NFL Breakdown- Week One - The very time-ly pass play

The Late game Sunday saw the Giants travel to Dallas for a divisional match-up. New York struggling on Defence coming into this game with new faces in multiple positions were underdogs coming in. While Dallas, looking strong from last year’s play-off run, only had to deal with the loss of Feature Running back Demarco Murray and a lack of Pre-season playing time for Star Wideout Dez Bryant.

This game looked, on paper, to be a cake walk for Dallas. But it was very much the opposite. The Cowboys wasted two sustained 1^st half drives that made it into the Red zone. Coming away with only a FG on both occasions. While New York hung on, managing to score a FG of their own before taking advantage of 2 late 1^st half turnovers to take a 7 point lead into the half. The Second half flows a similar script to the 1^st. Giants not doing much on Offence, taking advantage of Defensive plays. While the Cowboys finally learn how to get the ball into the End zone.

We find ourselves late in the 4^th Quarter. The Cowboys have just driven the length of the field for a TD. Cutting the Giants lead down to 3. With 5:08 left on the clock, New York are desperate to see the game out. They get what they were after. 11 plays into a drive taking 3:23 off the clock forcing Dallas to use all 3 timeouts. we get the following play…

The Giants are 3^rd and Goal on the Cowboys 1. The Clock has been stopped by Dallas, burning their last timeout.

New York start off with the TE on the left of the formation and a WR to the right, but with a pre-snap shift and motion they end up with Twins to the Left and just a TE to the Right. Keeping 2 Backs in.

Now this is important as it helps Eli Manning work out the coverage. With no major communication between the Defence and the Corner following Beckham (NYG #13) across the formation. We can deduce that it’s Man Coverage.

The Offence’s play call is a Play-Action pass. This makes life difficult for Dallas and is a pretty good call for the situation. They have just failed to run the ball in on 2 plays inside the Cowboys 5 yard line and a TD kills the game. The hope here is that the Fake to the Running back will hold one of the Defenders that could be assigned to the Donnell the TE (Giants obviously don’t know the full play call, they have only deciphered the type of coverage). Giving him an easy release while Manning pulls the ball out and either rolls out the pocket on a Bootleg to complete the pass, or quickly dump the ball off. The Receivers on the backside are Decoys with Beckham eventually making his way back to the playside as a possible throw back at the back of the End zone. Either way, Easy 6 points.

However, Barry Church (Dallas #42) doesn’t fall for the fake and does a great job of limiting the release of the TE. Using his outside leverage, he stops Donnell form getting out on to the flats. This forces Manning to hold onto the ball.

Now the advantage of running a Bootleg around the Goal line is you make you QB a threat to run it in for a score if the pass isn’t on, even if he not that mobile. On these Goal line throws, the QB is told to only pull the trigger if it’s a certain TD. Otherwise he is to run for the score or throw it away. As the last thing you want to do is throw an INT and come away with nothing. Now you can see, Donnell is still tied up with Church and there is no running this in.

But now we get a lack of situational awareness from Manning. Dallas are out of timeouts and there is nothing on. If Manning takes the Sack, he keeps the clock moving and still give his team a shot at a FG. Instead he throws it away, stopping the Clock, still ending with a FG attempt.

   

The Game Clock shows 1:37 at the end of the play, but if Manning had taken the Sack, and the Giants waste the maximum amount of time, there would only have been 0:57 left. Then take off the 3 seconds it takes to kick the FG. Dallas would have been left with just 0:54 to work with. Taking into account that Dallas had struggled on 2 consecutive 2 minute drills at the end of the 1^st half and had to use 1 minute and 16 seconds to score the eventual winner. This game could have easily finished in New York’s favour with less time left for Romo and the Cowboys to use.