Look at this play, tell me what you think

[thunderkyss]

This is a Brandon Harris Highlight video. I want you to look at the play at 1:17, tell me what you think.

This is the start of the play, Harris is at the top of the screen, covering the slot receiver.


He bumps the slot receiver about seven yards from the LOS, but notices the underneath guy is wide open.

I can't tell if he sees the QB looking at the underneath receiver, or if he just wants to cover that receiver.

Leaving the guy in the slot, with only the safety way over the top. If the slot receiver would have cut in to the middle of the field, everything would have been ok. The safety is up top & you have a LB underneath, making it a difficult throw.

But the receiver cuts outside, underneath the WR who clears a big path for him.

Now in this instance, I think everyone would say Harris made a good play. After all, he went on to intercept the ball.

But there is no pressure on the QB. Had he waited a second longer to see what Harris was going to do, he could have thrown the ball to the slot receiver for what would definitely have been an easy throw & catch, first down & possibly big play.

So, my question is this. It worked out for him this time. If you were his coach, what would you tell him?

[b0ng]

Originally Posted by thunderkyss

This is a Brandon Harris Highlight video. I want you to look at the play at 1:17, tell me what you think.

This is the start of the play, Harris is at the top of the screen, covering the slot receiver.


He bumps the slot receiver about seven yards from the LOS, but notices the underneath guy is wide open.

I can't tell if he sees the QB looking at the underneath receiver, or if he just wants to cover that receiver.

Leaving the guy in the slot, with only the safety way over the top. If the slot receiver would have cut in to the middle of the field, everything would have been ok. The safety is up top & you have a LB underneath, making it a difficult throw.

But the receiver cuts outside, underneath the WR who clears a big path for him.

Now in this instance, I think everyone would say Harris made a good play. After all, he went on to intercept the ball.

But there is no pressure on the QB. Had he waited a second longer to see what Harris was going to do, he could have thrown the ball to the slot receiver for what would definitely have been an easy throw & catch, first down & possibly big play.

So, my question is this. It worked out for him this time. If you were his coach, what would you tell him?

You have to ask him what he was thinking, what was going through his mind that caused him to make that decision before you can praise/criticize that particular play.

[XI CMURDER IX]

I think the quarterback focused in on his checkdown route once he saw that Harris was going to be committed to the slot receiver. Also, since you can't tell from slides 3 to 4 where the linebacker on the strong side is headed to. The quarterback might have read that the linebacker was going to shade over to the slot.

Then again, it could have just been the way Harris was suppose to play that particular route.

[CloakNNNdagger]

Originally Posted by b0ng

You have to ask him what he was thinking, what was going through his mind that caused him to make that decision before you can praise/criticize that particular play.

This^^

He should have followed his own man. The roving MLB was in position to cover the man he came back to....maybe not for an interception, but certainly only for a small gain. The other scenario that TK pointed out makes it questionable if it was worth the risk.

[infantrycak]

Sorry looks like classic coverage releasing to the safety to me. Not sure where the question really is on this one. I suspect the coach said good job and never questioned why he released since it was the design of the coverage.

[RTP2110]

Without any of us knowing what his assignment was on that call, we can't really judge him on it. To me it looks like he made the right play. Looks like he was suppose to bump his man, then drop into a zone coverage with short-to-long responsibilities. (Where he may have messed up, is that he was likely supposed to funnel his man inside toward the safety.)

This is the big thing: you can't see if the safety breaks to the outside to pick up that slot WR that Harris released. In my mind I see the outside CB on the outside WR, the safety breaks outside to pick up the slot guy, and Harris has the RB underneath.

Watch the LB. He drops back, and it looks like he has the middle zone underneath the safeties. The back is running a route right in front of him and he never breaks on the back. He only breaks toward the back after the ball is thrown.

IF Harris had stayed with the slot WR, there would have been him, the safety and the LB all in that area with NO ONE marking the RB. (You clearly see the LB isn't covering the back.)

I think Harris did the right thing, but no one can say 100% other than Miami's coaching staff


The play is at 1:15 of this vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0yjcu9CJvc

[76Texan]

TK, this is exactly what I'm talking about in pattern-matching.
The LCB runs with the X receiver on the go route.
The nickel back (Harris) releases the slot receiver when he sees the RB runs a quick out to the flat.

This is different from straight man coverage in which case, Harris would follow the slot and the LB would take on the RB.

[c10x]

Originally Posted by infantrycak

Sorry looks like classic coverage releasing to the safety to me. Not sure where the question really is on this one. I suspect the coach said good job and never questioned why he released since it was the design of the coverage.

Yep.

I watched it a few times, and looked at the pics a few times, and to me, it just looks like they were running a cover 2 zone out of the nickel, so his job was to stay with his man unless someone came underneath so he read that, and jumped the play. Thats why the other corner is also there at as he's getting tackled. He too was supposed to get underneath if someone was there.

[dream_team]

Originally Posted by RTP2110

Without any of us knowing what his assignment was on that call, we can't really judge him on it. To me it looks like he made the right play. Looks like he was suppose to bump his man, then drop into a zone coverage with short-to-long responsibilities. (Where he may have messed up, is that he was likely supposed to funnel his man inside toward the safety.)

This is the big thing: you can't see if the safety breaks to the outside to pick up that slot WR that Harris released. In my mind I see the outside CB on the outside WR, the safety breaks outside to pick up the slot guy, and Harris has the RB underneath.

Watch the LB. He drops back, and it looks like he has the middle zone underneath the safeties. The back is running a route right in front of him and he never breaks on the back. He only breaks toward the back after the ball is thrown.

IF Harris had stayed with the slot WR, there would have been him, the safety and the LB all in that area with NO ONE marking the RB. (You clearly see the LB isn't covering the back.)

I think Harris did the right thing, but no one can say 100% other than Miami's coaching staff


The play is at 1:15 of this vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0yjcu9CJvc

This ^^^ !!! We don't really know what his defensive assignment was on this play. Only he and the coaches know if he actually played well or not. Whether he gambled, made a poor decision, just got lucky.... or whether he made the correct play and got rewarded.

[alphajoker]

Originally Posted by c10x

Yep.

I watched it a few times, and looked at the pics a few times, and to me, it just looks like they were running a cover 2 zone out of the nickel, so his job was to stay with his man unless someone came underneath so he read that, and jumped the play. Thats why the other corner is also there at as he's getting tackled. He too was supposed to get underneath if someone was there.

I agree. It looks like they were in cover 2 and he did his job and covered the out. But ultimately, you would have to ask him what he was think or what they were running at the time.

[thunderkyss]

Well, now I'm wondering why Kjac hasn't been given this much leniency when many of his "mistakes" were along the same lines.

If I were the coach, I'd be all over Harris. I'd recognize the good play & everything, but there is no way that defense was designed to be ran that way. He should have forced the slot receiver towards the defense, or after dropping him to the safety, widen out underneath that route. Kind of like RTP said.

Like Cloak said, the LB would have stopped that underneath pass for a short gain & not the 10+ that would have been given up had the QB been Peytonesque & pumped faked the CB.

[Lucky]

Originally Posted by thunderkyss

Well, now I'm wondering why Kjac hasn't been given this much leniency when many of his "mistakes" were along the same lines.

If I were the coach, I'd be all over Harris. I'd recognize the good play & everything, but there is no way that defense was designed to be ran that way.

There is a way, and it's been documented in this thread.

Originally Posted by c10x

I watched it a few times, and looked at the pics a few times, and to me, it just looks like they were running a cover 2 zone out of the nickel, so his job was to stay with his man unless someone came underneath so he read that, and jumped the play. Thats why the other corner is also there at as he's getting tackled. He too was supposed to get underneath if someone was there.

I don't know why you want to turn this into a Kareem Jackson thread. But I will say this about Jackson - his errors seem to be as much (or more) physical than mental. Jackson gets beat at the line, has receivers runa way from him, and is broken down in the open field. My biggest concern regarding Jackson is that no matter the improvement in coaching, he never becomes good enough.

[b0ng]

Originally Posted by thunderkyss

Well, now I'm wondering why Kjac hasn't been given this much leniency when many of his "mistakes" were along the same lines.

If I were the coach, I'd be all over Harris. I'd recognize the good play & everything, but there is no way that defense was designed to be ran that way. He should have forced the slot receiver towards the defense, or after dropping him to the safety, widen out underneath that route. Kind of like RTP said.

Like Cloak said, the LB would have stopped that underneath pass for a short gain & not the 10+ that would have been given up had the QB been Peytonesque & pumped faked the CB.

Kareem Jackson gets about as much of a pass as any rookie who played terribly his first year. There's a relatively small segment of our population that think he is already a "bust" but for the most part we are waiting to see what happens in year two.

But again, speaking as a coach and not a knee-jerking fan, I'd hopefully have the foresight to question him on the play, what his responsibilities were and why he decided to jump that route like he did. I certainly wouldn't be taking him off the field unless he gave me some Cam Newton answers to my questions.

[Wolf6151]

Looks like a great play to me. He's on the slot receiver bumps him, then releases the WR to the FS over the top and picks up the RB that was uncovered. Great play by Harris. I'd be mad at the LB who was slow to pick up the RB coming out of the backfield.

[76Texan]

Miami employs the pattern reading concept in its zone coverage that Saban teaches at Alabama.

Saban heavily coaches up “pattern reading” within his zone drops.

The two zone-dropping schools of thought are to teach “spot-drops” or “pattern-reading.”

One can overemphasize the distinction, but generally spot-dropping is easier to teach and was the traditional approach. For example, if your outside linebacker is responsible for the weak-flat, he will take his read steps and, upon reading pass, will drop to a spot and then react to the QB’s eyes. A big advantage with spot-dropping is simply that it is easy to teach to, say, a run-stuffing inside linebacker who spends most of his time on run game pursuit and shedding blocks. But the weakness is that well coached receivers – who have enough time – can become excellent at settling in the “zone holes” between defenders. And, with good receivers and good QBs, offenses have become more and more adept and finding and exploiting these zone holes.
(Spot-dropping is what the Texans used under Smith and Bush.)

Pattern-reading, on the other hand, is much like a matchup-zone in basketball. Defenders are responsible for zones but they basically play man on the receivers who come into their zones. Moreover, pattern-read teams begin by immediately coaching their defenders on how to recognize popular pass combinations (and indeed, the very concept of pass-combinations themselves), and each week zero in on the 5-15 most common pass concepts they will see from that opponent. When done correctly, pattern-reading defenders know exactly how to cover receivers in their zones and seamlessly (in a quite literal sense) pass the receivers onto other defenders as they run their routes.

[76Texan]

On this play, notice that the outside receiver was in a wide split (between the side line and the numbers).
The LCB played outside leverage to take away any inside route.
He then run with the receiver, using the side line as an extra defender.

In the Texans 2-deep, 5-underneath coverage, the LCB won't play outside leverage; instead, he would try to turn the receiver inside, pass him off and then drop to his spot in the zone (about 10-12 yards deep unless it was a red-zone situation) to watch for any intermediate out route by the slot receiver or a quick out route by the RB.
The nickel back would drop a little further back (also about 10-12 yds deep).

If we only talk about this play, you can see that if Harris drops 10-12 yards deep as in the spot-drop scheme, it will be a simple catch for the RB out of the backfield (probably about 5 yards as both DBs react back).

More importantly, there will be two vertical routes deep that the safety will have to defend if neither DB strectches his zone back further (as the Texans sometimes failed to do.)

[76Texan]

Why did this play work?

Since Miami vary their schemes between man-under and zone, the QB made the wrong read. (I have the game film so it's easier to see - this one is from 09)

When the QB saw the LCB following the outside receiver and Harris turning to follow the slot receiver; he immediately figured that the LB was late and would never be able to catch up to the RB.

I won't claim anything; maybe somebody can ask him (Harris) later when he has the chance.

[thunderkyss]

Originally Posted by Lucky

There is a way, and it's been documented in this thread.

There is only one corner near the tackle. The other guy is a LB who I believe had the responsibility of the under receiver. The LB was a day late on the play & Harris was making up for his screw up.

That play was not designed the way it was ran.

Originally Posted by Lucky

I don't know why you want to turn this into a Kareem Jackson thread. But I will say this about Jackson - his errors seem to be as much (or more) physical than mental. Jackson gets beat at the line, has receivers runa way from him, and is broken down in the open field. My biggest concern regarding Jackson is that no matter the improvement in coaching, he never becomes good enough.

Didn't want to turn this into a KJ thread. My comment was more about poster's reluctance to comment on the play, when most have had no qualms about doing it all season long.

"Let's be fair to this kid, we don't know what the coverage was supposed to be."

When I say the same thing about our plays, our players, for our team...... it doesn't go over so well.

[thunderkyss]

Originally Posted by Wolf6151

Looks like a great play to me. He's on the slot receiver bumps him, then releases the WR to the FS over the top and picks up the RB that was uncovered. Great play by Harris. I'd be mad at the LB who was slow to pick up the RB coming out of the backfield.

I think this is absolutely correct. He gave up his responsibility to cover up for someone else's mistake. Good thing for the Hurricanes, that QB (whoever he is) bet wrong, & Harris was quick enough to get there.

[76Texan]

Originally Posted by thunderkyss

"Let's be fair to this kid, we don't know what the coverage was supposed to be."When I say the same thing about our plays, our players, for our team...... it doesn't go over so well.

Excellent point!