Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots November 14, 2017 - Tape Tuesday: Motion Madness!

Episode Date: November 14, 2017

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You are Locked On Patriots, your daily podcast on the New England Patriots, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Hello there, everybody, and welcome on into Locked On Patriots for Tuesday, November 14th, 2017. Mark Schofield here with you in the big chair. Show coming out a little later than normal. You can blame NFL Game Pass for that. Actually, don't blame NFL Game Pass for that. But I was going to go in a different direction with today's show.

But the All-22 has yet to come out from New England's Sunday night victory over the Denver Broncos. And so where I was going to do a little Tape Tuesday edition focusing on special teams, with that yet to come out, the Tape Tuesday program is going to go in a different direction. We can still talk some film, do some nerdy football stuff, and oh, we're going to get nerdy today. But it's going to be on a different talk about topic i'm going to dive into motion and you've probably heard me talking about motion if you've listened to the show more than you ever dreamed well we're going to do it again today

but the way the patriots use motion is so important to what they do offense. It's so helpful to Tom Brady. And it's frankly, it's not something that's innovative by any stretch of the imagination. You know, it's not like the Patriots invented the usage of motion. It's not like they're the first team to ever move a player before this now. And so we're going to start with an unfamiliar name, I bet, to most listeners to the Locked On Patriots podcast that's perhaps about to change. And that name is Matt Limegrover. Matt Limegrover is currently the offensive line coach at Penn State.

And now I know what you're thinking right now. Mark, why do I care about the offensive line coach at Penn State University? I know you like Saquon Barkley. I know you went to see Penn State play. But why do we care about this guy here at Lockdown Patriots? Before Matt took the offensive line gig at Penn State, he was the assistant coach, offensive coordinator, and offensive line coach at the University of Minnesota.

And he was in that position back in 2014 when he gave a presentation at the Nike Coaches Clinic. And that presentation was titled Effective Use of Formations, Motions, and Shifts. And as I've mentioned before, my reading tastes are somewhat eclectic. For example, right now what I'm reading, The Fall of the Ottomans, The Great War in the Middle East. That's by Eugene Rogan.

It's an analysis of World War I as it played out in the Middle East. The Gallipoli Campaign, among other things. But when I'm not reading history, I'm reading football, manuals, playbooks, presentations. And every year I get the presentation that's done at the Nike coaching clinic. Some of the top college coaches each year come and address fellow college and high school coaches about what they're doing offensively, defensively, special teams wise. I think it's a great way to sort of keep up with the game, keep up with what coaches are doing. It certainly helps me when I evaluate quarterbacks,

something we'll touch on in a second with one of the other guys I'm going to talk about. But in this presentation, Matt Limegrower specifically addresses the use of motion. And I'm going to pull some quotes from his presentation. First, from Matt, before we snap the ball, the coaches can control where our players align. After we snap the ball, we must rely on what the players know. In the pre-snap, the coaches earn their money.

However, after the snap, we hope that throughout the week we had enough reps in their drill work on their techniques that will make them successful. So there you sort of have it in a nutshell. As a coach, as an offensive coach, you control everything up until the ball gets snapped. Once the ball is put into play, you're relying on what you've instilled in these guys during the week, during preseason camp, to carry them through the play so they can execute the play. But you control the chess pieces before the play. That's where you make your money.

Matt goes on. Two ways to affect the defense, he says. One, create leverage advantages in the run game. And two, make them think by changing strength and direction of defense and call. Matt continued, focusing on the second part here. The second way is to make the defense think about the change in strength. I have a great relationship with our defensive coordinator. I go into his office and talk to him all the time.

He told me the thing he hated about going against us in practice is the changing of strength. He told me that they teach something on defense and the checks that go with it, and we disrupt them by changing the strength of the offensive formation. They are in a bad defense related to the strength of the offense. They call off the defensive stunt, they go into a different call, and then we switch back to the original formation. He continues, they must shift the defensive line and change their secondary calls. When we go back to the original set, they must move again. That takes a lot of communication

on the defensive side of the ball. That is when you get two people in the secondary playing two different coverages. That is when you get someone not in his gap. He told me he hated me when I did those things. That is a compliment coming from him. So there you have it for Matt, sort of a more pro style offensive mind talking about the importance of motion and shifting because it forces the defense to think. It forces the defense to think. It forces the defense to adjust. But Matt's not the only coach.

That I'm going to talk about here. Before we dive into some tape. In a minute we're going to hear from Sonny Dykes. Who's currently an offensive analyst. At TCU. But before that he was the head coach. At the University of California. Coached Jared Goff in college., installed the Bear Raid offense.

Different type of offense, but the importance of motion is still present. That's next here on Locked on Patriots. Let's hear from Sonny Dykes now. And as I mentioned, currently an offensive analyst, not even really a coach or recruiter at TCU but before that head coach the University of California gave a presentation to the 2016 Nike coaches clinic that title the spread passing game but that presentation which is well done well segment, had an entire section on motion,

which he titled Motion to Stretch the Defense. Now, previously from Matt Limegrove, we talked about motion being used in sort of a traditional pro-style offense, what we think to be a pro-style offense. Here, we're hearing from somebody that's more spread, more air raid type stuff. But again, motion plays a role. Quoting from Sonny Dykes here, we do not use a lot of motion because we are going fast and we do not want to slow down to run a motion scheme. So they don't use a ton of it.

But it's still important, quoting from him again, we run the motion for a couple of reasons. It is a great tip for the coverage the defense is running. Teams that play us disguise what they are doing in the secondary. They align in a shell and move to what they are playing. The quarterback uses the motion and watches what the secondary is doing. If a defender is following the motion back, he knows it is some kind of man coverage. If the safeties rotate around or a corner rolls down,

he knows the secondary is in some kind of zone coverage. Motion does the same thing that the empty set does. It makes the box easier for the quarterback to read. It also causes the defense to move more quickly. Later in the presentation, he returns to motion. When we play teams, and quote it again, when we play teams that play a lot of man coverage, the inside receivers are the ones the quarterback should be looking to hit. They could cover one of the slots with a nickelback, but he is on the field as the nickel because he is the third best corner and not the best. What we want to do is get our best receiver on

their weakest covered defender. We can always use motion or simply run the running back out of the backfield on a wheel route. That matchup is almost guaranteed to be a running back on a linebacker. And I love this quote here. The game of football is simple. If we can find your weakness, we will beat you with it. When you play teams with heavy man coverage schemes, it is all about the matchup that you can create. One last quote here before we get into some film, and it's from Jimbo Fisher at the 2015 Coach of the Year Clinic. Jimbo currently the head coach at Florida State University. On motion, and this is something the Patriots learned

the hard way week one. If you bring motion from one side of the field to the other, you make safeties move. They rotate, and 85% of the time, the one rotated into the deep middle is out of position. Remember that touchdown pass from Alex Smith to Kareem Hunt. I talked about this here on Locked On Patriots. The motion across the formation forced Eric Rowe.

A cornerback by a trade to rotate back to the middle of the field. That's the deep safety. Smith saw that. Hit Hunt on a deep post. Touchdown. But there you have three different coaches. from three different sort of offensive schools of thought telling you just how important motion is for a variety of reasons. It stretches the defense.

It gets the defense to think, to react, to adjust. It helps the quarterback pre-snap identify the coverage. And you can use it to get advantageous matchups against man coverage teams does that sound like the new england patriots to you does that sound like their offensive philosophy when you put three different schools of thought about motion together because it does to me and as we'll see coming up next, it played out Sunday night when the Patriots went into Denver and took care of the Denver Broncos. Up next here on Locked

On Patriots, we'll look at some tape from Sunday night and talk about how the Patriots use motion, gleam information from the defense's reaction to it, and have success in the passing game. Okay, now let's dive into just three plays from Sunday night the first comes at the 1322 mark of the first quarter this play comes after the punt return

fumble by Isaiah McKenzie it's the first offensive play for the Patriots after that turnover. Patriots face a first and 10 at the Denver 24-yard line. So they're in plus territory just outside the red zone. They come out using 21 offensive personnel. Two running backs, one tight end with Rob Gronkowski, two wide receivers. Now at the outset, that personnel grouping dictates what Denver does with their

personnel because they stay with their base 4-3 defense and as we'll see in a second, that plays a role here too. But the Patriots break the huddle and put Brady in the shotgun with Rex Burkhead standing to his right. They have a two by two formation when they break the huddle. They put fullback James Devlin to the outside to the left, aligned well outside the numbers, and Rob Gronkowski,

the tight end, in a slot. Back to the right side of the formation, they have two wide receivers. Brandon Cooks out wide. Danny Amendola in the slot. And that causes some confusion before the play for the Denver defense because they're in their base 4-3. They see two running backs, including a fullback. They anticipate some eye formation, some run stuff. But now you've got four wide.

Two wide receivers to one side of the formation, a tight end and a fullback to the other. So there's guys running around to begin with. And they adjust everything. Slatt and Shaquille Barrett, number 48, a linebacker, out wide across from the fullback, Devlin. They put both cornerbacks, Chris Harris and Aqib Tlaib, on their left side of the formation across from the two wide receivers. So that initially tells Brady this is probably some kind of man coverage. Because if this were zone, you wouldn't see the cornerbacks travel like that.

And that's confirmed a second later. Because as you might expect, Danny Amendola comes in motion from right to left across the formation. And what does Denver's defense do? Chris Harris stays right with him across the formation. He trails him across the formation. So now Brady, what does he know? Let's get into his head for a split second. And you can do it without eating avocado ice cream, which is an added bonus.

He sees the two cornerbacks to his right before the play. That's cue number one that it's man coverage. Cue number two is when Amendola comes across the formation and Chris Harris trails him across the formation. Now he's virtually certain that this is going to be some type of man coverage. And it is. They run cover two, man underneath. So you have two deep safeties. Everybody else is in man coverage. What does that result in? Rex Burkhead on that little Texas route where he angles to the outside and then cuts back across over the middle like a slant against Brandon Marshall, a linebacker.

Again, what did Sonny Dyke say? You can use motion. When you use motion, you can get your inside receivers on linebackers on safeties you create that mismatch that's exactly what happens here brady knows it's man he gets his running back isolated on a linebacker brady barely doesn't doesn't really look at anybody else here on this play because he knows he's got the matchup he wants, and he knows it because of the use of motion and formation pre-snap. He doesn't have to waste any other time diagnosing the coverage because he knows what it is going into the play.

Again, helping your quarterback, giving him some cues before the play to diagnose what the defense is doing, make an informed, educated guess as to what the coverage scheme is, and then taking advantage of a potential mismatch, an advantageous matchup. Let's look at another example. This comes on a first and 10 at the Denver 30-yard line early in the second quarter this is right after Rex Burkhead blocks the punt the Patriots take over again they're in Denver territory they're in plus territory they come out

once more with 21 offensive personnel Denver has their base 4-3 defense on the field. What we see here is Brady actually under center. And for those of you wondering, I'm going to do a piece on this for LockedOnPatriots.com breaking down these plays as well so you can see the more visual aspect to it if that's what you prefer. But here we see Brady under center.

We have James White, I mean, excuse me, Deion Lewis, James Devlin in an offset eye where Devlin, the fullback, is staggered towards the right side of the offensive line.

Lewis is about seven yards deep. Rob Gronkowski, the tight end, he's in a wing alignment to the left with Brandon Cooks outside of him. And Philip Dorsett is the single receiver deep Rob Gronkowski the tight end he's in a wing alignment to the left with Brandon cooks outside of him and Philip Dorsett is the single receiver to the right we see motion again in this time it's Rob Gronkowski he's in a wing to the left and he comes in motion from left to right. Simply basically trades his strength from the left wing to the right wing. That was a tongue twister.

What does the defense do? The linebackers simply slide. Nobody trails him. A safety doesn't trail him. They simply slide their alignment. What does Brady now know? This is probably zone coverage. And given the formation, the personnel, the down and distance,

we kind of expect it. You're in a run-heavy set. They're sort of crowd on the box. Denver has eight guys in the box. They're expecting run. Going to play zone behind it. You look at the alignment of the defensive backs, the cornerbacks, Harris and Tlaib. They're about eight yards off the line of scrimmage.

They're not impressed or anything. So you put it all together. You piece it all together. You piece all the information available to the quarterback. He's now thinking zone. What do the Patriots do? They're going to throw the ball here. Cooks from the left side of the formation runs a vertical route.

Dorsett runs sort of a deep crosser from right to left. They sort of flood that left side of the field. And since they get Denver in zone, it's the perfect defense to attack it. Because Harris, the cornerback to that side, he's going to have to stay deep, not get beaten deep, so he's going to have to cover that vertical route. Meaning Denver's relying on a linebacker to drop into that hook zone in the flat and stay with Dorsett as he comes across on that crossing route. So if Brady has time to throw, if he has time to let this develop,

he should have Philip Dorsett open along the left side of the formation. And that's exactly what happens. He knows its zone, so he knows where he's going to go with the football. He knows what he's going to attack. The user run fake and the linebacker that's going to have to drop under that zone and get under this crossing route from Dorsett is Shane Ray, who's more of a pass rushing type. He gets sucked in a few steps on the run. He's late to retreat. Brady knows exactly where to go to the football and it's an easy throw and an easy catch. One last example.

Again, use in motion to help your quarterback diagnose and react to the defense. It's so effective. And this is a play that we've talked about before, talked about a little bit in the instant reaction show. It's that quick out to Amendola. It comes at the 9.55 mark of the second quarter on a second attempt. This is the play after the catch that Gronkowski had

that was ruled an incompletion. The Patriots challenged it. That ruling on the field was confirmed or upheld, whatever the terminology is. Patriots then use a timeout. They use a timeout, then the challenge. Odd sequence. Wasn't a fan of it.

But regardless, now they're facing second and 10 at the 19-yard line. They come out, 21 offensive personnel again. But this time, they empty the backfield. Brady's alone in the shotgun. They have four receivers to the right. Rob Gronkowski in a wing. James Devlin. Brady's alone in the shotgun they have four receivers to the right Rob Gronkowski in a wing James Devlin then just next to Devlin Danny Amendola then Dion Lewis so you have a quad look a quad formation to the right with Brandon

Cooks alone on left now what's interesting about this look is Denver has Their base 4-3 on the field Again like we've seen so far When Denver sees 21 personnel With Devlin they stay with base But now you go empty And you're forcing the defense to do some different things

But here's a little bit of a Tell When juxtaposed with the first play we talked about. As Denver's sort of getting everybody lined up, Tom Brady looks outside and what does he see? His outermost receivers, his two boundary receivers, outside guys on each side of the field. One is a wide receiver. One is a wide receiver, one is a running back. So given how Denver reacted to a similar type formation on the first play, you might expect a cornerback to be outside from one,

but then a linebacker maybe to be outside from Deion Lewis, and they slide the cornerback over to Amendola. But that's not what he sees. Brady looks outside to each boundary pre-snap. He sees Chris Harris outside Cooks and he sees Aqib Tlaib outside from Deion Lewis. That's cue number one. This is probably zone. Cue number two comes in a second when Amendola comes across the field in motion. Nobody trails him. Everybody just sort of slides. And at the last moment, it's Brandon Marshall,

again, the linebacker, number 54, who we talked about on the first play, who slides sort of towards Amendola as Amendola sets up in a slot to the left. So again, put yourself in Brady's head. He sees two cornerbacks outside to start with, one's across from a running back. His receiver comes in motion. Nobody trails him.

Linebackers simply slide. That's zone coverage. And the route combination, go flat. Cooks runs a go route to sort of clear the boundary. Amendola runs that flat route. Quick out pattern. Brady knows that the cornerback is going to have to stay deep,

take away that vertical route from Cooks. It opens up that boundary. And again, the defense is relying on a linebacker, Brandon Marshall, to stay with Amendola to get under that flat route to take it away. Again, using motion, shifting, to find a mismatch and exploit it. This basically turns into Danny Amendola versus Brandon Marshall

in a one-on-one matchup on a quick out route in space. I'd say maybe eight times out of ten, maybe even nine times out of ten, Danny Amendola is going to be open on this play. And that's exactly what happens. He runs the out route. Marshall can't rotate over. Can't cover it.

Can't get under it. Brady's throw is a bit low. Amendola has to make a sliding catch. But it's an easy gain of six yards. Turns second and long into third and four, which is kind of way, it's not ideal, but it's a much better situation, a much more manageable third down. And it all starts with the pre-snap alignment, the use of motion, and creating that mismatch. All the things we talked about in the windup to this, all the things we talked about in the wind-up to this. All the things we talked about

with Matt Limegrove, with Sonny Dyches. Use in motion to create that mismatch and give your quarterback an advantage pre-snap. New England is great at doing this. We see it every single game. And it's not always on the big plays. It's sometimes on these second and tens that turn into third and four or a 12-yard gain to the running back out of the backfield. But you stack enough of those together, you're finishing drives with touchdowns. And that's how you win football games. So that's been a real deep, deep, deep, deep dive into motion

and how the Patriots use it I hope you enjoyed it again I love the nerdy football stuff I hope you do too chances are if you're listening and you've stuck with me to this point of the Locked On Patriots podcast that you dig it as well if you do dig it again tell some friends

whenever I tweet out about the show share the links retweet them I know my good friend Captain Huggy Bear sometimes creates some little hashtags for the show. Share the links. Retweet them. I know my good friend Captain Huggy Bear sometimes creates some little hashtags for the show. I always appreciate seeing stuff like that. It's great to see people appreciating the work. That's been your Tuesday, your Tape Tuesday edition of Locked on Patriots. We're going to have some guests for the next two shows.

We're going to talk to Ted Wynn, who's at Raiders Analysis on Twitter. One of the best Raiders minds out there. We're going to talk to him about Sunday's upcoming game between the Oakland Raiders and the New England Patriots. Then Adam Kirchhen from the Boston Herald. He's going to stop by for Thursday's show.

We're going to talk about New England's season so far, where he sees the Patriots right now, where he sees them go. We might even talk a little draft quarterback stuff. If you listened to some of last week's shows, you know I got into Adam's piece about the potential draft quarterbacks to look at. We'll probably talk about that with Adam. So we've got some great stuff planned there.

Of course, we'll have your Friday game day edition of Locked on Patriots. Fun week ahead. Hope you have a good one as well. Until we talk again, everybody, keep it locked right here to me, Mark Schofield and Locked on Patriots.