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Play of the Week Vote against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers

I've chosen two plays for this week, the Brandon Banks 95 yard TD on a punt return, and the Rob Jackson sack/forced fumble. Lets start with Robs Jackson's play. Robjackson_medium

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We are lined up in our based 3-4 defence. Rob Jackson and Markus White are the OLB's on the play, stacking up the line looking for a run play on first and 10.

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Jackson gets a great jump off the snap. He's made his first step before the left tackle has even moved. From the Buccs point of view, when you know its a passing down and the pass-rushing LB gets a jump over a tackle, it's probably going to be a negative play. This is my main down point on Jackson, and White at the other LB. They are very good pass-rushers, but they tend to go straight to the backfield to make a play. On run plays they leave big holes behind them for backs to run into if they miss the tackle. But on this occasion, it happened to be a passing play.

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You can see the advantage that great jump got Jackson. The black circle is where the LT would want to have the pass-rusher. But you can see that Jackson has that extra step on him.

Robjackson1b_medium

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The tackle barely ever gets his hands on Jackson, who makes a really nice club and rip move to break what little contact the tackle made on him. He then uses his momentum to go get the QB.

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I'll finish this play with this picture, purely because it just looks like a dreadful situation for the poor QB. Jackson does a really nice job of hitting both arms in the sack in attempt to force the ball loose (as it turned out on the replay, the QB's arm was going forward but it wasn't reviewed). White does an excellent job of picking the ball up and running it down to the two yard line.

Then we have Banks punt return.

Banks1_medium

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He catches the ball on the 5. I think in the season, he lets that ball go out the back of the end zone. But because he was under pressure to make the team, and because the nearest defender was 15 yards away, he takes it out.

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I've circled Banks and the first key block. It allows Banks to run inside, but lets him run past the other defender close by.

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Banks shows off his play-making speed, leaving defenders playing catch-up. Another key block is circled here. It's close to a block in the back, which would have been a penalty that would have cancelled the play. But he hits from the side just enough to get away with it.

Banks1c_medium

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One final key block, and Banks fly's past the out-stretched arm of the defender. One man to beat for Banks now, the Punter.

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The punter has no chance of catching Brandon Banks at 70% speed, let alone at top speed. Banks easily gets past and has a free run to the end zone. He nearly makes a huge mistake of letting go of the ball before he walks into the end zone. But luckily he was just over the line. Hopefully he's learned his lesson, and will be doing this plenty more times for us this year because he's made the team!

So, which was your play of the week?


Also as a little note, this will be my last write up for a while. I'm flying out to Florida on vacation tomorrow for 10 days (I've got tickets to the Buccs/Lions game which I can't wait to see). It will probably mean I wont be able to do a breakdown of week 1 vs the Giants until the following Thursday at the earliest (unless someone can email me some game film, I might be able to get something up on the Monday then). So I apologise in advance for that, and for this breakdown not being that good.