Analysis from the Tampa Bay coaches film

Continued from post #144. 2nd half '3 and outs'.

3rd Quarter 11:05 3rd and 8
Below: TB tries to run a pick on Rogers (red circle) then throw to the WR on an underneath crossing pattern.


The play: Bow, that is all.


3rd Quarter 6:39 3rd and 14
Below: TB floods one side of the field. It's a bit of a long developing play and the Glennon goes to his checkdown out of the backfield.


The play: It's cover2, but Reid quickly diagnoses where the play is intended to go and leaves his zone to run over to the playside to provide additional coverage. Not sure exactly what TB wanted to do here, but RayMac's hand stops it dead in its tracks by batting the pass down.

Originally posted by sincalfaithful:
"Roman called an excellent game. He did a great job of setting up mismatches in the run game, taking advantage of what Tampa was trying to do against our run O and setting up plays in the passing game."




The Niners won despite Roman's best efforts once again. Playcalling in the redzone was a joke. Example the handoff to Boldin was embarrassing. Seriously that's the best play you can come up with off a timeout? Also by constantly pulling both Boldin and Crabtree off the field at the 30 yard line accomplishes what exactly? A 2 yard dive? Roman is a joke and hopefully Dawson stays healthy since we're going to ride him as far as he'll take us

I can't stop laughing.

Originally posted by jonnydel:

Originally posted by thl408:
I have seen plays like this many times and want to give credit to Fangio for playing a very complex coverage scheme. I agree with what you said, as I also mentioned it in the breakdown post as well. Playing man coverage in a zone is simple to say, but highly difficult to do on a team wide scale as it takes all 7 guys in coverage working together. Lots of film study to know the route tendencies of the opposing team, smart players, and trust in your teammates. Between coverage disguise, which you have mentioned, and pattern matching, opposing QBs will have the deer in the headlights look as they think in their heads, "It's zone, wait no it's man, wait, s**t I'm pressured".

exactly, this is why Fangio doesn't like to blitz very often. He likes to use disguise to cause the opposing QB to hesitate just a little on their throw to give the D-line a half second longer to get to the QB. It's blitzing by coverage....

Thanks for the insight. Let it be known that this is why the 49ers run what many feel is a 'vanilla' defense and doesn't blitz often. The more defenders he has in coverage, the more he is able to do with coverage. Being vanilla isn't about how often a team blitzes. Being vanilla is about not disguising, whether it's disguising blitzes or disguising coverage. What Fangio lacks in blitz packages, he makes up for in coverage disguise.

Here I'll try and show what happened on the 2nd TD we gave up... still not 100% sure.



From here I've shown what we're going to do as far as a coverage drop. It appears like we're trying to run a cover 2 zone. However, if we are, I don't know what the heck Whitner is doing..... We also might be running a cover 3 zone and Reid failed to rotate over, but, I think it was the former.



You can see as the play develops everyone is dropping into a cover 2 zone look, what Whitner is doing... I have no idea...



You see a the top, Brock is dropping into a more shallow zone, showing he's expecting a safety zone over the top. Whitner, still don't know.....




You see Rogers clues in on the guy coming into his soft zone, whereas the TE heads to, what I think, is Whitner's deep half responsibility, but he's not there.... leaving a huge hole.



By the time he reacts, he's already lost.



Here it looks like Whitner is playing a man coverage scheme



But here, he looks like he's play zone, peeking in the backfield....



But here, he's back to chasing the TE, not sure what he's doing.....

The good news is, whatever happened, is unlikely to happen again. I think it was a breakdown somewhere where he thought it was a different coverage, or heard a different coverage in the huddle. IDK, but rare to see something like this.

Originally posted by jonnydel:
This was a big boy throw to Crabs.



Here tampa shows a cover 2 look when they set up. You know it's zone and not man because the corner is line up on VD at the bottom of the screen(highlighted in blue) and you have a LB on Boldin in the slot.



Revis then shifts down on Crabtree in a press coverage look(probably to re-direct his route), so Kaep brings Crabtree in motion, which forces Revis to drop into off coverage.



I've highlighted the designed route combo's here(I forgot to also show Frank swing out of the backfield after a chip block) Revis is now in off coverage giving Crabs a free release. I'll show later, I think Crabs is actually the 3rd read on this play, Tampa showed a lot of diguise with their safeties, rarely did they stay with the safety look they showed pre-snap(only about 40%) of the time. If the safeties rotate to a single high, he hits Boldin on a skinny post(I accidentally put his arrow the wrong way at the top of his route), then Miller as the 2nd option if Boldin isn't open as Boldin should vacate his zone. Crabtree is probably the 3rd or 4th read on the play.



You see the LB doesn't drop too deep on his zone and Revis peeks over at Boldin running his route leaving a hole.



From this angle you see how Kaep is looking at the safety on boldin's side to see if he stays in his cover 2 or goes cover 3, first read - Boldin



You see from there, he moved to the LB, who is in position to jump on Miller's route.



From there he moves to Crab's on the out route. You see how Miller, Davis and Gore(he's swung out to the right, but he is looking for the ball) are turned back looking for the ball(Boldin isn't because he knows there's no way Kaep throws that ball).



From this angle you see the hole Kaep had to throw the ball into.



From this angle you see how Kaep had to drop the pass over the LB in front of the corner, that's a tough throw.



You see how he locates the ball perfectly where the defender has absolutely no play on the ball. This is a huge positive sign, it was only a 12 yard gain, but this play is more impressive to me than the 52 yard TD. Kaep had to read the defense, go through his progression, and throw a touch pass to the sideline over a LB. That's big boy play right there!

Nice breakdown. Snipped out some pics. This was indeed a very nice touch pass. Over the LB, in front of the CB. These kind of passes kill zone defenses. I agree, this was his best pass of the day in terms of coverage read, touch, and accuracy. If they ran the same play again, perhaps Revis will squat on Crab's route which opens up Boldin's route. I love the pic of the LB jumping up wishing he was 6'8".

Play in post #154 (TB's second TD pass)
My interpretation of the play is that Rogers makes the mistake of trying to do too much when he sees Brooks slip and fall. He tries to cover the underneath (flat) for a split second and it allows Wright to come into Rogers' zone uncovered. I think Whitner was in zone all the way and held his assignment. The playaction was well over by the time Whitner got flat footed (what I think is him obeying his zone) as he didn't show urgency in running with his man. I think it's cover 3 and Rogers is the goat here as he tries to cover for Brooks.

Originally posted by thl408:
Play in post #154 (TB's second TD pass)
My interpretation of the play is that Rogers makes the mistake of trying to do too much when he sees Brooks slip and fall. He tries to cover the underneath (flat) for a split second and it allows Wright to come into Rogers' zone uncovered. I think Whitner was in zone all the way and held his assignment. The playaction was well over by the time Whitner got flat footed (what I think is him obeying his zone) as he didn't show urgency in running with his man. I think it's cover 3 and Rogers is the goat here as he tries to cover for Brooks.

It looks like he was supposed to play zone but played man instead and then realized he was supposed to play zone but f**ked up. lol. if thats true wtf hitner??

Originally posted by thl408:
Play in post #154 (TB's second TD pass)
My interpretation of the play is that Rogers makes the mistake of trying to do too much when he sees Brooks slip and fall. He tries to cover the underneath (flat) for a split second and it allows Wright to come into Rogers' zone uncovered. I think Whitner was in zone all the way and held his assignment. The playaction was well over by the time Whitner got flat footed (what I think is him obeying his zone) as he didn't show urgency in running with his man. I think it's cover 3 and Rogers is the goat here as he tries to cover for Brooks.

That makes sense. you are saying that it should have been cover 3 but Rodgers doesn't get deep enough because Brooks falls?

Originally posted by thl408:
Play in post #154 (TB's second TD pass)
My interpretation of the play is that Rogers makes the mistake of trying to do too much when he sees Brooks slip and fall. He tries to cover the underneath (flat) for a split second and it allows Wright to come into Rogers' zone uncovered. I think Whitner was in zone all the way and held his assignment. The playaction was well over by the time Whitner got flat footed (what I think is him obeying his zone) as he didn't show urgency in running with his man. I think it's cover 3 and Rogers is the goat here as he tries to cover for Brooks.

I thought about that too, but, Reid doesn't drop into a true 3rd zone on the other side, plus, if Whitner is supposed to be deepest middle 3rd he doesn't take any kind of deep high safety drop....

Originally posted by notsoempty86:
That makes sense. you are saying that it should have been cover 3 but Rodgers doesn't get deep enough because Brooks falls?

That is my observation, yes. When Glennon reads the lack of drop in depth by Rogers, he knows Wright is the target. If Whitner was supposed to play man, it was a poor attempt. If Whitner was supposed to go into cover 2 behind Rogers, it was a poor attempt. So that makes me think Whitner was playing his zone in the middle of the field, making Rogers the deep zone on his side of the field. This is the hardest thing to interpret on film. We can easily see what happened, but it's difficult to know what was supposed to happen.

Originally posted by jonnydel:
^ Thank you NCommand for your input and best wishes. I think sometimes, when we go looking for bigfoot, we're going to find evidence of bigfoot, regardless of if he exists or not. I'm not saying you are, but, it sounds like, from what you've been saying since my first thread, that you are sure that we run an AR passing attack and everything you see is going to be evidence of that. While we do run some AR designed plays, the vast majority of our plays are PS.

a PS passing offense is not dictated by a 4wr set, it can be run out of multiple formations and personnel groupings. Look at the Pats when they had Hernandez and Gronk, they would often only have a 2 wr set running a lot of their PS plays. Back in the days of Bill Walsh, I doubt Montana wasn't given the freedom to go through his progressions, and we ran a 21 personnel most of the time.

To me, the fundamental difference in an AR type passing play and a PS passing play are, are the other receivers really just blockers. an AR passing play is usually a quick hitting, 3 step drop, extended run type of plays.(Bill Walsh called the swing pass an extended run) On those plays, if it's inside, you'll see the tackle cut the legs of the defender to open up a specific throwing lane.

On the play where Boldin made a one handed grab and Crabs was wide open you remarked, "Boldin AR1 all the way". If this was an AR1, why would Crabtree be flailing his arms at Kaep for missing him on his progression if Kaep was "just doing what he's told" or Crabs was really, just a decoy?

Also, we're usually late on game clock when the ball is snapped because we're doing shifts and motins- which are at times used to reveal coverage, along with hard counts. You say Kaep doesn't have the freedom to audible, but I've seen him change the play with one word(which is usually the check to the 2nd play called in the huddle) while other times give out a new play sequence("black chicago brier") for example. We've all heard the "Kill, kill, kill) check to the 2nd play, along with the "let it roll" on the broadcast.

A PS passing offense is always based in progressions though, you always have your primary read, your 2nd read and on down. Just because the formation doesn't look like the Bronco's or Pats or Saints, doesn't mean we aren't going through progressions to find the open receiver. The fact is, we aren't sitting in the meeting rooms with Roman to know, for sure, that he's putting that tight of restrictions on Kaep. What we can see is, after Crabs has come back, that Kaepernick is more comfortable going through his reads because he has more confidence in his 2nd, 3rd and 4th options to be open.

On this point we may have to agree to disagree, when I broke down the Seahawks game, I wasn't looking for whether or not the offense was AR or PS, I was looking at other things, I just wanted to know more about what was going on. In that way, I can say that I truly did go in with a completely open mind. I wasn't looking for evidence one way or the other. My conclusion, from that standpoint, was that there's a lot on the QB in a WCO to make the right reads, adjustments and find the right guy.

I know this is remedial but I have really been enjoying learning so much in all of these posts: Can someone please define the AR and PS abbreviations being used?
Thanks so much and keep up the great work

Dilfer: "If you're a skill position guy for the Niners, you're only getting the ball if the play was designed to get you the ball. They don't have the type of offensive structure and Colin isn't the type of quarterback that there are five eligible receivers and anyone can get the ball."

Does someone want to call B.S. on my theory now? Dilfer essentially went one level deeper (where I'm at) from calling CK a "remedial" QB if the first read isn't there to what I have been highlighting with the AR (team designed) passing game.

Originally posted by SFFanSince72:
I know this is remedial but I have really been enjoying learning so much in all of these posts: Can someone please define the AR and PS abbreviations being used?
Thanks so much and keep up the great work

well, AR plays are, as far as I undestand, assigned receiver, or active receiver route combinations. That is, a play like this:





You can see how the Packers only had one real target on the play. They wanted to get the ball into the hands of an athlete, in space, with blockers in front of him. So, they run the 2 receivers out to block while giving the TE a simple out patter to catch, turn upfield, and try and make a play. On these plays, the QB simply executes the play called in to him to throw it to the guy. There's no real reading of the defense with this.

On a PS or "pro-style" passing play, the QB is given the routes of the receivers. Has to understand the concept of those routes, identify the coverage of D, then progress through the receivers based off of leverage/coverage, which player will win his individual battle.

Originally posted by NCommand:
Dilfer: "If you're a skill position guy for the Niners, you're only getting the ball if the play was designed to get you the ball."

Does someone want to call B.S. on my theory now? Dilfer essentially went one level deeper (where I'm at) from calling CK a "remedial" QB if the first read isn't there to what I have been highlighting with the AR (team designed) passing game.

when was that quote given? Plus, Dilfer only played backup QB in a WCO under Holmgren, every other offense was a digit system offense - like Jimmy Raye's. And that's the opposite of what I've heard from Steve Young, a man much more familiar with the WCO. Steve Young has said:

"That's the same play we used to run when I was here, that throw was the 5th read in the progression"

Can someone help we out with the definition of some terms?
There's a lot of back and forth as to whether we run an AR or PS offence.
What do AR and PS stand for?
Asking for a friend :)