A Playcall so Good a Player Can Mess up and the Defense still Gets the Sack

this is the segment I like to call that play call that hit just a little bit different this one [Music] hit oh you know I'm going to go defense today don't you how could I go anywhere else with this thing I got to find a defensive play from this game that best captures to me or at least one of the plays that best capture I think you pick probably 15 plays from this game and some of the play calls that McDonald brought out but this one was my favorite and why for about three different reasons was it a great play call yeah was it a play call that confused the Broncos offense yeah did it confus Bo Knicks you bet was it a play call that was so good that you could do bad things that you could have something go horrendously wrong on the play and yet it still ends up good yeah that too that as well let's set the stage you're coming up with a stack box front you're showing off coverage cover three you got your slot with a little bit of distance there down next to the safety but what's notable to anybody that's looking at this of course is that you're looking at 1 two three four five six seven guys on that defensive line of scrimmage so you have seven they have five plus the one Blocker in the back field they're going to have four guys running routes by the way this looks at the start of this play so I'm going to run the play a couple times first before I do the rewind thing back and forth I'm just going to run it a few times here for you guys to see and let you guys start to kind of pick up some things of this I know you've probably seen this play a couple times it's the boy MAF sack on this play but there's a couple things going on here from execution to the conf confusion to the fact that you could get this wrong yet still end up right as far as Deon Witherspoon missing his sack because that's of course the big part that stands out first on this play is Witherspoon is missing the sack but let's first take a look at one other thing let's let's unpack this a little bit take note of where the running back is to the left shoulder of Nicks and this is a bit of an indicator of how confusing this play is not just for Knicks but the pass protection in general and where to go you're seeing down on the bottom side you've got four to the three on the Seahawks defensive line so four defensive linemen with one man standing means technically a linebacker standing up but let's just call it four four linemen on the line and then three to the top side so naturally that back's going I've got to get over there to the right side but what he does then is he vacates completely then the door for Witherspoon to come in and then and then hit him and then well have the free rusher to free you know free path to the to the quarterback at that point but he's trying to pick up Baker Baker over on the other side of the formation which as we saw last year with DJ Dallas when you have your running back going from pre to post Snap having to go pick up pass protection to the other side of the quarterback that's usually not a good indicator that you've gotten things set up prior to the snap right ideally here if you're going to have him picking up Baker you'd have him moved over to the right shoulder here of Nick so he doesn't have to flash in front of Nicks to get over to block it so you love the alignment right out the gate and how they attack something that they saw is probably a whole here and the way they could go about it let's get to execution though on this play Because as we go and I will run this again full speed a couple times but I want to stop it here for just a second on one of these these points so execution two things stand out to me on this execution first off tell me that you could have predicted that those two defensive tackles were going to drop after the snap if your B Knick's looking at that there tell me that there's something as an indicator of those guys that they're going to drop back into coverage cuz I don't see it it's that draw that I talk about often where a quarterback wants to believe when they see that an offensive line wants to believe when they see that or it's just a natural human inclination that you want to believe they're all coming it seems like they're all coming unless you really got a guy like leaning on his back leg really starting to false back out on it you feel like all every one of those guys is going to come and oh my God we don't have enough blockers so I better at least make sure I get my guy blocked minimum because we still are going to end up with maybe a free rusher here and this is the pressure this puts on the beauty in Mike McDonald's defense and the difference between him and his predecessor is his predecessor and wink Martell would have said bring the house everybody go he he'd have them all be going right here the difference here is he's going to drop his two defensive tackles back in a Zone blitz so they're the two zone drop Defenders here so what you end up with is rather than that seven coming you end up with five coming you've got your defensive tackles sitting there to take away any of what would have been the hot routes unfortunately for the Broncos here they don't have any hot routes as jto Sullivan noted in his breakdown of this play on his channel Broncos don't have any Hots here and that's a that's a Shawn pyton problem really as much as anything else but there's no Hots to really pick up still good execution on their part not to show their hand great play call from from McDonald you've got wither spoon coming off of the edge unblocked but the pur before we get to wither spoon the player who really makes this play of course is boy aaf and getting the sack but he doubles it up here to me because watch his technique as we begin this play off where he attacks that inside shoulder so when you have wither spoon coming off of the edge right if I get up into bows here and I just decide to hit him with a bll rush BS might be able to kind of stick out a hand there and kind of mess with Witherspoon send him off his path not him but just impede him a little bit as he's trying to get that free rush but because boy MAF bounces inside and counters this inside he forces BS to have to commit to that inside prevention bus can do nothing about Witherspoon coming off the edge here because of the fact that he's attacked that inside shoulder now this is something mafi's been instructed to do this is how you marry up a pass rushing front though this is you've got the Defenders dropping you say okay we're going to get a free rusher off this Edge boy make sure you attack that inside shoulder we'll get it it will widen that out because the second that that left tackle has to kick inside a couple of steps to his right that widens the hole that widens the open path for Witherspoon he has to take less of a rounding route to get to the quarterback he can straight line it beine it right for the QB the problem here becomes the B line is too sharp and he can't stay with Nicks and Nix does his little Russell Wilson perette kind of move and uh he catches him not being under control in his Pathway to the quarterback something that Witherspoon will obviously learn with time as he does this more and more but then you have the effort from MAF who just stands out on this play attacks that inside shoulder first then comes up and cleans this up here with his effort for Witherspoon getting the sack and getting rewarded for the sack on this play this is where great effort gets rewarded to me where you you're you're sort of right off the Jump if you think about this you're sort of taking the L on your pass rush win here even though he does end up beating Bulls technically inside you're kind of taking the L here you're opening this up for Witherspoon that's part of how this front will work is sometimes we're I'm going to do the dirty work to help you sometimes you're going to do the dirty work to help me but here's one of those beautiful plays you get where he's doing the dirty work for Witherspoon yet still he ends up getting to go get the sack seks have it all covered up on the back end it's kind of irrelevant whatever you do on the back end here though because Nicks never has any opportunity to survey the landscape and find what he can see out there he is running from his life from the jump first with the play call second with the execution third with the effort why the Seahawks defense take big steps forward this last week it wasn't just the on boarding of Mike McDonald's scheme it was the on boarding of the players buying in to his philosophy heart soul and mind and that's what you get with some of the effort from these guys and uh not surprising to see it from MAF but I thought that this was as impressive of a play as you saw in the game usually when you blow that on the backside and that guy get misses you've set this whole play up for Witherspoon to go get the sack it's there you put a bow on it you wrapped it up for him you put it up on his on his desk right even handed them some scissors right next to it you go there you go Devon we got you there you go and then then he misses it a lot of times that ends up in a blown play cuz then your back end's like uhoh he broke the pocket he's got a few extra seconds we don't have as many guys here on the back end to cover this up but Mafi picked up his teammate as so many teammates this game picked each other up on that defensive side of the ball if there was a m tackle there was a guy right behind that guy to make sure he was there to clean it up great team defense from this team last week and it was really notable but most especially notable on this play