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.