A classic game with a classic ending - Fitzgerald magic ends the Packers hopes

Divisional Week rolled into town with 4 great games, all expecting to be close, and all finishing with a points margin of less than 8 points. This week, I will be taking a look at Packers trip across the US to Arizona.

Arizona was coming off a Bye week after earning the #2 Seed in the NFC. Lead by veteran QB Carson Palmer, the offence finished 2^nd in Scoring Offence, 2^nd in Passing Yards and Top of the pile in Total Offence. Their Defence wasn’t shabby either, ranking 8^th in Scoring Defence and 5^th in Yards Against. Add to that a finishing record of 13-3, going 7-1 down the stretch, and you can see why teams would have wanted to avoid coming up against the Cardinals. Then there are the Green Bay Packers. Up and Down season by their standards but still managed to put together a respectable 10-6 record. QB Aaron Rodgers is always on the list of MVP candidates at the start of the season and a defence that on its day can smother an offence. But that’s been their problem, it’s been the whole teams’ problem. They haven’t been on there day, enough to scare teams like the hosting Cardinals.

These teams had met before during the run to the post-season, with Arizona taking the upper hand. They comfortably saw off Green Bay, 38-8. But when it comes to the second game, you knew HC Mike McCarthy would have made the necessary adjustments.

This was a close one throughout, low scoring in the 1^st Half, but coming alive in the Second. 27 points scored by both teams in the 2^nd Half, 17 in the 4^th Quarter including another converted Hail Mary by Rodgers.

We are going to jump straight to Over Time for this week’s piece. Cardinals have won the toss and chose to receive. When you choose to receive in OT, it is key that you put points on the board in that 1^st drive. By choosing either way you are saying ‘this is our best unit and we are going to win this way’.

This is the 1^st play of OT.

So here we go. Arizona come out swinging from the start. HC and decision maker Bruce Arians has decided that their best chance on moving the ball is going to come from Veteran Superstar WR Larry Fitzgerald (Circled at the bottom of the shot). Starting out aggressive they are going to move him tight in motion pre-snap then have him running an intermediate crosser underneath a Slice and a Fade by the stacked receivers at the top of the formation. The HB is staying home to help block while the TE is going to have a delayed release into the flats for a check-down.

The Packers Defence is running a Biltz. This should be the perfect playcall for what the Offence is running. Palmer needs time for Fitzgerald to get open, so by sending 6 the Packers are going to stress the Pass Protection. This is where it gets murky. I have drawn in what I think the coverage due to experience of the Packers Defence and their style of protecting their blitzes. I believe it to be a ‘3 under 3’ zone as I doubt that Green bay would want Peppers matched up on a HB. Now keep an eye on the 2 circled defender, they affect how this play develops…

 

As you can see, #23 has turned Fitzgerald loose as he breaks across the field (adding this to a big man in coverage enforces my suspicions of zone coverage). However, the player I circled at the top of the screen has stayed on the WR he was aligned over. This creates a huge hole at the top of the screen for Fitzgerald to run into and settle down. The Pressure almost bails the Packers out, but Palmer does just enough to escape and find his target for what seems to be a 1^st down that will get about as far as Midfield at best.

Now kids looking for a WR to sculpt their game around won’t go too far wrong looking at Fitzgerald. Now there is a time and a place for running this down the line and going out of bounds. But that’s not what Larry has on his mind. He’s going to keep going ‘north, south’ while running to space. If #37 or any of the noted Defenders bring him down in the next 5 yards, he’ll neither have lost nor gained any yards. But if he makes #37 miss, he brings blockers into play.

 

 

Another coaching tip for all Receiver… If you don’t have the football, make yourself useful. You never know when the chance for a big play is going to happen, don’t miss it by being lazy. Arizona’s Receivers work hard to get down field and spring some key blocks as the ageing Fitzgerald strolls closer and closer to the End zone…

He makes it inside the 5 yard line before the Packers eventually bring him down. That’s around 40 extra yards because Fitzgerald didn’t want to give up.

This huge play sets up the eventually game winner that is a clever play in itself, but without this play, the Cardinals may never have got down there.

 

Wild Card Special - Chiefs at Texans

So here we go. The Play-offs are finally here and the 1^st game is down to be a close one. Chiefs traveling to Houston. Chiefs had been playing some solid ball down the stretch and were coming into this one of the back of a 10 game winning streak. Houston made it in after scraping through the terrible AFC South, however they had won 4 of their last 5 home games only losing to the Pats in week. These 2 teams had met before, all the way back in week 1, when Kansas racked up a big early lead with Houston making a fight back to make the result a bit more respectable. Hoyer was benched in that game for Mallet, who is no longer on the roster.

This game was over early, so it no surprise that the plays I will be showing you are in the 1^st Half of the football game.

Our opening play, is the opening play of the game. The Kick-off. This play can easily set the tone for the 1^st few drives, big plays on either side can give your team a huge boost. So let’s look at the play and see what happens.

So this is the Alignment for the opening Kick-Off. Chiefs have a 6-man front line, 1 player watching for the chip, and 3 lead blockers. Knile Davis is the player circled up in the centre of the End zone.

At the moment of the kick the Blockers start moving back and towards the Left Hash if we were the return team. What leads me to think this is a called return to the Left is the aggressive block attempt at the bottom left of the picture. To spring a return, you need good blocking at the point of attack, to take it all the way you need to block the ‘safeties’. This I think, without scouting the Texans Kick-Off unit, is an attempt to hamper one of the safeties.

So once the returner has caught the ball and the Blockers have turned to face the coverage team, you can see that the front line players have created an angled wall of blockers. 2 of the Lead blocker have created a Wedge, with the 3^rd sitting just behind them. The Wall of blockers are going to do their best at stopping anyone to their right get across or behind them. The Wedge is going to work on the 2 remaining coverage players on the return side, and the last remaining lead blocker is going to clean up the most dangerous coverage player that slips through the Wall. The Texan circled at the bottom right of the pic is the ‘free player’, he should make the tackle if everyone else is blocked correctly.

You can see here, as the play has rolled on, the tight lane created for Davis to get the initial yards. The Texan circled is the same player from the pic before, and you can see, he has come too far inside almost expecting Davis to cut the return back towards the middle of the field.

Davis doesn’t cut it back. #21, a different Texan, is still looking inside. He has no idea that Davis has all the space in the world, thanks to the great block to the right of the pic, and no one between him and the End zone. So it becomes a footrace between Davis and the ‘half-blocked’ Linebacker. It is only going to end one way, with the Chiefs 3^rd string Running back in the End zone untouched.

This play gives the Chiefs an early 7-point lead. This is not what you want if your Brain Hoyer and the Houston Texans. You know from 1^st hand experience how hard it is to come about against this Defence, now you’ve just made your life harder by giving up points on ST.

We skip ahead to the 2^nd Quarter with only 3:53 remaining in the Half. Hoyer has turned the ball over twice already and Kansas have added 2 FGs to make the score 13-0. The Texans finally have themselves going on Offence on a big run from Running back Alfred Blue. They now find themselves running their Goal Line offence.

Though some people have, a problem about the play call on 1^st down, I am going to look at the 2^nd down play. Let look at the full situation for the Texans, they are 13-0 down and are really not playing well. You have to run your full Goal Line set. So I understand your 1^st play call. Sure, you are trying to do something a bit different that might get you an easy score if the D misaligns or misplays the formation. It was obviously part of the game plan as it is the 1^st play they ran. It fails, fine. Now run the normal stuff. And this is what we get…

We get a 2X2 formation with a Stack on both sides. We have a motion at the bottom of the pic with the back man on the Stack moves inside and runs a Quick Out under the Fade by the Receiver outside him. At the top of the pic we see Houston’s best Receiver, Hopkins in the lead position, running a nice little double move route. Starting out straight, making it look like he’s going to head to the back pylon, then cutting inside to sit in the space he’s just created. The Receiver in behind him is going to run off anyone that sitting inside the Stack, making sure Hopkins has space to come back into, and then head to the back pylon. The HB has a responsibility to make sure no-one gets the QB off the left edge, then to sit in front of the QB as a dump off.

From the line up of the Defence and the route combos he has, Hoyer will have worked out how he wants to make his reads. He should Peak at the Quick Out quickly, and if that is not on he should make a read on the combo on the other side of the field either hitting Hopkins or going to the back pylon on the throw away…

He makes his peak to the Quick Out and rightly turns it down as you will see in a later pic. So we would now expect him to flip to the other side of the field. On a side note, Chiefs only end up sending 3. This will become important in the next pic.

Hoyer thinks he is under pressure, expecting Kanas to send the 5 that were lined up in a rush position. They don’t, this confused the OL, meaning that the NT #92 gets left 1 on 1 with the Center. This is not the match-up the Texans wanted. Hoyer sees this panics and goes straight to his Dump-off, which it he is Running back…

Fine you think, it is what the route is there for, but what Hoyer hasn’t seen is the Linebacker reading his eyes and making a move towards the passing lane.

The Throw itself that wans’t great due to the pressure, making the Linebackers job too easy. The ball is caught and returned in an instant.

This just kills you as a team. Why pass the ball on 2^nd down? In addition, if you are going to pass, why is it not a quick jump ball to Hopkins? Your best receiver. Houston must have been in 4 down mode. You need to get yourself back in the game, be that scoring a TD or putting the Chiefs Offense back on the field with their QB standing in the End zone. What you can’t do it throw that pick! My god, take the sack if you have to and settle for a FG. Just a boggling play call and even worse execution by a QB that might not have a Job this time next year.