Denver D sets the tone early to guide the Broncos to Super Bowl success

After 2 long weeks of build-up, the Super Bowl had now been and gone. The season finale was a tense close affair between 2 teams that can play great football. I will get straight into it this week.

The plays we are going to look at came early on and set the tone for the rest of the game. They will also be the 2 stories of the game. Denver’s ability to get to the QB and Carolina’s in-ability to catch the football.

The 1^st play we are going to peak at comes on the Panther second drive of the game. There’s 7:23 left in the 1^st Quarter. Its 1^st Down on the Carolina 15.

The Panthers go for one of their Play Action Passes. Its develops like an Inverted Veer, but instead of reading the Edge defender, Cam Newton is reading the ILB’s and Safety. He’s hoping the ILB’s bite down on the Run, and the Safety to drift with the Run opening up the Skinny Post by the Slot receiver in either Man coverage or Cover 3. The Hitch by the WR at the bottom of the pic is more of a decoy route. The WR at the top of the pic is going to settle down is a where he hopes is a bubble of space in what we will see is Zone coverage.

And here is that Zone coverage. It’s Cover 3. Nothing complex about it. They are dropping he Field-side OLB to match the Offence’s formation.

The Play Action does what is was designed to do. It Freezes the ILB and the OLB that were due to drop into the Interior zones. The Safety has drifted with the run, and Cam is reading it perfectly. The space is right there for the taking. The Slot just has to set up the Defender aligned over him to create a lane to get past on the inside. Developing just as it was drawn up.

Slot get past inside. And look at all that space, Cam just has to put the ball on him and you’d expect at least a 15 Yard gain, if not more.

 

Cam puts the ball right on him. The Slot bobbles it as he takes the ball to the ground. This was challenged. Now I am not going to go into this as I have issues with the ‘Catch rule’ as it is currently. I thought it was a catch watching the replay, they came back with it being incomplete. Fine, whatever, that’s the call, you’ve got to get on with the game. The Slot should have caught it cleanly and taken it out of the refs hands. This is why scouts talk so much about ‘natural hand catchers’ and hate ‘double catches’. If he catches this pass, the following play may never happen…

2 plays later, it’s 3^rd Down and 10. 6:34 on the game clock.

Panthers come out in an Empty set (no RBs in the backfield). The Broncos are stacking the line trying to confuse the Panthers blocking scheme. Odds are, with this ‘Down and Distance’ and formation,

And that’s what we get from the Panthers. A deep passing concept. We have a Shake style route from the WR at the top of the pic. A Switch concept at the bottom, with a Drap from the far TE (a RB lined up at the TE position) and a Delayed Flat from the bottom TE. They need 10 yards for the 1^st Down so Cam eyes will be working through the deep routes first. This is important, as you will see the Drag open later on, but there is no way Cam has time to get to in time.

The Broncos have come out again in a Cover 3 look. This time rolling their Safeties to the top of the field, instead of the 1 High Safety we saw earlier. After having all those players stack on the line, to drop off would create a bit of confusion but not enough to create a free runner to the QB. As for the Coverage itself. The Broncos are onto a winner. 3 Deep Routes, all working towards the 3 Deep Zones.

Now to where the action happens. Note the 2 highlighted areas. On the Left we have Greg Olsen and on the Right we have RB Mike Tolbert. They both have the same job in the blocking scheme for this play, Protect their OT on the outside. I have drawn up what should happen with the rushes that take place. Olsen should drop and sit for a second or 2, making sure nothing tries to come round the corner from the inside, then release into the Flats. Tolbert should see the outside rush of Miller, attack it, pushing him wide and off line. Then release into his drag route…

However, He doesn’t make any contact with Miller, opening up a nice angle for him to attack the now exposed Right Tackle whom you can see, is slightly on his heels.

This turns into an easy win for Miller, add that to the fact Newton is still looking down field…

This all leads to a pretty simple strip sack for Miller.

The Ball kindly bounces towards the end zone where Jackson and Ware are there to pounce on the loose ball for a TD and 6 points.

TDs were always going hard to come by in this game, and the Panthers gave one away early. Those 7 points had a huge effect on the game on a game that was close throughout. Take the TD away from Denver and Carolina would have been leading in the 4^th quarter, not chasing. They would have been in control of the game. It could have been a completely different affair. But Like I said towards the start of this article, in the end it was all about Denver’s ability to put pressure on the QB and the inability of the Panthers WR to catch balls thrown their way that lead to the final result.

How the Broncos D stiffled Brady and knocked out the Patriots

What a great game of football. For the neutral that likes to watch good defence, this was one of the best games of the season. Even on paper coming in. Denver having the #1 ranked Defence in the NFL led by one of the best Coordinators in the business Wade Phillips, playing against a weakened and underpowered Pats offence being carried once again by the broad shoulders of Tom Brady. On the flipside, you have the savvy and multi-fronted Patriots defence controlled by Matt Patricia, playing against the Denver offence led by the ageing Payton Manning and his slowly failing arm. This has close game written all over it from the start.

This week, I am going to rave about the Broncos Defence. But no just the play of the very talented guys on the roster, but the play calling. Wade Phillips called an outstanding game from the sideline. I mean, Jesus, there were times where Tom Brady lost trust in what he was seeing out there.

When you play against the likes of the Pats, you need to do 2 things. Firstly, you need to accelerate Brady’s ‘internal clock’. By that I mean, make him speed up his process, make him think he doesn’t have a lot of time on every snap. You do this by getting consistent pressure that gets to him in a hurry, it doesn’t have to be a sack but it does have to make him throw the ball early. Second thing is to mix up your coverages and personnel. Most teams struggle with this part because of the weapons the Pats have. It’s hard to find 1 guy capable of covering Gronk or Edelman let alone 2 or 3, but that’s what you need. If you have just one guy lined up on either of them all game, you are just telling Brady what coverage you are in or how you want to lose the game. You put a Safety over Gronk, Pats are just going to use his size and reach, put a Linebacker on him and they will put him in space and use his athletic abilities. You run loads of zones, Edelman will just keep sitting in the seams and gaps for quick passes. You a load of man and you’ll start seeing the little double moves and Crossing patterns. It needs to be a whole team effort in coverage. As a play caller, you can’t play 1 way against the Patriots you have to mix it up. Wade Phillips and the Bronco’s Defence both did these key things very well.

The following plays will show you just how hard it was for Brady and the Pats Sunday.

We start at the opening of the second quarter. 1^st and 10 after a Broncos Punt. Brady’s been hit a few times already and there has been no help from the running game.

There is nothing overtly special about the Broncos Pass rush on this play. Sending the stand 4 rushers out of a Sub-Package. The Coverage in behind is a Basic Cover 3 ‘Sky’ look with #20 down in the Box filling in for a Motion that I have not shown you.

This is the Blocking scheme and releases for the Pats. They are running a Play-Action Pass. To make it look like a run, in an attempt to draw in the Inside Linebackers, They are going to pull the LG all the way across the front to block #58 Von Miller. He won’t be alone, as he should get help from the RB. Note the TE’s Release, Gronk is going to try and run up the seam and into the middle of the field.

As the play rolls on you can see #48 has been sucked into the Run Action. You can also see who the Double team between the pulling LG and the RB should develop from this point. There should only be 2 options for Miller. Either try and split the Double team, or Bubble over it. Either way, the Guard should be in a position ‘under’ the pass rush so he can push the rusher over and past Brady. Giving his QB space for him to step up into his throw. Namely Gronk moving up the seam.

It’s hard to see here, but the Guard has made a costly error before he even makes contact with Miller. He’s come a tad too deep and too far over, leaving Miller an inside lane to get to the QB (shown by the Orange line), basically making the double team useless.

A Guard ‘1on1’ with one of the better rushers in the league is not what the Pats would have wanted on the play and you can see why here. The Guard can’t react quickly enough to his mistake or the move by Miller. Miller now has a free lane to Brady, and there is no way he is out running Miller.

Brady manages to find a receiver and throw the ball away before Miller gets him to the floor. It’s not a Sack, but Miller has still got to the QB in a hurry. All these hits are adding up and playing tricks in Brady’s mind.

Then the very next play, 2^nd and 10. This is where Wade Phillips shows how clever he really is.

Starting with the Pats Play call. A Basic West coast style concept. At the bottom of the screen we have a motion. The WR is going to move into the back pocket of the slot and run a Drag/Spot/short crosser off his backside. The Slot himself is going to run a short Post. At the Top of the screen you’ll see a nice little zone beater. The WR is going deep on the fade to clear out any Deep Zone, the TE is running an Out and the RB is going into the flats. The idea is to make the Flats defender make a decision. Does he stay deep and take away the Out, leaving the Flat open. Or does he drive down on the Flat, but leave the Out open.

The Broncos ARE in a Zone coverage. But not the standard Cover 3 that they are showing. They are going to drop the extra defender, and this is the clever bit. They are going to drop Miller and run a ‘3 Over 5’ coverage. Normally once a pass rusher gets a sack or a hit, you send him again with some encouragement. Wade is clever in knowing the damage has already been done. He doesn’t need the pressure now, what he needs is to confuse the mind on Brady now his mind is racing. Coming back to the extra man in the Zone. That now takes away the easy read for Brady. The extra zone means that there is no Conflict between the Out and the Flat, as there is an extra defend in the area. The Flats defender is going to take the Flat, with Miller expanding with the Out from his Curl/Hook zone.

We are going to see that process from Brady’s eyes. This is him making his 1^st read. He has already looked off the FS in the 1^st second of the play. He is making a read now on the Fade. We saw in the shot above that there was Press on the top WR, so Brady is making a quick decision on whether he can take a quick shot down the Sideline. We know it’s a 3 deep zone, now he does by seeing that the fade isn’t on. He will also notice the Flats defender step down towards the RB going to the Flats. Bingo…

 

Brady knows exactly what his next read should be… Gronk on the Out. But he sees Miller in a zone? Alarm bells are going off. He doesn’t know if they have sent a Blitzer from the backside. If it’s just 3 rushing. He has no idea how long he has in the pocket…

So Brady makes the decision. He would rather make the throw to Gronk against Miller, than stand in the pocket any longer and risk the sack.

Bad Decision. Miller shows some of the coverage skills he picked up when Denver ran the 4-3 defence. Runs under Gronks route and makes the easy pick. The Pats were lucky that Miller slipped during the return, as it could have been a pick 6. I say lucky… It only took Manning 3 plays to score a TD from the excellent field position.

These plays only happened in the 2^nd Quarter, but it would be a sign of things to come. Constant harassment in the backfield and a mixture of coverages limited Brady’s ability to effect the game, these 2 plays were the best and instant representation of this.