as he chose the wrong gap, "FREEDOMMMMMM!!!"
In my best horse racer announcer voice, "annnnd they're off"
and thanks to Thl408 for the great tips on getting some GIF's going!
