How the Falcons beat Manning: Disguised formations

[GP]

"It all came down to disguising things," said safety William Moore, who played what easily was the best game of his career.

Moore set up Atlanta's first touchdown with an interception and came up with a critical sack in the fourth quarter to help ice the game.

Let's begin with Moore's interception because that set the tone for the game. It started with a disguise. On Denver's third play of the game, Moore started off lining up at middle linebacker. As the ball was snapped, he quickly became a safety, dropping fast into coverage.

Moore picked off Manning’s pass at the Denver 34-yard line and returned it to the 1-yard line to set up Michael Turner's touchdown three plays later.

"It all comes down to looks," Moore said. "You can't show your hand to Peyton Manning, or he'll eat you alive."

The Falcons threw all sorts of looks at Manning, and he threw all sorts of uncharacteristic passes. They went almost all game with only two linebackers, sometimes only one, on the field. They lined up defensive backs at linebacker, sometimes dropping them into coverage and sometimes having them blitz.

Safety Thomas DeCoud picked off Manning on Denver's second drive, and cornerback Robert McClain, who played only briefly while a couple of corners were banged up, came up with the first interception of his career on Denver's third drive.

"We were able to disguise our coverages pretty well," Atlanta coach Mike Smith said.

LINK TO FULL STORY HERE.

Hopefully Wade Phillips doesn't get cute. Don't reinvent the wheel. Peyton and his team won't have time to create new solutions to the problem the Falcons threw at him in the MNF game.

Go nickel, don't tip your hand before the snap, fly to the ball and put Manning on his back.

[HJam72]

Nickel sounds like a McGhahee nightmare for our D. I love the disguised D idea though, and I think it's the next, improved step from just not letting him know which 3-4 LB is coming. Don't let that forehead even know who's going to be on the field when the play starts, LOL.

[Scooter]

it worked, but i didnt like a lot of what the falcons did. several of their disguised coverages were meant to bait manning into throwing to a specific area or receiver in order to get the big play. often times that meant another was about to become wide open. they guessed right and manning took the bait, but it could've easily backfired with huge plays for the offense. atlanta took advantage of a QB still shaking off the rust, i doubt they'd be that aggressive later in the year.

i guess that's why i dont get paid the big bucks though.

[Double Barrel]

The Texans key to beating Manning is, like it's always been, keeping him off the field.

Our offense needs to sustain long, time consuming drives that result in points. Get a lead early and don't let up on the gas. Force Manning into passing situations where our D can pin their ears back and force him into making bad passing decisions with lots of pressure.

He's going to be dangerous next week, after a loss, and at home with the high altitude of Denver. If it's a close score in the 4th, I'm going to be extremely nervous seeing our worn out D trying to keep up with Manning's no huddle routine.

[IDEXAN]

4 turnovers

[PapaL]

Pressure Pressure Pressure. Manning doesn't like being hit. Coverage is great and all but if he doesn't have time to throw the ball they don't stand a chance at winning.

[djohn2oo8]

His arm strength looked horrible.

[TexanSam]

Originally Posted by Double Barrel

The Texans key to beating Manning is, like it's always been, keeping him off the field.

Our offense needs to sustain long, time consuming drives that result in points. Get a lead early and don't let up on the gas. Force Manning into passing situations where our D can pin their ears back and force him into making bad passing decisions with lots of pressure.

He's going to be dangerous next week, after a loss, and at home with the high altitude of Denver. If it's a close score in the 4th, I'm going to be extremely nervous seeing our worn out D trying to keep up with Manning's no huddle routine.

Foster and Tate are going to have to run well and eat up the clock just like they did against the Jags. If we can control the time of possession, then it should give us a big advantage.

[Vinny]

I think we saw that proverbial rust...I don't expect Manning to repeat that this weekend. Gonna be a good one to watch for the Nation and not just us. I think we may see them again in the playoffs.

[gwallaia]

John Gruden made a good point during the pre-game show when he said Manning will have no problem calling the plays but the rest of his new team may have trouble understanding it.

[Mr teX]

manning is the only player on that team that scares me...JJ Watt is gonna have a field day with their soft ass o-line though.

I feel like Wade's been keeping our defense back a little b/c he knew we'd ok in base stuff considering our 1st 2 cupcake opponents; haven't blitzed much all year. I think this week though, he finally let the dogs off the leash.


On a side note, has Barwin been put in witness protection? dude hasn't been a factor at all this year.

[76Texan]

Originally Posted by Mr teX

manning is the only player on that team that scares me...JJ Watt is gonna have a field day with their soft ass o-line though.

I feel like Wade's been keeping our defense back a little b/c he knew we'd ok in base stuff considering our 1st 2 cupcake opponents; haven't blitzed much all year. I think this week though, he finally let the dogs off the leash.


On a side note, has Barwin been put in witness protection? dude hasn't been a factor at all this year.

I don't know if I would call the Broncos O-line soft-a, Mr Tex.
Clady has been a very good LT even before D. Brown emerged and Kuper is very good at one Guard spot. The RT Franklin was drafted at #46.

On the other two positions, Pro Football Focus has this to say about them:

https://www.profootballfocus.com/blo...alcons-week-2/

Young OL Comes Good

We took some heat last season by consistently grading the Denver offensive line poorly despite some big numbers put up by the Denver running game. In reality much of that was manufactured by the option attack and Tim Tebow, but this season there has been a notable improvement from LG Zane Beadles (+0.7) and J.D. Walton (+1.4) in particular. They combined to allow three hurries, although neither allowed Manning to hit the floor, but each had an impressive performance run blocking, getting the better of Falcons defensive linemen and linebackers several times.

Walton showed impressive strength at the point of attack while Beadles was able to locate and move linebackers at the second level as Denver used him to pull and act as lead-blocker for runs in the hole throughout the game. This marks the second successive game that both players have graded positively, having since been languishing down at the bottom of our rankings in previous seasons. Peyton Manning makes any offensive line look better, but this version of Manning will be thankful for the uptick in performance of those linemen.

[Mr teX]

Originally Posted by 76Texan

I don't know if I would call the Broncos O-line soft-a, Mr Tex.
Clady has been a very good LT even before D. Brown emerged and Kuper is very good at one Guard spot. The RT Franklin was drafted at #46.

On the other two positions, Pro Football Focus has this to say about them:

https://www.profootballfocus.com/blo...alcons-week-2/

Young OL Comes Good

We took some heat last season by consistently grading the Denver offensive line poorly despite some big numbers put up by the Denver running game. In reality much of that was manufactured by the option attack and Tim Tebow, but this season there has been a notable improvement from LG Zane Beadles (+0.7) and J.D. Walton (+1.4) in particular. They combined to allow three hurries, although neither allowed Manning to hit the floor, but each had an impressive performance run blocking, getting the better of Falcons defensive linemen and linebackers several times.

Walton showed impressive strength at the point of attack while Beadles was able to locate and move linebackers at the second level as Denver used him to pull and act as lead-blocker for runs in the hole throughout the game. This marks the second successive game that both players have graded positively, having since been languishing down at the bottom of our rankings in previous seasons. Peyton Manning makes any offensive line look better, but this version of Manning will be thankful for the uptick in performance of those linemen.

Purely basing my opinion on what i saw last night. They looked terrible trying to run block for Mcgahee. Most of what he got was him making something out of not much & of course manning didn't really get comfortable all night. The falcons d-line/lbs are ok, but that denver o-line made them look like the 49ers front 7 though. I suspect that we'll have at least the same kind of success they had last night.

Maybe Nolan's defense has made ATL's defense better as a group than last year, but last night i thought it was more about the denver o-line just getting pushed all over the place.

[76Texan]

Originally Posted by Mr teX

Purely basing my opinion on what i saw last night. They looked terrible trying to run block for Mcgahee. Most of what he got was him making something out of not much & of course manning didn't really get comfortable all night. The falcons d-line/lbs are ok, but that denver o-line made them look like the 49ers front 7 though. I suspect that we'll have at least the same kind of success they had last night.

Maybe Nolan's defense has made ATL's defense better as a group than last year, but last night i thought it was more about the denver o-line just getting pushed all over the place.

Maybe the facts that all those turnovers gave that impressions.

However, if you look at the stat lines, McGahee ran the ball 22 times for 113 yards (5.1 ave).

Yeah sure, if you take out a long run and a medium one, the stats go downhill, but it's the same with most RBs.
(And I don't think anybody put McGahee up there at the RB position, right?)

We all saw the combination of Manning being rusted and the Falcons scheme taking advantage of it.

Even with all that, their O-line had hardly anything to do with it.
The turnovers happened without the O-line's help.

I still think that our front 7 will beat them, but I don't think they are patsies by any mean.

[GP]

Originally Posted by Mr teX

manning is the only player on that team that scares me...JJ Watt is gonna have a field day with their soft ass o-line though.

I feel like Wade's been keeping our defense back a little b/c he knew we'd ok in base stuff considering our 1st 2 cupcake opponents; haven't blitzed much all year. I think this week though, he finally let the dogs off the leash.


On a side note, has Barwin been put in witness protection? dude hasn't been a factor at all this year.

Not saying I feel this way, but.....if Wade is holding our D back a bit, he could also have a guy or two purposefully holding back (playing more "contain") for the strategy of unleashing those two guys at a better moment.

What I don't like is Dobbins on the sidelines. Bradie James is calling the D, but he is weak out there in actual activity as a LB.

This D needs Dobbins' run stopping ability.

[Wolf6151]

Manning may be the best QB ever mentally at reading a defense and calling the appropriate plays at LOS, he's an offensive coordinator on the field, but his teammates are behind him mentally. Also his arm strength is gone. His deep passes looked bad and even his short/medium passes were late because he has to wind up and throw with his body more so than in the past when he had the arm strength to get passes off quicker. He can't snap the ball quickly with his arm any more.

Also, I agree with GP this defense needs Dobbins in the game and Bradie James on the sideline.