Originally posted by jonnydel:
Here's the first big chunk play of the game. 28 yd pass to A. Brown. 3rd and 7
here, we're going to run this odd version of cover-2 that we ran against Minn. You might remember this defense. We're going to play man-coverage underneath with 3 deep zone defenders. Pitt is expecting a blitz, so they keep both a TE and RB to help protect. We will drop 7 into coverage against 3 receivers, no way should they get anything on us. One key here is, Reid is playing very up close to the LOS to try and help sell this all out-blitz look.
At the snap you see Tartt fire out deep, same with Reid. Bowman is just clued in on the RB, he's not coming on a blitz. It's a 4 man rush, including: Lynch, Wilhoite, Carradine, and Brooks. And Wilhoite is only coming because the TE stayed in to block. So, Mangini was trying to call a 3 man rush with 8 in coverage.
You see Reid is trying to make it back for over-the-top help. Acker is in really good position, however, he tries to guess the route from the WR and thinks Brown is going to do a comeback route and stutters for just a half second.
he quickly realizes Brown is just running a "go" route and tries to recover, but you see the separation he already allowed.
It creates just enough of a hole to drop the ball right in, that's a really, really good throw by a QB. However, that's what the elite guys do.
Reid gets there just .1 seconds too late. Also a good job by Brown to hang on to the ball.
Here you see how we tried to show heavy pressure.
You see the 4 man rush and how Pitt kept the TE and RB in to block. 7-4 blocking.
Nice illustration of how the pressure front got PIT to call max protect then just rush 4.
I had some pics to show on this play and wanted to add on a bit, while focusing on ABrown.
pic1: Acker aligned in press with half a step inside shading.
pic2: Brown squares up to Acker to give the threat that Brown may break inside or outside.
pic3: Brown breaks to the outside and as Acker goes for the jam, Brown swim moves while getting his left arm on Acker's outside shoulder. Brown throws his right shoulder back so that Acker doesn't get good contact. All very fluid.
pic4: This is the main keyframe. Notice Brown dipping his shoulder. This is no different than an edge pass rusher dipping his shoulder to gain the edge, body positioning, and getting around an offensive tackle.
pic5: Brown finishes Acker off with an arm bar.
It doesn't help that Reid takes a curved path to the ball (blue). It's not that Reid should know where the ball is thrown to. It's that he could have done better finding the point of intersection as he meets Brown along the sideline. It's knowing his speed and how it compares to Brown's speed. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Vital in safety play. Still early in the game so it's understandable that Reid has yet to gauge Brown's speed. This is the first time they've met. But on this play, that was the difference.
Notice how quickly Brown gets separation.
