Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots January 10, 2018 - Titans' Pass Defense

Episode Date: January 10, 2018

Mark Schofield dives into the tape and has some of the Titans' coverage schemes, as well as their pressure schemes, with ways the Patriots can counter on Saturday night.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Good morning and welcome on into Locked On Patriots for Wednesday, December 10th, 2018. Mark Schofield here in the big chair as I am five days a week, bringing you all the Patriots news and analysis that you'll need to get ready for this weekend. Reminder, you can follow me on Twitter at Mark Schofield. You can find the work over there. Bleacher Report, NFL 1000 Project, Inside the Pylon, LockedOnPatriots.com. Some of the very various places you can find my work on the game of football that we all know and love. Today's show brought to you in part by our great friends over at mybookie.ag.

Reminder to check them out. More on them in a little bit. What we're going to do today, we're going to continue our look at the Tennessee Titans moving now to their defensive game against the Kansas City Chiefs. Going to talk a lot about coverage schemes at the start. I went through and charted every passing attempt Alex Smith had, every drop back in that game from Saturday afternoon. I'm going to talk a lot about zone coverage schemes,

some coverage beaters, some themes that I sort of saw going through that game. Also, we're going to talk about some of the pressure schemes that the Titans used. They sacked Alex Smith four times for a loss of eight yards. Not a lot there, but pressure certainly got to Smith as the game wore on. As Smith sort of, I don't want to say he fell apart. Look, he threw two touchdown

passes in this game, completed I think 24 of 33 for 249. Didn't throw an interception, but pressure clearly influenced Alex Smith as this game on. He started to drop his eyes at times. Can the Titans duplicate that against the Patriots?

So that's the lay of the land for today's show. And let's start with a quick refresher. Don't want to spend too much time on this. Coverage schemes we're going to be talking about today. Cover one? That's an easy one straight man coverage across the board with one free safety deep cover two that's got a couple of different variations basic cover two is a zone coverage scheme everybody's in a zone with two deep safeties

usually five across underneath then you've got covered two men underneath two deep safeties, usually five across underneath. Then you've got cover two man underneath. Two deep safeties, man coverage across the board underneath. Each deep safety responsible for half of the field. Cover three, three deep defenders. Sometimes it's a safety in two corners. Sometimes it's a corner in two safeties. Those are variations, sky, cloud, things we can get into, but we don't need to go down that road.

But the basic premise there is three deep defenders. Then there's cover two robber, which we'll talk about for a bit. That's a different sort of look where you drop one of the safeties instead of into a flat. You drop him down over the middle. That's going to be important, as we'll talk about in a little bit. Cover six, sometimes called quarter quarter half that's a hybrid of cover two and cover four where you've got a cover two look to one side of the field with cornerback in the flat half safety deep and then

you've got a quarters or cover four look back side with a defender covering one quarter of the field deep and say safety and then a cornerback covering the outside quarter. And then there's one combination coverage, a cover three combination coverage, which I don't want to spend too much time on, but that's where you basically can play cover three to most of the field but leave somebody isolated or do some other different man stuff. Those are the basic coverages that the Titans played against the Chiefs. And on the 38 dropbacks

that I charted, which were all the dropbacks that Smith had in this game, they played we'll say 21 of them were zone coverage looks, pure zone coverage looks. The way I'm breaking that down, 3 snaps were cover 2,

13 of them, their primary zone coverage is cover 3. So 13 of them. Their primary zone coverage is cover three. So thirteen of those zone coverage looks will cover three. That one which was cover six. And then they've got four more which were that cover three robber. Where instead of dropping a safety down sort of into the flat or something like that. You drop him down over the middle. A little bit of a different look there.

16 of their snaps had some sort of real man component to them. The bulk of which were cover one. Man across the board. One free safety. Deep in the middle of the field. But they did do some cover two man underneath. They played four coverage snaps with that scheme. And then they had the one combination coverage

where it was a cover three look, but they put a defender isolated on the tight end who was split in sort of a Y-ISO look. Now I'm curious to see if they do that with Rob Gronkowski. I would doubt it if they play zone everywhere else and just leave one defender

on an island like that. I would imagine that they would rotate more help towards Gronkowski. But those were the coverage schemes. Look, this is a single high cover one, cover three type team. And in a minute,

after I remind everybody about our great friends over at mybookie.ag, I'm going to talk about some more themes that came out of these plays, as well as some coverage beaters I expect the Patriots to run against them. And then we're going to look at the pressure schemes that they use to sort of get to Alex Smith to create some pressure and to get the quarterback to drop his eyes. That's next. But first, friends, look, as we're talking, NFL playoffs are here. Take advantage of it.

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is Kevin Byard. Second year safety out of Middle Tennessee State. He's a strong safety for the Titans. He's had a fantastic season for Tennessee. We'll see in a second. I'm going to talk about his read and recognition skills on one play in particular. But I mentioned cover three robber earlier in the show and the reason why I mentioned that is because

one they've they played it a number of times against the Chiefs and it was Bayard who would be the guy that would drop down from a safety spot sort of in that hybrid area underneath over the middle trying to take away in breaking routes and if you remember when you listened to Tuesday's show they like to sometimes throw over the middle, trying to take away in-breaking routes. And if you remember when you listened to Tuesday's show, they like to sometimes throw over the middle to the tight ends, sometimes on sticks concepts. That's what the Titans do. Okay. Patriots like to do some stuff like that, some similar stuff. But Cover 3 Robber is designed to get a better coverage player, like a safety as opposed to a linebacker to help on those routes think rob gronkowski you know the patriots they like to do levels they like to do wide cross things where you have

gronkowski working over the middle attacking linebackers and things like that well byard's the guy i think they're going to use him on rob gronkowski and i'm envisioning byard being the guy sort of drop it down in that cover three Robert type look where he could be the player, sort of drop down and try to take Gronkowski away on wide cross, on levels, on digs, all the stuff that they do with Rob Gronkowski. So Kevin Bayard, a guy to remember.

I mentioned that wide iso look where they went cover three and went aggressive man coverage on the tight end. That was something they were doing late in the game after Kelsey went out. I'd be surprised to see the Titans use it against Rob Gronkowski. I think more than likely,

you're going to get either cover three, Rob, or when they go zone coverage and use Byer to drop down and take away the middle of the field. Or some sort of combo look to Gronkowski where they almost double him. They almost bracket him. You could go cover two with a man look underneath. Get a man defender on him.

But use one of the safeties to Gronkowski's side of the field to sort of spy on Gronkowski as well to get some sort of bracket coverage on him. Some cover beaters that we should keep in mind, okay? Before we dive into some of the specific plays I want to talk about. Man coverage, cover one looks. What do I expect the Patriots to do a lot of? Stuff that they love to do. Wide juke.

Sort of that underneath option type route. They've run it before in the past with guys like Edelman, guys like Welker. That's something they're going to do with Amendola. Get man coverage. Try to get him isolated on a defender underneath. So I'd look for that to be part of what they do. Tosser, double slants. Something the Patriots have done before.

They like to run that. Gets you to take advantage of man coverage concepts. Just somebody gets inside leverage on a defender, on the outside corner, on the slot cornerback. Vertical routes. You can use those against man coverage looks. You can use those against cover one looks. You can use those against cover one looks. Brady has the ability to freeze defenders

in the middle of the field, freeze that free safety in the middle of the field, influence them one way or the other, then throw along the boundary to the outside. I'm looking for a couple of deep shots in this game to Cooks, to Dorsett. Try to take advantage of Jonathan Ciprian, who was playing sort of the free safety role

for the Titans last week against the Chiefs. See if Brady can manipulate his eyes and then get a receiver free along the boundary for a deep shot. Also, this is something the Chiefs did. I haven't seen a ton of it from New England, but they've run some of it lately. Mesh concept where they get the underneath crossing routes.

Patriots did it in the red zone a couple weeks ago against the Jets. That's something that you can use against cover one type looks. You create that sort of rub concept over the middle. You get defenders to run into each other. Chiefs hit that a couple of times against the Titans. Caught them in cover one coverage looks. So I'd look for Mesh to be part of the Patriots game plan on Saturday evening.

Let's talk some cover three beaters that I'd expect to see. One, one of my favorites, Mills. We talked about the post-in concept from the Titans. They like to do it a little bit quicker than your typical Mills concept. Mills is more a deeper post with a deep dig route

this is something the Patriots have done this year with Rob Gronkowski on the dig Brandon Cooks on the deep post you can do it with two receivers as well you can envision it with Amendola on the dig and Cooks on the deep post but that creates sort of a high-low look attacking that free safety

making him make a choice am I going to bite down hard on the dig route? Am I going to stay deep on the post? Either way, one of those routes should free up. Mills concept is something I'm going to look for. Inside seam routes, those are great designs against cover three schemes because what you do, Haas, hitch and seam concept. Patriots like to do that sometimes to both sides of the field

where outside receivers each run those quick hitches, inside slot receivers each run up the seam. And against the cover three look, those inside seam routes are going to bracket that free safety. Again, Brady can use his eyes, move the safety to one, throw back to the other. You can picture Gronkowski running up one seam maybe it's Cooks maybe it's Dorsett maybe it's Amendola running up the other seam

and you put that safety in a bond you know cover three beaters are really about putting a defender in conflict another way to do it flood concepts you know they also set up high lows where you flood one side of the field or the other with one, two, three receivers in an area. Your typical flood concept, think of something we like to call a sail where you have a deep vertical route, a deep out route, and then a shallower out route. So you have a three-level read all to one side of the formation against the cover three. Look, you really put that outside cornerback in a bind because he's

probably going to carry that vertical route and if he does, then you get the deep out route open. If for some reason he squats on that out route, then you've got that deep vertical route open over the top. So flood is something they can do.

Also something that the Patriots haven't done a ton of lately, sort of exit-enter concepts where you run a receiver through his own and then run another receiver in shortly behind him. That's great against cover three looks, especially when you're trying to isolate one cornerback, one defender. You run that vertical route through his own he vacates it then you bring in that sort of out route behind it so a two-man sale concept like that we've got the vertical route and the deep out route you know that's another way to sort of set

up that you know exit enter type concept and finally one specific route to for, particularly against a team that runs a lot of cover three, that deep comeback route. I love that deep comeback route against cover three looks because you sell that outside corner on the vertical route, get him to flip his hips, get him to stay on the vertical to commit to the go route. Then you break back towards the boundary. Brandon Cooks is going to run a lot of those. I expect to see a lot of those on Saturday night. So look for that deep comeback route. In terms of some specific plays

that I just want to highlight, some things that the Chiefs were able to do. They had a big play. A cover one look. This play could have gone the distance. They caught the Titans in a cover one look. They ran an RPO at them And not only did the linebackers bite down on the run look

From Alex Smith But Ciprian Who was in the free safety spot He bit down on that hard as well And it was Tyree Kill Who ran that quick little slant route against the Dory Jackson and there was no safety help at all Jackson was expecting to at least have a free safety deep he doesn't find it Hill could have gone the

distance there Jackson was able to chase him down from behind you know but RPOs like that your design those are second level reads Where you're trying to influence a linebacker Or somebody on the second level of the defense But if you can in addition get The third level defender like a free safety To bite down hard like Ciprian did That's how those plays

Turn from 12 yard gains into 72 yard gains So I'd look for the Patriots To show some play action like that. Maybe even, not some true RPO stuff because they don't do a lot of RPO type stuff. But use some play action. See if they can get Ciprian to bite down on looks

like that, like the Titans were able to do. Like the Chiefs were able to do against the Titans. That's something to watch. I mentioned Byer, Kevin Byer cheating down into that Robert spot. That's one thing to watch him for. But the read and recognition from him has been great,

and it was great in this game. There was a first and 20 play at the 12-46 mark of the second quarter where Bayard was that cover three Robert defender where he cheats down towards the middle. Chiefs run a slant-flat concept, basically to his right. And the outside cornerback stays on that slant route a little bit too long, and it opens up the flat along the sideline. But Bayard recognized it immediately and broke on it

and arrived a step after the ball did. It could have been a big gain. He held it to no gain. I thought that was an incredible play from Bayard. So something to watch. His ability to read and react has been very good. I'm curious to see if the Patriots try to exploit that in any way. Get him to bite on something.

Maybe get him to bite on a quick out and up. Maybe from Gronkowski out of a win or out of a slot where you get him to overcommit to a quick out and up, maybe from Gronkowski out of a win or out of a slot, where you get him to overcommit to a quick out route, then get the receiver up vertically up the seam. Maybe you can catch a nice cheap one there. Some other stuff from that game that I noted, they did some cover three stuff, and they did some cover three stuff

where they really dropped the underneath hold linebackbacker you typically expect them to stay in sort of that hook curl area at about you know eight to eight seven to eight yards you know there were some situations this was a second or five play when the chiefs went empty and the titans ran cover three against that look but they really sort of dropped that middle linebacker, really sort of dropped him deep. So there's an opportunity, I think, if New England decides to go empty, you might see that cover three look in response to it with that middle linebacker dropping deep.

You can get some shallow stuff then underneath it, whether it's wide juke, whether you go mesh or shallow cross, just something that's sort of down near the line of scrimmage when you get that guy dropping so deep, you can take advantage of that. So those are some specific things going through the coverages that the Chiefs saw from the Titans that I think the Patriots might want to be ready for and have some responses to as we look ahead to Saturday night.

Next, I'm going to talk about a few blitz schemes, just a couple that Tom Brady should be ready for, and talk about why Brady needs to keep his eyes downfield. That's ahead with me, Mark Schofield, and Locked On Patriots. Okay, now I want to talk about a couple of pressure schemes that the Titans used to get pressure on Alex Smith, what Tom Brady might expect to see on Saturday evening.

And if you watch that Chiefs-Titans game, John Gruden, now Coach Gruden, talked a lot about sort of fire zone, zone blitz type schemes. The Titans were using one where they dropped the defensive end off the line of scrimmage and then blitzed a linebacker through one of the A gaps. That's definitely something the Patriots have to look for. Another one that they used earlier in the game,

this was on a 3rd and 6th play at the 12-0-4 marker of the first quarter where they blitzed. They show blitz up front. They walk the safety down into the box, Bayard. They put four defenders on your line of scrimmage So it's basically your 4-2-5 nickel look But both linebackers show blitz as well They put one in a sort of a wide

Nine alignment Outside the left tackle And the other one sort of sugars the B gap Between the left guard And the left tackle And only the one guy blitzes Off the edge of sugars the B-gap between the left guard and the left tackle. And only the one guy blitzes off the edge. The guy sugar in the B-gap, he just takes the running back out of the backfield in man coverage.

So they still send five after the quarterback there, but it's a blitz off the edge. But they show interior pressure as well. And as we'll see with some of the other blitzes one of the keys it's gonna be David Andrews sort of identifying fronts making sure the protection is set because on another play a little bit later there's just a free rusher after the quarterback and it seems like they got the protection Ron up front so that's gonna be critical on Saturday making sure that the protection is set crease now and that's going to be critical on Saturday, making sure that the protection is set pre-snap. And that's the next thing we're going to talk about.

This was a first and ten play. Late in the first half. This was one of those zone blitz looks. They played cover six behind it. Defensive end drops. It's number 59. it's number 59 it's number 59 Wesley Woodyard who's the guy that sugars the a-gap this time he comes the defensive end drops and they sled for whatever reason I think it was a mistake up front but the protection is slid away from number 59, the linebacker, who's sugar in the A-gap.

And he just has a free rush at Alex Smith. And even worse, the running back, he's released it into a pattern immediately. And on the side where the defensive end drops, you've got linemen double-teaming a guy. You get the free rusher through the A-gap. So they need to have a plan to sort of be ready for that defensive end drop, that zone blitz

look. They've got to have that figured out. There were times though when they were able to influence Smith, just rush in four. Third quarter, 3-14 mark. Third and 13. Titans play cover two, man under.

This is a play. You're in plus territory if you're the Chiefs. You're on the Tennessee 31-yard line, third and 13. You pretty much just want to pick up some yardage and make sure you can get a field goal here. They get a four-man rush. Wilson, I mean, Alex Smith, has Albert Wilson open on a dig route over the middle.

Doesn't pull the trigger, drops his eyes, starts to scramble. He ends up getting sacked for it was a no-game play that was a sack in the books, and they missed the field goal. So now you're seeing some of those pressure schemes. They're starting to get Alex Smith to drop his eyes. We saw that also on their second-to-last offensive play. Starting to get Alex Smith to drop his eyes. We saw that also on their second-to-last offensive play. The third and nine at the 251 mark of the fourth quarter.

Chiefs empty the backfield again. Titans use cover two-man underneath. They just rushed three. They drop a defensive lineman as a spy. So they're only rushing three. They drop Brian Arakpo, an outside linebacker. They drop him off the line of scrimmage as a spy. That still gets Smith to drop his eyes. He pulls the ball down early.

It's another no-gain type sack, but now you've got fourth and nine with the game on the line. So Smith started to drop his eyes. Brady's always been good at fighting in the pocket, staying in the pocket, looking to maintain the ability to make a throw downfield. He's going to have to maintain that on Saturday night if the Patriots are going to go out and have the type of game that everybody expects. One last little pressure scheme, twist games up front.

They were able to sort of get to Smith on a second and nine play on their final drive. This came at the 446 mark of the fourth quarter. You have the linebacker lined up outside shoulder of the right tackle. And then you've got defensive tackles, one in the A gap between the center and the right guard, and one in the B gap between the left guard and the left tackle. Both those tackles sort of slant to their left. So they slant towards that linebacker. Linebacker loops around behind them. So he leaves the C gap on the right and attacks the A gap on the left. So he loops around behind them. It doesn't get picked up, gets pressure on Smith, gets the sack. So those are some of the pressure schemes that the Titans used.

The biggest key for the Patriots offense starts with David Andrews, making sure you identify the fronts where everybody is and have a game plan for each potential front. You can't miss protection calls here. You know, come the divisional rounds of the NFL playoffs, you've got to have those ready to go. And with Brady, you know, he has to make sure that the right sort of Mike defenders are identified. It's not always a linebacker, but that's the guy that you're basing your coverage protection off of. So on all these different fronts and looks that you'll see from Tennessee, make sure everybody knows who

that Mike defender is. Get the protection sorted out. You know, an underlying undercurrent of the recent off the field stuff with New England was Brady sort of getting the ball out of his hands quickly. Well, he's always done that. That's always sort of been a hallmark of Brady. There are times when he's good at getting the ball out quickly, making the right reads, throwing to his hots, keeping the offense on schedule. They do that, they should have a good night. But that's been a look at the Titans' defense,

particularly in the past game, the coverage schemes that they use, the pressure schemes that they use. One last thing I will remind everybody. I talked a lot about this last week. They remain dead last in the league in DVOA against running backs in the passing game. So in addition to everything we've just covered, there's still the ability to throw your checkdowns if you're Tom Brady. Throw the hots, throw the flat routes, the swing routes, check it down to Deion Lewis,

check it down to Rex Burkhead if he's back, James White if he's in there. Take advantage of the fact that this is a bad defense covering running backs in the past game. Chiefs didn't do a lot of it. They didn't really get Kareem Hunt involved as a receiver. Go back, look at that Week 16 tape between the Rams and the Titans. See how McVay used Todd Gurley. Get some of that stuff into the game plan. Put all those pieces together,

all the stuff we've been talking about. The Patriots will be in good shape. That's been your Wednesday show. Tomorrow we're going to do crossover edition with the people over at Locked On Titans. Get to hear some of their thoughts on the upcoming game. Then Friday will be your game day edition. And of course, Saturday, I will be back late, late, late Saturday night,

hopefully for a glorious victory edition. But that's the map ahead for the rest of the week. Hope you enjoyed today's show. Hope you learned something. If you didn't, let me know about it on Twitter, at Mark Schofield. Also, check out mybookie.ag. Use that promo code LOCKEDON when you do. Until next time, keep it locked right here to me,

Mark Schofield, and Locked on Patriots.