Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots January 28, 2019 - Tape Monday: The Rams' Offense

Episode Date: January 28, 2019

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Hey there everybody, welcome on in to Super Bowl week here at Locked On Patriots. Mark Schofield back in the big chair and all that stuff we talked about the past week. Draft quarterbacks, Andy Isabella, Zach Allen, Khalil Saunders, Terry McLaurin, Penny Hart, all that draft stuff, forget about it. Put it out of your minds for the next seven days here because we are locked and loaded for the next week on nothing but Super Bowl 51. Today we're going to talk about the Los Angeles Rams and their offense. I'm going to work through a couple of things here. I'm going to talk about Jared Goff and how they've manufactured some explosive plays in the pass game. I'm going to talk about three words, though, that can stop that pass game in Jared Goff.

First, though, we're going to talk about their run game, their outside zone focus to start the year, but their inside zone focus lately with C.J. Anderson, as well as the madness of Sean McVayne, how he can set the table for a defense. But before we do all of that, a reminder to follow me on Twitter at Mark Schofield. Check out the work of places like insidethepylon.com where you'll find a lot of my write-in this week as we get ready for Super Bowl 53, as well as Pro Football Weekly, The Score, Matt Waldman's rookie scouting portfolio, Big Blue View, part of the SB Nation family of websites. Friends, if there's an outlet covering football, chances are I'm doing some work for them.

Let's dive into it though, and I want to start with some numbers. There's going to be a piece that's going to be dropping right around the same time that this episode comes out that gets into Sean McVay and the idea of how he sets the table. McVay is a master play caller. The chess match that is going to unfold between McVay and Bill Belichick slash Brian Flores is going to be a battle for the ages. But one of the things that McVay does so well is set a defense up by calling some plays early in the game and then hitting the defense with what he wants to run a little bit later. In the run game, the Rams are primarily, if left to their druggers, an outside zone team. Like all offenses, they run a mix of zone and power, but if they could run just one play, it would be outside zone. And with good reason. Let's go back to last year. In the 2017 season, they were the league's best outside zone blocking team,

according to numbers, according to Pro Football Focus. They averaged 1.7 yards per carry before contact on these plays. They averaged 5.6 yards per attempt on these plays. And on outside zone run plays, they racked up 33 explosive Russian plays. That's defined as a run of 15 yards or more. That was eight more than the second best team. Now let's come ahead to this year. The Rams ran outside zone 280 times this season, most in the league. They ran for 1,555 yards on outside zone plays, most in the league. Out of those yards, 946 of them came

before contact. Most in the league. Those 280 attempts resulted in 84 first downs and 14 touchdowns. Most in the league. Most in the league. Finally, they averaged 5.6 yards per attempt. And stop me if you've heard this before. Most in the league. The numbers bear it up. This is a great outside zone team. However, in the past couple of weeks, they've become more of an inside zone team. I charted all their runs against the Saints in the NFC Championship game,

and because of the usage of C.J. Anderson, they're a bit more inside zone now, and it makes sense. Todd Gurley, quicker, shiftier, more explosive, more change of direction ability. He's better working to the outside, working to the edge and getting it to the outside and the boundary. C.J. Anderson, however, a bit more of a north-south runner. And what's been really interesting about the Rams is throughout the regular season, we heard so much about the Rams being an 11-personnel team, almost exclusively using that three-wide receiver formation about 95% of the time. Well, as we've gotten into the playoffs, those numbers have dropped. It's now down to 87%. They've used a lot more 12 personnel, partly because when they're using Anderson, they feel like they go a little bit bigger up front and they're going to run it inside. And we know all about how Sean McVay likes to use motion

and he likes to use that jet motion action sometimes as eye candy or sometimes as an incorporated part of the play, whether it's thrown to the flat or handed it off to the receiver on that jet sweep. And here's where we get into the idea of McVay sort of setting the table. Again, piece dropping on insidethepylon.com that goes into this I talk about four plays from that NFC championship game the first play is a play from the first quarter of that game against the Saints the Rams come out using 12 offensive personnel they've got Goff under center they've got Anderson behind him they

have two tight ends and a wind look to the right and a stack slot to the left. And they run their sort of basic now inside zone run play. Brandon Cooks comes in jet motion across the formation from left to right, showing the defense that potential jet sweep. But really what this is is inside zone. Gerald Everett, the tight end on the wind, he executes that sort of sift or slice block across the formation, aiming for the defensive end. So you have Cooks in pre-snap motion from left to

right, and then you have the tight end coming across after the snap to get that defensive end. So you've got guys going to each edge, Anderson running inside. They turn to that design again early in the second quarter. On the previous play, Anderson hits this for an easy five-yard gain on first down. Early in the second quarter, they come to the same look on a second and two play, only they've sort of inverted the formation. So the tight ends are paired on the left. The stack slot is on the right, but the design is the same. Cooks comes in motion. Everett slices to the backside defensive end. Anderson runs it up the middle on inside zone, puts his head down, picks up four yards.

The one thing I highlight in the piece and one thing to keep in mind, because of that jet motion, the linebackers slide. So they slide towards the motion man, sort of mirroring him. That's going to open up a potential cutback. Patriots linebackers will need to be wary when they run this inside zone look. Anderson, yes, he likes to stay north and south, but the last thing you want to do is sort of overcommit to that because on this play in particular, there was that backside lane because with the linebackers sliding, you've got two

linebackers in the game because the Saints still went 4-, the Saints still went, you know, 4-2-5 against this look. There's no other defender to fill that backside cutback lane. Patriots need to be wary of that. Into the third quarter now. So we've seen this look out of 12 personnel twice. Into the third quarter, they decide to tweak it a bit. McVeigh runs it out of their base 11 personnel group. At the 11-04 mark of the third quarter, the Rams face a second and six on their own 29-yard line. They line up with Goff under center, three wide receivers in the game now. They've got a tight wing slot with Tyler Higbee now,

sort of in that wing to the right. Another stacked slot look to the left. The personnel is different. The design is largely the same. This time it's robert woods who comes in jet motion and then higby slices back towards the defensive end so you've got again the jet motion that slice block from the tight end anderson getting the carry inside he puts his head down picks up four yards so now you're probably wondering where's this

going we're talking about three running plays basically same play, and it's netted them a whopping 13 yards. What's the big payoff here? Well, here comes the payoff. Later in the third quarter, Saints have a 20-10 lead. Rams have the football in the red zone on the plus 17 facing a first and 10. Again, they're down 20-10. They break the huddle using 11 personnel, but this time they start with a trips bunch look to the right.

But then Woods shifts, moving to a stack in the left, which sort of gets us to the formation they were in previously. Stack slot to the left, a little tight win with a tight end Higbee to the right. After shifting, Woods then comes back in that jet motion higby when the ball snaps slices from right to left aiming for the defensive end anderson comes inside everything looks the same except for this the other receiver on the right josh reynolds peels back into the backfield goff fakes the hand handoff to Anderson and then flips it to Reynolds, who then follows Higby, who instead of making a block sort of at the point of attack like he had been

in the previous plays, sort of arcs it to the next level to lead the wide receiver around the edge. He makes a perfect block on the linebacker. Everybody's expecting the inside run. Reynolds gets it down to the one-yard line and nearly scores. It's a 16-yard run. And that 16-yard run is the Rams' longest run of the game. And it is tied with Mark Ingram for the longest run by either team in the NFC Championship game. That's the madness of McVay. In the ITP piece, I link to

a piece I wrote earlier in the year, again with McVay setting up plays in a game against the Detroit Lions. This is three sort of inside zone plays with his new toy or CJ Anderson, setting you up for that end around that he eventually hits you with for the biggest run of the game. Three plays later, they scored touchdown. It's now a 20-17 game and the game is on. This is what McVay can do. He is a master play caller. He does a fantastic job at strengthening plays together. Now Patriots fans were all hoping that he meets his match in Brian Flores and Bill Belichick, but that chess game amongst those three men might just tell the story about Super Bowl 53. Up next, we're going to talk Jared Goff and some of the things that the Rams do

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and we see Ernie Adams in his office after this Super Bowl, I want to see these three words written on that whiteboard. And if I do, I will retire. Okay, maybe I won't, but I'll be pretty proud. But first let's talk about how the Rams sort of get big plays in the passing game. And I'm going to talk big picture concepts and then highlight a couple of examples from the NFC Championship game. But there are some specific things that they like to do sort of concept-wise. They love switch concepts, particularly switch vertical concepts. Patriots do this stuff as well,

but they like sort of post-wheel, post-slant or wheel slant. You know, they like to have receivers in stacks or in tight alignments, create that sort of natural rub, and then either get the receiver deep downfield on, say, the wheel route, or if that's not there, Goff then comes to that slant route or the other route quickly underneath. They like to do some level stuff. We've talked about levels a lot on this show. It's a nice zone or man-beater concept where you've got three receivers moving across the field from either right to left or left to right at various levels of the defense,

various depths of the defense. It's a great way to sort of stretch the defense from line of scrimmage deep, and it gives the quarterback sort of a defined compressed area of the field to read it's a great design for a young quarterback that you're trying to develop from watching the rams both in the nfc championship game and over the course of this season smash concept is something that they love to run i've talked about smash concept a ton on the show but for those new listeners to the show first, welcome. The smash concept to receiver concept, again, McVay comes from sort of the Jay Gruden school of giving his quarterback half field reads. A smash concept is a perfect half field read. You have a hitch route and you have a corner route over the top of it. You read the outside defender. If he drops deep with the corner, you throw the easy hitch route.

If that corner squats on the hitch, you throw the corner route over his head. It's a high school slash college play. But it works in the NFL against any number of defenses, and the Rams will run it a ton. We just spent a lot of time talking about the Rams run game. Because of the outside zone stuff that they still will do with Gurley, they use that to set up so much stuff in the boot action game off of it. What they like to do is they will run that sort of jet motion.

Say the receiver, Brandon Cooks, goes in motion from left to right. Then they show you outside zone away from that. So you've got the receiver going across the formation. He's in the right side. When the ball is snapped, Goff will fake the run to the left edge, then boot back to the right, and he's got Brandon Cooks in the flat. This is one of those dilemmas that teams playing the Rams has to face and make a decision upon. Are you going to go man and have somebody trailing that guy in motion just in case they throw to the flat? Or are you going to stay zoned and sort

of stay balanced in case they come with that outside zone look to the backside? Because if you go man and you leave a defender, you know, a defender vacates that area. Now you've got one less defender and they've got a blocking advantage to that side. And so that's one of the dichotomies there. They like two receiver concepts in the play-action drop-back game. What they like to do is have one receiver on one side run a dig or run a post, and the other receiver on the other side basically run a comeback route.

Another design they used in the NFC Championship game, which was similar, was Goff sort of faked that outside zone to the left, booted a little bit to the right, and he has a comeback to the left, and again, that dig route from the right. And it's an easy read. If it's a soft zone coverage and linebackers are sort of getting under that dig, he's first going to look to that comeback route and throw it. And if it's not there, he comes to the dig. This is something sort of in the Shanahan school, the Shanahan playbook. You could look at Kyle Shanahan's playbook from when he was in Atlanta, and that play is in there.

It's the first read is the comeback. If it's there versus zone, great. If it's man coverage and he beats him, great. Throw it. Otherwise, come to that dig route. It's a two-receiver concept, simplified decision process for the quarterback. Keeping with the idea of sort of half-field reads, they try so much to give Goff

some easier half field reads. A lot of them come from option routes, similar to the Patriots. A design that they ran early in the game against the Saints that went for a pretty decent gain was they had a three receiver bunch concept. They were empty. A three receiver bunch concept with Todd Gurley involved to the left, but Goff was reading this to the right the entire way. Outside receiver was running it out. Inside receiver was the tight end, Gerald Everton. He had a two-way go, an option route. If he had leverage established to the outside, he was going to break out.

If he had inside leverage, he was going to break inside. And Goff took the snap, looked that way the entire way, read what the tight end did, and threw him the football. A similar play was sort of a dagger type concept where the inside receiver runs more of a corner route, outside receiver runs a dig underneath it, and Goff is just reading that sort of concept. Which one comes open, he's going to throw it. As we're going to get to in a minute, Goff has a tendency to sort of stare down his primary

read. If that first read is there, chances are he's going to look at it for a while, confirm or perhaps over-confirm that it's open, and then throw it. He can do some full-field read stuff. A great example of that was one of the first true big plays that they had in that game when they needed it

against the Saints was a full-field concept where on the left side, Saints ran that sort of Mills concept which we've talked about inside receiver runs a post outside receiver runs a dig he opens to that first they've got a hybrid coverage on where they've got sort of cover one look to that side so the coverage is a little bit tight but on the back side against Brandon Cooks it's a Meg look man everywhere goes. But that corner is playing off coverage. So Cooks, as we spent an entire year talking about last year, runs that beautiful comeback route. So Goff checks that.

Mills' concept sees the tighter coverage, doesn't like it, sees that safety sort of sitting on the post route with the linebackers helping underneath the dig. So he comes to Cooks running that great comeback route. Perfect throw, perfect catch, big gain when they needed it. You know, that came on a third and 10 when the Saints, you know, really needed to make a play late in the first half. So those are some of the sort of bigger pitcher and, you know, more focused and nuanced ways that they've generated some explosive plays

in the passing game. You know, they had a couple of vertical routes in that game. Those came off of some switch concepts. The one to Cooks that everybody was sort of talking about, that was a switch concept with Cooks aligned on the inside. Then he goes, you know, wheel route to the outside. You know, there was a play later that came on what the Patriots call a peel route, a post wheel where Goff sort of made a back shoulder type throw on the wheel route while the outside receiver runs a post. So switch concepts are going to be something to look for where they create those natural rubs. But having outlined what they do good in the passing game, particularly

last week, or I guess, you know, two weeks ago, I guess it was still last week against the Saints. You know, now we're going to talk about in a moment the ways that you can get golf to make mistakes. But before we do that, Patriots fans, Pats Nation, I'm excited to tell you about our sponsor, Return Into The Fold. That's our great friends at Low-KI. Need a little extra swag for game day? Low-KI has got your back with their brand new

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That's L-O-K-A-I dot com. And use the promo code PATRIOTS25 to take advantage of this amazing deal. Mark Schofield back with you now to close out this Monday installment of the Locked On Patriots podcast. Before we dive into the three-word phrase I think should carry the day in Super Bowl 53, at least when it comes to shutting down the Rams passing game, I do want to sort of lay out the land for the rest of this week. Tomorrow, we're going to look at the Rams defense. So we'll be doing basically tape Monday and tape Tuesday here. You know, look, big game, big stage,

big scheme stuff. Wednesday is going to be a crossover show. Thursday, we're going to do Take Thursday. Again, I want to hear from you. Send in some thoughts, some questions, at Mark Schofield on Twitter, mark.schofield, thatinsidethebylon.com if you want to send an email. Locked on Patriots phone line is up and running, 240-670-6016. Or if you remember, Locked on Patriots Slack channel, send in some questions there for Take Thursday. Friday will be the game day show with predictions and all that fun stuff. Then I will be back for Sunday morning

tailgate installment at the Super Bowl. Not going to be there in person, but this is a show that I would love to literally turn over to you. We did this last year on Saturday night at the Super Bowl where I played some voicemails, I read some emails, some texts, some other stuff from you, what the Super Bowl means to you, what you're hoping to see.

I basically want it to be sort of the culmination of what I think this show is each season. Your show. I'm just kind of the caretaker. So send in some stuff for that via Twitter, via email, via the Locked On Patriots Slack channel, via the Locked On Patriots phone line. Again, 240-670-6016. Jared Goff threw 13 interceptions this year. And when I wasn't studying quarterbacks for the Senior Bowl or I wasn't traveling to and

from Mobile, Alabama or stuff on my face with some of the great cuisine that Mobile had to offer whenever I had a spare moment, this past weekend, I was charting Jared Goff's 13 interceptions. Why? Because I'm a maniac. No, really, I am. But also because I wanted to give you the best information possible to get ready for Super Bowl 53. Here are some takeaways. Two of them came on Hail Mary, so we can throw those out the window. That's takeaway number one. That gets us down to 11. Now is where we get to the three-word phrase that I think should dictate the game plan this week, should be in the minds of every Patriots defender, and that I think should be written on that whiteboard behind Ernie Adams. Exploit the hesitation.

Jared Goff is a young, developing quarterback, but in studying those 11 interceptions, those non-Hail Mary interceptions, I can tell you that on the big bulk of them, it is his hesitation that killed him. First example, red zone throw against the Los Angeles Chargers. They're running a smash concept. We just talked about what that was. If you were asleep during the second segment of the show, I will remind you. A two receiver route concept. Hitch route from the outside receiver, corner route over the head, from the inside receiver, over the head of that hitch receiver. Again, you read the corner. They run this back in week three in the second quarter. It's a third and five play in the

red zone on the Chargers 10-yard line. Goff looks to throw the corner route, and it's the right read, but the problem is Goff hits his dropped step and waits to see the receiver break. If you wait, you're dead. You must never hesitate. He hesitates here. The defensive back reads his eyes, sort of jumps under it. It's a zone coverage. The window is there, but because he hesitates, he gets picked in the red zone. Another example of this, this comes to us from their week 14 game against the Chicago Bears. He threw four interceptions in this game. One did come on a Hail Mary, but in the second quarter at the 11-4 team mark, they face a first and 20 on their own Ted Yarnline. They run four verticals out of a two-by-two set against a

Tampa two look. So two high safeties. That middle linebacker dropping. He's reading the inside seams, trying to pick which one he likes better. Now he's hit as he throws. But why is he hit as he throws? He starts looking at the inside seam to the right. Then comes to the left. He's moved the linebacker a bit.

He should throw it now. But he waits. He waits for two extra beats. And those two extra beats bring some pressure. He gets hit. The pass is underthrown and intercepted. Exploit the hesitation. Third quarter of that game, this is another smash concept. It's a first and 10 of the plus 27-yard line. You're in Chicago territory, 358 left in the third quarter. He's throwing the corner out on the smash concept. He looks at it the whole way. I went back and I counted. He hits his drop depth and I counted to three from when he hit his drop step in the depth of his drop until he releases the football. If you hit your drop step and wait

three seconds while looking at a route the entire way, you're going to get intercepted. Exploit the hesitation. Final example that I'll bring up, week 15 against the Eagles. This is a play in the second quarter of the 11-20 mark. It's a first and 10 situation at their own 44-yard line. This is one of those play-action, two-receiver concepts where he's got to dig on the left and that comeback route play side. He wants to throw the comeback route to his right, working off play action. He hits his drop step, One Mississippi, two Mississippi, all while staring at the comeback. Then the ball comes out and it gets intercepted.

Exploit the hesitation. If an NFL quarterback is going to stare down a route and count to two or three before releasing the football, you need to make him pay. If Jared Goff is going to hesitate during Super Bowl 53, there need to be interceptions that result. Exploit the hesitation. I'm going to have a piece breaking some of this down so you can see it. That will go up on Inside the Pylon, hopefully sometime Monday afternoon. It's a day off from school for my son, so I'm going to be working around his schedule, but I hope to get that up at some point Monday afternoon so you can see what I'm talking about. And so you can count to yourself and count it out for yourself those times when he hits his drop step, one Mississippi, two Mississippi, and the ball isn't out. That will get you burned as a quarterback.

The Patriots need to exploit the hesitation. That will do it for this Monday show. I will be back on Tuesday breaking down the Rams defense. Got some things to worry about. Some things to look for. Some things to exploit. Then again, Wednesday crossover. Thursday take Thursday.

Get your takes in. Friday game day edition. Sunday morning tailgate at the Super Bowl. That's the take Thursday. Get your takes in. Friday, game day edition. Sunday morning tailgate at the Super Bowl. That's the week ahead. Keep it locked here all week long to Locked on Patriots.