The Seattle Seahawks show Minnesota what their fans can expect – but how did that actually work out? And why does the idea that Cam Newton develops a better pass rate under Norv Turner of all people no longer seem so absurd? Also: Which rookies could impress? When do the Jaguars wake up? Whose stock is rising and falling? And what are the Patriots doing in their Wide Receiver Corps? The SPOX-NFL column looks to the league after week 3 of the preseason.
You want to ask questions to the SPOX-NFL column? This goes directly to the author!
The Seahawks and their annual scolded offensive line surprised on the weekend: In Minnesota, Seattle ran for 4.25 yards per run, including some very good scenes against the Starting Vikings front. But why actually?
A few elements caught the eye: The Seahawks used fakes to widen the defense, such as fake end-arounds. Seattle’s play calling, which has already been much discussed during the off-season, added: Play action and regular passes at 1st&10 to keep the defense open.
Seattle was able to complete some of his most successful runs of the evening against 7-men boxes. For example the 11-yard run of Davis, the longest run of the day for both teams:
It’s a classic power concept: with a pull block through the left guard, otherwise everyone has a direct opponent. The blocks are designed in such a way that the puller ideally stands in the way of the two players on the left side of the defensive line and thus a numerical overweight is achieved.
This worked out for Davis’ Run, just like a little later for Carlson’s touchdown: In principle, it’s the same concept, with slightly changed second-level blocking.
The Seahawks were one of the more strict zone blocking teams in the league for years, with a West Coast touch in passing. Both are now significantly changed, with more vertical aspects in passing and more power elements in run blocking. The latter could be seen several times impressively against Minnesota.
Seattle coach Pete Carroll had already said last year that he wanted to bet more on the run game again. The specification didn’t work out, for the coming season he has again taken up the cause – and for this reason Brian Schottenheimer has been appointed as the new offensive coordinator. Stylistically, the third Preseason game was a fitting foretaste of what Seahawks fans can expect in 2018.
When Carolina’s new offensive coordinator Norv Turner announced a few weeks ago that he wanted to help Cam Newton achieve a higher completion percentage – Newton stands at just under 60 percent in his NFL career and has not broken the 60 percent mark for four years – the first reaction was a questioning look.
Not only does Turner’s Air Coryell Offense stand for deep dropbacks and a pronounced vertical passing game, but also Cam’s greatest quality is undoubtedly the downfield passing game – and not the short pass timing passing game, but he lacks the accuracy and often the rhythm in the passing game.
And yet Newton – assuming that he will not be used in Week 4 – ends the (cautiously enjoyed) preseason with 68.4 percent passes, including 11/17 against the Patriots in the third preseason game.
If you look at the tape, you can see some tendencies in how Turner Newton enables more checkdowns. Even without regularly throwing 3-step dropbacks with timing passes.
This included: a lot of motion to make pre-snap reads easier for Newton. Versatile personnel groupings and formations to make the defense’s work more difficult. A significantly improved Inside Run Game. And above all: route combinations that give Newton simple targets.
The downfield route of the tight end clears the way for the receiver, which has a deeper and thus simpler release.
Newton only has to withstand long enough in the pocket and then has a free receiver on its right side, which it can operate very easily.
A similar picture was taken a few minutes later:
This time it is a mesh concept over the middle, with two routes running towards each other. This can easily cause confusion in the allocation against Zone Coverage, against Man Coverage the respective cover players usually have to navigate past each other to follow their opponent across the field.
In this case the Patriots play a deeper zone coverage and Newton would have the possibility to operate both Underneath receivers. The concept works well together with the tight end’s seam route, which Newton also alludes to here.
These are only a few excerpts, but they are excerpts that Panthers fans can encourage. A more efficient offense, in which the line deficits in particular are better compensated. And in which option and read elements are also extremely present, so that Newton’s strengths as a runner take on a central role.
A few weeks ago I had already described and praised the Chiefs’ screen-play designs, and against Chicago you could quickly see where Kansas City could get explosive plays without throwing the ball deep.
All you had to do was watch the first game of the Chief’s Open:
No coach in the NFL is currently better at designing misdirection concepts. Mahomes deceives here the ball transfer to Kareem Hunt, almost at the same moment Tyreek Hill receives the ball. Based on this, there is a blocking concept like in a regular run, with Travis Kelce as lead-blocker in front of Hill.
Kansas City’s Speedster gets out 28 yards, and such plays give the Chiefs even more than that: Reid can build in more fakes, the quarterback can read a defender and then decide whether Hunt or Hill gets the ball, Hill can be used as a diversion and so on.
The other striking play of the starters was the touchdown pass to Hunt, which strongly reminded of the distinctive screen designs:
Mahomes reads the flash correctly and knows that Hunt is his hot read – that makes the scene similar to a screen from the quarterback’s perspective. Because the linebacker is on hunt’s side, the other linebacker in man coverage (the cover assignments are color-coded) has to cover more yards to get to the other side.
The route combinations through the receiver and the tight end prevent this, both block the way for the linebacker and simultaneously pull the defenders from the side with themselves. As a result, it looks like a big coverage bust and Hunt seems to run uncovered and relaxed into the end zone.
Kansas City’s Offense will be a lot of fun again in 2018. However, she will have to score constantly, because the problems in the defense and especially in the coverage will accompany the Chiefs throughout the whole season.
Few things in sport are as ephemeral as a title window in the NFL. At some point you either have to pay the quarterback dearly, or the top performers in the defense. Or you have two below-average drafts and the cheap talent supply suddenly fails to materialize. Or the players who still carry the team in the one year suddenly decrease rapidly due to age and the drop in performance cannot be compensated. There are plenty of possibilities.
The Jaguars are in such a title window thanks to an outstanding defense that is armed to the teeth. The defensive line alone belongs in the league-wide Top-5, Jalen Ramsey and A.J. Bouye form the best cornerback duo of the NFL and Telvin Smith together with Myles Jack one of the most explosive linebacker duo.
But guess what? Yannick Ngakoue, perhaps already the team’s best pass rusher, will enter the final year of his rookie deal in 2019, just like Myles Jack. Ramsey as well, although the option on the fifth contract year could still be held at least in 2020. However, this is also not cheap for a top 5 pick. Campbell, however, will turn 32 in a few days.
In other words: When we talk about the Jaguars’ title window, it may well be that we are talking about no more than the next two seasons. And the Jaguars are well on their way to closing this title window themselves.
This team is built so it doesn’t need any miracles from its quarterback. Rather, it would take a secure game manager who can afford as few turnovers as possible, guarantee good field position, complement the run game and give the defense a chance. Blake Bortles is in a way the opposite: the most inconsistent quarterback in the NFL, with some spectacular highs as well as dramatic lows.
The latter can be seen again in the preseason.
Against Atlanta, Bortles again threw an interception over the middle because he could not read the (free) Underneath defender – as he did against Minnesota, where he had several such throws and only one was intercepted.
He should have had another pick when he just fired a long ball in double coverage and out of range of his receiver and another when he first held the ball under pressure forever and then tried to get it to a receiver at the last second – and that was all in the first quarter.
With Bortles, the Jaguars carry a ticking time bomb week after week on the most important position on the field, and the scenes are still present when they wanted to hide their quarterback in the championship game so badly last year that they lost the game. Jacksonville needs more stability from his quarterback and can do without the highs Bortles showed last year during a three-week episode.
Long story short: no team should call the jets more often for a Bridgewater trade.
Page 1: New times in SEA and CAR – the Jags need a new quarterback
Page 2: Who climbs, who falls? How’s the pats? Best rookies? Your questions