Fun Bunch Friday: Wild Card Weekend 2023

UNLOCKED for the playoffs! Wide Zone and Play Action were common themes among explosive plays among our teams on Wild Card Weekend.

18 Y SIFT (WIZZ)

Defending the Shanahan/McVay offense is hard. It’s even harder when the defense attempts to defend 12P with Nickel defense. It’s even HARDER when the defense tries to attack a condensed 12P formation with only 4 first level defenders. That’s actually the complete opposite of how Bill Belichick prevented Sean McVay from setting the record for youngest head coach to win a Super Bowl 3 years prior to when he set it in 2021.

This play is executed to absolute perfection. The Y is going to sift across, so the RT has to handle the EDGE, and the RG takes the 4i. Both defenders are so wide that both the RT and the RG are just going to match them out, forcing the vertical cut. This is where the play gets interesting to me. The C, LG, and LT are all essentially working the 2i to both ILBs because there is a twist happening. The 2i is lagging back to the B gap with Micah Parsons (#11) looping around. #14 falls all the way back from the front-side A gap to the back-side C gap behind the twist, and this opens up a massive hole…but I think it’s the Strong Safety’s fault.

The way defenses defend sifters is by falling back a gap to account for that “gap” moving from the front-side of the play to the back-side, and if the ball cuts all the way back-side, they need someone in that gap. However, the twist on this play messed up those fits. Because of the twist, Parsons couldn’t fall back, so 14 had to go all the way back for him. I say the Strong Safety messed up the run fit for the defense because he is the one who should be replacing 14 in the fit when 85 sifts across, but he stays flat-footed and gets cracked by Christian Watson (9), opening that second/third level cut for Aaron Jones, who makes the most of it.

Make. Cornerbacks. Tackle. Cracking the Safety put Stephon Gilmore, one of the best Cornerbacks of the last 10+ years, basically through the spin cycle because fitting the run is not in his or any other CB’s job description. If Cornerbacks could tackle, they would play Safety.

18 WENDY

Nobody in the NFL uses their WRs in the run game with as much frequency and success as the Rams. McVay hasn’t been shy about saying that he considers their base offense “11 and a Half” personnel because of they have the receiving ability of 11P with the blocking ability and concepts of 12P. I would argue that they might as well consider themselves a 13P running offense when Kupp, Nacua, and Demarcus Robinson were all on the field together. Even tiny Tutu Atwell can block far above his weight class.

On this play, Kupp is going to come back across the formation and insert to the back-side linebacker. You won’t find “Wendy” in any of their leaked playbooks (which you can read if you subscribe and get access to my Google Drive) under Outside Zone, but you will find it under Inside Zone. “Wendy” is weak-side zone in which the F sifts across; different than F Sift in that F Sift is the strong-side version. In some of the diagrams of Wendy, it shows the F inserting back-side like we see here instead of sifting the back-side DE. On this specific play, I would think McVay simply wanted to match body types. As an offensive football coach, I know I wouldn’t want my best WR blocking the other team’s defensive end, but I would much prefer my TE blocking the DE and my WR blocking the LB, simply for safety reasons. I can’t say for sure because I wasn’t in the meetings, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that were taken into consideration here. The Lions have a similar issue as the Cowboys did in the last play in that the transfer of gaps as a result of the sifter is not gap sound, and thus, a crease opens.

The Dolphins abysmal offensive performance left no explosive runs, and with the 49ers on their #1 seed bye, we have 5 total explosive runs in this week’s cutup.

CURL-KNIFE

One of the topics I am most looking forward to studying this off-season is play action from the Packers, and this is a beautiful example of why. I actually have a similar version of this concept in my own offensive system without the full run fake. The front-side is a Curl-Flat concept, used to attack Cover 3. The back-side is their Knife concept, which is similar to the Air Raid’s Y Cross, but the Cross is more of a clearout route than actually in the progression (in my adaptation of this system, I teach it as the Air Raid’s version).

However, even if this were more of an Air Raid style Cross, the traditional coaching point is “Under Sam, Over Mike,” but the Mike carries the Cross completely vertical, making it hard to truly get “over” him while simultaneously blowing open the second level for the Dig/Dover coming in right behind him.

This type of concept mirrors one of my favorite ways to package passing concepts together. The front-side concept is a concept that is designed to beat a specific coverage, and the back-side concept is one that is “good vs. anything” in case you don’t get the coverage you were expecting, to which the front-side concept was called. All the QB has to know is the progression because something will come open eventually. If we get the expected coverage, then it will come open earlier in the down. If not, then progress to the back-side.

PA TREE

I am on the record for not being a huge fan of this backfield set - both backs “stacked” (on the same side) in the backfield. The reason is that in general, there is very little creativity and diversity in terms of scheme from this set. If Mike McDaniel is known for anything throughout his first two seasons as a Head Coach and play caller in the NFL, it’s creativity, and this play is no exception, starting with the formation itself.

This formation presents several problems to a defense. For starters, it’s a 4x1 formation with the two stacked receivers and the two stacked backs all on the same side of the QB. I made a YouTube video discussing four strong passing concepts using a lead blocker for a swing route, and this is a fantastic formation for that and forcing the defense to be prepared for it when the huddle breaks. On the other side of the formation, it is a single width / closed / nub flank, forcing run fit issues for the defense. The third and final issue to discuss for the defense here is the stacked twin receivers. Defenses by now are fairly accustomed to “stack checking” coverages based on the original call within their system, but it still forces communication. However, this formation also has the need to account for the stacked twins and the possibility of a “Quads push” to the coverage.

This concept has really grown on me this season. They call it “Tree.” It is a condensed formation version of Fade-Out (which they call “Branch” from a regular split, Tree/Branch). This variation has a bit of a twist because generally, the point man is the one running the Widen Go while the off man is running the Tree Out, but that is switched on this play. I think it works better for this instance.

The coverage appears to be a variation of Cover 6 to me (Palms/Read to the twins - a variation of Quads/C4, Halves/C2 to the TE). The Widen Go creates a switch release, new #1 receiver for the defense post-snap, attempting to clear out the Cornerback to open the Tree behind. The Cornerback picks up the Tree a step too late to make the play. Even so, the Go is wide open behind him with the Safety not pushing over the top of it.

Not to go unnoticed is the specific run action protection. Off of the sift action, the Nickel had to stay in the curl area in case the Fullback delayed into the flat, which completely isolated the CB and Safety on the twin receivers. This is an absolutely brilliant design by Mike McDaniel.

ARROW BASIC

My affinity for the Arrow concept has been well-documented throughout this series as I really enjoy seeing concepts we run at the high school level in the pros. The Shanahan/McVay tree calls it Arrow, but most will know it as either Y Corner or 3 Man Snag. This is a fantastic presentation of it by McVay against the Lions.

At first glance, the formation doesn’t present as one that would carry a 3 receiver concept. It can be run out of 2x2 with the HB running the flat, but that is still going to be less common out of the Pistol. The TE goes in Cheat motion to create a 3 receiver side at the snap and runs the flat. The Rams found huge success using this motion over the last half of the season and simply busting coverages as a result, so the CB widens and sticks to it pretty closely here. Seemingly opening up the Corner from Kupp behind it. I think he was also baiting Stafford a little bit as we can see him sink just a bit as Stafford moves to the back-side Basic, but I have seen Stafford make throws with much tighter windows than that.

On the back-side, Nacua runs a Basic with Williams checking down, but it’s not quite that simple. Stafford seeds a no-look pass right past rookie first rounder Jack Campbell. From the endzone view, you can see Stafford looking about at the numbers when Nacua is stacking behind Campbell. Campbell flinches outside, Nacua catches it just outside the hash between the hook defenders.

The lack of explosive run plays was made up for in explosive pass plays! Enjoy them below.

All 4 of our teams made the playoffs, 1 of which was on the #1 seed by this week. 2 were eliminated in the Wild Card round. We will continue discussing explosive plays until all of our teams are eliminated or win the whole thing! Throughout the off-season, we will take deep dives into concepts and situational play calling. While the season is almost over, the content is just getting started! Subscribe to make sure you don’t miss out.