FanPost

What We Learned in Week 3 - A View From the All-22

I posted this as a comment in an earlier thread, and someone mentioned creating a fan post. So I am posting it here. Plus I spent 70 bucks, so I might as well do something with it. HA!

I took a look at the All 22 film this morning and came away with the following take-aways...


1. Griffin doesn't seem to be picking up Cover 2 very well. On a lot of 2nd/3rd and longs, the corner/7 routes were wide open and Griffin was going to his underneath read. This may have been due to jitteriness with his protection, or with him being unwilling to wait for the route to develop. But if he recognized the coverage, he could have anticipated the opening and made at least 4 big gains. I went and looked at a bunch of plays from Tampa and as far as I could tell, they run mostly Cover 1 and Tampa 2 type schemes...so this doesn't come into play as much (with tampa 2 having 3 players relatively deep). But when appropriate, I would like to see more corner throws. Thinking about it, I am having a hard time remembering a corner throw this season? Most are short passes, curls, or in cutting middle or post routes. Defenses will pick up on that. I am sure Kyle sees it as well.

More after the jump....

2. On that run to the pylon in the 3rd quarter, Griffin was knocked out. I wish I knew how to make gifs from nfl.com, but Griffin literally stood up, and fell back down like a boxer...and then just laid there. He did that a few times. Frankly, I am pretty sure he had a mild concussion (probably more than once), but is able to put on a convincing act. And that wasn't even a hit...it was a dive with little contact. The guy has to stop getting hit.

3. And in that vain, I am going to say something unusual....Mike was right. I saw at least 3 plays where RGIII carried out his fake way too long and took hits with the RB virtually passing the line of scrimmage. Throw you hands up after you see the DE bite and call it a day.

4. As much as I hated it because of the hits, I see why Kyle kept running the triple option. Cincy was bewildered. Those plays were wide open. I don't know if the Morris runs were not an option really, but if they were, RGIII made a bad read twice and he and Brandon basically had 1 man to beat if he kept it for the back side option. Cincy was rolling the safety up on the strong side, and the DE was crashing down. All of the LBs were biting on Morris every time. It was literally RGIII and Banks against a safety, with the WR blocking the corner. I would have looked at the pictures as well and said...hey...we are doing THAT. Can't really blame Kyle in the heat of the moment. I just would have saved them instead of running them back to back to back.

5. Finally, as any rookie (or college QB or Madden player for that matter), Griffin has a tendency to lock into his main read, especially when the deep ball is called. Here is the quintessential example.

This is the deep ball to Hankerson.

<img src="http://i.imm.io/GaUP.png"/>

I circled three DBs keys. The corners are in man and the safety is in a Cover 1 deep middle zone. Griffin does execute a pump fake to try to move the safety, but it is basically a fake to nowhere. So Griffin has a decision with basically a 2 man route. At this point, my eyes tell me the read would be the safety is over the top and corner that has outside leverage on my first read. However, I have a deep cross with my second read and the manned up CB is still way outside. Throwing the ball any where in the green is basically a first down.

<img src="http://i.imm.io/Gb07.png"/>

This is the look as RGIII lets go of the ball. Green. YAY!. Red.. UH OH.

Ultimately, RGIII threw the ball deep inside away from the corner. Maybe he didn't see the safety, or assumed he would bite on his pump fake. Hankerson wound up bumping into safety for what I thought was a 50/50 call, as you can see here. (The ball landed where I add the brown oval....the safety didn't find that ball, so you could say illegal contact was made but Hankerson basically initiated contact).

<img src="http://i.imm.io/Gb6H.png"/>

When it all comes together, I am looking for three things over the next two weeks.

1. RGIII - Ability to read open corner routes, outs, and deep crosses from to space. Davis runs a lot of these as well. This is a throw Rex actually read well. If your read is right, it is actually a pretty easy throw because there is so much space and RGIII has better accuracy and arm strength. I see a lot of opportunity here.
2. Kyle - Less QB runs but still showing the threat and picking the right places to make the option calls.
3. RGIII -Declaring the ball released earlier.

I may do a few more of these, but UK has you covered for the deep detailed play by play analysis. These were just a couple of things that jumped out at me on a Sunday morning when I had some time to waste. I hope you enjoyed it.


Let's get one this Sunday!!!