Next Up: @ Bears

[rossihunter2]

Quick slant in passes with our receivers would have destroyed this defensive look. We didn't do it.

watching the coaches film it's a little more complicated than that - they were clearly waiting for us to check into those slants because they were showing cover-0 and then like 18 times in the game (in just this 1 game) they had their nose tackle butler drop into coverage...

ive found a few plays where we did run slants and butler dropped straight into the passing lane for the hot read e.g.



watch ogbah dropping from the middle too - this is a play where the answer is actually the check we made throughout the game to go outside vs soft coverage - as it is the only thing open is bateman late (he's the 1st read but is covered when lamar gets to him because of the dropping nose) but that's a tricky read and footwork to make that throw and not get picked

also doesnt help that villanueva gets beat instantly

so while it felt like slants were the answer - and i still think they should have been moreso than they were - it's not quite as simple as that because we ran some and the dolphins took them away out of those same cover-0 looks

dolphins out thought us on the day and out-executed us - but the more i watch the less im worried about a "fatal flaw" in the offence and the more im frustrated that we just couldnt get in the right call in the right situation vs the disguise (and when we did we didnt execute)

 

[JoeyFlex5]

watching the coaches film it's a little more complicated than that - they were clearly waiting for us to check into those slants because they were showing cover-0 and then like 18 times in the game (in just this 1 game) they had their nose tackle butler drop into coverage...

ive found a few plays where we did run slants and butler dropped straight into the passing lane for the hot read e.g.



watch ogbah dropping from the middle too - this is a play where the answer is actually the check we made throughout the game to go outside vs soft coverage - as it is the only thing open is bateman late (he's the 1st read but is covered when lamar gets to him because of the dropping nose) but that's a tricky read and footwork to make that throw and not get picked

also doesnt help that villanueva gets beat instantly

so while it felt like slants were the answer - and i still think they should have been moreso than they were - it's not quite as simple as that because we ran some and the dolphins took them away out of those same cover-0 looks

dolphins out thought us on the day and out-executed us - but the more i watch the less im worried about a "fatal flaw" in the offence and the more im frustrated that we just couldnt get in the right call in the right situation vs the disguise (and when we did we didnt execute)

There’s another key component missing though, spread them out so the NT can’t take away every possible hot read. Instead we played into their philosophy, brought everyone inside, which is where their defense was, and let them cover us with goddamn DTs. Run 2 wide with duvernay in the slot on the wide side of the field, you now have 3 guys who can turn any given slant into a TD and more space for them to find the throwing lane.

 

[OURavensFan]

There’s another key component missing though, spread them out so the NT can’t take away every possible hot read. Instead we played into their philosophy, brought everyone inside, which is where their defense was, and let them cover us with goddamn DTs. Run 2 wide with duvernay in the slot on the wide side of the field, you now have 3 guys who can turn any given slant into a TD and more space for them to find the throwing lane.

It’s kind of unreal. I mean, 30 (or was it 40), cover 0 looks and we got outchessed on all of them?

 

[OURavensFan]

Not gonna lie, I hope the Bears run engage 8 the first 20 plays to see what we do with it

 

[rossihunter2]

There’s another key component missing though, spread them out so the NT can’t take away every possible hot read. Instead we played into their philosophy, brought everyone inside, which is where their defense was, and let them cover us with goddamn DTs. Run 2 wide with duvernay in the slot on the wide side of the field, you now have 3 guys who can turn any given slant into a TD and more space for them to find the throwing lane.

oh for sure - im not saying this was unbeatable or anything - just pointing out that it's a bit more complex than just running more slants

in a game like this with them giving us this many cover-0 looks - there's nothing that should have stopped us running the slant on the front-side with bateman and have sammy run the flats or a spot route or something out wide on the other side rather than also running an in-breaker/crosser

have 2 options in that play because you know one of them is open because watkins has so much cushion initially

 

[RL52TheGreatest]

Not gonna lie, I hope the Bears run engage 8 the first 20 plays to see what we do with it

1st half stats
Lamar: 8/8, 8 TDs, 420 pass yds, 2021 MVP Award
Hollywood: 4 TDs, 276 rec yds, 69.0 ypc

 

[JoeyFlex5]

Not gonna lie, I hope the Bears run engage 8 the first 20 plays to see what we do with it

Agreed. Show the nfl that Thursday was a blip, or show that our coaches are out of their depth and we need changes to both them and personnel.

I’m not on the fire Roman train entirely yet, but If this continues I’m hopping on quick

 

[rmcjacket23]

watching the coaches film it's a little more complicated than that - they were clearly waiting for us to check into those slants because they were showing cover-0 and then like 18 times in the game (in just this 1 game) they had their nose tackle butler drop into coverage...

ive found a few plays where we did run slants and butler dropped straight into the passing lane for the hot read e.g.



watch ogbah dropping from the middle too - this is a play where the answer is actually the check we made throughout the game to go outside vs soft coverage - as it is the only thing open is bateman late (he's the 1st read but is covered when lamar gets to him because of the dropping nose) but that's a tricky read and footwork to make that throw and not get picked

also doesnt help that villanueva gets beat instantly

so while it felt like slants were the answer - and i still think they should have been moreso than they were - it's not quite as simple as that because we ran some and the dolphins took them away out of those same cover-0 looks

dolphins out thought us on the day and out-executed us - but the more i watch the less im worried about a "fatal flaw" in the offence and the more im frustrated that we just couldnt get in the right call in the right situation vs the disguise (and when we did we didnt execute)

Was just about to post this same thing, except without the film, so appreciated.

People are getting caught up in the Cover 0 language, thinking that the Dolphins were just blitzing 7-8 on every play. They weren't. They were giving us a Cover 0 LOOK, which means, in certain situations, they wanted us to think it was Cover 0 instead of it actually being Cover 0.

Ravens do this pretty frequently to a lot of teams. Show one look, end up in another. We show Cover 0 or one safety looks all the time and end up dropping like 6-7 in coverage.

There were situations where quick slants would have worked. There were also situations were quick slants would have been pick six going the other way.

As I mentioned earlier, other analysts targeted using RBs and TEs to not only chip blitzers, but also to leak out into the flats to give Lamar somebody to release to. If they're in fact bringing pressure, that man should effectively be open.

But part of the macro problem was our inability to succeed in early downs, even against normal coverage looks. It's extremely easy for teams to show these looks when every 3rd down is 3rd and 9, 3rd and 10, plus. They can cover slants and check downs out of the blitz when a tackle after 8 yards still forces a punt.

 

[Simba]

Was just about to post this same thing, except without the film, so appreciated.

People are getting caught up in the Cover 0 language, thinking that the Dolphins were just blitzing 7-8 on every play. They weren't. They were giving us a Cover 0 LOOK, which means, in certain situations, they wanted us to think it was Cover 0 instead of it actually being Cover 0.

Ravens do this pretty frequently to a lot of teams. Show one look, end up in another. We show Cover 0 or one safety looks all the time and end up dropping like 6-7 in coverage.

There were situations where quick slants would have worked. There were also situations were quick slants would have been pick six going the other way.

As I mentioned earlier, other analysts targeted using RBs and TEs to not only chip blitzers, but also to leak out into the flats to give Lamar somebody to release to. If they're in fact bringing pressure, that man should effectively be open.

But part of the macro problem was our inability to succeed in early downs, even against normal coverage looks. It's extremely easy for teams to show these looks when every 3rd down is 3rd and 9, 3rd and 10, plus. They can cover slants and check downs out of the blitz when a tackle after 8 yards still forces a punt.

Yeah the problem wasn't necessarily the numbers blitzing - it was that the personnel couldn't recognize the disguise at all and would regularly allow pressure due to missed assignments and just general confusion. We can attack cover 0. We've done it before and we'll do it again. We just didn't trust the personnel and kept more home to try to block the rush and even that didn't work.

 

[Dom McRaven]

Not gonna lie, I hope the Bears run engage 8 the first 20 plays to see what we do with it

*50

 

[rmcjacket23]

Yeah the problem wasn't necessarily the numbers blitzing - it was that the personnel couldn't recognize the disguise at all and would regularly allow pressure due to missed assignments and just general confusion. We can attack cover 0. We've done it before and we'll do it again. We just didn't trust the personnel and kept more home to try to block the rush and even that didn't work.

Yup, and ironically, there's not a whole lot Roman can do about that. That's recognition Lamar has to make at the LOS and have plays he can audible to in order to beat it.
Roman's job is to practice those plays and teach Lamar how to make those calls, but in a live-game situation, Roman can't be telling Lamar at the LOS what the coverage is and what to audible to. They turn off the mics long before that.

 

[D1City55]

Was just about to post this same thing, except without the film, so appreciated.

People are getting caught up in the Cover 0 language, thinking that the Dolphins were just blitzing 7-8 on every play. They weren't. They were giving us a Cover 0 LOOK, which means, in certain situations, they wanted us to think it was Cover 0 instead of it actually being Cover 0.

Ravens do this pretty frequently to a lot of teams. Show one look, end up in another. We show Cover 0 or one safety looks all the time and end up dropping like 6-7 in coverage.

There were situations where quick slants would have worked. There were also situations were quick slants would have been pick six going the other way.

As I mentioned earlier, other analysts targeted using RBs and TEs to not only chip blitzers, but also to leak out into the flats to give Lamar somebody to release to. If they're in fact bringing pressure, that man should effectively be open.

But part of the macro problem was our inability to succeed in early downs, even against normal coverage looks. It's extremely easy for teams to show these looks when every 3rd down is 3rd and 9, 3rd and 10, plus. They can cover slants and check downs out of the blitz when a tackle after 8 yards still forces a punt.

Yeah I had this same thought, the Dolphins kind of took a page out of our own playbook and showed us deceptive looks. During the game I afraid of a cover 0 look, us thinking it's cover 0, run a slant, only to see a LB drop into coverage and get a pick. I think we called a seam play in the start of the game to Watkins that he pulled up on against cover 0, if Watkins catches that then we probably don't see it as much for the rest of the game.

 

[JO_75]

So this is the game we get Romo & Nantz... interesting.

 

[JAAM]

So this is the game we get Romo & Nantz... interesting.

Hell yea. Make the inevitable heart attack somewhat bearable

 

[rossihunter2]

But part of the macro problem was our inability to succeed in early downs, even against normal coverage looks. It's extremely easy for teams to show these looks when every 3rd down is 3rd and 9, 3rd and 10, plus. They can cover slants and check downs out of the blitz when a tackle after 8 yards still forces a punt.

this really was the key in the game offensively - as soon as we got behind the chains we had no answers - because there arent many great answers in 3rd and long vs pressure looks (it's why wink's philosophy has been so successful the last 4 years... if you can control the tempo and the pace of the ball coming out, you can limit the routes they can run, the plays they can make and the depth of the routes which makes it easier to defend on the back-end and easier to clamp receivers because you dont have to worry so much about the double move)

obviously it's not great that they showed us the same look 40 times and we only converted something like 1 3rd down before the 4th quarter... but the biggest issue was the wasting of 1st down on useless running plays - it felt like we were consistently getting nice gains on play-action on the 1st play of a drive and then we went back to the running game, got stuffed and then we were behind the chains and the drive was over

im just looking at the results of 1st down runs on drives (after the first 2):
we ran on 1st down 7 times after those first 2 drives...
5 times that meant the drive was over
1 of the successful times was a scramble (and the next play was a 1st down run that was one of the aforementioned 5 times)

we had 26 total 1st down plays after those first 2 drives so 7 doesnt seem like a big number - but 10 of those 1st down plays came on the final 2 drives where we were in hurry up mode and ran only 2 running plays on those 2 drives both on 2nd down...

 

[rossihunter2]

Yup, and ironically, there's not a whole lot Roman can do about that. That's recognition Lamar has to make at the LOS and have plays he can audible to in order to beat it.
Roman's job is to practice those plays and teach Lamar how to make those calls, but in a live-game situation, Roman can't be telling Lamar at the LOS what the coverage is and what to audible to. They turn off the mics long before that.

i mean the way audibles normally work is you only have 1 check for your play so lamar can make the reads and make checks but unless he's just doing a 1-man check route to hollywood or someone in the flat vs off-coverage then there's only so much he can do at the line beyond running the designed check

and lamar was checking a lot vs the dolphins - and most of them were good checks - we just didnt execute or the dolphins had a better call than us

i do think we should be supplementing (or somewhat replacing) the running game with quick passes to the perimeter to duvernay

 

[rossihunter2]

Yeah I had this same thought, the Dolphins kind of took a page out of our own playbook and showed us deceptive looks. During the game I afraid of a cover 0 look, us thinking it's cover 0, run a slant, only to see a LB drop into coverage and get a pick. I think we called a seam play in the start of the game to Watkins that he pulled up on against cover 0, if Watkins catches that then we probably don't see it as much for the rest of the game.

tbf to flores and the dolphins - it's not like they copied the ravens (just feels that way because they did it to us) - flores just ran an even more aggressive version of the patriot's defence he ran back in new england

but you're absolutely right about watkins - 7 points vs the cover-0 blitz on that first drive with a kill-shot on 3rd and long in that situation probably completely alters the game

 

[ravenslord]

watching the coaches film it's a little more complicated than that - they were clearly waiting for us to check into those slants because they were showing cover-0 and then like 18 times in the game (in just this 1 game) they had their nose tackle butler drop into coverage...

ive found a few plays where we did run slants and butler dropped straight into the passing lane for the hot read e.g.



watch ogbah dropping from the middle too - this is a play where the answer is actually the check we made throughout the game to go outside vs soft coverage - as it is the only thing open is bateman late (he's the 1st read but is covered when lamar gets to him because of the dropping nose) but that's a tricky read and footwork to make that throw and not get picked

also doesnt help that villanueva gets beat instantly

so while it felt like slants were the answer - and i still think they should have been moreso than they were - it's not quite as simple as that because we ran some and the dolphins took them away out of those same cover-0 looks

dolphins out thought us on the day and out-executed us - but the more i watch the less im worried about a "fatal flaw" in the offence and the more im frustrated that we just couldnt get in the right call in the right situation vs the disguise (and when we did we didnt execute)

I see your point but there are variations of the quick slant that could have been used to foil that clever drop back ! And it was indeed clever.

 

[rossihunter2]

I see your point but there are variations of the quick slant that could have been used to foil that clever drop back ! And it was indeed clever.

i think the route combo underneath there isnt great - we've basically got 4 crossers - and the watkins and bateman ones sort of get in each other's way here - if watkins isnt also running a slant there's probably a window for lamar to get the ball into bateman

 

[Argentina Raven]

concerned, the best thing about the bears is their defensive front, which is matched by our slack offensive line, the goldman roquan combo can be a headache to lamar.
Few players are as similar to Lamar as Fields, being a regular rookie wink has a blitz combo for them, we'll see what tactic we take to stop it.