Its been mentioned that we are seeing alot of two deep coverages. Most likely we are seeing 2 deep man under and true cover 2 on most cases. Interestingly as well, teams seem to feel confident blitzing us with backers as well and we don't see teams just sitting all game long against our defense. In discussing chunk yardage and routes that enhance chunk yardage, here is a simple example of one route combo that attacks cover 2 or 2 man under. This particular play doesnt even involve any motion, but it serves as a great example of how to force defenses into playing us more honest, in particular playing Marshall more honest. Notice the way the two receiver side forces the safety (whom the QB reads) into sitting back and trying to play center field, or choosing who to help out with early on the route. If the safety sits on the sideline fade and provides a double on that route with the underneath CB (in flats or in man) then the post to the inside WR (Bess or Marshall for example) then the post becomes a very dangerous play. This is not a route that has to be (but it can be) thrown deep upfield. This could simply be a quick 20 yard connection between the QB and WR. These are exactly the kind or routes that would transform our offense and even make our dink and dunk more dangerous and effective. Now since this example also offers an I formation, how would motioning Ronnie Brown out (or shifting him) to the two receiver side effect the play? (Making it trips) If he runs a stop, curl or out? What if he hitches up for a tight screen on the check down? What about a drag under the Safeties but behind the backers? The defense has a wide variety of options on how to defend it, but untimately it forces them to pull out a blitzer, check to a new coverage, or take coverage attention off of one of the two receiver side players. It puts the defense in defense. Might even make them check out of something they had been wanting to do. If Brown motions or shifts away from the two receiver side and creates a doubles type formation it can create all of the same problems on the one receiver side that the original tw receiver side had. Brown could motion out and run a seam or post like the inside two receiver diagram shows and create all kinds of problems that once again create problems for the defense. Here is another example using a trips formation from a video game. The same concept exsists. Force the Safety to make an early decision, and then play off what he does. There are many ways to attack effectively in that 20 yard range that we are not going after. Keep in mind that these two simple examples invole no motion or shifting, which can make things significantly more difficult on the defense as well. These are the types of routes I do not see us running much nor do I see us using the shifts and motions consistently to create specific opportunities upfield in the 20 yard range. Moreover, I've made mention of how many of our routes consistently have us catching the ball running towards the QB (hooks, curls, hitches, etc) or towards the sideline where the YAC yardage is very limited. Routes like those diagramed here create better opportunites for YAC and big plays upfield. Chunk Yardage specifically but also more big TD plays. When you don't use this strategy much you miss opportunity's to take advantage on when the defense slips in coverage or blows a coverage. When a DB trips and falls on an out route designed to be gunned at 12 yards inches from the sideline, we see a bunch of seperation from the slip but the WR still just makes an easy catch rather than contested catch as he tip-toes the sideline. Upfield routes allow us to score on those types of mistakes on the defense as our WR isn't hampered by the out of bounds and has a full field to play with. Playing defense when you have to defend multiple players and the WHOLE field is much tougher than playing defense against a small box offense. Hopfully we'll see our offense get out of the small box soon.
Thanks for the post, very interesting. I always liked a "3 against the sideline" route combination to attack cover 2. It also forces the deep half man to make a choice and then throws away from the choice. It has the added bonuses of being simple to read, easy to use with a bootleg and can be run with play action. These are all concepts that fit well within our current system. Downside I guess is that its unlikely to create YAC for you. Unfortunately I don't have a PC anymore, so am stuck posting from my phone, so I can't find a way to throw up a diagram of what I mean
Which makes me wonder why you did not pick up the thread where you asked for a film junkie and I gave it to you. I went so far as to LINK the results to show you what was being CHOSEN by the quarterback. So it is HERE that I will link it again. http://forums.thephins.com/showthread.php?t=55705&page=2 I will bump it back to the front page by showing that Tom Brady is CHOOSING the same small box offense that you are deriding.
Good post, great way to start some X & O discussion. But frankly, this sounds more like what I'd expect to hear in a high school film session. The first diagram only has 10 offensive players. The second diagram has 5 offensive players out in the pattern, something that Henning calls on less than 10% of pass plays. Our offense, love it or hate it, places pass protection above all else. Our RBs are coached to check for the blitz before even thinking about a leak out. We use more 7 man pass pro schemes than any team in the league. So while Henne gets his 4-5 seconds, he sees all of his receivers double teamed an awful lot. What I'd like to see is more double moves, pump fakes and look offs. Henne has tons of time, but we rarely call any 7 step drops, which is crazy IMO. Max protecting on a 5 step drop defeats the purpose, and Henne is consistently throwing the ball well before any pressure arrives b/c the route combination call for quick decisions even though the protection schemes allow for a longer look down field. Marshall knows this, I suspect the whole team knows it & so do our opponents. BM is visibly frustrated during games, and our opponents are rarely blitzing, playing coverage instead, knowing they can play coverage b/c we rarely send 4 or more receivers out. Good offenses WANT you to blitz. Great offenses DARE you to blitz b/c it opens the field for big plays. Hopefully one day we'll get to that point, but up till now our passing game has been defensive in nature.
LOL. I know you watch the games. You tell me. How many pump fake big plays have we scored on this year or gained over 40 yards on? I don't think it's very many
Tom Brady isn't throwing the same routes we are so the data doesn't really fit. He throws more routes with recievers heading upfield than we do. We are usually catching the ball with our shoulders towards the QB or sideline. His receivers have more routes heading accross field or upfield, as well as what we do. Moreover I'd also argue: - Tom Brady does a better job of consistently placing the ball for his RB's and WR's on their routes than Henne does. - The NE staff does a better job attacking zones than we have as well. Especially prior to this season after Moss tanked. - NE staff also does a much better job manipulating zones and schemes so that they can take the ball where they want to whereas we struggle to get the ball to players like Marshall. - NE also makes the passing game a higher priority than we do.
I assume it would start with getting Henning out of his "small box" upstairs, but your explanation is better
Alright Deej, here are some of the issues I have on my mind about Henne, now notice Daboll's offense is very different from the one DMike wrote about, which also means it is a crap shoot as to how well he can run that same offense, but the issues DMike brings up are what I had in mind, Henne never really overcame them.
Not sure I totally understand your question Pod, but As far as being able to beat cover 2, I dont see that as a problem thru game 7, with an unaggressive coordinator telling him what to do, he was spraying the ball/with accuracy, all over the field...I think Henne's trajectory and flat release gets him into some trouble in certain zones and redzone defense.. I think what Coach is wanting in this illustration fits Henne's skillset nicely, that range is totally in his wheelhouse, with serious velocity..
Henning was calling for those routes simply because they do not require much touch on the ball Deej, they pretty much are the safest throws a Qb can make, now could be Henning being Henning, could also be they knew better then to ask Henne to throw the more difficult to complete routes on the tree. This is a part of what I meant when I mentioned the difference between a professional driver taking the porsche 959 out and some magazine editor, both will go around the track so to speak, one will give you far better results.
We weren't "just" having problems with cover two though. Think back to how many times you saw Safeties creeping up in the box creating 8 man fronts. Happened all the time and you can't do that and be in traditional or Tampa Cover 2.
Exactly, and even when they did not overtly creep up into the box, they were allowed to simply pay more attention to the box as they "knew" there would be no real threats to get behind them down the seam or on the outside, that was a part of the reason why Marshall did not have the planned on effect, Safeties simply bracketed him and his RAC was well below his career norm. Thing is, how much was scheme and how much was Henne taking the safer underneath stuff, and how much was Henne getting quick pressure? (BTW DMike, people do pay attention when you write these, thought it had been forgotten didn't you..)
I agree to an extent about his touch, but iam not buying it when it comes to an altered scheme..I saw way to many throws thru the first hallf of the season that had touch to believe the notion that you are presenting.
I think scheme was a bigger part of it than we'd like to think. Of course if we struggle with the same problem with a new Offense and new OC then maybe it is just Henne. I did watch routes in the game though (when possible) and I was less than pleased with how we manipulated formations and motion. It was not impressive coaching. The Bengals game was the best example. First half our O was a joke and we couldnt get Marshall the ball. Second half early we were all about moving him and other around to create mismatches and mistakes on the defense. Even the game commentation mentioned it in detail and showed examples. (It is funny that you bumped this topic, because I was thinking of it reading some of our current topics.) There are a bunch of ways to do what we want to and still have max protection or still not send out 5 people on routes. Too many in fact to bother diagraming,
Highly recommend reading Zod's link: http://www.thephins.com/forums/show...l-Box-quot-Offense-same-as-in-preseason/page2 He provided links to NFL.com videos that may or may not still be good, but you can get the gist of what he is saying.
I think the offense was to mutable tbh about it, they tried to do to many things instead of a few things well. Agree about Marshall being under utilized in motion, when they put him in the slot and forced a Lb to cover him he feasted, they rarely did so. Well I am a bit more hopeful then most about Brian DaBoll as the OC, he had to make due in Cleveland and managed to squeeze heretofore unheard of production from Ben Watson and Peyton Hillis, it was all he had to work with along with Delhomme and McCoy, imho we have far better personnel then the Browns do, WC personnel included.
Great post...very true. This is our problem though. We use this exclusivly. There is no mixing it up there is no guessing for the defense. If we just used this protection 65% of the time, then we have the defense guessing. They dont know if they can double cover a WR, they are less likely to blitz because they dont know if we are keeping people in or sending people out. If we mixed up what we did a little bit more, we would have a lot more success. It doesn't matter how good your players are when you dont use their talents to the fullest. You dont put all the money and high round draft picks into an offensive line to have to keep people back to block all the time.
Keep in mind too, that there's more ways to get Marshall into a favorable situation than just motioning him. You can shift others to or away from him, or motion for the same purpose with someone else to create something for him on a specific route. One tiny specfic example. Line up Marshall away from TE Trips: Disregard these routes, picture all vertical including motion RB towards X X is #19 Now run motion with the RB towards Marshall at X (becomes an empty set). Have all the WR's, including Marshall run "Quick Verts" looking for a line drive at 5 to 10 yards. This formation / motion combo is difficult to cover because the defense typically will adjust to cover the trips side with 3 defenders. The motion like this often will force the defense into either a mismatch in coverage, a bad angle in coverage, or a complete audible in coverage that can also lead to confusion or mistakes. So vs this defense what does it create? The CB on the X side (who may also be the teams best CB assigned to Marshall) must decide to give up the outside to our motion RB running up the sideline or to bump out and not allow him outside. It's a potential bigplay if he doesnt bump, because now the WOLB must chase the motion and cover him on a vertical. Most WOLB can't do that. If the CB does bump over to the RB motion, now the WOLB must somehow cover the inside vert to the WR who he should not be able to cover. It's true the Safety can run over and provide deep support, but remember they are in a two deep so we should have an easy completion between 5 and 10 yards with bad angles for the WOLB and FS with Marshall catching the ball upfield / open field. Lastly, if the FS jumps over too agressively, the TE is wide open down the in side seam because the trips side requires the SS to find some balance in his zone between the TE and the 2nd of the 3 WR on the trips side. Also keep in mind the SS may have to cover the sideline fade in they stay in two deep. If he jumps all the way over to help on the motion RB, we have TE seam quickly and Marshall once he clears the CB with the whole middle of the field in front of us undefended. When we see this formation on my teams, we automatically check Cover 4, but of course not everyone does, especially with the better athletes on the pro level. Still, the route example provided certainly works and hurts this defense with some pretty simple movement. Going empty isn't a problem protection wise because its a 2 step throw and the QB should be able to see who isn't getting covered very easily.
respectfully, anyone can use a few random plays to do the same thing with Manning or Brady..... and I could go back and give tons of passes that Ryan either missed or threw poorly in 2010 (and drives that were killed because of it).
Eyes..glazing..over... Cannot really comment on the merits of that DMike as that is a bit more in depth then I'd think I would need to know.. Do agree about not creating more man on man matchups on the outside with Marshall and really, Hartline, both have RAC ability it just seemed rare that they were uncovered enough to have one defender to shake and then open field running.
Going back to the post you referenced: This is the main thing I took from the above (while also including other plays that seemed purposefully left out for influential reasons): We ran the ball 8 times on first down. 5 of those went for 3 yards of less with a combined total of 6 yards. During the ONLY 2 drives where the ground game picked up 5+ yards on 1st down, we scored TDs on BOTH of those drives. During the 4 drives with the 5 runs gaining 3 or less on 1st down the results were an INT, blocked punt for TD, a turnover on downs, and 1 TD by Henne. This goes back to years of statistical analysis showing that 4 or less yards on first down has a greater correlation to drive failure. A horrible ground game along with an incompetent, predictable OC leads to unfavorable passing situations for a QB playing in only his 17th game. Miam's first drive set the tone for the entire game IMO; it's what we saw all year. Henne was 4/4 for 46 yards and 11.5 avg. As soon as Chad gets us in FG range, conservative Henning <like clockwork> yanks him for a useless WC run on 3rd & 6 that massively backfires, loses yards, and forces us to punt. Everything that Chad did on the drive goes for crap. Henning, the a$$clown, diverts from his hot hand in lieu of a sputtering gimmick formation because he's more concerned with 3 fuggin points instead of allowing his hot hand (and the TOP THIRD DOWN CONVERTER IN THE NFL in this situation) an opportunity to continue the drive and stick it in the damn endzone. Outside of a young QB not recognizing a different coverage look on 1 or both INTs, Chad was 10/12, 127 yards, 1 TD...... and a 7-6 LEAD going into halftime. So no matter how badly one tries to paint Henne's picture, he might as well paint one even worse for a HOF QB who mustered only 6 points in the first half. After special teams spots NE & Brady 21 points in a 16 minute span, there's little to no chance of any QB in the league fighting back from a 34-14 deficit with 14 minutes to play.
I hope that folks are not just glossing over this stuff, cause that would be a mistake man... Let me just highlight one random nugget if I may..Henne was 4 for 4 on a drive, then, when he drives them inside FG range, we get 2 runs and a wildcat..hahahahahahaha.. That wasn't the exception, it was the rule..no other QB in the league had to deal with that BS..
I wonder if Henning's play calling inside FG range was the running joke of the league...... like the whole-lotta-woman walking back from the restroom with an entire role of toilet paper trailing behind while half her skirt's tucked inside her parachute-like grandma panties. You really get to the point where you start to laugh every time the WC or obviously conservative run is called once we pass that magical 39 yard threshold. Ditto for every time Ronnie had his shoe laces tied together on 1st down (or any down for that matter).
Zod is a very smart dude, but I dont understand you posting his opinions against my defense, overall, he seems to agree that Henne was not the problem?..I'am confused?
On today's Michael Irvin Show Brandon Marshall said the following things: BMarsh says he felt helpless out there because even though he is able to move the ball and dominate a game when put in the right situation and positions to do so... but he felt like in the game he was in a vulnerable position where the Dolphins made it easy for Pittsburgh to defend him. He says he doesn;t think the excuse he has heard, that Pitt played cover 2, should be ANY reason the Dolphins won;t go to him. I agree! And it was Sparano who said that in his presser. Like if the Steelers have two deep then it totally takes away any thought of deep passes. WTF Tony??? So we'll only go deep on single high safety? lol. Hey, that's the BEST matchup, but you can't refuse to throw deep to guys like Marshall because of a cover two look. Wow.. Cover Three, Quarters deep I understand but if we are ****ing throwing in the towel on passes over 15 yards when a defense plays two deep we are royally screwed this season. EVERY defense can just play two deep and play everyone else in underneath cover and attack the box. No WONDER we can;t run. Defenses have no need to respect a deep ball. ????: ThePHINS.com - Miami Dolphins Forums http://forums.thephins.com/showthread.php?p=1303091 lol. Marshall doesn't think 2 safeties should be an excuse. The OTHER thing I said all game is, Henning needed to stop running 2TE and three RB sets which kept Davone Bess ( a GREAT player) off the field. We NEED him out there. Brandon echoes this saying we, as players AND coaches, need to do a better job and that Bess should be out there. Look, Marshall is not dumb enough to give a direct quote like "The offensive coaching sucked"... but CLEARLY he thinks the calls abandoned passing deep and passing to him FAR too easily. He also seems to agree that Bess should be out there more (most likely meaning 3-WR sets). Sounds like Marshall is not thrilled with the playcalling or OC either. Not upset at him, but clearly pointing out that the COACHES could have done a better job too. Eat THAT Sparano. B.s. excuses about 2 high safties 'taking away' any hope of passing. What a ****ing joke. Even worse is the insulting accusation Tpony makes that it's always the players fault and execution flaws when we screw up. Thats a quote from the very knowledgable BK.
