Jake Long's Performance and Analysis (Play-by-Play)

Hey guys! How awesome was it watching Fins football again!!!

Well, having the first available piece of film on our new team (this is a completely new team!)... I couldnt wait to break it down. So, I decided to start at #1... with the #1 pick Jake Long. I went back and watched Jake on every single play, and documented what happened.

The format goes as so:

Down & Distance - Run or Pass - Was there Tight End help? - Description of play

Enjoy...

First Drive:
1st & 10 - Run - Fasano goes in motion from strong side over next to Jake - They double Gaines Adams and blow him out of the play.

2nd & 11 - Run - No TE - Cato June lined up on the outside standing up. Jake locks up with him, pushes him a couple of yards backwards, and then seals him out of the play.

3rd & 10 - Pass - No TE - A well designed play by Tampa. They had Adams stunt and loop inside. Jake, seeing his rusher not engaging and leaving to go around inside, doubled down with Smiley on the DT. They brought the ROLB on a delayed blitz, once the ROLB saw that Jake went with blocking the DT. The free blitzing ROLB caused Beck to rush his pass, and was the low throw to Hagan that was a strip/fumble.


2nd Drive:
1st & 10 - Pass – No TE, Fasano lines up next to Jake, but motions to strong side - Stays in front of Adams the whole time and doesnt let him near the QB. (Mauia gets rocked! lol)

2nd & 1 - Pass - Martin lined up next to Jake, but goes on a seem route, does not even chip block - Jake sticks Adams with a nice punch, quick pass by Beck, and had the ball out after that first punch.

3rd & 1 - Pass - Fasano lined up next to him, went out for pass, may have chipped on the way out, hard to tell - Stays with Adams just fine, all ways has him in front of him. Doesnt get near the QB.

1st & 10 - Pass - No TE - The whole DL does a stunt. Jakes man, Adams, drops into coverage, RDT stunts across outside Smiley and Jake adjusts quickly and picks him up, as Smiley had to help pick up the LDT that stunted all the way around to him.

2nd & 5 – Pass – No TE – Handles Adams again… no problem.

1st & 10 – Run – No TE, Fasano lined up next to Jake, but off the LOS. Motions in and back out, and stays between Jake and Smile - Jake blows up Adams and drives him out of the play.

2nd & 6 – Pass – No TE – Stays with Adams and lets Adams take himself out of the play by going to deep.

3rd & 6 – Pass – No TE – Hard to tell exactly what went wrong here, but it seemed like Jake missed the line call. More stunting and blitzing by Tampa’s DL. Adams doesn’t engage with Jake but instead stunts and loops around inside. MLB blitzes between the DTs (showed it before snap) and Smiley blocks down and picks up the MLB, and I’m assuming was leaving the RDT for Jake. Jake must have missed the line call b/c he didn’t touch the RDT, who got in clean right at Beck, and batted Becks quick attempt to get it out. Jake ended up blocking no one on the play, since the DE he thought he was supposed to block stunted around the DT inside, and he didn’t pick up the DT.


3rd Drive:
1st & 10 – Run off RG – Double TE – TE blocks down on the DE and Jake immediately heads to second level to seal the ROLB. The ROLB puts a little juke on Jake and runs past him, but Jake recovered and got a good shove on him to get him away from the play

2nd & 8 – Run - No TE – Locks Adams up and engulfs him on the play. (The Ricky highlight play)

1st & 10 – Run – No TE – Adams drops into coverage again, and DT stunts across outside Smiley (noticing a trend? Tampa’s Dline moves around like crazy. I would think this would be hard for a rookie to see in his first game). Jake adjusted well though and let the DT take himself out of the play.

2nd & 6 – Run off RG – No TE – Jake locks up Adams and drives him back a yard or so. (Holding – Hagan)

2nd & 16 – Pass – No TE – Jake stays with Gaines and Ricky helps with a chip block before going out into the flats.

3rd & 10 – No TE, Shotgun with RB on his side – ROLB showing blitz, and does. Jake blocks the Adams just fine, but lets ROLB go. Ricky tries to pick up the ROLB but fails. Sack and fumble but Beck recovers. Jake didn’t try to chip or help with the blitzing ROLB. Not sure if he was supposed to or not?


4th Drive:
1st & 10 – Run – No TE – Adams stunts inside, but Jake appears to let him go inside and head to the 2nd level and picks up the ROLB and locks him up. Mauia picks up Adams.

1st & 10 – Pass – No TE, Martin lined up next to Jake, but motions to strong side – Adams gets off the line quicker than Jake, and Jake kind of pushes him in the back as he goes by. But Adams goes pretty deep, and Henne gets the pass off pretty quick, so it didn’t end up affecting the play.

1st & 10 – Pass – No TE – Jake patiently waits for Adams to come to him. Adams didn’t even seem to try much on this play, but it ended up being a quick pass away from them.

2nd & 10 – False start on Jake

2nd & 15 – Run - No TE - Locks out Adams.

3rd & 12 – Pass – No TE but gets help from RB – Stays in front of Adams, and with help from RB, keep him away from QB. (BEAUTIFUL pass on the post route from Henne!)

1st & 10 – Run off RG – No TE – Locks out Adams.

2nd & 9 – Pass – TE next to Jake – Martin next to jake, but doesn’t even
chip, just goes out for a pass, Jake stonewalls Adams.

3rd & 9 – Pass – No TE – Jake stonewalls Adams again. Jake has pretty much owned Adams all game. Maybe beat him once so far?

___________________


And Jake is done…

So, how did he do?

Jake did a great job against the Bucs, and pretty much had his way with Gaines Adams. The Bucs DL did a ton of stunting and twisting, as well as having his rusher, Adams, drop into coverage. So from the mental standpoint, this should have been a very good learning experience for him. And he usually made the correct adjustments on the fly.

Now, one thing that is interesting is... how much did we end up helping Jake out with a TE? Out of 25 plays, we only covered him with a TE on 5 of them. On top of that, the TE only helped Jake on 2 of the plays(1 run, 1 pass), as the other 3 the TE immediately went out for a pass w/o chipping. The RBs were only used a couple of times to help Jake out.

So, after reviewing every play, we really didn’t help Jake out much at all. We put him out there by himself for most of his snaps, and he handled himself very well. The only negatives were a couple of mental mistakes(false start and missed line call), which I can live with for his first live action. He walled off Gaines Adams all night on passing plays… and consistantly drove his man backwards on running plays.

Overall, I was VERY impressed with Long’s play! The coaching staff was confident they wouldnt have to give him much help... and they were right.


Its only preseason, but Jake passed his first test...

 

No problem...