Third Down Thursday: NFL Week 10, 2023
While two of our teams were on bye, the two that played gave us some great concepts in the last UNLOCKED article of the regular season!
49ERS
I love everything about this concept: the routes, the formation, the protection, everything. We’re going to start by diving into the route concept because it explains the protection. The primary concept is what they call “Burner,” which is one of the ways they get to a Yankee concept, and there is a Deep Pivot (X) on the back-side. The goal of this concept is to stretch the deep field zones, especially against middle closed coverage. The Streak (Z) is meant to occupy the Deep 1/3 CB and the Middle 1/3 Safety so that the High Cross (F) coming from the back-side is played with bad leverage and comes open on the other side of the formation. As shown here, this is generally paired with some sort of Check Flat (Y) route that will hold the Curl-Flat defender from sinking underneath the High Cross
I think Purdy got off his primary read, the High Cross, just a step too soon. As Deebo Samuel (F) is hitting the opposite hash, he is splitting two defenders, but neither have good body position on him. While Deebo is facing the sideline and sprinting, both defenders are squared up on the QB, and one of them is about to drive down on the HB running the Check Burst. You can make the argument that part of that is due to Purdy turning his shoulders to the back-side, but it doesn’t ever appear to me that either defender would have been able to actually cover the High Cross. This ball could have been thrown with touch between the numbers and sideline to about the 37 yard line, and one of the best receivers in the league at running after the catch would have had about 15 yards of separation between the deep defenders covering the Streak to make one of them miss. However, the ball gets thrown to the Deep Pivot back-side. He could have led Aiyuk a little closer to the sideline, but Aiyuk (X) does a great job setting up his defenders to create enough space to be able to make his QB right.
This is a very long-developing concept, and I think that is the biggest reason Purdy didn’t wait for the High Cross to spring open. The protection was holding up well, but that is a long time to stay on the first read. Normally, this is a concept that would be run off play action, so by the time the fake is completed, the routes are coming open. However, play action isn’t nearly as effective on 3rd & 9 from your own 20 yard line, so Shanahan opts for a 7 man protection. Generally, I would prefer to have this protection flipped so that the HB is on the side of the primary read so that the QB can see the pressure coming to him, and with this protection, his back-side would have had the help from the chipping Y. The HB would have run the Check Flat, and the Y would have run a Check Over (over the ball). The issue with that on this play is that the defense would have played the coverage differently after being forced into a 3x1 check, and with an extra defender having eyes on the trips side, the High Cross is much more likely to be picked up. You could avoid that by running this protection from a 2 back, 2x1 formation, but then the chip is coming from the backfield, which most tackles don’t like. I think that for this play in a vacuum, this is the right protection call, and it holds up for an explosive play on 3rd & Long.
PACKERS
LaFleur gets to a Quads Dagger concept on 3rd & 10 late in the game. I’m not normally a fan of Quads because it’s hard to space the routes without bringing somebody back across the formation, which makes it easier to defend, but I love this idea of having somebody block instead of actually running a route. You still have to be prepared to defend him (Y) vertically, but because he is blocking, the defense still has to account two players to it, one to take on the block and one to tackle the Swing. Now the offense doesn’t have to worry about route spacing because there are still only three routes actually being run.
The defense is running Tampa 2 here. The Strong and Weak Safeties are breaking for the numbers, and the Pole Running Middle Safety is caught a little late behind the Go route. Both safeties cover the Go route. The Y has gone to the flat, taking the attention of the Flat CB, and the swinging HB takes the Hook-Curl LB. The defense has 4 defenders for 4 eligibles, but with the deep defenders squeezing the deepest route, nobody covers the Dig by the Z. Love throws a strike, right in the window between defenders and high enough to make sure it doesn’t get batted down.
Defensively, I can only think of one way this can be covered from this coverage, and it’s still not ideal. With zone match Cover 2 principles, the CB should have carried the vertical of the Z. The F would still be carried by the Strong Safety and have the Middle safety squeezing his route as the deepest threat. That leaves 2 eligibles on 1 defender, the Hook-Curl LB right now. However, the defense also has 3 defenders essentially covering 1 eligible on the weak-side. A Quads push should have been alerted by the defense to alert the Weak LB in the back-side Hook-Curl that he might be needed on the front-side of the play. Essentially, both ILBs should be playing In-Out on the Y and the HB where each has the first threat to his side or the second threat away, if they both go to the same side like in this play. This would put the Strong Hook-Curl defender taking on the block from the Y and the Weak-Side Hook-Curl defender chasing the Swing. The defense would still have the ability to play any 2 over 1 concept to the single side with the CB and Weak Safety. That’s easy to say on paper, but if the defense runs that, then it opens up a myriad of potential miscommunications if either of the 2 receivers run a Shallow route where it gets passed off.
All of that is to say that I think this is a difficult play to defend. Even if the defense plays it perfectly, you’re still relying on a LB with bad leverage to tackle the HB in space before he gets 9 yards. I really like the idea of these 4 strong concepts while using one to block for a Swing route. I can easily see this being translated to other concepts: Mills, Scissors, Post-Wheel, etc. Then you open up even more full 4 strong concepts with all 4 eligibles running routes, especially concepts like Super Spacing where you’re running a traditional spacing concept but one of the receivers runs a vertical to occupy all the deep defenders. This is a copycat league, and I hope to see more of this idea spread around.
BONUS
With half of the teams we study on a bye, I didn’t want to leave you with only two plays this week! This concept has become very popular over the last few weeks. I have seen some starting to call it Mesh “Traffic.” The idea is that the HB is going to effectively be the Low Mesh route coming from the backfield opposite a Tight Bunch. There is going to be so much “traffic” that the defender in man coverage on the HB isn’t going to be able to keep up with him, and he is going to spring open in the flat, just as we see here.
This will be the last unlocked article of the regular season as all teams have now had their bye weeks! If you’ve enjoyed the full articles, be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss any, and upgrade to paid if you want to continue seeing the full article and included cutups!
I am also making my full library of film available to Founding Member subscribers. This includes the 2019 49ers offense, 2021 Rams offense, some 2020 Rams defense (Staley/Fangio), some 2022 Browns offense (for offensive line technique), my CoachTube videos, and all of the 2023 Dolphins, Rams, Packers, and 49ers offenses that we have been studying so far this year and will continue to study. The 2023 offenses are also tagged with game data, including: down, distance, yard line, yards gained, run/pass, and we are working on tagging plays as well. If you want to dive deeper into this offense, be sure to subscribe as a Founding Member, and you will have access to this library!