Analysis from Seahawks Game coaches film

Best thread ever! Thank You!!!

Well, guess I'm not getting any work done today...

Thanks for this, glad to get some game film breakdown.

Originally posted by thl408:
Here's the stop on 3rd and 8 in the 4th quarter to keep the game within a FG.
Below:
SEA: 11 personnel vs 49er nickel (cover1 man, zone under)

The 49ers fake a cover2 look, but Whitner will crash down to take away the curl/slant. This allows Brock to play outside leverage with confidence. Bowman is the ILB (red square). Rogers (slot) and Wright are playing over the top, guarding the first down marker. If the two WRs cross each other, the cushion is to allow a switch in assignment. This prevents a pick play on the CB.


Below: It's playaction, done to give Bowman a false step.


Below: RW has completed his dropback and is ready to pull the trigger on the first read, the skinny post. With the CB Rogers playing outside leverage, this route will win as it breaks inside. RW has to place this throw over Bow, in front of Reid. Bowman has not bit hard enough on the play fake and knows what's going on. He quickly recovers to his curl zone while letting RW know that Bow's eyes are watching him. It's important to not turn his head as a QB can throw it over him if he does. Bow gets in the passing lane and defends the skinny post.


Below: RW's view, same moment in time as above pic (sort of). The skinny post is not there. Notice Brooks (usual spot), he displays discipline and stays in control, with his eyes on RW, preventing a scramble right. Justin and RayMac have done a bad thing and are right next to each other. Here, RayMac has recognized it and will rollover to get back in the proper rush lanes for pocket contain. RayMac will switch sides with Justin.


Below: RW's next read is the out. Wright was jumping any short route and had already jumped the fake slant. When the WR came out of the slant to the out route, he slipped. With both reads to the play side covered, Aldon picks a fine time to make an entrance into RW's peripheral. Aldon is being held and grabbed onto the ground, but still forces RW to pull the ball down. Brooks has held pocket contain on the right. RayMac is about to re-organize the middle, this ends up being a big deal as he becomes the guy in RWs face.



Bowman seems to take some super fast steps to recover and take away the passing lane. Brooks, Aldon, RayMac all did well. Then RW finally throws it to the WR that Brock is defending and we saw on the telecast what happens.


RayMac bothers RW enough that he can't set and plant to throw to the skinny post WR who is now open along the back of the endzone.

Damn, Aldon straight trucked that dude!

Here's that play from last years Cards game I was talking about earlier. I have to say I'm really impressed with Alex on this play, even more so than when I first watched it.



Ok, so this play is designed against a cover 2 zone. The idea is the slot on the 2 receiver side runs a streak to pull the LB and safety out(against 2 zone) and hit Vernon over the middle. The cards show cover 2 pre-snap with a man alignment. AS sees inside leverage on Vernon(option 1 out) His second option then is to look for the outside curl where there is no safety help(Kyle Williams) This is all pre-snap.



Post snap they rotate into a cover 1 man with press coverage on Williams. The slot corner has taken a flatfoot read to drive on the curl for Crabtree(the 3rd option)
From there Smith looks for the streak/fade route(4th option). The Defender is in good position with a safety rotating over.


Here you see Smith has moved to his 2nd and 3rd options after his pre-snap read



He's moved to his 4th option But sees the Safety rotate over as well as the good outside leverage by the defender



Now he moves to his 5th Read, Randy Moss on medium out. Really Moss' route is to hold a corner if they run a cover 3 zone.



Here you see how everyone but Moss was covered. This is one heck of a play!

Originally posted by jonnydel:
Understand that every play has a designed "primary" read. If you've ever seen the "america's game" on the 94 super bowl winning 49ers; Steve Young talked about how, before every game Shanahan would sit down at Young's locker and go through the gameplan plays that week. Young would recite the play and what the read was. In the super bowl it was 300 plays with their reads that he recited from memory twice before the super bowl.

For example: I showed a 22 yd gain to Boldin in the Rams game. It was a flood route combo on the left side. A flood route combo has the outside receiver running a streak, a deep out and a short flat route. It's best against cover 3, or cover 2 zone but doesn't work as well against man or quarters coverage. If the defense is in cover 3 or cover 2 zone it's a 3 on 2 advantage for the offense. you're "flooding" an area with receivers and the defense has to pick their poison on who they're going to guard. The streak will pull the corner in a cover 3 or the safety in a cover 2 out, then the remaining defender(usually a LB or slot corner with flat/hook to curl responsibility) is the read. You look at the flat defender - does he drop hi or low. Wherever he doesn't go, that's where the throw is. It makes the read easier for the QB(not necessarily a remedial type of play, all teams do this kind of stuff). I'll show the development of the play again below, but, you can see Vernon Davis is wide open in the flat because the tampa 2 coverage - the hook/curl zone defender follows the deep out leaving Vernon wide open in the flat. Kaep though, does a good job recognizing the backside safety has dropped too far into coverage to jump on the DIG that Boldin runs. He keeps his head down the middle of the field so that it keeps the safeties in the middle of the field backpedaling.

I'm actually referencing a discussion we had in a thread called "Our Offensive Offense" buddy, where we had a number of pics from the coaches 22 and in a number of plays there was nothing other than the designated read. in a number of the screen grabs there was no receiver looking for the ball or with heads turned to Kap except the primary read.

I think with Crabs back we're now able to use more targets, hence there are more effective reads for Kap to go to. That thread had a huge amount of hysteria about Kap only being a one read QB, which is why it's great to see your breakdowns showing otherwise.

Originally posted by Buchy:
I'm actually referencing a discussion we had in a thread called "Our Offensive Offense" buddy, where we had a number of pics from the coaches 22 and in a number of plays there was nothing other than the designated read. in a number of the screen grabs there was no receiver looking for the ball or with heads turned to Kap except the primary read.

I think with Crabs back we're now able to use more targets, hence there are more effective reads for Kap to go to. That thread had a huge amount of hysteria about Kap only being a one read QB, which is why it's great to see your breakdowns showing otherwise.

Ok, I get what you're saying.

Originally posted by mickey49:
Damn, Aldon straight trucked that dude!

For reals. No TE in the league will be able to withstand an Aldon bullrush. That tight end was HOLDING on for dear life, and got away with it.

Originally posted by thl408:
Yay GIFs! Here's this play.

Here is a decent example of our AR1 (team passing design). The AR here is clearly Boldin (CK looks nowhere else). Here you'll see Crabtree run a go, corner route. He cuts to the corner JUST as Boldin makes his break inside while the ball is delivered right on time. This route by Crabtree and his cut to the corner puts Boldin's DB on pause...he hesitates to either go with Crabtree or stay with Boldin. Gore flaring out also pulls the underneath LB off Boldin (just in case he was thinking of turning and running with Boldin). You can even see Crabtree's head angle...he's watching Boldin the whole way on when to make his break to the corner. He finally looks back to see if the pass was coming and if not, time to break back to the QB for an ad lib play.

BTW: How open was McDonald in the middle of the field? Roman, come BACK to that play later! Make him the AR next time!

Wow this thread is so great. Thank you for all your comments.

I am curious if you can look at a few plays against Seattle or STL where Frank was totally shut down in the backfield.

A lot of times our deep read runs go for negative yardage and it's almost as if the entire D is shooting gaps as the play is called.

Can you provide your thoughts on such a (typical) play? There must be a tell of some kind, because usually there are multiple defenders in the running lanes within 1 second of the snap.

Thank you.

Originally posted by GORO:
Jonnydel from your film study who is playing the inside linebacker position better, Willis or Bowman?

Here I'll show you a couple plays Bowman makes, one good, one bad. The bad is definitely the exception and not the rule, but he does have a couple more bad plays a game than Willis. I think that's what's separating them right now. I played linebacker and the second play gets me excited, it's freaking awesome to see a linebacker make this kind of play - absolutely perfect!



Here the Seahawks are running 22 personnel(2 TE, 2 backs) So we bring a safety into the box for an 8 man front. Bowman becomes the strong side backer(Ted) he's responsible for the strong side B and weakside A gaps Whitner is responsible for the D gap on a run to his side. The Seahawks run an off tackle run into the B gap


You can see here he's still moving laterally, Whitner is flying up into his gap as well as WIllis is setting to hit his gap as well. Bowman needs to hit the gap hard and stuff the fullback, but he doesn't he tries to finesse his way around the blocker.





By not meeting the fullback in the hole he gives just enough of a crease for the RB to get a lane



He peels off his block and does help make the stop, but Seattle gains 6 yds.

next post I'll show a freaking awesome play he made

Originally posted by NCommand:

Originally posted by thl408:
Yay GIFs! Here's this play.

Here is a decent example of our AR1 (team passing design). The AR here is clearly Boldin (CK looks nowhere else). Here you'll see Crabtree run a go, corner route. He cuts to the corner JUST as Boldin makes his break inside while the ball is delivered right on time. This route by Crabtree and his cut to the corner puts Boldin's DB on pause...he hesitates to either go with Crabtree or stay with Boldin. Gore flaring out also pulls the underneath LB off Boldin (just in case he was thinking of turning and running with Boldin). You can even see Crabtree's head angle...he's watching Boldin the whole way on when to make his break to the corner. He finally looks back to see if the pass was coming and if not, time to break back to the QB for an ad lib play.

BTW: How open was McDonald in the middle of the field? Roman, come BACK to that play later! Make him the AR next time!

I feel this is a coverage read play, not an AR play. The coverage read is the CB playing Boldin. If he is playing tight on Boldin, the correct throw is to VD on the corner route. If the CB is playing loose, over the top, which he is. The throw is to Boldin on the deep in route. Both VD and Boldin have an equal chance of being a target. The CB's coverage will tell Kap which target to choose. Like many plays in this game, the SEA DBs were very wary of VD's corner route. They knew the 49ers would be trying to exploit the single high safety look, where offenses are going to attack with sideline routes (corner routes).

The play here is a smash concept, done with a corner/dig.

Here's Bowman's awesome play



It's hard to see Bowman cause he's behind the broadcast camera, but Seattle runs the exact same play later in the game from the exact same formation.



Here he meets the FB in the hole and absolutely stuffs him! He squares up and attacks with his inside shoulder keeping the RB from going outside.



Lynch is stuffed for no yards. This is perfect linebacker play.

Originally posted by thl408:
I feel this is a coverage read play, not an AR play. The coverage read is the CB playing Boldin. If he is playing tight on Boldin, the correct throw is to VD on the corner route. If the CB is playing loose, over the top, which he is. The throw is to Boldin on the deep in route. Both VD and Boldin have an equal chance of being a target. The CB's coverage will tell Kap which target to choose. Like many plays in this game, the SEA DBs were very wary of VD's corner route. They knew the 49ers would be trying to exploit the single high safety look, where offenses are going to attack with sideline routes (corner routes).

The play here is a smash concept, done with a corner/dig.

Thl you are correct. It's a coverage read. Mike Martz uses that kind of concept a LOT. Inside streak with an outside DIG, it's always a coverage read. Roman does a good job of running out of a different formation and personnel package that what it is normally seen with. Kudos to him. It looks like Kaep is staring down Boldin but he's actually watching the corner.

Originally posted by thl408:

Originally posted by NCommand:

Originally posted by thl408:
Yay GIFs! Here's this play.

Here is a decent example of our AR1 (team passing design). The AR here is clearly Boldin (CK looks nowhere else). Here you'll see Crabtree run a go, corner route. He cuts to the corner JUST as Boldin makes his break inside while the ball is delivered right on time. This route by Crabtree and his cut to the corner puts Boldin's DB on pause...he hesitates to either go with Crabtree or stay with Boldin. Gore flaring out also pulls the underneath LB off Boldin (just in case he was thinking of turning and running with Boldin). You can even see Crabtree's head angle...he's watching Boldin the whole way on when to make his break to the corner. He finally looks back to see if the pass was coming and if not, time to break back to the QB for an ad lib play.

BTW: How open was McDonald in the middle of the field? Roman, come BACK to that play later! Make him the AR next time!

I feel this is a coverage read play, not an AR play. The coverage read is the CB playing Boldin. If he is playing tight on Boldin, the correct throw is to VD on the corner route. If the CB is playing loose, over the top, which he is. The throw is to Boldin on the deep in route. Both VD and Boldin have an equal chance of being a target. The CB's coverage will tell Kap which target to choose. Like many plays in this game, the SEA DBs were very wary of VD's corner route. They knew the 49ers would be trying to exploit the single high safety look, where offenses are going to attack with sideline routes (corner routes).

The play here is a smash concept, done with a corner/dig.

Too much coincidence here for me...VD is breaking (and watching him) in front of Boldin's DB JUST as Boldin is cutting off his break inside. It's a great design. Also, when do we ever design a pass this deep to VD? This is a Moss-like decoy route IMHO.