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Site Updates
- By CGI_Ram
- RAMS / NFL TALK
- 4 Replies
To all -
We introduced a few changes over the weekend;
1. New Credit System
Once again, thank you for your support. Our members make Rams On Demand one of the best communities out there. We are working hard to continually improve!
Cheers!
CGI
We introduced a few changes over the weekend;
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- We are now asking new members to donate $5 to join. With this step, we believe prospective members will take more seriously the step of reading and agreeing to our terms and rules.
- Simply put, we love new members, but too often find they haven't read our terms and conditions and occasionally surprised by our approach to moderation. This should help with that.
- This change does not impact existing members in any way. Only new.
Once again, thank you for your support. Our members make Rams On Demand one of the best communities out there. We are working hard to continually improve!
Cheers!
CGI
Bill Belichick: Building the foundation of a great defense
- By Prime Time
- RAMS / NFL TALK
- 13 Replies
Despise the man all you want(and yes there will always be an asterisk by his name due to cheating), but the man knows how to coach a winning team. Here he speaks about how he got his defense to improve.
Since Kroenke and Snead have made mention of how they wanted to follow the Patriots plan for success, McVay and Phillips might want to heed his advice.
It's not enough to have talented players on defense. They also have to be mentally able to carry out the game plan. They then have to be coached to play cohesively together.
******************************************************************************************
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...plains-defensive-improvement-in-simple-terms/
Belichick explains defensive improvement in simple terms
Posted by Mike Florio on January 23, 2017
Getty Images
For much of the 2016 season, the defense seemed to be a major weakness for the Patriots. Over time, however, the defense steadily improved.
On Monday, reporters asked coach Bill Belichick to explain the biggest factor for this development.
“Preparation, practice, execution,” Belichick said. “There’s no magic wand. You’ve just got to go out there and, look, there are five eligible receivers. Usually we get at least four of them out running pass patterns. In man-to-man coverage you’ve got to cover them. We’ve got to rush the passer, contain the quarterback, stop the run.
Zone coverage; it’s a short throw. You’ve got to be on the receivers tight or a good quarterback can get the ball into those windows. Again, good execution of zone coverage, getting to the receivers, filling up those spaces so it’s hard to throw the ball in there.
It really just comes down to playing good team defense in both the running game and the passing game and on the goal line, which gets into a whole new set of defensive calls and techniques. We’ve had a couple of big stops down there, too, over the course of the year.”
More specific improvement occurred later in the year, as the stakes of the games increased.
“As the season goes on and you get into games like we’ve had the last few weeks, Miami was a playoff team; that was kind of like a playoff game,” Belichick said. “Baltimore, Denver were those big kind of games at the end of the season.
Then the last two we’ve had — I think that’s where teams, players, units, I mean, that’s where those levels really get identified because you’re playing against the very best teams, the very highest level of competition. Some of that really remains to be determined in this year.”
Part of the challenge for the Patriots defense was to adjust to lineup changes, including most notably the in-season trade of linebacker Jamie Collins.
“We made some changes during the year,” Belichick said. “We always make changes. It’s a process you go through. You put players in certain situations and certain groupings together and some work better than others, or maybe you see more potential in a certain player or group of players or combination of players than others.
And you decide to move forward more with that or maybe you do it less because you don’t feel as good about it or players develop or improve or whatever it is and it’s just an ongoing process. It doesn’t happen overnight.”
It also doesn’t happen automatically.
There’s no switch that you can flip,” he said. “It comes through a lot of hard work, a lot of meetings, a lot of communication on how we’re going to do things and then a lot of on-the-field execution at actually doing them at a good competitive level so that we can gain confidence in each other as a unit as to how that’s going to happen in a live game situation.
Working hard, continuing to improve and guys taking whatever opportunities they get and either moving forward with it or possibly somebody else getting an opportunity and moving ahead of a player at a point in the season. That’s just a competitive situation.
We’re going to play the best players and basically everybody will get a chance to do it somewhere along the line, and the players that play the best will play more and the players that don’t do it as well need to improve and need to change their playing time status or they’ll continue to not get the playing time behind somebody else who is performing better.”
These are simple, obvious concepts, and it’s refreshing to hear one of the most successful coaches in league history underscore the importance of the meat-and-potatoes aspect of playing defense.
The specific schemes and the knowledge regarding what an offense may do are critical to the success of a defense, but Belichick has accurately explained some of the key aspects of building the foundation of a great defense.
Since Kroenke and Snead have made mention of how they wanted to follow the Patriots plan for success, McVay and Phillips might want to heed his advice.
It's not enough to have talented players on defense. They also have to be mentally able to carry out the game plan. They then have to be coached to play cohesively together.
******************************************************************************************
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...plains-defensive-improvement-in-simple-terms/
Belichick explains defensive improvement in simple terms
Posted by Mike Florio on January 23, 2017
For much of the 2016 season, the defense seemed to be a major weakness for the Patriots. Over time, however, the defense steadily improved.
On Monday, reporters asked coach Bill Belichick to explain the biggest factor for this development.
“Preparation, practice, execution,” Belichick said. “There’s no magic wand. You’ve just got to go out there and, look, there are five eligible receivers. Usually we get at least four of them out running pass patterns. In man-to-man coverage you’ve got to cover them. We’ve got to rush the passer, contain the quarterback, stop the run.
Zone coverage; it’s a short throw. You’ve got to be on the receivers tight or a good quarterback can get the ball into those windows. Again, good execution of zone coverage, getting to the receivers, filling up those spaces so it’s hard to throw the ball in there.
It really just comes down to playing good team defense in both the running game and the passing game and on the goal line, which gets into a whole new set of defensive calls and techniques. We’ve had a couple of big stops down there, too, over the course of the year.”
More specific improvement occurred later in the year, as the stakes of the games increased.
“As the season goes on and you get into games like we’ve had the last few weeks, Miami was a playoff team; that was kind of like a playoff game,” Belichick said. “Baltimore, Denver were those big kind of games at the end of the season.
Then the last two we’ve had — I think that’s where teams, players, units, I mean, that’s where those levels really get identified because you’re playing against the very best teams, the very highest level of competition. Some of that really remains to be determined in this year.”
Part of the challenge for the Patriots defense was to adjust to lineup changes, including most notably the in-season trade of linebacker Jamie Collins.
“We made some changes during the year,” Belichick said. “We always make changes. It’s a process you go through. You put players in certain situations and certain groupings together and some work better than others, or maybe you see more potential in a certain player or group of players or combination of players than others.
And you decide to move forward more with that or maybe you do it less because you don’t feel as good about it or players develop or improve or whatever it is and it’s just an ongoing process. It doesn’t happen overnight.”
It also doesn’t happen automatically.
There’s no switch that you can flip,” he said. “It comes through a lot of hard work, a lot of meetings, a lot of communication on how we’re going to do things and then a lot of on-the-field execution at actually doing them at a good competitive level so that we can gain confidence in each other as a unit as to how that’s going to happen in a live game situation.
Working hard, continuing to improve and guys taking whatever opportunities they get and either moving forward with it or possibly somebody else getting an opportunity and moving ahead of a player at a point in the season. That’s just a competitive situation.
We’re going to play the best players and basically everybody will get a chance to do it somewhere along the line, and the players that play the best will play more and the players that don’t do it as well need to improve and need to change their playing time status or they’ll continue to not get the playing time behind somebody else who is performing better.”
These are simple, obvious concepts, and it’s refreshing to hear one of the most successful coaches in league history underscore the importance of the meat-and-potatoes aspect of playing defense.
The specific schemes and the knowledge regarding what an offense may do are critical to the success of a defense, but Belichick has accurately explained some of the key aspects of building the foundation of a great defense.
Peter King: MMQB - 1/23/17
- By Prime Time
- RAMS / NFL TALK
- 7 Replies
These are excerpts. To read the whole article click the link below.
********************************************************************
http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2017/01/23/super-bowl-51-matt-ryan-falcons-tom-brady-patriots-nfl-peter-king
Super Bowl 51: Matt Ryan’s Falcons vs. Tom Brady’s Pats
The Big Game in Houston is set, after Atlanta throttled Green Bay and New England dismissed Pittsburgh. Here’s a look at the Atlanta quarterback’s breakthrough and his counterpart’s continued brilliance. Plus items on a retiring Raven, Johnny Manziel, Ryan Grigson, DeShaun Watson and more
by Peter King
Photo: Tom Pennington/Getty Images
ATLANTA — To appreciate the magnitude of what we saw Sunday in the last football game ever at the Georgia Dome, we must consider what was happening in this city the April day Matt Ryan was drafted in 2008.
I was in Atlanta that weekend. Michael Vick was not. He was in federal prison in Kansas, serving nearly two years for dogfighting and animal cruelty. But the city not only hadn’t forgotten him; many in the city were keeping his seat warm and wanted him as their quarterback when he finished doing his time.
I remember the day before the draft walking through a mall and thinking, All these people with Vick jerseys or T-shirts supporting him … amazing. So when Ryan got picked third overall by new GM Thomas Dimitroff, it was a new start. But some locals seemed unmoved.
An Atlanta TV sports anchor, Gil Tyree, told me on draft day 2008 that Vick “is a messiah here. … No matter what Matt Ryan will do, he’ll never be accepted.”
Yikes.
Now to Sunday, and the 44-21 beatdown of the Packers in the NFC Championship Game, leading to the second Super Bowl appearance for the Falcons in their history. As Ryan compiled a four-touchdown, 392-yard game in the biggest game of his nine-year career, three times the crowd in the Dome rained down chants of “M-V-P! M-V-P! M-V-P!”
Six straight games without an interception … Heavy favorite to win the NFL MVP on Feb. 4 … Crowd screaming for him as he left the field like New York screamed for the Beatles in 1964.
The screams and chants sounded a lot like acceptance to me. This seemed a cruel time to remind Ryan of that day and the words of the sports anchor in 2008, but in a quiet moment at his locker after the game, I did.
This is not a topic Ryan wants to revisit. In his nine years at the helm of this team, nobody’s ever seen Ryan sweat. He says the right things, does the right things, works the right way. But he understood the gravity of this day, and what he’d accomplished under such initial pressure. Vick thrilled this town like few athletes have, but Ryan has taken the franchise further than Vick ever did.
No matter what Matt Ryan will do, he’ll never be accepted.
Ryan said quietly: “Some things you don’t forget.”
That was it. But others took up Ryan’s cause. “Matt’s created great memories in this dome,” said Dimitroff, who made Ryan the first pick of his tenure. “Back then, when Matt was drafted, the doubts were there. But he’s evolved and stayed above it all.”
“That’s a long time ago,’’ said receiver and returned Eric Weems, who was a Falcon when Ryan was drafted and who knew the tenor in the city. “If people are still holding grudges, and I doubt there are, it’s on them. I can tell you Matt’s my quarterback. Matt’s our quarterback. I love him.”
The best teams are often forged through difficult times. Ryan was drafted the year after Bobby Petrino pulled one of the all-time classless coaching moves, quitting with two games left in the 2007 season to take a college job. Ryan had some shaky playoff games, but Dimitroff and Blank were unwavering in their support.
Blank, wisely, held onto Dimitroff—a strong scout—when he fired Mike Smith two years ago and hired Dan Quinn as coach. Ryan has gotten excellent coaching from offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan over the past two years, and Quinn’s definitive demands for every position on the field allowed Dimitroff and key personnel men Scott Pioli and Steve Sabo to know exactly what to scout.
Two excellent drafts and good free-agent finds (Alex Mack, Mohamed Sanu), and here we are—an Atlanta-New England Super Bowl.
Photo: Rob Carr/Getty Images
Two things I notice about Ryan’s game under Shanahan: He’s more comfortable as an athlete—that 14-yard touchdown run against Green Bay, his first TD carry since 2012, showed he’s not a lumberjng runner, but a competent one. “There was nobody to account for the quarterback,” Ryan said. “And everybody's backs are turned playing coverage, playing man‐to‐man coverage. Just saw a lane open up.” In the past, Ryan likely would have stuck in the pocket, looking at his third and fourth targets.
“Matt’s been a grinder, getting his mental right,” is how Weems put it.
Ryan is better at play-action and run fakes, a more complete player who doesn’t think being a pocket quarterback means you actually have to be in the pocket all the time, surveying the field seven steps behind center. I loved his first touchdown pass Sunday, which was a combination of Steve Young and Brett Favre.
On Atlanta’s first drive of the game, from the Green Bay two-yard line, Ryan took off to his left near the goal line, and it looked like he’d run it in. But then he threw a flip pass to Sanu for a touchdown. I just don’t think that’s the kind of thing he’d have been comfortable doing pre-Shanahan.
Against New England, the more multiple a quarterback can be, the better. You saw how Bill Belichick and defensive boss Matt Patricia began to neutralize Le’Veon Bell even before he got hurt in the AFC game by taking away those creases in the defensive front that Bell uses so wisely.
The Patriots take what you do well and find a couple of ways to combat it. No doubt that Shanahan today and tomorrow will be all over New England tape trying to play Spy Vs. Spy, figuring what the Patriots will do if the Falcons do such-and-such.
The last player you’d compare Ryan to is Vick. But in the next two weeks he’d better get ready for it. During the run-ups to Super Bowls, long perspective stories are the order of the day. Vick, 2001: thrills and chills, a roller coaster, but didn’t work overall. Ryan, 2008: by the book, outworking everyone, in the Super Bowl. The Falcons, and Ryan, have been rewarded, and a date with Tom Brady is the result.
* * *
COACH OF THE WEEK
Dan Quinn, head coach, Atlanta. All coaches coming from great programs get pegged as so-and-so’s “guy.” Quinn was Pete Carroll’s “guy.” High energy from day one, like Carroll. And, like Carroll, he was teamed with a personnel guy (Thomas Dimitroff) he really didn’t know. But from the start, Quinn was clear he wanted this team not to be “Seattle East” but rather “Atlanta Now.”
And there are some striking differences. But the important thing is Quinn has the Falcons in the Super Bowl in his second season—a great achievement considering he took over a 6-10 team that was comatose on defense and needed an injection of life. Quinn did that, and he built a very good defense in two years.
* * *
We Could Use a Great Game in No. 267
The Pats and Falcons haven’t played since a Sept. 29, 2013, meeting at the Georgia Dome.
Photo: Scott Cunningham/Getty Images
After 256 regular-season games and 10 in the playoffs, the NFL season comes down to game number 267 in Houston, Super Bowl LI between Atlanta and New England. I love the game, because there’s so much new and interesting about Atlanta (particularly on defense, where seven of the 12 “starters,” including third corner Brian Poole, are first or second-year players), and because there’s so much history on the line for New England.
Tom Brady and Bill Belichick could become the first QB-coach duo in history to win five Super Bowls. Brady could be the first quarterback in history to win five Super Bowls. It could be a momentous night in Houston 13 days from now.
And it’s new for the teams too. Of Atlanta’s 53-man roster, 37 players weren’t Falcons the last time these two teams met, a 30-23 win for New England at the Georgia Dome in 2013. It’s fresh for them, fresh for the players and coaches.
I loved Kyle Shanahan’s reaction when, just before I recorded a podcast conversation with him Sunday night in the Falcons’ equipment office at the Georgia Dome, I told the Falcons’ offensive coordinator it looked like the Super Bowl foe would be New England.
“Good,” he said. Not because he’s a cocky glutton for punishment, but because he wants to play the best. That sounds nuts, but what coach who considers himself really good at his job wouldn’t want to match wits with Bill Belichick and his staff in the game of the year?
By the way: I sure hope it’s the game of the year. We could use one. Average margin of victory in the 10 playoff games: 15.7. Games decided by 13 points or more in the 10 playoff games: eight.
New England (16-2, AFC top seed) versus Atlanta (13-5, NFC second seed), Feb. 5, 6:30 p.m. ET, NRG Stadium, Houston (retractable roof). New England will play in its ninth Super Bowl (a record), Atlanta its second. Tom Brady plays in his seventh, Matt Ryan his first. So clearly, the Patriots have cornered the market on experience. But Atlanta hasn’t shown many signs of being intimidated by the bright lights this postseason, putting up 80 points on Seattle and Green Bay, teams far more playoff-experienced than the Falcons; defensively Atlanta held the Aaron Rodgers-led Packer offense scoreless for the first 35 minutes Sunday.
It’ll be fascinating to see the game plan Josh McDaniels weaves after studying players he’s never faced—rangy and instinctive Falcons rookie middle ’backer Deion Jones, for instance—this week. The bigger New England secondary could be a matchup problem for Atlanta, even thought Julio Jones laughs at matchup problems. One Falcon told me Sunday night, “Julio’s playing with half a toe, and it doesn’t matter,” referring to a nagging turf toe injury that won’t get better until he gets four or five months of rest and rehab.
But if you saw his 73-yard catch-and-run and breaking of two tackles against Green Bay, you’ve got to figure the Patriots are going to try to eliminate him and let someone else beat them. That someone else might be Mohamed Sanu. I was disappointed in Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman (25 carries, 71 yards, long of 14) against Green Bay, and New England’s run defense is better. So that means it’s up to Matt Ryan to justify his MVP-ness and have a big day if Atlanta hopes to keep New England from its fifth Super Bowl win.
* * *
Marveling at Brady
Photo: Jim Rogash/Getty Images
You are living through a remarkable time if you’re a football fan. You’re seeing one of the great athletic careers in history play out, apparently with no sign of diminution.
Tom Brady won his 24th NFL playoff game Sunday. To put that in some perspective—though, obviously, there are more playoff games today than there were for much of the NFL’s history—the Chicago Bears as a franchise have won 17, according to Pro Football Reference.
Considering that the Bears played their first playoff game in 1932 and are a flagship franchise of the league, and considering Brady was born in 1977, that’s quite a feat for the Patriots QB.
One more gem: New England’s total of 24 playoff wins with Brady under center surpasses the all-time postseason win totals of 25 of the remaining 31 NFL franchises.
Rightfully, having Bill Belichick coaching (with Josh McDaniels constructing the offense and Matt Patricia taking on increasing importance as a defensive brain and presence) and Tom Brady playing is just about the perfect formula for success. Brady, as our Jenny Vrentas wrote so smartly last week, is a perfect leader of the franchise because he likes to be coached, and he can take being coached hard, and Belichick has always believed in coaching hard.
I found it interesting last week that the Patriots put pads on before the 18th game of the season, at a time when most teams have put the practice pads away for the year. New England practiced in pads Wednesday. Nobody bitched. If Brady’s not bothered by it, no other player would dare be bothered by it.
The game against Pittsburgh was a good illustration of the Patriots’ intelligence and patience. Against a zone team like Pittsburgh, an offense has to be patient. It’s not likely to yield many over-the-top big plays; the Steelers challenge you to take yards and eventually make a turnover or get greedy and throw risky or incomplete passes downfield.
Now, I didn’t watch a lot of this game, but I did think the mid-second-quarter flea-flicker touchdown from Brady to Chris Hogan was very interesting. On a play like that, with Brady handing it to Dion Lewis, and Lewis shoveling it back to Brady, and Brady looking deep, a young secondary like Pittsburgh’s might be tempted to bite on the run. Well, Brady did catch the Steelers looking run, and slipping past the secondary was Hogan, who caught an easy touchdown from Brady.
One other thing, not to go all hagiography on the Patriots: After the game, the little-used Lewis was near tears in the locker room. Why? Because he finished with 11 yards rushing and was angry at the game plan? No. It’s because he’s going to his first Super Bowl. He never thought his meandering and previously unproductive career would take him this far.
But when you’re with the Patriots, you get the team concept. It’s the way they do business. If you don’t like it, you won’t be around long. If you’re okay with it, the Super Bowl is often at the end of the rainbow. Such as this season.
“Bill [Belichick] showed this pass that was probably the worst pass I’ve ever seen Brady throw. The ball just completely missed the wide receiver and ended up skipping to the ground and falling out of bounds. Bill was saying, ‘What kind of throw is this? I can get Johnny Foxborough from down the street to make a better throw than this.’ … If Brady is getting it, no one is safe. I just immediately fell in line.”
—Former Patriots receiver Donte’ Stallworth, recalling his first New England team meeting to Jenny Vrentas of The MMQB in her excellent story about the hard coaching that Tom Brady takes.
* * *
The Times They Have a-Changed Dept.:
I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a playoff weekend as run-pass unbalanced as this one.
• No running back had a 20-yard run in either championship game.
• Sunday’s four rushing leaders by team gained 46, 42, 34 and 47 yards.
• Sunday’s four passing leaders by team threw for 392, 287, 384 and 314 yards.
* * *
Tweets of the Week
Login to view embedded media View: https://twitter.com/daringantt/status/823282372330291203?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Login to view embedded media View: https://twitter.com/JCaldwell92/status/823198977831174145?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Login to view embedded media View: https://twitter.com/LATimesfarmer/status/821736679094374401?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
* * *
• Joseph on lessons learned from Wade Phillips when they worked together on the Texans staff: “Wade Phillips is a Hall of Fame coach, but Wade taught me this: Players first, scheme second. Everything Wade did was based on the players. And I never had a bad day with Wade. If it was a win by 50 or a loss by 50, I never had a bad day with Wade.”
• Hawk on Aaron Rodgers: “I sat next to him in our team meetings for nine straight years. He was always the same guy … Now that I am thinking about it, I wish I would have taken some notes, and taken some more time to watch how he did conduct himself. Luckily I still get to talk to him a lot and see him a decent amount. It might be weird if I'm just hanging out with him having dinner and I'm taking notes. Do you think that's weird?
In team meetings you just sit wherever you want, there is no assigned seat. When I got drafted, Aaron reached out to me because he was the first-round pick the year before me, and he just kind of let me know what the process was like and what to expect. I didn't know anything, I was 21, 22 years old. We just started hanging out early on. My wife and I got married shortly after I got there, so my wife was always like a team mom to people, so she would have him over and cook dinner for him.”
* * *
Things I Think I Think
1. I think these are my quick notes of analysis from championship Sunday:
a. For Tom Brady to feel old, here’s a factoid to hit him with: Matt Ryan capped his senior season at Boston College with a 24-21 bowl victory over Michigan State on Dec. 28, 2007 … and on the next night Brady and the Patriots capped their 16-0 regular season with that crazy 38-35 win over the Giants at the Meadowlands.
b. Imagine Ryan in his Chestnut Hill dorm or apartment, watching Brady dissect every defense in football in that perfect season; there’s no way he ever wondered, “Man, I’d love to face him in the Super Bowl sometime.”
c. I loved Atlanta offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan’s reaction when, just before we taped a podcast conversation Sunday night in the Falcons’ equipment office at the Georgia Dome, I told him it looked like the Super Bowl foe would be New England, and he said: “Good.”
d. Not that Shanahan thinks he can shred Belichick’s defense—far from it—but it’s the kind of bring-it-on attitude Kyle Shanahan has had his entire coaching career.
e. On fourth-and-two with 36 minutes left in the NFC title game, at the Green Bay 37, with the Pack down 17-0, Mike McCarthy punted—and I absolutely would not have.
f. At the conclusion of the final football game that will ever be played at the Georgia Dome, I had this reaction: Meh.
g. Seven Super Bowls for one quarterback (Brady) is just … just … well, it’s like what Elaine said that one time in Seinfeld: “I am speechless—I am without speech.”
h. The Falcons got a gem in Mohamed Sanu, who started to put the game out of reach and then Julio Jones finished it.
i. Classy, apt and loyal move by ESPN, naming their Sunday pregame studio after Chris Berman and Tom Jackson at the close of Berman’s last Sunday studio show in Bristol this weekend.
j. The way to stop childish but significant behavior like that of the person who, at 3 a.m. Sunday, pulled the fire alarm at the Steelers’ Boston hotel and forced its evacuation, is pretty simple: Put the idiot’s name on TV and in the papers, and make the perp serve two months in jail.
k. This Pittsburgh offense, which is supposed to be great with all these unstoppable weapons, managed two touchdowns in eight quarters at Kansas City and New England.
2. I think I’ll wish Johnny Manziel well on his road back to the real world, and I mean that. Anyone who is trying to turn around his life is to be commended. But this one’s going to take some time to believe.
I remember back almost three years, when he was an Eagle Scout at the 2014 combine, and during the pre-draft process, when he played the earnest prospect and very nearly had Mike Zimmer and the Vikings convinced he’d left his partying days back on his college campus in Texas. If I’m a GM, I’m saying to Manziel, even if he’s sober the next six months, “We’ll talk in 2018.”
3. I think I understand why the NFL moved commissioner Roger Goodell’s press conference up two days, from the Friday morning before the Super Bowl to Wednesday afternoon in Houston. (Something that’s gotten surprisingly little attention.) Especially with the Patriots in the game, there was no way the league wanted to have the buildup to the biggest game of the year marred by the wet blanket (apologies to Greg Bedard for stealing his patented phrase, but it applies here) of countless recitations of Deflategate in papers and websites and sportscasts two days before the Super Bowl.
In general, I believe the league did this to try to keep interest building in the game itself as it approaches. One other Goodell note, about him attending the game in Atlanta on Sunday instead of Foxboro: Goodell should have taken his Patriots medicine sometime in the regular season. He should have gone to a game some random Sunday in Foxboro, suffered the venom that would have come, so that this “Roger’s afraid of showing his face in Foxboro” thing (which I do not doubt he is) wouldn’t continue to be such a big story.
A few other notes about Super Bowl week:
a. The Patriots will practice Wednesday through Friday at the University of Houston’s football facility.
b. The Falcons will work out at Rice University.
c. The first media availability will be Monday night at Minute Maid Park. NFC interviews, on the field, will be from 8:10 to 9:10 p.m. ET, with AFC team interviews from 10 to 11 p.m.
d. Goodell and a few select players (not in the game) will have a fan forum event at the House of Blues in downtown Houston on Friday. Fans, mostly of the Texans, will be invited to ask questions.
e. And a most interesting Monday Super Bowl MVP celebration could be at 8:30 a.m. Houston time, if Tom Brady wins it. Goodell would have to be there to say nice things about Brady, and Brady will have to pose for photos with the man who banned him from the NFL for a quarter of this season.
4. I think this qualifies as a terrific waste of opportunity: Quarterback Deshaun Watson is skipping the Senior Bowl this week. Clemson’s Watson would logically have played for the South team, which will be coached by Hue Jackson and his Cleveland Browns’ assistants. If you’ve got faith in your ability, and you want to convince the coach of the team with the first pick in the draft—the team that desperately needs a quarterback and will almost certainly choose one high in the draft if it can’t trade for one or sign one before that—why would you not take the golden opportunity to work with Jackson for a week?
The other two prime quarterbacks in the draft, Mitch Trubisky and DeShone Kizer, were not eligible, either because they weren’t seniors or because they hadn’t graduated. But a couple notes about the Watson miss: The Browns talked to him and asked him to play this week; he declined. Some of the other players who in the past declined a Senior Bowl invitation went much lower in the draft, fairly or unfairly, than they’d hoped—Geno Smith, Brett Hundley, Connor Cook, A.J. McCarron.
I’m not saying the same fate will befall Watson. And I will be clear: If the Browns fall in love with Watson, the fact that he didn’t participate in the Senior Bowl won’t matter. But what if it’s close? What if Jackson’s on the fence about one or more quarterbacks? Just feels like a big miss to me.
5. I think there’s a lesson for all in handling crises, watching the way Steelers cheerleading coach Mike Tomlin handled the Antonio Brown one. Forcefully, with mild and controlled anger, facing it straight on. Textbook crisis management. The most disturbing thing to me, other than Brown putting his me-firstness on display for the world to see, were the players who ignored Tomlin’s post-game message. That has to stop.
6. I think Carl Cheffers, who will ref the Super Bowl, is one of the least-known NFL referees—and the NFL likes it that way. Football Zebrashas been on the Cheffers-as-Super Bowl-ref story for a few weeks now, and Mike Pereira had it last weekend for FOX. I asked Football Zebraseditor-in-chief Ben Austro (yes, there is a site covering NFL officiating, and Austro is really good at it) to give us a scouting report on Cheffers, in his ninth year as NFL referee. Writes Austro:
Carl Cheffers is not the kind of referee who is going to leave his mark on the average fan. He may not have the swagger of some of his contemporaries, but do not confuse his unassuming demeanor with weakness. Cheffers has been a steady hand at the wheel of his crew for some time. Cheffers is also known for an infamous face mask flag in 2015, which gave the opportunity for the Packers to beat the Lions on the resulting untimed down.
It was a call that 100 officials out of 100 would have made, even though slow-motion replay showed otherwise. When asked by a reporter at the Lions training camp about that call, Cheffers responded, “Dude, it's 2016.” Fans will always remember; Cheffers will, too, but his focus always must be on the next snap.
The most controversial call of this year’s playoffs was a flag thrown by Cheffers, a holding penalty on Chiefs tackle Eric Fisher that nullified Kansas City’s two-point conversion that would have tied the playoff game with the Steelers. While Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce leveled heavy criticism at Cheffers’ feet, it was a call he had to make.
No official wants to have the call that ends a team's season. It's not easy, but good officials step up, take control, and make the call in that situation, rather than letting the situation take control of the official. An entire season is made up of a few thousand “microcalls” that are all considered, but it turns out that, essentially, the last call he made exemplifies the fact that Cheffers belongs at the head of the crew on football's biggest stage.
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http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2017/01/23/super-bowl-51-matt-ryan-falcons-tom-brady-patriots-nfl-peter-king
Super Bowl 51: Matt Ryan’s Falcons vs. Tom Brady’s Pats
The Big Game in Houston is set, after Atlanta throttled Green Bay and New England dismissed Pittsburgh. Here’s a look at the Atlanta quarterback’s breakthrough and his counterpart’s continued brilliance. Plus items on a retiring Raven, Johnny Manziel, Ryan Grigson, DeShaun Watson and more
by Peter King
Photo: Tom Pennington/Getty Images
ATLANTA — To appreciate the magnitude of what we saw Sunday in the last football game ever at the Georgia Dome, we must consider what was happening in this city the April day Matt Ryan was drafted in 2008.
I was in Atlanta that weekend. Michael Vick was not. He was in federal prison in Kansas, serving nearly two years for dogfighting and animal cruelty. But the city not only hadn’t forgotten him; many in the city were keeping his seat warm and wanted him as their quarterback when he finished doing his time.
I remember the day before the draft walking through a mall and thinking, All these people with Vick jerseys or T-shirts supporting him … amazing. So when Ryan got picked third overall by new GM Thomas Dimitroff, it was a new start. But some locals seemed unmoved.
An Atlanta TV sports anchor, Gil Tyree, told me on draft day 2008 that Vick “is a messiah here. … No matter what Matt Ryan will do, he’ll never be accepted.”
Yikes.
Now to Sunday, and the 44-21 beatdown of the Packers in the NFC Championship Game, leading to the second Super Bowl appearance for the Falcons in their history. As Ryan compiled a four-touchdown, 392-yard game in the biggest game of his nine-year career, three times the crowd in the Dome rained down chants of “M-V-P! M-V-P! M-V-P!”
Six straight games without an interception … Heavy favorite to win the NFL MVP on Feb. 4 … Crowd screaming for him as he left the field like New York screamed for the Beatles in 1964.
The screams and chants sounded a lot like acceptance to me. This seemed a cruel time to remind Ryan of that day and the words of the sports anchor in 2008, but in a quiet moment at his locker after the game, I did.
This is not a topic Ryan wants to revisit. In his nine years at the helm of this team, nobody’s ever seen Ryan sweat. He says the right things, does the right things, works the right way. But he understood the gravity of this day, and what he’d accomplished under such initial pressure. Vick thrilled this town like few athletes have, but Ryan has taken the franchise further than Vick ever did.
No matter what Matt Ryan will do, he’ll never be accepted.
Ryan said quietly: “Some things you don’t forget.”
That was it. But others took up Ryan’s cause. “Matt’s created great memories in this dome,” said Dimitroff, who made Ryan the first pick of his tenure. “Back then, when Matt was drafted, the doubts were there. But he’s evolved and stayed above it all.”
“That’s a long time ago,’’ said receiver and returned Eric Weems, who was a Falcon when Ryan was drafted and who knew the tenor in the city. “If people are still holding grudges, and I doubt there are, it’s on them. I can tell you Matt’s my quarterback. Matt’s our quarterback. I love him.”
The best teams are often forged through difficult times. Ryan was drafted the year after Bobby Petrino pulled one of the all-time classless coaching moves, quitting with two games left in the 2007 season to take a college job. Ryan had some shaky playoff games, but Dimitroff and Blank were unwavering in their support.
Blank, wisely, held onto Dimitroff—a strong scout—when he fired Mike Smith two years ago and hired Dan Quinn as coach. Ryan has gotten excellent coaching from offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan over the past two years, and Quinn’s definitive demands for every position on the field allowed Dimitroff and key personnel men Scott Pioli and Steve Sabo to know exactly what to scout.
Two excellent drafts and good free-agent finds (Alex Mack, Mohamed Sanu), and here we are—an Atlanta-New England Super Bowl.
Photo: Rob Carr/Getty Images
Two things I notice about Ryan’s game under Shanahan: He’s more comfortable as an athlete—that 14-yard touchdown run against Green Bay, his first TD carry since 2012, showed he’s not a lumberjng runner, but a competent one. “There was nobody to account for the quarterback,” Ryan said. “And everybody's backs are turned playing coverage, playing man‐to‐man coverage. Just saw a lane open up.” In the past, Ryan likely would have stuck in the pocket, looking at his third and fourth targets.
“Matt’s been a grinder, getting his mental right,” is how Weems put it.
Ryan is better at play-action and run fakes, a more complete player who doesn’t think being a pocket quarterback means you actually have to be in the pocket all the time, surveying the field seven steps behind center. I loved his first touchdown pass Sunday, which was a combination of Steve Young and Brett Favre.
On Atlanta’s first drive of the game, from the Green Bay two-yard line, Ryan took off to his left near the goal line, and it looked like he’d run it in. But then he threw a flip pass to Sanu for a touchdown. I just don’t think that’s the kind of thing he’d have been comfortable doing pre-Shanahan.
Against New England, the more multiple a quarterback can be, the better. You saw how Bill Belichick and defensive boss Matt Patricia began to neutralize Le’Veon Bell even before he got hurt in the AFC game by taking away those creases in the defensive front that Bell uses so wisely.
The Patriots take what you do well and find a couple of ways to combat it. No doubt that Shanahan today and tomorrow will be all over New England tape trying to play Spy Vs. Spy, figuring what the Patriots will do if the Falcons do such-and-such.
The last player you’d compare Ryan to is Vick. But in the next two weeks he’d better get ready for it. During the run-ups to Super Bowls, long perspective stories are the order of the day. Vick, 2001: thrills and chills, a roller coaster, but didn’t work overall. Ryan, 2008: by the book, outworking everyone, in the Super Bowl. The Falcons, and Ryan, have been rewarded, and a date with Tom Brady is the result.
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COACH OF THE WEEK
Dan Quinn, head coach, Atlanta. All coaches coming from great programs get pegged as so-and-so’s “guy.” Quinn was Pete Carroll’s “guy.” High energy from day one, like Carroll. And, like Carroll, he was teamed with a personnel guy (Thomas Dimitroff) he really didn’t know. But from the start, Quinn was clear he wanted this team not to be “Seattle East” but rather “Atlanta Now.”
And there are some striking differences. But the important thing is Quinn has the Falcons in the Super Bowl in his second season—a great achievement considering he took over a 6-10 team that was comatose on defense and needed an injection of life. Quinn did that, and he built a very good defense in two years.
* * *
We Could Use a Great Game in No. 267
The Pats and Falcons haven’t played since a Sept. 29, 2013, meeting at the Georgia Dome.
Photo: Scott Cunningham/Getty Images
After 256 regular-season games and 10 in the playoffs, the NFL season comes down to game number 267 in Houston, Super Bowl LI between Atlanta and New England. I love the game, because there’s so much new and interesting about Atlanta (particularly on defense, where seven of the 12 “starters,” including third corner Brian Poole, are first or second-year players), and because there’s so much history on the line for New England.
Tom Brady and Bill Belichick could become the first QB-coach duo in history to win five Super Bowls. Brady could be the first quarterback in history to win five Super Bowls. It could be a momentous night in Houston 13 days from now.
And it’s new for the teams too. Of Atlanta’s 53-man roster, 37 players weren’t Falcons the last time these two teams met, a 30-23 win for New England at the Georgia Dome in 2013. It’s fresh for them, fresh for the players and coaches.
I loved Kyle Shanahan’s reaction when, just before I recorded a podcast conversation with him Sunday night in the Falcons’ equipment office at the Georgia Dome, I told the Falcons’ offensive coordinator it looked like the Super Bowl foe would be New England.
“Good,” he said. Not because he’s a cocky glutton for punishment, but because he wants to play the best. That sounds nuts, but what coach who considers himself really good at his job wouldn’t want to match wits with Bill Belichick and his staff in the game of the year?
By the way: I sure hope it’s the game of the year. We could use one. Average margin of victory in the 10 playoff games: 15.7. Games decided by 13 points or more in the 10 playoff games: eight.
New England (16-2, AFC top seed) versus Atlanta (13-5, NFC second seed), Feb. 5, 6:30 p.m. ET, NRG Stadium, Houston (retractable roof). New England will play in its ninth Super Bowl (a record), Atlanta its second. Tom Brady plays in his seventh, Matt Ryan his first. So clearly, the Patriots have cornered the market on experience. But Atlanta hasn’t shown many signs of being intimidated by the bright lights this postseason, putting up 80 points on Seattle and Green Bay, teams far more playoff-experienced than the Falcons; defensively Atlanta held the Aaron Rodgers-led Packer offense scoreless for the first 35 minutes Sunday.
It’ll be fascinating to see the game plan Josh McDaniels weaves after studying players he’s never faced—rangy and instinctive Falcons rookie middle ’backer Deion Jones, for instance—this week. The bigger New England secondary could be a matchup problem for Atlanta, even thought Julio Jones laughs at matchup problems. One Falcon told me Sunday night, “Julio’s playing with half a toe, and it doesn’t matter,” referring to a nagging turf toe injury that won’t get better until he gets four or five months of rest and rehab.
But if you saw his 73-yard catch-and-run and breaking of two tackles against Green Bay, you’ve got to figure the Patriots are going to try to eliminate him and let someone else beat them. That someone else might be Mohamed Sanu. I was disappointed in Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman (25 carries, 71 yards, long of 14) against Green Bay, and New England’s run defense is better. So that means it’s up to Matt Ryan to justify his MVP-ness and have a big day if Atlanta hopes to keep New England from its fifth Super Bowl win.
* * *
Marveling at Brady
Photo: Jim Rogash/Getty Images
You are living through a remarkable time if you’re a football fan. You’re seeing one of the great athletic careers in history play out, apparently with no sign of diminution.
Tom Brady won his 24th NFL playoff game Sunday. To put that in some perspective—though, obviously, there are more playoff games today than there were for much of the NFL’s history—the Chicago Bears as a franchise have won 17, according to Pro Football Reference.
Considering that the Bears played their first playoff game in 1932 and are a flagship franchise of the league, and considering Brady was born in 1977, that’s quite a feat for the Patriots QB.
One more gem: New England’s total of 24 playoff wins with Brady under center surpasses the all-time postseason win totals of 25 of the remaining 31 NFL franchises.
Rightfully, having Bill Belichick coaching (with Josh McDaniels constructing the offense and Matt Patricia taking on increasing importance as a defensive brain and presence) and Tom Brady playing is just about the perfect formula for success. Brady, as our Jenny Vrentas wrote so smartly last week, is a perfect leader of the franchise because he likes to be coached, and he can take being coached hard, and Belichick has always believed in coaching hard.
I found it interesting last week that the Patriots put pads on before the 18th game of the season, at a time when most teams have put the practice pads away for the year. New England practiced in pads Wednesday. Nobody bitched. If Brady’s not bothered by it, no other player would dare be bothered by it.
The game against Pittsburgh was a good illustration of the Patriots’ intelligence and patience. Against a zone team like Pittsburgh, an offense has to be patient. It’s not likely to yield many over-the-top big plays; the Steelers challenge you to take yards and eventually make a turnover or get greedy and throw risky or incomplete passes downfield.
Now, I didn’t watch a lot of this game, but I did think the mid-second-quarter flea-flicker touchdown from Brady to Chris Hogan was very interesting. On a play like that, with Brady handing it to Dion Lewis, and Lewis shoveling it back to Brady, and Brady looking deep, a young secondary like Pittsburgh’s might be tempted to bite on the run. Well, Brady did catch the Steelers looking run, and slipping past the secondary was Hogan, who caught an easy touchdown from Brady.
One other thing, not to go all hagiography on the Patriots: After the game, the little-used Lewis was near tears in the locker room. Why? Because he finished with 11 yards rushing and was angry at the game plan? No. It’s because he’s going to his first Super Bowl. He never thought his meandering and previously unproductive career would take him this far.
But when you’re with the Patriots, you get the team concept. It’s the way they do business. If you don’t like it, you won’t be around long. If you’re okay with it, the Super Bowl is often at the end of the rainbow. Such as this season.
“Bill [Belichick] showed this pass that was probably the worst pass I’ve ever seen Brady throw. The ball just completely missed the wide receiver and ended up skipping to the ground and falling out of bounds. Bill was saying, ‘What kind of throw is this? I can get Johnny Foxborough from down the street to make a better throw than this.’ … If Brady is getting it, no one is safe. I just immediately fell in line.”
—Former Patriots receiver Donte’ Stallworth, recalling his first New England team meeting to Jenny Vrentas of The MMQB in her excellent story about the hard coaching that Tom Brady takes.
* * *
The Times They Have a-Changed Dept.:
I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a playoff weekend as run-pass unbalanced as this one.
• No running back had a 20-yard run in either championship game.
• Sunday’s four rushing leaders by team gained 46, 42, 34 and 47 yards.
• Sunday’s four passing leaders by team threw for 392, 287, 384 and 314 yards.
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Tweets of the Week
Login to view embedded media View: https://twitter.com/daringantt/status/823282372330291203?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Login to view embedded media View: https://twitter.com/JCaldwell92/status/823198977831174145?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Login to view embedded media View: https://twitter.com/LATimesfarmer/status/821736679094374401?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
* * *
• Joseph on lessons learned from Wade Phillips when they worked together on the Texans staff: “Wade Phillips is a Hall of Fame coach, but Wade taught me this: Players first, scheme second. Everything Wade did was based on the players. And I never had a bad day with Wade. If it was a win by 50 or a loss by 50, I never had a bad day with Wade.”
• Hawk on Aaron Rodgers: “I sat next to him in our team meetings for nine straight years. He was always the same guy … Now that I am thinking about it, I wish I would have taken some notes, and taken some more time to watch how he did conduct himself. Luckily I still get to talk to him a lot and see him a decent amount. It might be weird if I'm just hanging out with him having dinner and I'm taking notes. Do you think that's weird?
In team meetings you just sit wherever you want, there is no assigned seat. When I got drafted, Aaron reached out to me because he was the first-round pick the year before me, and he just kind of let me know what the process was like and what to expect. I didn't know anything, I was 21, 22 years old. We just started hanging out early on. My wife and I got married shortly after I got there, so my wife was always like a team mom to people, so she would have him over and cook dinner for him.”
* * *
Things I Think I Think
1. I think these are my quick notes of analysis from championship Sunday:
a. For Tom Brady to feel old, here’s a factoid to hit him with: Matt Ryan capped his senior season at Boston College with a 24-21 bowl victory over Michigan State on Dec. 28, 2007 … and on the next night Brady and the Patriots capped their 16-0 regular season with that crazy 38-35 win over the Giants at the Meadowlands.
b. Imagine Ryan in his Chestnut Hill dorm or apartment, watching Brady dissect every defense in football in that perfect season; there’s no way he ever wondered, “Man, I’d love to face him in the Super Bowl sometime.”
c. I loved Atlanta offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan’s reaction when, just before we taped a podcast conversation Sunday night in the Falcons’ equipment office at the Georgia Dome, I told him it looked like the Super Bowl foe would be New England, and he said: “Good.”
d. Not that Shanahan thinks he can shred Belichick’s defense—far from it—but it’s the kind of bring-it-on attitude Kyle Shanahan has had his entire coaching career.
e. On fourth-and-two with 36 minutes left in the NFC title game, at the Green Bay 37, with the Pack down 17-0, Mike McCarthy punted—and I absolutely would not have.
f. At the conclusion of the final football game that will ever be played at the Georgia Dome, I had this reaction: Meh.
g. Seven Super Bowls for one quarterback (Brady) is just … just … well, it’s like what Elaine said that one time in Seinfeld: “I am speechless—I am without speech.”
h. The Falcons got a gem in Mohamed Sanu, who started to put the game out of reach and then Julio Jones finished it.
i. Classy, apt and loyal move by ESPN, naming their Sunday pregame studio after Chris Berman and Tom Jackson at the close of Berman’s last Sunday studio show in Bristol this weekend.
j. The way to stop childish but significant behavior like that of the person who, at 3 a.m. Sunday, pulled the fire alarm at the Steelers’ Boston hotel and forced its evacuation, is pretty simple: Put the idiot’s name on TV and in the papers, and make the perp serve two months in jail.
k. This Pittsburgh offense, which is supposed to be great with all these unstoppable weapons, managed two touchdowns in eight quarters at Kansas City and New England.
2. I think I’ll wish Johnny Manziel well on his road back to the real world, and I mean that. Anyone who is trying to turn around his life is to be commended. But this one’s going to take some time to believe.
I remember back almost three years, when he was an Eagle Scout at the 2014 combine, and during the pre-draft process, when he played the earnest prospect and very nearly had Mike Zimmer and the Vikings convinced he’d left his partying days back on his college campus in Texas. If I’m a GM, I’m saying to Manziel, even if he’s sober the next six months, “We’ll talk in 2018.”
3. I think I understand why the NFL moved commissioner Roger Goodell’s press conference up two days, from the Friday morning before the Super Bowl to Wednesday afternoon in Houston. (Something that’s gotten surprisingly little attention.) Especially with the Patriots in the game, there was no way the league wanted to have the buildup to the biggest game of the year marred by the wet blanket (apologies to Greg Bedard for stealing his patented phrase, but it applies here) of countless recitations of Deflategate in papers and websites and sportscasts two days before the Super Bowl.
In general, I believe the league did this to try to keep interest building in the game itself as it approaches. One other Goodell note, about him attending the game in Atlanta on Sunday instead of Foxboro: Goodell should have taken his Patriots medicine sometime in the regular season. He should have gone to a game some random Sunday in Foxboro, suffered the venom that would have come, so that this “Roger’s afraid of showing his face in Foxboro” thing (which I do not doubt he is) wouldn’t continue to be such a big story.
A few other notes about Super Bowl week:
a. The Patriots will practice Wednesday through Friday at the University of Houston’s football facility.
b. The Falcons will work out at Rice University.
c. The first media availability will be Monday night at Minute Maid Park. NFC interviews, on the field, will be from 8:10 to 9:10 p.m. ET, with AFC team interviews from 10 to 11 p.m.
d. Goodell and a few select players (not in the game) will have a fan forum event at the House of Blues in downtown Houston on Friday. Fans, mostly of the Texans, will be invited to ask questions.
e. And a most interesting Monday Super Bowl MVP celebration could be at 8:30 a.m. Houston time, if Tom Brady wins it. Goodell would have to be there to say nice things about Brady, and Brady will have to pose for photos with the man who banned him from the NFL for a quarter of this season.
4. I think this qualifies as a terrific waste of opportunity: Quarterback Deshaun Watson is skipping the Senior Bowl this week. Clemson’s Watson would logically have played for the South team, which will be coached by Hue Jackson and his Cleveland Browns’ assistants. If you’ve got faith in your ability, and you want to convince the coach of the team with the first pick in the draft—the team that desperately needs a quarterback and will almost certainly choose one high in the draft if it can’t trade for one or sign one before that—why would you not take the golden opportunity to work with Jackson for a week?
The other two prime quarterbacks in the draft, Mitch Trubisky and DeShone Kizer, were not eligible, either because they weren’t seniors or because they hadn’t graduated. But a couple notes about the Watson miss: The Browns talked to him and asked him to play this week; he declined. Some of the other players who in the past declined a Senior Bowl invitation went much lower in the draft, fairly or unfairly, than they’d hoped—Geno Smith, Brett Hundley, Connor Cook, A.J. McCarron.
I’m not saying the same fate will befall Watson. And I will be clear: If the Browns fall in love with Watson, the fact that he didn’t participate in the Senior Bowl won’t matter. But what if it’s close? What if Jackson’s on the fence about one or more quarterbacks? Just feels like a big miss to me.
5. I think there’s a lesson for all in handling crises, watching the way Steelers cheerleading coach Mike Tomlin handled the Antonio Brown one. Forcefully, with mild and controlled anger, facing it straight on. Textbook crisis management. The most disturbing thing to me, other than Brown putting his me-firstness on display for the world to see, were the players who ignored Tomlin’s post-game message. That has to stop.
6. I think Carl Cheffers, who will ref the Super Bowl, is one of the least-known NFL referees—and the NFL likes it that way. Football Zebrashas been on the Cheffers-as-Super Bowl-ref story for a few weeks now, and Mike Pereira had it last weekend for FOX. I asked Football Zebraseditor-in-chief Ben Austro (yes, there is a site covering NFL officiating, and Austro is really good at it) to give us a scouting report on Cheffers, in his ninth year as NFL referee. Writes Austro:
Carl Cheffers is not the kind of referee who is going to leave his mark on the average fan. He may not have the swagger of some of his contemporaries, but do not confuse his unassuming demeanor with weakness. Cheffers has been a steady hand at the wheel of his crew for some time. Cheffers is also known for an infamous face mask flag in 2015, which gave the opportunity for the Packers to beat the Lions on the resulting untimed down.
It was a call that 100 officials out of 100 would have made, even though slow-motion replay showed otherwise. When asked by a reporter at the Lions training camp about that call, Cheffers responded, “Dude, it's 2016.” Fans will always remember; Cheffers will, too, but his focus always must be on the next snap.
The most controversial call of this year’s playoffs was a flag thrown by Cheffers, a holding penalty on Chiefs tackle Eric Fisher that nullified Kansas City’s two-point conversion that would have tied the playoff game with the Steelers. While Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce leveled heavy criticism at Cheffers’ feet, it was a call he had to make.
No official wants to have the call that ends a team's season. It's not easy, but good officials step up, take control, and make the call in that situation, rather than letting the situation take control of the official. An entire season is made up of a few thousand “microcalls” that are all considered, but it turns out that, essentially, the last call he made exemplifies the fact that Cheffers belongs at the head of the crew on football's biggest stage.
Congrats Chris Long & Danny A!
- By shaunpinney
- RAMS / NFL TALK
- 27 Replies
I just have to congratulate two of my all time favourite Rams on Reaching the SuperBowl. Chris Long & Danny Amendola. I'm glad it worked out for Chris, especially as I think there was plenty of tread on the tires of him as a Ram.
Jared Goff says Rams can run Redskins' deep passing offense under Sean McVay
- By Fatbot
- RAMS / NFL TALK
- 53 Replies
Jared Goff says Rams can run Redskins' deep passing offense under Sean McVay
Eric Edholm
Shutdown Corner
Jan 21, 2017, 10:55 AM
Jared Goff has had time to rest up from a trying first season, let his body heal, spend a little time in Mexico with his friends … but now he’s ready to go back to work. He has a new head coach, a new offensive system and new perspective heading into his first full offseason of work in the NFL.
The Los Angeles Rams quarterback spent much of last season waiting his turn (for much of it as the team’s third quarterback) before starting the final seven games of the season and still seeking his first victory in the league. He’ll be doing it under his third head coach following the firing of Jeff Fisher, and with interim coach John Fassel being replaced by 30-year-old, first-time head coach Sean McVay.
Goff is now back in Los Angeles (more on that below), and he’s excited to get working with McVay on a new direction offensively.
“He’s ready, ready to get this thing turned around, as am I,” Goff told Shutdown Corner Friday night. “We’ve talked now a few times since he’s been hired, and it’s a great start.”
Jared Goff believes that the Rams’ new offense will be going deep more. (AP)
Goff met with McVay before and after the new coach was hired, and he was the only coach Goff met with during the Rams’ interview process — which might say a lot about how impressive McVay with the team’s brass.
“I thought after that first meeting, if he gets the job I am completely on board,” Goff said. “I was very, very pleased. Now the hard work begins.”
Goff believes the Rams’ offense can have the same type of feel as the system McVay ran with the Washington Redskins.
“I think we’re going to do a lot of what they did last year: a lot of downfield passing stuff,” Goff said of the Redskins’ offense, which ranked second in the NFL in yards per pass play and passing yards per game. “I think that’s obviously transferable here.”
Goff had no idea at the time, but starting early last season he would be watching tape of opposing defenses, and he said it seemed that every other week he was getting a look at what the Redskins and quarterback Kirk Cousins did offensively.
“I kept saying, either to myself or to the other quarterbacks in the room, ‘Hey, man, I really like this. I like what they do.’ I had no idea [McVay] would be bringing that here at the time,” Goff said. “Great concepts, lots of variety, great execution. It’s all there.
“Now I get to run that. You could see Kirk making tough throws, but they were scheming stuff up to get guys open. That’s one thing I noticed, a lot of guys running free, which is obviously appealing to me.”
As far as McVay’s age, Goff says he is not worried at all. The Rams were the youngest team in the NFL last season and likely will be one of the youngest again this season.
“If there’s a team it’s not going to be a problem with, it’s us,” he said. “But I don’t think it would be a problem regardless, just because of who he is. Who is to say that you can’t be a good head coach at 31? It’s not like the president — you don’t need to be 35. There’s no age requirement. You judge is on their knowledge and their capabilities.
“I know he is the right guy for this job.”
Goff might have struggled in his seven starts, completing 54.6 percent of his passes for a mere 5.3 yards per attempt, with only five TDs to seven interceptions. But he feels lucky that he came out of the season healthy and not in need of injury rehab. That will allow him to continue working on his conditioning and also absorb his third offensive system in three years, going back to Cal.
He also felt that going against so many talented teams and facing some adversity in those seven starts actually will be a benefit building toward his second season.
“Just that experience of facing some pretty good teams was huge,” Goff said. “The Seahawks, the Patriots, the Falcons, the Dolphins, even the Cardinals and Saints. The Niners were probably the only team we played that wasn’t of that same caliber. But I think seeing how the game works at the highest level against those good teams, that will pay dividends.
“Good things don’t come right away — I know that — and I am willing to put in the time to make things good.”
Goff will remain in L.A. to train for the duration of the offseason, but he’s also spending time this weekend there at the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl, talking to players about transitioning to the league and preparing for the combine. He and several other 2016 rookies are working with Panini Gridiron on their digital trading card app and signing their rookie cards prior to the game.
“We’re just down here signing some cards and talking to the guys, and it’s been a lot of fun,” Goff said.
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/jared-...ssing-offense-under-sean-mcvay-185504499.html
Eric Edholm
Shutdown Corner
Jan 21, 2017, 10:55 AM
Jared Goff has had time to rest up from a trying first season, let his body heal, spend a little time in Mexico with his friends … but now he’s ready to go back to work. He has a new head coach, a new offensive system and new perspective heading into his first full offseason of work in the NFL.
The Los Angeles Rams quarterback spent much of last season waiting his turn (for much of it as the team’s third quarterback) before starting the final seven games of the season and still seeking his first victory in the league. He’ll be doing it under his third head coach following the firing of Jeff Fisher, and with interim coach John Fassel being replaced by 30-year-old, first-time head coach Sean McVay.
Goff is now back in Los Angeles (more on that below), and he’s excited to get working with McVay on a new direction offensively.
“He’s ready, ready to get this thing turned around, as am I,” Goff told Shutdown Corner Friday night. “We’ve talked now a few times since he’s been hired, and it’s a great start.”
Jared Goff believes that the Rams’ new offense will be going deep more. (AP)
Goff met with McVay before and after the new coach was hired, and he was the only coach Goff met with during the Rams’ interview process — which might say a lot about how impressive McVay with the team’s brass.
“I thought after that first meeting, if he gets the job I am completely on board,” Goff said. “I was very, very pleased. Now the hard work begins.”
Goff believes the Rams’ offense can have the same type of feel as the system McVay ran with the Washington Redskins.
“I think we’re going to do a lot of what they did last year: a lot of downfield passing stuff,” Goff said of the Redskins’ offense, which ranked second in the NFL in yards per pass play and passing yards per game. “I think that’s obviously transferable here.”
Goff had no idea at the time, but starting early last season he would be watching tape of opposing defenses, and he said it seemed that every other week he was getting a look at what the Redskins and quarterback Kirk Cousins did offensively.
“I kept saying, either to myself or to the other quarterbacks in the room, ‘Hey, man, I really like this. I like what they do.’ I had no idea [McVay] would be bringing that here at the time,” Goff said. “Great concepts, lots of variety, great execution. It’s all there.
“Now I get to run that. You could see Kirk making tough throws, but they were scheming stuff up to get guys open. That’s one thing I noticed, a lot of guys running free, which is obviously appealing to me.”
As far as McVay’s age, Goff says he is not worried at all. The Rams were the youngest team in the NFL last season and likely will be one of the youngest again this season.
“If there’s a team it’s not going to be a problem with, it’s us,” he said. “But I don’t think it would be a problem regardless, just because of who he is. Who is to say that you can’t be a good head coach at 31? It’s not like the president — you don’t need to be 35. There’s no age requirement. You judge is on their knowledge and their capabilities.
“I know he is the right guy for this job.”
Goff might have struggled in his seven starts, completing 54.6 percent of his passes for a mere 5.3 yards per attempt, with only five TDs to seven interceptions. But he feels lucky that he came out of the season healthy and not in need of injury rehab. That will allow him to continue working on his conditioning and also absorb his third offensive system in three years, going back to Cal.
He also felt that going against so many talented teams and facing some adversity in those seven starts actually will be a benefit building toward his second season.
“Just that experience of facing some pretty good teams was huge,” Goff said. “The Seahawks, the Patriots, the Falcons, the Dolphins, even the Cardinals and Saints. The Niners were probably the only team we played that wasn’t of that same caliber. But I think seeing how the game works at the highest level against those good teams, that will pay dividends.
“Good things don’t come right away — I know that — and I am willing to put in the time to make things good.”
Goff will remain in L.A. to train for the duration of the offseason, but he’s also spending time this weekend there at the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl, talking to players about transitioning to the league and preparing for the combine. He and several other 2016 rookies are working with Panini Gridiron on their digital trading card app and signing their rookie cards prior to the game.
“We’re just down here signing some cards and talking to the guys, and it’s been a lot of fun,” Goff said.
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/jared-...ssing-offense-under-sean-mcvay-185504499.html
So the Patriots fumble rate went up this season....
- By Faceplant
- RAMS / NFL TALK
- 33 Replies
For many of us here at ROD, the Patriots amazing run of "good luck" when it came to ball security since 2007 season was....ummm....a bit suspicious. This article illustrates just how "almost impossible" that streak of nine years was with regards to fumble rates. It also reminds us of the rule that was changed in 2006 to allow teams to use their own footballs for away games (rule was lobbied for by Brady himself). I was curious if that would change this past year after the suspension and all the scrutiny the team faced. Of course it did. More proof of how shady that organization is. Here are fumble rates for the last 3 years for reference.....
2014 Season.......
2015 Season.......
And of course this past season.......
2014 Season.......
2015 Season.......
And of course this past season.......
The Year Football Became Basketball
- By Prime Time
- RAMS / NFL TALK
- 4 Replies
https://theringer.com/nfl-playoffs-...s-basketball-on-grass-6ef82d6dac0f#.3w3fy8wej
Hard Knocks Meets the Hardwood
The Packers, Falcons, Steelers, and Patriots have more in common than fighting for a Super Bowl berth: They’re spearheading an offensive revolution by playing basketball on grass
Kevin Clark
Staff Writer, The Ringer
(Getty Images/Ringer illustration)
For the casual observer, this NFL season has likely largely been defined by great quarterbacks playing great football: Tom Brady dominating, Matt Ryan breaking through, Aaron Rodgers running the table after promising to do just that. Dedicated observers, however, see something deeper: a fundamental shift in the way the game is being played.
The phrase “basketball on grass” isn’t new, but the shorthand for a wide-open style of offense has never been as apt as it’s been this season. Never in NFL history have one-on-one matchups downfield been more prevalent or more crucial to an offense’s success; never have we seen more defensive backs consistently on the field, or more eligible receivers running routes against them. Or, as Steelers wide receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey puts it: “We believe in ‘Get your ass open.’… It’s basketball.”
Since 2008, the number of plays per season in which teams used five or more defensive backs has increased 60 percent, and the biggest single-season jump in that span occurred from the 2015 campaign to the 2016 season, according to TruMedia.
Leaguewide, teams ran plays featuring five or more defensive backs 1,657 more times during the 2016 regular season than in 2015. After trending in this direction for nearly a decade, the hardwood officially replaced the turf this season.
And the final four playoff teams are a big reason. Here are the four quarterbacks who posted the best passer rating this season with five offensive players running routes and at least five defensive backs on the field: Brady, Ryan, Ben Roethlisberger, and Rodgers, in that order. Those quarterbacks will play in the league championship games on Sunday, in part because they’ve become the point guards of the NFL.
“Basketball is a great comparison because I think there’s a lot of cutting and movement and backdoor movement in football right now,” says former NFL quarterback and current ESPN analyst Trent Dilfer. “It’s about deception in routes and this idea that we’re going to keep moving, keep moving, and we know this movement is going to create an open guy.”
The idea is no longer being used as an experiment; it’s increasingly an imperative tool for contending. And that’s where this year’s playoff teams separate from the pack: They have the star QBs, yes, but also the skill players built to “keep moving.”
In situations pitting five pass catchers against five or more defensive backs this regular season, Pittsburgh’s Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell both ranked in the top five in receptions. In those same scenarios, Atlanta receiver Taylor Gabriel’s 88 percent catch rate was first among receivers by a wide margin — besting his teammate Mohamed Sanu, who was second at 82.9 percent.
Jordy Nelson led the NFL with 11 touchdowns on five-on-five plays, while New England’s Chris Hogan led with 20.9 yards per catch. In 2016, 67 players leaguewide caught 40 or more passes on plays involving five route runners; in 2006, that number was just 26.
Speaking to reporters earlier this season, Philadelphia Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz said the Falcons use “some schoolyard, backyard-type concepts to their routes: some ‘get open’–type concepts” that he called “basketballesque.”
While that may have been an oversimplification, Schwartz wasn’t off base. “Julio Jones is the big man, drawing all the attention,” says Super Bowl–winning coach and current NFL Network analyst Brian Billick. “I need my forward in Sanu, [Gabriel] is going to be the 2-guard, moving quickly and cutting, and the H-back is my utility guy, blocking at the point of attack or trying to get a good matchup and nailing the occasional 3-pointer and can guard your 2 or 3. The game has changed.”
For the four teams set to compete on Sunday, it’s changed for the better.
Passing exploded leaguewide around the start of this decade. The top six passing yardage seasons in NFL history, and 15 of the top 17, have occurred since 2011. But even amid that scoring aerial boon, the game generally remained the same aesthetically. That changed with the proliferation of five-receiver plays and defensive backfields with at least five members on the field at once.
Extra DBs tend to come at the expense of a third linebacker or fourth defensive lineman, while extra receivers can come at the expense of a tight end or running back staying in to block or being on the field at all. Billick says that for most of his NFL coaching career, which spanned from 1992 to 2007, teams stayed in base personnel (four defensive backs and, in most cases, three linebackers and four defensive linemen) 60 percent of the time.
“You’d be in a nickel 40 percent of the time,” he says. “A few years ago that flipped — and this year, I talked to a defensive coordinator who said they are in base 25 percent of the time.”
That means more defensive backs on the field than ever before. Of course, the basketball-playing teams can still find the holes.
Login to view embedded media View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjmCXVq30E8&feature=player_embedded
There are a handful of reasons for the shift Billick describes. For one, NFL rule changes cracked down on pass interference in the mid-2000s, making it harder for defenders to fight, allowing receivers to get an edge in coverage. What’s more, Dilfer points to the influence of the college game in the past five years, as more spread-oriented college coaches have joined the NFL ranks as assistants.
If you think this sounds like college spread offenses, not so fast: NFL coaches say that while the literal spreading out of the players may have been adopted from the college game, NFL teams can’t run pure college spreads for myriad reasons — from downfield blocking rules to narrower hash marks that limit the open space on each side of the field. “People may look at it and think this is becoming like the college game,” Billick says. “Well, no, but maybe it’s headed towards more of a hybrid.”
Meanwhile, run-pass options, where quarterbacks can decide to run or throw depending on how they read the defense after the snap, are increasingly en vogue for the most innovative offenses. Dilfer estimates based on his film study that the completion percentage on RPO throws was around 90 percent during the regular season, with a similar success rate on short screens, at which Dilfer notes all four playoff teams also excel.
“All of these archaic coaches felt like they had permission to be like ‘Andy Reid is doing it, I can do it too,’” Dilfer says of opening up the different possibilities in the passing game. “And this is the next generation of guys, and it’s all about space plays.”
Today’s wide-open basketball plays are the natural offshoot of years of these pro-pass trends. “We’re seeing this [style] with Kyle Shanahan, with Todd Haley; we’re seeing this with Josh McDaniels, and we’re seeing it in Green Bay where Rodgers is just saying ‘I’m rolling left, you get open,’” says John Lynch, former NFL safety and current Fox analyst. “I’m marveling at the way these guys are setting up plays and manipulating.”
Successfully opening up the offense isn’t just about play calling; it’s about draft strategy and free-agency strategy. It’s about personnel. Teams like the Falcons are excelling at schoolyard routes because they planned for this.
As with basketball, size matters. So does quickness. Thomas Dimitroff, the Falcons general manager, says he signed Sanu as a free agent this offseason because he liked how his 6-foot-2 frame paired with the 6-foot-3 Jones on the other side.
And then there’s the speed. “When you look at the speed in this receiver group, you have Julio who’s a 4.39 [40-yard dash] guy, you have Aldrick Robinson, you have Taylor Gabriel who’s a 4.29,” Dimitroff says. “These guys are legitimately the fastest group I’ve ever been around.”
Size and speed at receiver have always mattered, but the difference is how the savviest teams are now deploying those bodies. These pass catchers excel on wide-open plays that seem simple but are in fact a science. “What may look like a rounded, goofball route by Julio or Sanu is actually genius,” says Dilfer.
The key is for pass catchers to “activate” defenders, using vertical routes to pull safeties out of the play in order to create space for the primary target on a five-receiver play. “So Sanu may run vertical, and he’s just clearing space for Julio to wander anywhere he wants,” Dilfer says. Jones’s route may be a simple curve into the middle of the field, but everything that’s happening around him sets him up to succeed.
Dilfer notes that the Patriots were trying this simple concept against the Ravens in December — except everyone on the Ravens forgot to cover the activator, Hogan. The result was a straight-ahead 79-yard touchdown.
Login to view embedded media View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AC2if-GELA&feature=player_embedded
The Patriots won’t be the only team attempting such exploits this weekend. Rodgers leads the NFL in pass attempts in these five-on-five situations, and all of the quarterbacks playing Sunday excel at throwing into one-on-one coverage and into tight windows.
The Steelers have perhaps the most dangerous weapons among this group: Bell and Brown, two of the most talented players in space in the NFL. Their presence trickles down. The wide-open offense is a huge advantage for the Steelers who aren’t the big two. “Most teams got the blueprint from defending us from the teams in our division,” says Heyward-Bey.
“That means double-teaming [Brown].” Heyward-Bey’s most notable reception this season came in an October matchup against New England, whom Pittsburgh faces on Sunday. Five players went out for a pass on a third-and-4 from the Patriots’ 14-yard line. The play needed to unfold quickly, because no one was back to block. As expected, Heyward-Bey says, Brown was double-covered.
“AB is getting covered by [Malcolm] Butler and the safety comes down so I’m all alone in one-on-one coverage with 25 [Eric Rowe],” Heyward-Bey says. “All I have to do is put a nice move on him and I’ll get open.” It worked.
Login to view embedded media View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrIh7cy6Tp0&feature=player_embedded
Lynch, when discussing Atlanta’s offensive prowess, points to a first-half play from Atlanta’s divisional win over Seattle. The Falcons sent five players out for routes. “Kyle Shanahan had someone in the flat, Julio Jones coming across the middle and drawing a lot of attention, and then he just sneaks Tevin Coleman out and he’s wide open,” Lynch says.
The Falcons were running a “scissors” concept, in which one player (Coleman) ran straight and then to the corner of the end zone while another (Gabriel) ran straight and then broke toward the middle of the end zone. Jones and his receiver brethren sucked the oxygen out of the play, and the safeties didn’t bother sticking with Coleman.
Login to view embedded media View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIPKgPCNcAs&feature=player_embedded
Gabriel, who has been one of the best players in the league against five defensive backs this season, says Falcons players have a good amount of freedom to get where they need to on the field instead of working toward set points. “I’ve had a lot of success in beating man coverage,” he says when asked about facing five defensive backs.
“When you’ve got a guy like Julio on the field — earlier in the season, they were kind of playing man coverage and moving the safety over to Julio’s side. So it’s just me taking advantage of man-to-man coverage and making the most of it.”
Spreading the Seahawks so thin last Saturday was part of the Falcons’ plan, Lynch says. The Seahawks had successfully blitzed the Falcons in their matchup in October, “and so Kyle said ‘We’re going to get everyone out running routes,’” Lynch says. “They spread people out and there are two ways to respond when a team can blitz, like Seattle: pack it all up and protect, or say ‘Let’s open this up.’ They want to open it up.”
Lynch says that Atlanta’s ability to poke holes in Seattle’s famed Cover 3 defense impressed him most. These days, defenders have to grapple not only with harsher officiating, but also with more frequent one-on-one coverage. Dilfer says that one of the few ways to stop these high-octane offenses is to be as unpredictable as possible on defense.
He points out that even against Houston’s Brock Osweiler last week, the Patriots showed “eight different coverages in the first 15 or 20 plays.” For individual defenders, though, the task remains staying ahead of the forward — er, receiver.
“I tell corners — all playing corner is now is basketball,” says former Steelers corner and current NFL Network analyst Ike Taylor. Taylor, who went to college to play basketball but ended up walking on to the Louisiana–Lafayette football team instead, says he’s always imagined himself guarding players as if there were a hoop behind him, but that this new offensive era has forced nearly everyone to think that way too.
“You only have 5 yards to do your damage,” Taylor says, referring to the distance from the line of scrimmage in which defensive backs can be physical with receivers. “After that, it’s not letting the guard get to the basket.”
For the defenses posting up this weekend, it’s all about not getting dunked on.
Hard Knocks Meets the Hardwood
The Packers, Falcons, Steelers, and Patriots have more in common than fighting for a Super Bowl berth: They’re spearheading an offensive revolution by playing basketball on grass
Kevin Clark
Staff Writer, The Ringer
(Getty Images/Ringer illustration)
For the casual observer, this NFL season has likely largely been defined by great quarterbacks playing great football: Tom Brady dominating, Matt Ryan breaking through, Aaron Rodgers running the table after promising to do just that. Dedicated observers, however, see something deeper: a fundamental shift in the way the game is being played.
The phrase “basketball on grass” isn’t new, but the shorthand for a wide-open style of offense has never been as apt as it’s been this season. Never in NFL history have one-on-one matchups downfield been more prevalent or more crucial to an offense’s success; never have we seen more defensive backs consistently on the field, or more eligible receivers running routes against them. Or, as Steelers wide receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey puts it: “We believe in ‘Get your ass open.’… It’s basketball.”
Since 2008, the number of plays per season in which teams used five or more defensive backs has increased 60 percent, and the biggest single-season jump in that span occurred from the 2015 campaign to the 2016 season, according to TruMedia.
Leaguewide, teams ran plays featuring five or more defensive backs 1,657 more times during the 2016 regular season than in 2015. After trending in this direction for nearly a decade, the hardwood officially replaced the turf this season.
And the final four playoff teams are a big reason. Here are the four quarterbacks who posted the best passer rating this season with five offensive players running routes and at least five defensive backs on the field: Brady, Ryan, Ben Roethlisberger, and Rodgers, in that order. Those quarterbacks will play in the league championship games on Sunday, in part because they’ve become the point guards of the NFL.
“Basketball is a great comparison because I think there’s a lot of cutting and movement and backdoor movement in football right now,” says former NFL quarterback and current ESPN analyst Trent Dilfer. “It’s about deception in routes and this idea that we’re going to keep moving, keep moving, and we know this movement is going to create an open guy.”
The idea is no longer being used as an experiment; it’s increasingly an imperative tool for contending. And that’s where this year’s playoff teams separate from the pack: They have the star QBs, yes, but also the skill players built to “keep moving.”
In situations pitting five pass catchers against five or more defensive backs this regular season, Pittsburgh’s Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell both ranked in the top five in receptions. In those same scenarios, Atlanta receiver Taylor Gabriel’s 88 percent catch rate was first among receivers by a wide margin — besting his teammate Mohamed Sanu, who was second at 82.9 percent.
Jordy Nelson led the NFL with 11 touchdowns on five-on-five plays, while New England’s Chris Hogan led with 20.9 yards per catch. In 2016, 67 players leaguewide caught 40 or more passes on plays involving five route runners; in 2006, that number was just 26.
Speaking to reporters earlier this season, Philadelphia Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz said the Falcons use “some schoolyard, backyard-type concepts to their routes: some ‘get open’–type concepts” that he called “basketballesque.”
While that may have been an oversimplification, Schwartz wasn’t off base. “Julio Jones is the big man, drawing all the attention,” says Super Bowl–winning coach and current NFL Network analyst Brian Billick. “I need my forward in Sanu, [Gabriel] is going to be the 2-guard, moving quickly and cutting, and the H-back is my utility guy, blocking at the point of attack or trying to get a good matchup and nailing the occasional 3-pointer and can guard your 2 or 3. The game has changed.”
For the four teams set to compete on Sunday, it’s changed for the better.
Passing exploded leaguewide around the start of this decade. The top six passing yardage seasons in NFL history, and 15 of the top 17, have occurred since 2011. But even amid that scoring aerial boon, the game generally remained the same aesthetically. That changed with the proliferation of five-receiver plays and defensive backfields with at least five members on the field at once.
Extra DBs tend to come at the expense of a third linebacker or fourth defensive lineman, while extra receivers can come at the expense of a tight end or running back staying in to block or being on the field at all. Billick says that for most of his NFL coaching career, which spanned from 1992 to 2007, teams stayed in base personnel (four defensive backs and, in most cases, three linebackers and four defensive linemen) 60 percent of the time.
“You’d be in a nickel 40 percent of the time,” he says. “A few years ago that flipped — and this year, I talked to a defensive coordinator who said they are in base 25 percent of the time.”
That means more defensive backs on the field than ever before. Of course, the basketball-playing teams can still find the holes.
Login to view embedded media View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjmCXVq30E8&feature=player_embedded
There are a handful of reasons for the shift Billick describes. For one, NFL rule changes cracked down on pass interference in the mid-2000s, making it harder for defenders to fight, allowing receivers to get an edge in coverage. What’s more, Dilfer points to the influence of the college game in the past five years, as more spread-oriented college coaches have joined the NFL ranks as assistants.
If you think this sounds like college spread offenses, not so fast: NFL coaches say that while the literal spreading out of the players may have been adopted from the college game, NFL teams can’t run pure college spreads for myriad reasons — from downfield blocking rules to narrower hash marks that limit the open space on each side of the field. “People may look at it and think this is becoming like the college game,” Billick says. “Well, no, but maybe it’s headed towards more of a hybrid.”
Meanwhile, run-pass options, where quarterbacks can decide to run or throw depending on how they read the defense after the snap, are increasingly en vogue for the most innovative offenses. Dilfer estimates based on his film study that the completion percentage on RPO throws was around 90 percent during the regular season, with a similar success rate on short screens, at which Dilfer notes all four playoff teams also excel.
“All of these archaic coaches felt like they had permission to be like ‘Andy Reid is doing it, I can do it too,’” Dilfer says of opening up the different possibilities in the passing game. “And this is the next generation of guys, and it’s all about space plays.”
Today’s wide-open basketball plays are the natural offshoot of years of these pro-pass trends. “We’re seeing this [style] with Kyle Shanahan, with Todd Haley; we’re seeing this with Josh McDaniels, and we’re seeing it in Green Bay where Rodgers is just saying ‘I’m rolling left, you get open,’” says John Lynch, former NFL safety and current Fox analyst. “I’m marveling at the way these guys are setting up plays and manipulating.”
Successfully opening up the offense isn’t just about play calling; it’s about draft strategy and free-agency strategy. It’s about personnel. Teams like the Falcons are excelling at schoolyard routes because they planned for this.
As with basketball, size matters. So does quickness. Thomas Dimitroff, the Falcons general manager, says he signed Sanu as a free agent this offseason because he liked how his 6-foot-2 frame paired with the 6-foot-3 Jones on the other side.
And then there’s the speed. “When you look at the speed in this receiver group, you have Julio who’s a 4.39 [40-yard dash] guy, you have Aldrick Robinson, you have Taylor Gabriel who’s a 4.29,” Dimitroff says. “These guys are legitimately the fastest group I’ve ever been around.”
Size and speed at receiver have always mattered, but the difference is how the savviest teams are now deploying those bodies. These pass catchers excel on wide-open plays that seem simple but are in fact a science. “What may look like a rounded, goofball route by Julio or Sanu is actually genius,” says Dilfer.
The key is for pass catchers to “activate” defenders, using vertical routes to pull safeties out of the play in order to create space for the primary target on a five-receiver play. “So Sanu may run vertical, and he’s just clearing space for Julio to wander anywhere he wants,” Dilfer says. Jones’s route may be a simple curve into the middle of the field, but everything that’s happening around him sets him up to succeed.
Dilfer notes that the Patriots were trying this simple concept against the Ravens in December — except everyone on the Ravens forgot to cover the activator, Hogan. The result was a straight-ahead 79-yard touchdown.
Login to view embedded media View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AC2if-GELA&feature=player_embedded
The Patriots won’t be the only team attempting such exploits this weekend. Rodgers leads the NFL in pass attempts in these five-on-five situations, and all of the quarterbacks playing Sunday excel at throwing into one-on-one coverage and into tight windows.
The Steelers have perhaps the most dangerous weapons among this group: Bell and Brown, two of the most talented players in space in the NFL. Their presence trickles down. The wide-open offense is a huge advantage for the Steelers who aren’t the big two. “Most teams got the blueprint from defending us from the teams in our division,” says Heyward-Bey.
“That means double-teaming [Brown].” Heyward-Bey’s most notable reception this season came in an October matchup against New England, whom Pittsburgh faces on Sunday. Five players went out for a pass on a third-and-4 from the Patriots’ 14-yard line. The play needed to unfold quickly, because no one was back to block. As expected, Heyward-Bey says, Brown was double-covered.
“AB is getting covered by [Malcolm] Butler and the safety comes down so I’m all alone in one-on-one coverage with 25 [Eric Rowe],” Heyward-Bey says. “All I have to do is put a nice move on him and I’ll get open.” It worked.
Login to view embedded media View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrIh7cy6Tp0&feature=player_embedded
Lynch, when discussing Atlanta’s offensive prowess, points to a first-half play from Atlanta’s divisional win over Seattle. The Falcons sent five players out for routes. “Kyle Shanahan had someone in the flat, Julio Jones coming across the middle and drawing a lot of attention, and then he just sneaks Tevin Coleman out and he’s wide open,” Lynch says.
The Falcons were running a “scissors” concept, in which one player (Coleman) ran straight and then to the corner of the end zone while another (Gabriel) ran straight and then broke toward the middle of the end zone. Jones and his receiver brethren sucked the oxygen out of the play, and the safeties didn’t bother sticking with Coleman.
Login to view embedded media View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIPKgPCNcAs&feature=player_embedded
Gabriel, who has been one of the best players in the league against five defensive backs this season, says Falcons players have a good amount of freedom to get where they need to on the field instead of working toward set points. “I’ve had a lot of success in beating man coverage,” he says when asked about facing five defensive backs.
“When you’ve got a guy like Julio on the field — earlier in the season, they were kind of playing man coverage and moving the safety over to Julio’s side. So it’s just me taking advantage of man-to-man coverage and making the most of it.”
Spreading the Seahawks so thin last Saturday was part of the Falcons’ plan, Lynch says. The Seahawks had successfully blitzed the Falcons in their matchup in October, “and so Kyle said ‘We’re going to get everyone out running routes,’” Lynch says. “They spread people out and there are two ways to respond when a team can blitz, like Seattle: pack it all up and protect, or say ‘Let’s open this up.’ They want to open it up.”
Lynch says that Atlanta’s ability to poke holes in Seattle’s famed Cover 3 defense impressed him most. These days, defenders have to grapple not only with harsher officiating, but also with more frequent one-on-one coverage. Dilfer says that one of the few ways to stop these high-octane offenses is to be as unpredictable as possible on defense.
He points out that even against Houston’s Brock Osweiler last week, the Patriots showed “eight different coverages in the first 15 or 20 plays.” For individual defenders, though, the task remains staying ahead of the forward — er, receiver.
“I tell corners — all playing corner is now is basketball,” says former Steelers corner and current NFL Network analyst Ike Taylor. Taylor, who went to college to play basketball but ended up walking on to the Louisiana–Lafayette football team instead, says he’s always imagined himself guarding players as if there were a hoop behind him, but that this new offensive era has forced nearly everyone to think that way too.
“You only have 5 yards to do your damage,” Taylor says, referring to the distance from the line of scrimmage in which defensive backs can be physical with receivers. “After that, it’s not letting the guard get to the basket.”
For the defenses posting up this weekend, it’s all about not getting dunked on.