In their Divisional Playoff game vs. Green Bay, San Francisco’s Offense played from the Pistol Formation on 34 of their 75 Offensive Snaps (45.3%) – 49ers ran 26 times for 209 yards (Kaepernick had 8 rushes for 102 yards and a TD; Gore had 16 rushes for 87 yards; LaMichael James had 2 rushes for 20 yards); Colin Kaepernick was not as good throwing the ball from Pistol going 3 of 7 for 31 yards with 1 INT and a Sack (8 total pass plays from Pistol).

Green Bay played a lot of man coverage concepts vs. the 49ers last week, which gave Kaepernick quicker, more defined reads with where to go with the football, as well as normally using LB, Erik Walden to spy him to help prevent him from scrambling when he dropped back to pass – Walden and the Packers Defense was not consistently discipline in the game with their coverage concepts and defensive schemes.

Head Coach, John Harbaugh does an excellent job with play design and game planning to attack his opponents tendencies with route combinations and schemes to take advantage of favorable matchups for his Offense – good play design with route combination on Michael Crabtree’s first TD catch of the game vs. the Packers in Divisional Playoff win with the man beater with natural rub with Crabtree’s under route coming open.

Kaepernick has shown the willingness and ability to make back shoulder throws on fade routes when the coverage is on top of the WR – possesses the arm strength and accuracy to make tough back shoulder throws (completed a couple of these throws vs. Green Bay in Divisional Playoff game).

Kaepernick clearly seems to struggle with reading the field and coverage vs. complex zone coverage schemes, especially when Defenses disguise their coverage which the Ravens do a good job of – when Kaepernick is unsure of what he is seeing his mechanics being to breakdown and his play becomes hectic and rushed (moves from the pocket to frequently vs. complex Defenses).

In the NFC Championship game vs. the Falcons, 49ers’ QB, Colin Kaepernick was blitz on 10 of his 22 drop backs (45% blitz frequency) and Kaepernick was very efficient in completing 8 of his 10 passes for 125 yards and 1 TD against Atlanta’s pressure schemes (QB Rating of 152.1).

San Francisco’s Left Guard, Mike Iupati is an attacking, aggressive player who is excellent run blocker who plays with good power and strength, but is inconsistent interior pass blocker who plays with poor technique and footwork causing him to play off balance and out of control at times – Iupati had poor pass set in stepping forward on 1^st Quarter player where Kaepernick was Sacked by Falcons DT, Corey Peters with quick inside rush.

Head Coach, Jim Harbaugh and the 49ers Offense do a good job of attacking specific tendency of the Defense, both running and passing the ball – last week in the NFC Championship, the 49ers attacked the tendency of Falcons’ DE, John Abraham to fire off the ball and rush the QB with attacking him with runs up the field inside him, as well as attacking the middle of the field and the Safeties of the Falcons with passing the ball (TEs/WRs).

Tremendous play design on the 49ers first TD of the game in the NFC Championship game last week vs. the Falcons with reversing the normal scheme of the Read Option with using RB, LaMichael James as the outside option (speed sweep element) and QB, Colin Kaepernick was used as interior rush option with Power run scheme (RG pulled to lead QB into hole) – Kaepernick did great job reading the movement and positioning of the DE, Kroy Biermann and giving the ball to James who got to the edge and ran for the 15-yard TD (huge drive after the Falcons went up 17-0 in the 1^st Half to make the score 17-7).

Another great play design on Vernon Davis’ 25-yard catch late in the 2^nd Quarter with him running wheel route from his backfield alignment behind the double post routes from the 2 WRs to twins side of the formation, in which Davis beat the LB with his route and the WRs stretched the field vertically to open the lane for Kaepernick to complete the pass to Davis, which set up the 49ers 2^nd TD and pull the score to 17-14 (San Francisco likes to attack vertically down the field in their passing game with their dynamic TEs and WRs).

Atlanta’s inability to pressure Kaepernick allowed the QB to comfortably step up and throw the football from the pocket (conservative pass rush schemes to help contain and prevent the athletic QB from beating them with his legs), which allowed him to play with rhythm and pace, comfortably completing 16 of his 21 passes for 233 yards (11.1 yards per attempt) with 1 TD and no INTs, while being sacked only once (QB Rating of 127.7).

San Francisco’s Offense likes to attack down the field passing the football, which will be a huge factor in Super Bowl XLVII vs. the Ravens Secondary who have some vertical voids in their Secondary – how will Baltimore matchup to the 49ers explosive TEs, Vernon Davis and Delanie Walker? San Francisco’s 12 Personnel is more dynamic and versatile than New England’s with having 2 heathly, athletic TEs and good WR Corps.

A key matchup in Super Bowl XLVII will be how the Ravens match up to TE, Vernon Davis and WR, Michael Crabtree in the slot, especially with Baltimore to likely play from Single-High Safety alignments because of the dynamic running game of the 49ers – San Francisco will need to take advantage of plays down the field.

San Francisco’s Offensive Line is a big, physical unit who are excellent run blockers who move the line of scrimmage and open lanes for the 49ers ball carriers (good matchup in Super Bowl XLVII against the Ravens Front-7) – 49ers O-Line do a good job of working together in pass protection schemes to give their QB enough time to throw the ball from the pocket (big, physical unit who attack blocks in both running and passing game).

49ers’ LT, Joe Staley is a savvy blocker who does a good job of using movement to set up blocks and get up to the 2^nd level to make blocks in the running game (good footwork) – Staley uses slight deception and hesitation to avoid defenders and get to his intended block (good use of swim to avoid D-Lineman and get up to 2^nd level).

San Francisco had another great play design on Frank Gore’s 2^nd TD run of the game last week in the NFC Championship game vs. the Falcons with how the 49ers once again attacked DE, John Abraham with Read Option run, knowing his tendency is to rush up the field – the little nuance of the “easy release” by TE, Vernon Davis to release outside Abraham to give the illusion he is running a pattern caused Abraham to think pass and rush up the field, which opened up huge void for Gore to run through for the 9-yard game winning TD.

San Francisco does a good job of formation and personnel variation, as well as shifts and motions to create uncertainty for opposing Defenses, as well as causing matchup and alignment problems that Colin Kaepernick and the 49ers will exploit.

In the NFC Championship game vs. the 49ers, Falcons’ QB, Matt Ryan was blitz on only 7 of his 43 drop backs (16% blitz frequency) and Ryan was getting the ball out of his hands quickly for minimal completions – Ryan completed 6 of his 7 passes for 56 yards against Atlanta’s pressure schemes.

In the NFC Championship game, Atlanta used a number of tight alignments and chip/nudge schemes to help with the immediate edge pass rush from the 49ers DE/OLBs, Aldon Smith and Ahmad Brooks by using TEs, RBs, FB, or WRs to force the explosive pass rushers of San Francisco to adjust their rush angles based on the help from their skill plays – this approach gave Matt Ryan further help to throw comfortably from the pocket (good example of this would be on 27-yard completion to Julio Jones on deep dig route the tight alignment of Jason Snelling and Tony Gonzalez responsible for slowing down the edge pass rushers at the snap).

San Francisco used DE/OLB, Aldon Smith to jam Falcons’ TE, Tony Gonzalez at times to disrupt his release up the field to affect the timing for Matt Ryan throwing the football, which is an interesting approach being that Smith is one of the premier pass rushers in the NFL (49ers willing to mix schemes up to confuse opposing QBs).

San Francisco had several coverage busts early in the game in their zone coverage schemes both in their Secondary and LBs, allowing for easy completions and big plays to be made – the 49ers are at their best when they are able to play Man-Free coverage with pressed coverage from their CBs to challenge WRs off the ball.

San Francisco’s outside CBs (Tarell Brown and Chris Culliver) have questionable vertical coverage skills to run with vertically explosive players down the field, which will be key matchup in Super Bowl XLVII with Ravens’ WRs, Torrey Smith and Jacoby Jones who can stretch the field vertically with their explosive speed – expect for the Ravens to take their shots down the field to the outside in the Super Bowl.

The 49ers play primarily from Nickel Personnel (5 DBs) when opposing Offenses play from 11 Personnel or 12 Personnel (if a team has 2 athletic TEs) with moving Carlos Rogers into the slot and bringing in Chris Culliver as the Nickel DB – San Francisco allows LB, Patrick Willis to matchup and play the TE and LB, NaVarro Bowman will play the RB out of the back field in 3 WR sets (the 49ers like to play Man Coverage schemes, either 2-Deep man under or Man-Free with one Single Safety; use a good amount of trail coverage technique).

In the NFC Championship game, in obvious passing situations in the Atlanta Falcons seemed to primarily slide their O-Line to their left towards to Aldon Smith with occasionally using a chip scheme on Ahmad Brooks in the NFC Championship game, which could have been because of the high tendency for the 49ers to run D-Line stunts with Aldon Smith and Justin Smith on the right side of the D-Line – interesting approach to account for the difficult stunts from the 49ers with having 3 Offensive Lineman, but still giving help to the other side on Brooks with chips and nudges (double team blocking schemes).

BALTIMORE

Baltimore struggled to slow down the Redskins explosive Offense in Week 14 (Redskins were the only team the Ravens played this season with an athletic QB and who align and play from the Pistol formation a good amount), allowing Washington to accumulate 420 total Offensive yards on 66 plays, with having 142 rushing yards on 31 runs and passing for 272 yards with 2 TDs and no INTs (Robert Griffin, III passed for 246 and TD; Kirk Cousins passed for 26 yards and TD); RGIII was Sacked 3 times by the Ravens.

Redskins’ Rookie RB, Alfred Morris ran for 122 yards on 23 carries (5.3 yards per rush) and 1 TD in Week 14 vs. the Ravens; and Washington spread the football around to their WRs with 9 different Redskins having a reception (Pierre Garcon led the team with 5 catches for 87 yards, and a TD).

Baltimore’s Defensive was affected by injuries in Week 14 vs. Washington with several key starters being inactive due to injuries – LB, Ray Lewis, OLB/DE, Terrell Suggs, LB, Dannell Ellerbe, and CB Jimmy Smith.

On Washington’s first play of the game they aligned in Pistol formation with Alfred Morris aligned behind RGIII in the shotgun and they had FB, Darrel Young next to the QB (variation of off-set I-formation) – they ran a Read-Option run putting DE/OLB, Paul Kruger in conflict with unblocking him (ran FB at him but did not block him) and he reacted to RGIII, so the Redskins’ QB handed it off to Morris up the middle who made good cut to backside, away from the flow of the inside LBs who reacted to the FB and QB movement helping set up angles for the O-Line to make their blocks on the 2^nd level.  Another cool element to this play was the lateral (easy release) from the TE to widen Safety, Bernard Pollard (aligned down in box on edge) and allow him to make his block resulting in big lane for Morris’ 29-yard gain.

Both of Baltimore’s inside LBs (Brandon Ayanbeadejo and Jameel McClain) showed poor recognition and awareness on Morris’ 29-yard run in Week 14 on the first play of the game with their initial movement, which got them out of position and opened up big cutback lane for the Redskin RB to exploit (poor LB play in Week 14).

On the 2^nd play of the game in Week 14, Alfred Morris ran for a 21-yard gain on stretch/zone running scheme where Washington stretched the front side and sealed the back side, which opened up a good cut back lane for Washington RB to run through (Washington did good job of getting up to the 2^nd level and blocking the LBs) – Baltimore can be attacked with zone running schemes because you cause their big interior guys to have to run laterally, as well as forcing Ray Lewis to make plays laterally with his legs, which is not his strength anymore.

In Week 14, when Washington played from base personnel (21 or 12) Baltimore played primarily from Single-High Safety alignments to better commit to stopping the Redskins dynamic running game, which opened up passing lanes on the outside and down the field – Washington was able to throw some isolation routes on the outside because of the alignment and style of play of the Ravens early in their Week 14 matchup (San Francisco could exploit and attack the Ravens in Super Bowl XLVII from their base personnel in the passing game).

In Week 14 the Ravens used CB, Chris Johnson as their Nickel DB, who aligned on the outside to the Defensive left side of the field, and starting CB, Corey Graham moved into the slot – Graham has played very good throughout the playoffs from the slot who does good job in run support and when used as a blitzer off the edge.

Washington used some triple option elements in their Read Option runs in Week 14 vs. Baltimore with the use of one of their WRs to put more edge stress on the Ravens edge defenders – Ravens’ Safety, Bernard Pollard was used almost exclusively as box, edge defender in Week 14 with him aligning down in the box.

Because of Washington’s variations and multiple looks with their Read Option running game in Week 14 it caused hesitation and uncertainty for a normally attacking and confident Defense in the Ravens, resulting in some missed tackles and allowing the Redskins to have more room to pick up additional yards.

With having athletic TEs, like the 49ers have in Vernon Davis and Delanie Walker, it allows them to attack Defenses from base personnel in a multitude of different ways, which makes things very difficult for opposing Defense in how they want to match up – an example of this would be WR screen that Washington ran in 1^st Quarter of Week 14 game vs. the Ravens in which the Redskins were in 12 Personnel which dictated base personnel for the Ravens and the Read Option fake froze the Front-7 (did not block Haloti Ngata on this play) and allowed for the WR screen to set up and Pierre Garcon had a lot of space to run for 23-yard gain.

One area in which Baltimore is as good as any team in the NFL is with their short yardage and goal-line Defense because of their D-Line’s ability to create penetration to force opposing RBs to move laterally in the backfield – Baltimore did a good job in Week 14 vs. Washington in these situations, as well as in their play-off games.

Baltimore’s Defense struggled with misdirection and movement in the passing game in Week 14 vs. the Redskins on plays where RGIII was moved with bootleg, sprint-out, scrambles – San Francisco should game plan to use Colin Kaepernick in a similar way to create deception off play-action fakes and his dual threat to run or throw on the edge (movement based schemes could be pivotal factor in 49ers Offensive success in Super Bowl XLVII).

Washington’s use of the Triple Option element helped further hold and stress the edge, unblocked defender of Baltimore in Week 14 (Washington left potential big play on triple option where RGIII threw bad pitch to Morris where he had the edge, but instead resulted in fumble) – the 49ers may want to implement some Triple Option elements into their rushing game-plan for Super Bowl XLVII, because it could further create stress and hesitation for the normal attacking Ravens Defense (different than playing against Tom Brady and Peyton Manning).

Baltimore’s Defense does an excellent job of pursuing the ball carrier and getting to the ball, as well as punching, raking at the ball to force turnovers down the field – DT, Ma’ake Kemoeatu did a great job of scrapping down the line and making tackle on outside and forcing fumble by Alfred Morris in Week 14 on 2^nd Quarter run.

Baltimore better defended the Read Option in Week 14 vs. Washington when their interior defenders, especially their LBs committed to what they saw and attacked downhill because it helped reduce the space and running lanes for the ball carrier; but there still is concern for abruptly moving from your needed gap and opening running lane for either RB or QB on Read Option schemes (cutback lanes).

Baltimore implemented some “Spy” technique coverage on RGIII in Week 14 with their LBs in man coverage schemes to help prevent him from scrambling and beating them with his legs (needed vs. Kaepernick too).

In the 1^st Half of the Ravens Week 14 game vs. the Redskins it was clear that they game planned to commit one Safety to help defend the run with aligning from Single-High Safety alignment or Cover-0 (no deep Safeties) on 21 of their 29 normal situational Defensive snaps (72%), which allowed the Redskins to attack them down the field at times for a couple big pass plays in the 1^st Half.

In Week 14 vs. the Ravens, Washington played from the Pistol Formation on 18 of their 33 1^st Half snaps (4 Goal-to-Go plays) and had very good success from it, with having 12 runs for 76 yards and completing 4 of 5 passes for 79 yards, and 1 Sack (6 pass plays) – 18 Pistol snaps accumulating 155 of their 259 total yards in the 1^st Half.

Washington used the “easy release” from their TEs on read option plays to create initial uncertainty and hesitation for the Ravens’ edge defenders (OLBs or DEs) in Week 14 – this subtle little technique, along with the cross action of the FB path to play side of the Read option werekey elements to further creating confusion.

Washington had some success in Week 14 running the ball from twins, closed formation and running the football towards the WRs because it forced the backside DB (either CB or Safety) to be non-factor in the play and the Redskins had good numbers to run the ball – good example was a 17-yard run by Morris in the 3^rd Quarter.

Against Washington in Week 14 the Ravens played primarily from Single High alignment in normal situations (unless needing to rotate a DB down to better cover vs. 3 WR sets) to better defend the run and help with underneath coverage in their zone coverage schemes – Baltimore used a good amount of late rotation at or after the snap to disguise their coverage look, normally rotating Bernard Pollard down and having Ed Reed deep in coverage (the Ravens will likely use similar approach to defend the 49ers rushing attack in Super Bowl XLVII).

In Week 14 the Ravens played from Single High Safety alignment on 42 of the 59 normal situation plays (71%) against the Redskins and their dual threat Rookie QB (Baltimore ran more 2-Deep Safety looks late in the 4^th Quarter because they were leading) – Baltimore mixed in some man and zone coverage schemes, but in normal down and distance when the Redskins were on schedule or ahead of the down the Ravens generally played more zone coverage concepts than man because of the number of defenders down in or near the box.

In Week 14 vs. the Ravens, Washington played from the Pistol Formation on 31 of their 66 Offensive snaps (7 Goal-to-Go or end game plays) and had very good success from it, with having 20 runs for 118 yards and dropping back 11 times with RGIII completing 4 of 7 passes for 79 yards (Sacked twice), and had 2 scrambles for 7 yards – 31 Pistol snaps accumulating 204 Offensive yards vs. Baltimore.

Washington had 17 plays with Read Option element in Week 14 game vs. Baltimore, including some Triple Option elements with pitch guy to outside and some having play-action of Read Option fake – the Redskins had 13 rushes for 74 yards (one rush was a fumbled pitch for 8-yard loss; 12 for 82 yards outside of fumble), and RGIII completed 2 of 3 pass attempts for 54 yards and was Sacked once (128 total yards on 17 plays; 7.56 yards per Read Option play).

Baltimore started the AFC Conference Championship game from Nickel Personnel (4-2-5 with using CBs, Chykie Brown or Jimmy Smith as 5^th CB) against the Patriots 12 Personnel to better matchup to TE, Aaron Hernandez who plays more like a WR than TE – this will again be the case in Super Bowl XLVII with the 49ers having two dynamic pass catching TEs in Vernon Davis and Delanie Walker.

New England did a good job getting back to TE, Aaron Hernandez when matched on the Ravens’ LBs or even Safeties in either man or zone coverage scheme – Hernandez’ first catch came on shallow crossing route from his closed TE alignment and he beat LBs on his route across the field underneath the deep routes for 9-yard gain.

Offensive Lineman have more success with generating movement vs. the Ravens D-Line, specifically their DTs (Haloti Ngata, Arthur Jones, Terrence Cody) on stretch/zone running schemes because they can run them down the line and block half of their body, which prevents them from anchoring and generating penetration.

New England took a shot on the 3^rd play of the game vs. the Ravens Single High Defense with Wes Welker running a post route from his slot alignment into the void behind Bernard Pollard’s rotation down and Brady and Welker were unable to connect for the big play – Baltimore still showed vulnerability down the field in their Single High schemes, especially from slot aligned WR or TE (look for San Francisco to attack vertically down the field vs. Single High Safety alignment from the slot with either Michael Crabtree or one of their TEs).

Baltimore used a more aggressive coverage approach in Conference Championship game vs. the Patriots with challenging their WRs with much more press coverage than they showed against Denver in Divisional playoff game – the Ravens clearly seemed to want to take away or at least make it more difficult for Tom Brady to complete short, underneath passes by pressing and attempting to jam the WRs at the line of scrimmage.

Baltimore mixed in more man coverage schemes, especially when the Patriots spread the field in the AFC Championship game, which allowed Tom Brady to attack/exploit favorable matchups – Aaron Hernandez caught hitch route for 8-yard gain on 2^nd possession of the game when matched up vs. Safety, Bernard Pollard.

When Offenses spread the field vs. the Ravens they tend to play more zone coverage concepts, as well as playing more 2-Deep Safety looks – Baltimore’s Defense is pretty predictable in regards to what to expect from them in general alignment and personnel in particular situations.

Baltimore’s Defense is susceptible to being attacked with screens, especially WR screens off play-action or movement because they can get themselves out of position because of their active Defense – the 49ers could have some success running screens in the Super Bowl and help create more hesitation and doubt for the Ravens.

In short yardage situations or Goal-to-Goal plays Offenses are better suited to attack the edges of the Ravens Front-7 because of the power and size on their interior defenders who do a good job of taking man blocking schemes and generating penetration (either spread the field or attack the outside in red-zone running schemes).

New England left some plays on the field on the outside with Brady not taking advantage of some of the isolation routes the Ravens’ Defense was allowing on the – with the Single-High schemes that Baltimore runs it places their outside CBs in 1-on-1 coverage situations in both man and zone coverage schemes (San Francisco can take advantage of this in Super Bowl XLVII).

There was some snaps where WR, Brandon Lloyd was matched on Nickel CB, Chykie Brown in man coverage that the Patriots did not try and attack down the field against man coverage – surprising the Patriots didn’t take some more vertical shots down the field (make the Ravens Defense account for vertical passing game).

Great scheme and execution on Wes Welker’s 1-yard TD catch in the 2^nd Quarter with the multiple pre-snap motions from Danny Woodhead into the backfield and then Welker into a stacked alignment behind Lloyd, which helped confuse the coverage and get Welker a free release on his out route for the TD.

New England’s 1^stHalf Personnel breakdown (45 Offensive plays):
*12 Personnel – 31 plays (69%); 11 Personnel – 11 plays; 13 Personnel – 2 plays; 23 Personnel – 1 play

Baltimore’s 1^stHalf Defensive Safety Alignment break down (42 normal situations plays):
*Single-High – 27 plays (64%); 2-Deep – 15 plays

Baltimore came out with a more conservative approach on the Patriots first possession of the 2^nd Half with playing primarily from 2-Deep Safety alignment to give more help in the passing game and to tempt New England to run the football – the first snap the Ravens went Single-High, dropping Ed Reed into the box, the Patriots attacked down the field and Brady hit Welker for 24-yard gain on seam route before Bernard Pollard could get there (49ers will have chances to attack Ravens passing the ball vs. Single High Safety looks).

After Welker’s big catch the Patriots took their shot down the field off of a fake screen to Wes Welker and TE, Aaron Hernandez running skinny post on outside CB, Cary Williams who had good coverage, but was still a 1-on-1 matchup and Hernandez slowed down and Brady overthrew him for an incompletion (potential big play).

Baltimore’s Front-7, especially their D-Line do a good job of slanting and stunting to beat blocks and create penetration in the running game to close down running lanes for opposing RBs.

On Wes Welker’s big 3^rd Down drop on the Patriots first drive of the 3^rd Quarter, the Ravens ran a match-up zone coverage scheme to basically help double both Welker and Hernandez with interior defenders (Paul Kruger and Haloti Ngata dropped out into flat coverage to help with the slot routes from Welker and Hernandez) – Welker won on his out route, beating Kruger before the deep defender could react to the throw, but Welker dropped the pass which would have extended the drive in Ravens territory (New England led 13-7).

On another 3^rd Down in the 3^rd Quarter (3^rd and 12) the Ravens went with 2-Deep Man Under coverage (Nickel Personnel) vs. the Patriots 11 Personnel (1 RB, 1 TE, and 3 WRs) causing Aaron Hernandez and Danny Woodhead to be matched on LBs (Dannell Ellerbe and Ray Lewis respectably) – the wide alignment of Terrell Suggs forced Hernandez to release inside him up the field helping to allow for Ellerbe to jam Hernandez to disrupt the timing he had with Brady, resulting in an incomplete pass and forcing a punt by the Patriots.

Baltimore clearly took a more aggressive coverage approach with a lot of press coverage with their CBs on the WRs of the Patriots – the Ravens seemed to dial up their man coverage tendency more in the 2^nd Half and they did not matchup to specific WRs or TEs, but instead just played whoever lined up over them (good example was on a 3^rd and 4 play with less than 9 minutes left in the 4^th Quarter where the Ravens played Man-Free coverage with press coverage across the board on all Patriots eligible WRs and Pollard did good job of jamming Welker forcing incomplete; Aaron Hernandez was covered by LB, Dannell Ellerbe once again on this play).

Baltimore lacks a reliable Nickel DB with using Chykie Brown who struggles to play in space, which he normally plays in because of aligning outside when he comes into the game – Brown was exposed on several plays in the AFC Championship game, which may be a recurring theme in Super Bowl XLVII from the 49ers attacking him or even Jimmy Smith from their Nickel Personnel with either a TE or WR (Baltimore will likely play from Nickel for majority of base situations in Super Bowl XLVII against San Francisco).

If the Ravens use this similar approach vs. the 49ers in Super Bowl XLVII with their coverage, look for San Francisco to scheme to attack both the LBs and Safeties with their dynamic TEs or WRs, especially in man coverage situations – San Francisco does a good job of attacking vertically down the field (Vernon Davis).

Ravens’ LB, Dannell Ellerbe did an excellent job in coverage in the AFC Championship game, not only in man coverage situations when he was matched up on Aaron Hernandez, but also when in zone coverage in how he showed good awareness and movement skills to reduce throwing lanes for Tom Brady.

New England’s 2^ndHalf Personnel breakdown (35 Offensive plays):11 Personnel – 25 plays (71%)
*12 Personnel – 10 plays

Baltimore’s 2^ndHalf Defensive Safety Alignment break down (35 normal situations plays):2-Deep – 22 plays (63%)
*Single-High – 13 plays

In the 2^nd Half the Patriots played much more from 11 Personnel (score and situation dictated this some later in the game), but this caused the Ravens to play from more 2-Deep Safety alignments to help in coverage – as a whole, the Ravens Defense took a conservative pass rush approach with only blitzing Brady on 10 of his 54 drop backs (18%) in the AFC Championship game, but a much more aggressive coverage approach with giving little space and limiting the Patriots WRs and TEs from getting clean releases up the field into their routes (excellent coverage approach with the Patriots not possessing a truly vertical receiving threat).

New England’s AFC Championship Personnel breakdown (80 Offensive plays):
*12 Personnel – 41 plays (51%); 11 Personnel – 36 plays (45%); 13 Personnel – 2 plays; 23 Personnel – 1 play

Baltimore’s AFC Championship Defensive Safety Alignment (77 normal situations plays):
*Single-High – 40 plays (52%); 2-Deep – 37 plays (48%)

Ravens’ RB, Ray Rice’s involvement in Baltimore’s Passing Offense is critical with how they design several different ways to get him the ball in space through the air – on the first 3^rd Down of the game in the AFC Championship game vs. the Patriots, the Ravens called a designed swing, screen to Rice out of the backfield behind the bunch formation, but the Patriots Defense played the screen well and forced the Ravens to Punt.

To start the game the Ravens clearly had a run first approach with running the football on 4 of their 5 first downs in the AFC Championship game vs. the Patriots, with having little success resulting in some stalled drives early in the game – once Baltimore started to spread the field and throw the ball they started having more success against the subpar Patriots Secondary, especially after the injury to CB, Aqib Talib.

After the injury too Talib, the Patriots used CB, Marquice Cole as their Nickel DB who aligned in the slot and matched up with Anquan Boldin on several key plays in the game when Boldin was aligned in the slot, and Kyle Arrington matched up normally with Torrey Smith (49ers CB, Carlos Rogers will likely match up with Boldin in the slot in Super Bowl XLVII, and Torrey Smith to get some extra coverage over the top with 49ers Safety).

The Ravens do a good job of attacking vertically down the field with wheel routes and rubs from routes out of the back field, usually with Ray Rice, but Baltimore took a shot down the field in the 1^st Quarter in AFC Championship with rub element on wheel route by TE, Dennis Pitta from his backfield alignment where Flacco was unable to connect with his TE (QB was under pressure) for potential big play where he beat New England Safety, Steve Gregory (ball went through/past Pitta’s hands).

Baltimore has implemented some more bunch/stack formations to help their WRs get free releases down the field and help create confusion and problems with the Defensive coverage schemes to give their QB more defined reads and further help their WRs get open in the playoffs.

New England took a conservative approach with their Safety alignment in the AFC Championship game vs. the Ravens with using a good amount of 2-Deep Safety alignment, especially after the injury to Aqib Talib because of their depleted Nickel Personnel package – the Patriots clearly wanted to make the Ravens have long drives with a lot of plays, forcing them to run the football and throw underneath passes.

In the AFC Championship game, New England mixed in some “lurk” coverage schemes from their Safeties to take away the intermediate throwing lanes for Joe Flacco and the Ravens passing attack (digs, curls, crosses) – the Patriots did not properly execute this scheme at times, which allowed the Ravens to complete some throws down the field.

Baltimore’s ability to throw the ball down the field on the outside to Torrey Smith will be key factor in how Super Bowl XLVII plays out with Joe Flacco taking his shots vs. the 49ers outside coverage defenders in CBs, Chris Culliver and Tarell Brown who are physical players with good size, but have some issues when transitioning down the field and trying to stay with speedy WRs vertically down the field.

In the AFC Championship game vs. New England, Baltimore went no huddle, hurry-up at times against the Patriots – an example was on a 3^rd Quarter TD pass to TE, Dennis Pitta with going empty from their 11 Personnel with aligning Rice outside away from the trips formation, which dictate Cover-0, man coverage and got Pitta matched up on Patriots’ Safety, Steve Gregory and he beat him with an out route for the easy TD (Baltimore went no huddle this whole drive to speed up the tempo of their Offense).

Baltimore’s O-Line did a good job of pass protecting for Joe Flacco in the AFC Championship game both vs. base pass rush schemes and pressure schemes (New England pressured Flacco on 10 of his 38 drop backs, 26% blitz frequency) – Ray Rice also did a good job of scanning and getting to the free rusher in pass blocking schemes.

Ron Jaworski host his 29th Annual Celebrity Golf Challenge to benefit his foundation – Jaws Youth Playbook

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San Francisco’s Offense played from the Pistol Formation on 34 of their 75 Offensive Snaps (45.3%) – 49ers ran 26 times for 209 yards (Kaepernick had 8 rushes for 102 yards and a TD; Gore had 16 rushes for 87 yards; LaMichael James had 2 rushes for 20 yards); Colin Kaepernick was not as good throwing the ball from Pistol going 3 of 7 for 31 yards with 1 INT and a Sack (8 total pass plays from Pistol).

Colin Kaepernick started last week’s game vs. the Packers a little out of control in how he was playing rushed and fast with being quick to move from the pocket when he perceived pressure and allowing his mechanics to break down to affect his reads and accuracy when throwing the football (started the game as a primarily a run around QB).

Green Bay played a lot of man coverage concepts vs. the 49ers last week, which gave Kaepernick quicker, more defined reads with where to go with the football, as well as normally using LB, Erik Walden to spy him to help prevent him from scrambling when he dropped back to pass – Walden and the Packers Defense was not consistently discipline in the game with their coverage concepts and defensive schemes.

Head Coach, John Harbaugh does an excellent job with play design and game planning to attack his opponents tendencies with route combinations and schemes to take advantage of favorable matchups for his Offense – good play design with route combination on Michael Crabtree’s first TD catch of the game with the man beater with natural rub with Crabtree’s under route coming open for Kaepernick.

Kaepernick showed the willingness and ability to make back shoulder throws on fade routes when the coverage is on top of the WR – possesses the arm strength and accuracy to make tough back shoulder throws (completed a couple of these throws last week vs. Green Bay).
Kaepernick clearly seems to struggle with reading the field and coverage vs. complex zone coverage schemes, especially when Defenses disguise their coverage which the Falcons do a good job of – when Kaepernick is unsure of what he is seeing his mechanics being to breakdown and his play becomes hectic and rushed (moves from the pocket to frequently).

Atlanta’s Defense did a good job of defending the Read Option of the Seahawks last week and made Wilson beat them throwing the ball – Wilson on had 2 designed runs for 3 total yards (none off of the Read Option) and Marshawn Lynch averaged less than 3 yards per carry (16 carries for only 46 yards).

The Falcons’ Front-7 did a good job of shedding blocks and getting to the football to close down running lanes for the Seahawks ball carriers in last week’s divisional round victory – interior D-Linemen, Jonathan Babineaux (quick interior player who defends the run well and has good pass rush skills) and Jerry Peria, along with their DEs and reserve Lineman, Vance Walker and Cliff Matthews did a good job of staying discipline and preventing big running lanes for Seattle’s ball carriers.

Atlanta did a good job of holding the edge and keeping contain vs. Russell Wilson and forcing the Falcons to run the ball between the tackles and the D-Line and LBs did a good job of holding their ground and getting off blocks to make tackles in the running game – Atlanta’s ability to stop the run early in the game allowed them to jump out to a 20-0 lead at the end of the 1^st Half.

Seattle had 22 Offensive Snaps from the Pistol Formation or with a Read/Option Element – 15 runs for 56 rushing yards (3.7 yards per carry) and 7 passes with Wilson going 4 of 6 for 96 yards and was Sacked once; 15 of Seattle’s 21 rushes came from Pistol/Read Option, but with little success (big impact on flow of the game).

The Falcons played very good team Defense, especially against the run and in the 1^st Half, but their Secondary and coverage struggled in the 2^nd Half to stop Wilson and the Seahawks’ passing game – 49ers’ QB, Colin Kaepernick has similar skill set of Wilson with ability to run and strong arm and could be a key factor in this week’s NFC Championship game (Kaepernick’s can extend plays and find WRs down the field).

Poor execution at the end of the 1^st Half prevented the Seahawks from attempting a Field Goal, which could have been the deciding points in the game, in not having your Field Goal team ready to run onto the field as soon as someone was tackled in the field of play – Head Coach, Pete Carroll should have had his Field Goal team ready to run onto the field with it 3^rd Down and no Timeouts so Russell Wilson cannot spike to stop the clock.

Seattle had a TD on the last play of the 1^st Half if Jonathan Babineaux didn’t immediate win and prevent Russell Wilson from throwing the ball down the seam to his TE, Zach Miller who was open and resulted in a Sack which ended the first half with the Seahawks leaving points on the field (missed 2 chances to score points in the 2^nd Quarter, with other one the Seahawks getting stopped on 4^th and 1 when in Field Goal range).

Atlanta’s Safeties, Thomas Decoud and William Moore are movable chess pieces in Atlanta’s Defense and like to disguise the coverage with their alignment in the pre-snap phase of the play, but they have the tendency to sometimes disguise themselves out of coverage, creating voids in the Defense for Offenses to exploit (Seattle’s TE, Zach Miller had 8 catches for 142 yards and a TD; 2 of which he was unaccounted for which led to big gains last week – big matchup is how Atlanta Secondary and mainly their Safeties handle the 49ers’ TEs, Vernon Davis or Delanie Walker).

Atlanta took a conservative approach in their pass rush schemes with generally using a mush rush and some sort of QB spy to mirror Russell Wilson and prevent him from tucking the ball down and running – the Falcons only blitzed on 7 of Wilson’s 43 drop backs last week (16%). Atlanta may send more pressure vs. the 49ers’ QB, Colin Kaepernick because of his struggles when pressured and bodies around him (Kaepernick ranked 17^th in the NFL vs. the blitz in the regular season), but need to remain discipline and stay in their lanes to prevent the explosive QB from tucking the ball down and taking off.

The Falcons’ DEs did not truly rush the passer off the edge or collapse the pocket, but instead seemed more worried about not rushing too much up the field and allowing Wilson to run underneath them, but this approach allowed Wilson to have all day to throw the football from the pocket – Atlanta needs to collapse the pocket and get bodies around Colin Kaepernick this week to cause him to play fast and rushed.

Seattle had success attacking the Falcon’s tendency to play 3-Deep zone coverages with their route combinations and passing schemes – Russell Wilson’s 26-yard completion to TE, Zach Miller on corner route on last play of the 3^rd Quarter was a concept designed to specifically attack the Cover-3 coverage of Atlanta with the three level stretch (from 12 Personnel, tight bunch formation), which helped open up huge throwing window for Wilson to hit Miller (similar concept San Francisco has used this year and they have even more explosive TEs in Vernon Davis and Delanie Walker).

BALTIMORE @ NEW ENGLAND (6:30pm)

An important matchup heading into this weekend’s AFC Conference Championship game is how the Ravens Defense is going to matchup and play against particular New England Offensive Personnel groups, such as their 12 Personnel (1 RB, 2 TEs and 2 WRs) which they do a great job of using to attack Defenses both by running and passing the ball.

On the first play of the game in their Week 3 matchup the Patriots played from 12 Personnel with TEs, Rob Gronkowski (who will miss the rest of the post-season with a broken arm) and Michael Hoomanawanui (Patriots TE, Aaron Hernandez missed Week 3 game with an ankle injury) and the Ravens matched up with Base Personnel and played a 3-Deep 4-Under zone coverage scheme and Tom Brady hit WR, Brandon Lloyd on curl route for 12-yard completion and 1^st Down.

Baltimore’s Defense played primarily from Single-High Safety alignments to get another defender (Safety) down around the line of scrimmage to both help vs. the and to help better play the quick, short passing game of the Patriots (on the 2^nd play of the game in Week 3 the Patriots threw a bubble screen from bunch formation to Julian Edelmen and Ed Reed was able to make the tackle for a 1-yard loss because of his tight pre-snap alignment).
The first time that New England played from empty formation from 11 Personnel (1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WRs) and splitting out a RB wide, the Raven’s did not matchup to the alignment, but just left their CB outside and ran a zone based coverage scheme.

Baltimore did a great job of pressure and coverage scheme on the Patriots first 3^rd Down play of the game (3^rd and 14) in matching up to New England’s 11 Personnel with Nickel, but Tom Brady wanted to go to Gronkowski matched on DE/OLB, Paul Kruger but Ravens’ doubled the Patriots’ TE with Safety Ed Reed coming from his deep Safety alignment to take away the dig route by the TE, resulting in Brady holding onto the ball and the Fire-X, 5-man pressure got to Brady for the Sack.

In Week 3 the Ravens matched CB, Lardarius Webb on Wes Welker because of his quickness and movement ability, but in this weekend’s AFC Conference Championship the Ravens will be without Webb and how they matchup to Welker and Hernandez this Sunday will be a pivotal part in the outcome of the game (CB, Corey Graham has been playing in the slot in Nickel Personnel since Webb’s injury).

Baltimore’s commitment to dropping one of their Safeties down around the line of scrimmage worked in limiting the Patriots ability to run the football with holding New England to only 77 rushing yards on 34 carries (only 2.3 yards per carry) – committing an extra defender to the run, also helps better defend the short passing game of the Patriots (screens, 1-step, 3-step).

On Brady’s 59-yard completion to Wes Welker in the 1^st Quarter came after the Patriots converted a 3^rd and 1 and went hurry up (Speed Offense), switching from 11 to 12 Personnel and taking a designed shot off play-action pass (twins formation) with Welker running wheel route behind the deep curl route of Deion Branch and got behind deep 1/3 CB – New England attacked the Single-High tendency of the Ravens to start the game, along with their zone coverage schemes.

New England’s use of their “Speed” Offense gives opposing Defenses problems on a weekly basis because of how they get you stuck in a specific Defensive Personnel that they like and they attack you both by running the ball or passing the ball.
Baltimore used a lot of slot pressure from their Safeties or CBs to help create edge pressure and help stop the run because of the immediate penetration off the edge (L. Webb, Ed Reed and Bernard Pollard; Corey Graham will be used more now with Webb injured).

With Baltimore’s Defensive approach, New England had some potential plays down the field, particularly down the seams with the 3-Deep (Single-High) looks – if Baltimore takes a similar approach this week in the AFC Conference Championship game, look for Tom Brady to take a few more shots down the field.

In the 1^st Quarter the Patriots ran 24 Offensive plays using 11 Personnel on 17 snaps, 12 Personnel 5 snaps and 13 Personnel on 2 snaps –and the Ravens played 20 of the 21 normal situation Defensive snaps (no short yardage or Goal-to-Go plays) from Nickel Personnel with 20 of 21 plays them aligning in a Single-High Safety look, using the other down around the box to help vs. the run or quick passing game.

In the 2^nd Quarter the Ravens played from more 2-Deep Safety alignments with more man coverage schemes underneath, but still did not matchup except for Lardarius Webb (Corey Graham could be who be the CB that Ravens match-up on Welker), matched up in the slot with Wes Welker with having their CBs just align outside and their LBs play on the inside vs. TE, Rob Gronkowski (wouldn’t be a good move vs. the athletic Hernanadez).

Baltimore switch their Defensive gameplan from a Single-High, zone coverage scheme in the 1^st Quarter to primarily 2-Deep, man coverage approach in the 2^nd Quarter in Week 3 vs. the Patriots – New England can seemingly dictate some interior matchups in the passing game vs. the Ravens coverage schemes (Welker and Hernandez are going to be a key factor in this weekend’s AFC Championship game).

In the 1^st Half in Week 3 the Ravens aligned in Single-High Safety alignment on 24 of their 34 (71%) Defensive snaps (not including Goal-to-Go plays), and in 2-Deep Safety looks 10 of 34 plays – Baltimore played from Nickel Personnel (with 5 DBs on the field) on 33 of their 39 Defensive snaps (85%) to better matchup to the Patriots Personnel. New England’s Personnel breakdown in the 1^st Half in Week 3 vs. the Ravens was 30 snaps in 11 Personnel, 7 snaps in 12 Personnel and 2 snaps from 13 Personnel. Baltimore had use some more Dime Personnel stuff with TE, Aaron Hernandez playing this weekend to matchup better is passing game.

New England used back-up TE, Michael Hoomanawanui to help secure their protection schemes from 12 Personnel to give them another pass blocker – Hoomanawanui was used as a wham blocker on a couple of plays to help secure the interior pass protection for Brady on the Ravens stout D-Line (Haloti Ngata).

On the first drive of the 2^nd Half the Patriots drove 80-yards in 12 plays scoring a TD to take the lead 27-21 in Week 3 vs. the Ravens – New England went No Huddle, hurry up for the whole drive taking advantage of the Personnel Baltimore had on the field (first 3 plays were from 12 Personnel and the last 9 plays were from 11 Personnel; last 2 plays were interior runs inside the Ravens 10 yard-line vs. their Nickel Defense).

Baltimore’s edge defenders, mostly their DBs did a good job of closing down on the ball carrier to make plays coming off the edge in the running game – Ravens get good run support from their CBs and Safeties.
Baltimore’s Defensive Personnel and Coverage breakdown in the Week 3 matchup between the Patriots and the Ravens (77 Plays):Single-High Safety alignment on 49 of their 67 (73%) Defensive snaps (not including 10 Goal-to-Go plays).
2-Deep Safety alignment on 18 of 67 plays (not including 10 Goal-to-Go plays).
Nickel Personnel (with 5 DBs on the field) on 60 of their 77 Defensive snaps (78%).

New England’s Offensive Personnel breakdown in their Week 3 matchup vs. the Ravens in 77 total Offensive Plays:11 Personnel (1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WRs): 56 snaps
12 Personnel (1 RB, 2 TEs, 2 WRs): 17 snaps
13 Personnel (1 RB, 3 TEs, 1 WR): 4 snaps

Baltimore was able to amass 503 total Offensive Yards vs. the Patriots Defense in their Week 3 game on only 65 Offensive plays (7.7 yards per play) – Ray Rice rushed 20 times for 101 yards and 1 TD; and Joe Flacco passed for 382 yards with 3 TDs and 1 INT (Torrey Smith caught 6 passes for 127 yards and 2 TDs).

To start the game in Week 3 the Ravens had 3 straight possessions without gaining a 1^st Down (all in the 1^st Quarter); with two 3 and out drives and Flacco throwing an Interception of the game on the first play of a drive.

On the first 3^rd Down of the game for the Ravens in Week 3 vs. the Patriots (first obvious passing down with 3^rd and 6) Baltimore was in 11 Personnel (1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WR) and New England matched up with their DIME package bringing in CB, Sterling Moore (know with the addition of Aqib Talib, Kyle Arrington is not the Nickel DB who aligns in the slot) and S, Tavon Wilson (still used as Dime DB now) into the slot over the Ravens TE, Dennis Pitta and WR, Anquan Boldin –Patriots ran 2-Deep Man Under coverage which allowed the man defenders to trail the WRs because of help over the top (Boldin caught a 5-yard pass off stacked release slant route, but had to punt).

Great play by Patriots’ Safety, Steve Gregory on 1^st Quarter INT of Joe Flacco in Week 3 in how he broke on seam route by TE, Dennis Pitta who got behind the LBs after the play-action fake, but Gregory was able to jump the route and make the Interception (Pitta should have bent his route towards middle of field more).

New England’s Defense seems to play a hybrid style coverage from their 2-Deep, Zone Coverage scheme with how if the outside WR releases outside on the CB they will run with the WR vertical (man coverage concept), but if the WR releases inside then the CB will play to his help coverage of the Safety (zone coverage concept) – the Ravens attacked this tendency in the 2^nd Quarter in Week 3 with Flacco hitting Torrey Smith for a 2^nd on vertical route off play-action from 12 Personnel where Safety, Gregory got caught inside and was held by play-action.
New England’s Defense has a lot of multi-talented defenders who have the skill set to play from different positions and alignments, such as Rob Ninkovich and Chandler Jones who are DE/OLB hybrids (Vince Wilfork).

Flacco did a good job in Week 3 of running the football against the Patriots 2-Deep Safety looks, which was their primary Defensive alignment and scheme – this week the Ravens need to establish the run early and often (should be able to run vs. the Patriots Front-7), which allows Flacco and the Ravens to attack the outside with isolation routes against man coverage on the outside (New England has begun playing more man coverage schemes since the addition of Aqib Talib to their Secondary, which is more improved).

Patriots’ LB, Brandon Spikes is downhill player who aggressively attacks blocks and plays the run very well, but lacks the quickness and change of direction skills to make plays in the passing game and can be exploited by opposing Offenses in coverage – Spikes reacts hard to run action and opens voids over the middle of the field.

Patriots’ Safety, Patrick Chung struggled in Week 3 vs. the Ravens to cover the needed ground to make plays in the back-end in coverage – Baltimore hit several throws down the field where the Patriots Safeties, Chung and Gregory (mostly Chung) struggled to make play on the ball (the addition of Talib to their Secondary allows the much more athletic and quick Devin McCourty to move from CB to Safety).

Because of the issues New England had in their Secondary early in the year, the Patriots were forced to play with a high majority of 2-Deep Safety looks and coverage schemes (mixing in man and zone coverage concepts) –Patriots played a variation of 2-Deep coverage looks on 25 of their 30 Offensive snaps in the 1^st Half in Week 3.

New England used a bulls-eye technique on Ray Rice on a play in the 4^th Quarter to prevent the tendency of Flacco and the Ravens to get the ball into Rice’s hands in the passing game, with using both Brandon Spikes and Dont’a Hightower to bracket Rice out of the backfield, but Rice’s patience in his option route caused Hightower to react to Flacco’s movement and Rice beat Spikes on an out route for the catch and run for a 27-yard gain.

On the Ravens last drive of the game in Week 3 vs. the Patriots, New England played 2-Deep Man under with trail coverage from the underneath man defenders on the first play and Flacco made an excellent back shoulder throw to Jacoby Jones on his vertical route because of the good position of Devin McCourty running with him for a 24-yard gain (same coverage scheme for the whole last drive of the game).

New England’s Defensive Personnel and Coverage breakdown in the Week 3 matchup against the Ravens (62 Plays, not including QB kneel and Goal-to-Go plays):2-Deep Safety alignment on 46 of 62 plays (74%)
Single-High Safety alignment on 16 of their 62

The Patriots used a mix of base, nickel and dime personnel to match up specifically to particular personnel sets of the Ravens in Week 3 – New England will likely have a slightly different coverage mindset with the improvements and adjustments they have made to their personnel.
Ravens’ Offensive Personnel breakdown in their Week 3 vs. the Patriots in 64 Offensive Plays (1 QB kneel):11 Personnel: 23 snaps
21 Personnel: 21 snaps
12 Personnel: 10 snaps
20 Personnel: 6 snaps
22 Personnel: 3 snaps
21 Heavy: 1 snap (short yardage; 4^th and 1 play)

Baltimore aligned in Single Back formation (both under center and from the shotgun) on 33 of their 64 Offensive snaps in their Week 3 game against New England, showing good formation and personnel variation to make the Patriots to account for several different things (their ability to spread the field and run is key factor heading into this weekend’s AFC Championship game.

Baltimore played a lot from Single-Back sets/formations last week vs. the Broncos to spread the field out and force the Defense to play from their sub packages (Nickel; 5 DBs) causing LB, Keith Brooking to come off the field (Brooking only on the field for 35 of 82 Defensive snaps last week).

The Ravens had repeated success running the football from 1 RB formations – Ray Rice rushed 30 times for 131 yards and 1 TD, with 21 of those runs coming from Single-Back sets totaling 110 of his 131 total rushing yards (84% of Rice’s rushing yards came from Single Back sets).
Last week vs. Denver, Baltimore’s Offense was as multiple as it’s ever been with their personnel and formation variation to create matchups and space for their skill players to make plays both in the running game and passing game, especially helping Ray Rice run the ball because it spread the field out more for him.

The Raven’s WRs and TEs still struggled to generate much separation and get open for Joe Flacco, who once again needed to make some tremendous throws to keep Baltimore in the game and eventual led them to the big road victory – Baltimore needs to continue to use scheme and concepts to help their WRs get.

Joe Flacco did a good job of in both the pre and post snap phases of the play in reading the Defense against both the pressure and coverage schemes to allow him make the correct reads and decisions last week in the Ravens playoff win in Denver.

On the Ravens game tying drive at the end of regulation last weekend the Broncos played from Dime Personnel to give them a Prevent coverage style Defense – the play before Jacoby Jones’ game tying 70-yard TD reception from Joe Flacco, Broncos’ Safety, Rahim Moore was aligned 19-yards from the line of scrimmage at the snap and on the TD pass to Jones he was aligned 4 yards closer, at only 15-yards from the line of scrimmage – Denver’s outside CBs should have carried the outside WRs vertically down the field to help the Deep Safeties better cover and play the 4 vertical routes by the Ravens, but because Jacoby Jones was not carried vertically down the field it caused Safety, Rahim Moore to stop his feet for a second which prevented him from getting the needed depth to make a play on the ball and Jones got behind him for the catch and game tying TD.

Ravens’ WR, Anquan Boldin has limited burst and quickness, but his tremendous toughness and ball skills allows him to make a lot of contested catches in critical situations – his strength and power make it difficult for DBs to press him at the line because he can run through the jam and get enough separation out of the break (smart, savvy WR who has measured athleticism but is accountable WR for Flacco and the Ravens).

Baltimore started the game with their Nickel Personnel to matchup to the Broncos 11 Personnel with moving starting, CB Corey Graham into the slot and normally matched up on Broncos slot WR, Brandon Stokley – the Ravens Nickel CB, was Chykie Brown who aligned on the outside to the left side of the field in the Ravens Nickel; Brown is the Ravens weak link in their sub package and will likely be attack this weekend by the Patriots.

The Ravens generally used Safety, Bernard Pollard to rotate down into the box to help out against the run or underneath routes when initially aligned from 2-Deep Safety look at the snap – Ed Reed was primarily used as the Ravens true deep defender because of his ball skills and range (Reed usually aligned to the field).

Last week the Ravens were using post-snap rotation with their Safeties to get from an expected 2-Deep look down to a Single-High Safety look, and vice versa with Pollard being used as the “lurk/robber” or in box defender to help defender underneath plays in both the passing and running game – Ravens usually aligned Pollard to the boundary and Ed Reed was deep defender aligned to the field.

Baltimore did not matchup their CBs with the Broncos WRs last week with leaving Cary Williams on the right and Chykie Brown on the left, with Corey Graham moving to whichever side the slot WR aligned at.
The Ravens don’t particularly disguise their edge pressure well, especially from the slot WR with how they stacked their Safety over top of Graham on several of the edge pressures they used last week vs. Denver.

Peyton Manning missed DeMaryius Thomas on vertical route in the 1^st Quarter last week vs. the Ravens on a play where Safety, Bernard Pollard came down as a “lurk” defender, creating void down the field for Thomas – it seem as if the Ravens game planned to take away the short and intermediate passing lanes for Manning last week with their style of coverage and challenged him to throw the ball down the field.

Baltimore mixed in a good amount of zone and man coverage concepts, along with them using Safety movement to disguise Single-High or 2-Deep coverage alignment in their back end coverage – when in man coverage schemes vs. 11 Personnel the Ravens used their Safeties (Reed or Pollard) to cover the Broncos TE because he (when playing from Single-High look).

Broncos’ WR, Brandon Stokley beat Corey Graham with double move from the slot for 15-yard TD in the 1^st Quarter, where both Manning’s eyes and Eric Decker’s dig route held the Safety to open out outside for TD.

In the 1^st Half of last week’s game vs. Denver, Baltimore used OLB, Terrell Suggs in coverage on several plays in this game to drop out into underneath coverage, but Suggs lacks the awareness and movement skills to have success in coverage – Ravens need to let their best pass rusher get after the QB play after play (Suggs did good job of getting his hands on WR or TE to affect their release up the field).

Because of the tendency of the Ravens to align Reed to the field and Pollard rotating down into the box in normal down and distances, there was a void behind Pollard’s initial alignment that could be attacked by an inside slot WR who runs a post or deep crossing route (look for New England and Brady to take a shot with Welker or slot WR/TE to attack this tendency this week) – the Broncos had slot WR open on post route behind Pollard’s rotation on a couple plays last week, but Manning did not take a shot.

Baltimore’s Defense was very predictable last week against the Broncos with their pre-snap alignment and schemes with almost exclusively aligning Ed Reed to the field and Bernard Pollard to the boundary (makes sense because of their skill sets), but mixed up some zone and man concepts with their underneath defenders.

Peyton Manning did a great job of identifying the pre-snap alignment of the Ravens Defense on 2^nd Quarter TD pass to Knowshon Moreno with Baltimore LB, Dannell Ellerbe aligned over him on the outside, which generally means man coverage – Moreno beat Ellerbe with stutter-go for the 14-yard TD pass (both of Broncos first 2 Offensive TDs were on double moves).

In the 1^st Half the Ravens Defense played from their Nickel Package on all 40 snaps and played 24 of those snaps with a Single High Safety alignment (60%), usually with a late rotation from Bernard Pollard as a lurk defender.
To start the 2^nd Half the Ravens played a little more 2-Deep Safety looks, especially when the Broncos where behind in the down and as usual Peyton Manning did a good job of running the football vs. a soft box (only 6 defenders in the box) and having ample success but no real big runs.

On the Broncos first drive of the 2^nd Half the Ravens showed primarily 2-Deep Safety looks and therefore on 3^rd and 5 Peyton checked into a run and the Ravens rotated Safety, Bernard Pollard into the box to help vs. run and short passing game –Ravens stopped Jacob Hester for 2-yard gain and forced the Broncos to Punt the football.

In 2^nd and 3^rd and Long, especially on 2^nd Down the Ravens had high tendency to play zone coverage from a 2-Deep Safety alignment, which is something the Patriots and Tom Brady can specifically attack this week in the AFC Conference Championship – base Cover-2 coverage in these situations.

Ravens’ LB, Ray Lewis is still an instinctive, downhill player who excels most when he can attack and make plays between the tackles, but lacks the same speed to make the plays he once did from sideline to sideline in defending the run or in pass coverage – Broncos’ TE, Joel Dreessen beat Lewis with whip route in man coverage in the 3^rd Quarter (Lewis slipped coming out of his break) for 9-yard gain (look for Tom Brady and the Patriots to try and attack Lewis in space). Ray Lewis was beat again on an out route in the 4^th Quarter by RB, Ronnie Hillman last week when he was in man coverage, once again showing his reduce movement skills.

Baltimore’s D-Line played very good against the Broncos last week with holding their ground and generating penetration to disrupt running lanes and pressure the QB – the Ravens have good D-Line depth and are very stout interior players in Haloti Ngata, Terrence Cody, Arthur Jones, and Pernell McPhee.

In the 2^nd Half last week vs. Denver the Ravens allowed their elite pass rusher, Terrell Suggs to line up and rush the passer, and Suggs had repeated success pressuring Peyton Manning (had 2 Sacks in the 2^nd Half, was flagged for hands to the face on one Sack) – Suggs plays with good leverage and power, using his hands to disengage.

Look for the Patriots to take vertical shots down the field when they are ahead in the down (likely to force the Ravens into a Single-High Safety alignment) and to the boundary because Ed Reed usually aligned to the field (especially attack Chykie Brown who is the biggest liability in coverage of the Ravens CBs).

Last week, late in the 4^th Quarter, holding a 35-28 lead the Broncos played from base personnel for the first time in the game (21 and 22 Personnel) and ran the football on 5 straight plays, eventually leading to a Punt but did take a good amount of time off the clock – it was surprising that Peyton Manning did not take a shot throwing the ball with the Ravens in their Base Defense and clearly selling out to stop the run with loading the box and even having a snap of Cover-0 with no Safety help and 1-on-1 coverage on the outside (Denver may have had more success with spreading the field and running the ball, especially with that being their normally Offense).

On the first possession in Overtime last week, Peyton Manning uncharacteristically decided to run the football with a clear Single-High look (Bernard Pollard down in the box to help defend the run) on 2^nd and 2 play and WR, Eric Decker matched up vs. Chykie Brown on outside, but instead Ronnie Hillman was stopped for only 1-yard on this run and then was stopped on 3^rd and 1 for no gain forcing the Broncos to Punt.

Ravens LB, Dannell Ellerbe is an aggressive LB who attacks quickly downhill on running plays and can be baited and exploited off play-action passes – Ellerbe did good job of shooting the gap on stop in Overtime on key 2^nd and 2 play to force a 3^rd and short and eventual Broncos Punt.

Peyton Manning threw only 1 pass attempt over 16-yards down the field last week vs. the Ravens (incomplete pass on go-route to DeMaryius Thomas in the 1^st Quarter; football traveled 32 yards in the air) in his 43 pass attempts – not sure if the cold weather prevented Manning from feeling comfortable attacking down the field; had several chances for potential plays down the field, but did not throw the ball deep.

Baltimore’s Defensive Personnel and Coverage breakdown last week in Divisional Playoff Round against the Broncos (86 Plays, not including 1 QB kneel):Single-High Safety alignment on 46 of their 86 snaps (53.5%)
2-Deep Safety alignment on 39 of 86 plays

Baltimore played exclusively from their Nickel Personnel, 80 of 86 snaps (93%), to match up with Broncos Offense (6 snaps the Ravens played Base were at end of regulation or in short yardage plays).The Ravens mixed in man and zone coverage schemes throughout the game, but generally used the same style Safety rotation (normally Bernard Pollard to give added help down around the line of scrimmage) – predictable game plan.

Baltimore likes to blitz off the slot with their CB or Safety and did it about 7 or 8 times last week vs. the Broncos.

The Ravens did a good job with their defensive game-plan and schemes in mixing things up to give Manning and the Broncos’ WRs multiple looks and coverage schemes to muddy their reads in the passing game, but on some plays where the correct coverage was called the Ravens just got beat physically by Denver (3^rd Down conversion in 1^st Quarter on pass to Brandon Stokley in the slot in which the Ravens had good coverage scheme with trail man with help over the top, but Stokley ran a great route and got open for the 1^st Down catch.)

Denver’s WRs run excellent routes with setting up defenders with their stems and how they attack them coming off the ball, as well working back to the football when coming out their breaks – both Stokley and Eric Decker did a great job of generating separation and working back to the ball in Week 15 vs. the Ravens (excellent job of Eric Decker of exploding out of his break on a comeback route and working back to the ball for a 9-yard catch in the 1^st Quarter on an outside isolation route).

Baltimore’s CBs struggle to stick with WRs out of their breaks down the field, having questionable transition skills and hips to redirect and change direction – Jimmy Smith struggled to open up and close on the football on Eric Decker’s 14-yard completion in the 2^nd Quarter in their Week 15 matchup which led to a TD.

Like usual Peyton Manning did a good job of taking what the Defense gave him in Week 15 vs. the Ravens with running the ball vs. light boxes and 2 Deep Safety looks (2 Deep Safeties = Run; 1 Deep Safety = Pass) – Denver rushed 43 times (most rushes in a game all season) for 167 yards, and Manning only had 30 drop backs in the game going 17 of 28 for 204 yards with 1 TD and no INTs (Sacked twice). Best example of running against a 2 Deep look would be on Knowshon Moreno’s 20-yard run in the 2^nd Quarter where Manning ran to the strong side bubble with the defensive alignment allowing for the double team to get up to the LB and open a huge running lane for the Broncos RB.

Denver beat Baltimore at their own game on several plays in their last game in Week 15 with winning their isolation match-ups on the outside and Manning completing several passes to outside the numbers on comebacks, curls and outs.

In Week 15 vs. Baltimore, Peyton Manning hit Eric Decker on 5 isolation routes too the outside prior to hitting him on the 51-yard TD with 10 minutes left in the 3^rd Quarter – Decker beat Ravens CB, Cary Williams on stutter-go on the outside and Manning saw that Ed Reed was playing too low in his coverage so he was able to make the throw over the top for the long TD catch to make the score 24-3  (good design to play off of all the outside, isolation routes and then taking a shot down the field off the double move).

In Week 15 vs. the Ravens, Peyton Manning completed 5 passes to Eric Decker for 65 yards on isolation routes (man-to-man, single coverage on the outside) prior to Manning connecting with him for the 51-yard TD on 1-on-1 coverage on the outside with (stutter-go) to beat the CB who was expecting another isolation style route.

Manning made a great throw on 28-yard completion to Joel Dreessen in Week 15 down the seam off play-action from 12 Personnel (1 RB, 2 TEs, 2 WRs), which held the underneath coverage of the LBs to allowed the Broncos TE to make the catch down the seam (great throw); Manning did a great job of quickly getting his head around and locating the TE after the play-action to be able to make the throw before Ed Reed could make a play on the ball (look for Manning and the Broncos to attack the Ravens underneath coverage defenders in their LBs this weekend, especially Ray Lewis who has struggled in coverage this season).

Denver’s Run Defense has been much better since veteran LB, Keith Brooking has been inserted as the starting MLB in Week 6 – from Weeks 1-5 the Broncos allowed 120.2 rushing yards per game (3.8 yards per carry and 4 TDs); then from Week 6-17 with Brooking starting Denver has allowed only 77.9 yards per game (3.54 yards per carry and only 1 TD).

Baltimore played from 21 Personnel (2 RB, 1 TE, 2 WRs) the 2^nd most in the NFL with 352 plays (lead the NFL with 210 rushes from 21 Personnel, 40 more than next team) and accumulated an NFL best 2,069 total Offensive yards from this personnel group, with a very balanced attack having 1,043 rushing yards and 1,053 passing yards form 21 Personnel.

Baltimore finally went to a 3 WR set in the 2^nd Quarter in Week 15 and forced the Broncos to go into their Nickel Personnel package and bring an additional CB on the field (taking LB, Keither Brooking off the field) and had much more success running the ball because of the light box and getting their RBs into space – look for the Ravens to play more from 3 WRs sets to dictate favorable matchups, especially for them to run the football (Baltimore’s Offense had a lot of success playing from 1 RB/3 WRs formation sets in Week 15).

In Week 15, Baltimore had 5 rushes for only 9 yards from 21 Personnel, but had much more success running the ball as the game progressed with running from Singleback formations in having 12 rushes for 49 yards (84.5% of Ravens rush yards in Week 15 vs. Denver came from 1 RB personnel sets).

Ravens’ RB, Ray Rice was indecisive and hesitant in Week 15 vs. the Broncos when running the ball with doing too much dancing and bouncing runs to the outside, instead of sticking to the design of the run and picking up the yards that were there (left plays on the field) – Rice’s inability to stick with the play design resulted in Baltimore not converting 1^st Downs on a couple of drives (Rice runs with questionable vision and feel).

Joe Flacco has showed some problems with reading the Defense prior to the snap and getting the ball out of his hands prior to the unblocked defender getting to him or affecting the accuracy of his pass attempt – at times Flacco does not seem to be on the same page with the pass protection schemes.

The Ravens have a simplistic Offensive approach with a lot of I-formation sets form base type personnel groups with the Broncos running a good amount of Cover-2 to take away Flacco’s tendency to throw isolation routes on the outside if the coverage allows it – Baltimore needs to become a little more multiple with its formation variation and play calling to make things more difficult for the Broncos Defense this week.

Baltimore doesn’t have a run blocking TE, both Dennis Pitta and Ed Dickson struggle to maintain blocks and control defenders on the edge in the running game, which affects the Ravens ability to run to the strong side of the formation and get to the edge in the running game at times – on the Ravens first drive of the game in Week 15 vs. Denver, Dennis Pitts got beat across his face by Von Miller stopping any chance for positive run.

In Week 15, Denver matched up CB, Champ Bailey with Ravens WR, Torrey Smith to negate his vertical receiving ability and limit the number of plays down the field Joe Flacco will be able to attack the Broncos Defense – this approach allows for Denver to scheme creative pressure schemes and coverage schemes to the other Ravens WRs and TEs (great play design and Defense on a 3^rd and 8 play in the 1^st Quarter with distorting the pass protection scheme of the Ravens and resulting in the Broncos getting a free rusher off the edge).

Denver’s Defense played with good discipline and positioning to limit easy reads and make things difficult for Joe Flacco and the Ravens Offense in Week 15 – Denver’s Front-7 work together well to defender the run and pressure the passé,r and the Secondary disguises coverage and works together in zone coverage schemes well.

On 10 of San Francisco’s 30 1^st Down plays vs. Green Bay in Week 1 they brought a 6^th Offensive Lineman on the field to help better protect Alex Smith when passing and have another big run blocker on the field (smash mouth style approach to game) – the 49ers gained seven 1^st Downs on 1^st Down in this game.

San Francisco used 6 or 7 Offensive Lineman sets a number of times in this game with using reserved Offensive Lineman, Leonard Davis and Daniel Kilgore, as well as DT, Will Tukuafu – clearly had a ground and pound game-plan vs. Green Bay’s Defense both in running the football or passing the ball from heavy personnel.

San Francisco has an excellent run blocking Offensive Line who work together well with mesh blocks and double teams in working up to the 2^nd (LBs) and 3^rd levels (DBs) defenders to clear paths for their RBs.

San Francisco WR, Michael Crabtree looked very sharp in Week 1 vs. Green Bay – good quickness and explosiveness when running his routes, helped Crabtree create separation and get open for Alex Smith (very good hands); Crabtree has emerged as the 49ers most explosive and consistent WR option this season.

The 49ers versatility and depth allows them to align in multiple formations and utilized several different personnel groups – San Francisco did a good job of using base formations and spread formations to dictate favorable match-ups for their skilled players (they got Crabtree matched on Packers LB, AJ Hawk from slot WR alignment in trips for 8-yard gain and 1^st Down; and CB, Jarrett Bush was matched on Frank Gore; also Crabtree beat Rookie LB, Nick Perry from middle slot of trips formation on slant route for 16-yard and 1^st Down).

San Francisco has the Personnel to operate from similar Personnel packages as New England with the talented TE duo of Vernon Davis and Delanie Walker (12 Personnel) and deep WR Corps (Randy Moss, Michael Crabtree, Kevin Williams, Mario Manningham) –consistent play of their QB is the unknown with Rookie, Colin Kaepernick.

Both of the 49ers’ TEs, Vernon Davis and Delanie Walker are dynamic athletes who can detach from the formation to create mismatches (both size and athleticism) on the outside (key matchup in this weekend’s Divisional matchup with the Packers Secondary, which is finally getting healthy).

49ers LT, Joe Staley did a solid job vs. the Packers dynamic pass rusher, Clay Matthews in Week 1 – Staley fought Matthews all game long, and although he got beat on a couple of plays, he held his own for the most part (good competitiveness and technique to reposition his hands and feet to stay with his blocks as the play wears on).

49ers’ FB, Bruce Miller is an excellent run blocker who takes good angles/paths and opens up lanes for Gore and Kendall Hunter, but struggles in pass protection schemes (lacks vision and understanding for picking up pressure schemes) – good technique and mechanics to position himself to make his blocks and stay on them.

San Francisco clearly game planned to attack the Packers from the inside out in their passing attack in Week 1, and had success doing this with their skilled WRs and explosive TEs (Vernon Davis was #3 in trips formation on his 4-yard TD in the 3^rd Quarter and just ran a basic out route with rub element from Delanie Walker in slot).

In their first match-up the Panthers rushed 30 times for 161 yards, and 1 TD vs. the Falcons in Week 4, with Cam Newton rushing for 48 yards on 4 rushes; and DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Steward combining for 89 yards on 21 rushes – Newton had solid day throwing the ball going 15 of 24 for 215 yards with 2 TDs and no INTs.

Carolina clearly felt comfortable with attacking the Falcons Safeties in Man Coverage situations when they got TE, Greg Olsen singled up on the outside – on the first play of the game the Panthers motioned Olsen out as X-Receiver alignment and ran hitch on outside for 5-yard gain and for another 34-yard completion in the 4^th Quarter when he was matched up on William Moore again (Seattle may look to get the Falcons’ Safeties in man coverage schemes and attack them this weekend).

Atlanta’s Defensive approach in Week 4 was to play primarily man coverage schemes to better commit defenders to stopping the running game of the Panthers, but in doing this it created an open edge when the Panthers aligned in a closed formation – on the 2^nd play of the game the Panthers ran a Read Option to closed side of formation where Newton kept the ball and ran for 32-yards to the outside.

On the 3^rd play of the game Falcons’ DT, Jonathan Babineaux did an excellent job of playing the mesh point of the read option by the Panthers and going from the QB to the RB to make the tackle on Jonathan Stewart for 1-yard loss (Babineaux was the unblocked defender on this play who Carolina was trying to put in conflict).

Carolina had more success running the read option when they attacked an edge defender instead of an interior lineman – Atlanta also struggled more when the Read Option placed the DE or OLB in conflict with the mesh point (Panthers had success optioning the DE, Kroy Biermann on their first play of the 2^nd Quarter in Week 4 where he reacted down to Cam Newton and DeAngelo Williams ran for a 10-yard gain; as well Williams 13-yard TD run in the 2^nd Quarter where they didn’t block OLB, Stephen Nicholas and had a huge hole up the middle).

The subtle changes in the read option schemes like whether the RB or QB is the interior or exterior runner places further confusion on the Defense – an example of this was how Cam Newton’s 32-yard run in the 1^st Quarter had him attacking the outside of the Defense and then on DeAngelo’s 10-yard run in the 2^nd Quarter, Newton’s run fake had him attacking the inside of the Defense which opened lane for D. Williams to run.

Carolina used great design and scheme on DeAngelo Williams 13-yard TD run in the 2^nd Quarter with the initial steps and flow of the Offensive Line and RB to the right to move and hold the weak-side LB and then “easy release” from the TE moved the strong-side LB, which opened up the huge cutback lane for Williams.

Atlanta had more success defending the run of the Read Option of the Panthers in Week 4 when they committed more defenders to the box and used some stunts/blitzes to create quick penetration to disrupt the blocking schemes and running lanes of the Panthers’ RB and QB (used Safety down into box more).

In the 2^nd Half of the Week 4 game against the Panthers the Falcons Safeties played more aggressive and noisy in reacting down into the box more quickly to better help reduce running lanes for Carolina, but in returned opened up the deep middle of the field for potential shots down the field passing the ball (expect Seattle to take their shots down the field against the Falcons in their match-up this weekend).

Carolina had repeated success in Week 4 against Atlanta running the Read Option with 112 rushing yards on 20 rushes and 1 TD (one additional true option run for 6-yards) – the Panthers did good job of creating hesitation and uncertainty for the Falcons Defense with the Read Option schemes (Atlanta’s Safeties did good job of attacking downhill and closing down running lanes on some plays in the 2^nd Half).

Once again the Panthers had success running the football vs. the Falcons in their Week 14 rematch in which they won 30-20 behind a huge game from Cam Newton who rushed for 116 yards and a TD (72-yard TD run) and threw for 287 yards and 2 TDs – Carolina rushed 27 times for 166 yards and 1 TD in Week 14 vs. the Panthers.

Excellent design and execution on Cam Newton’s 72-yard TD run in the 3^rd Quarter of the Panthers Week 14 win vs. the Falcons on their Read Option scheme – the down block by the LT and run fake to the RB occupied the “conflict player”, Kroy Biermann (Falcons DE) and the Panthers TE, Greg Olsen (who aligned in backfield to Newton’s right side in Shotgun) crossed formation and picked up the blitzing Safety, Thomas Decoud (good design to pick up the tendency of the Falcons to use their Safeties to fill running lanes) and Steve Smith sealed the CB on outside to allow for Newton to get to the edge for the long TD run.

In Week 14 the Panthers did not lean as heavily on the Read Option running schemes as much as they did in their first match-up against the Falcons, but they did incorporate more play-action schemes off the Read-Option run fake (8 times Cam Newton faked the Read Option style run to his RB and then dropped back to pass in Week 14) – Carolina had only 8 runs with Read Option element, but gained 104 yards including Newton’s 72-yard TD.

Carolina did a good job of mixing up their Read Option schemes with changing their blocking schemes, as well as which gap or hole they were attacking, as well as switching up the defender with whom they were putting into conflict without blocking – Seattle and QB, Russell Wilson have had repeated success over the last quarter of the season and in their Wild-Card Play-off win in Washington last week with Read Option schemes (run and pass); look for this to be an important factor in the outcome of this weekend’s Divisional Round game vs. Atlanta.

In 2 games vs. the Panthers and their dual threat QB, Cam Newton, the Falcons Defense allowed the Panthers to rush for 394 yards and 3 TDs (Atlanta’s two worst games in regards to run defense came in both the games vs. the Panthers), but their ability to run the Read Option is what caused the Falcons the most problems defensively – Panthers had 28 rushes for 216 yards and 2 TDs on Read Option runs in their 2 games vs. the Falcons.

The Redskins rushed for 129 yards on only 21 carries (6.1 yards per carry) in Week 5 vs. Atlanta’s Defense, with Alfred Morris running for 115 of those yards on 18 carries – Redskins’ QB, Robert Griffin, III was injured in this game with a concussion and only threw 15 passes causing Kirk Cousins to play a good amount (cousins had 9 pass attempts).

Washington had repeated success running the ball to the outside in Week 5 vs. the Falcons with designed tosses and sweeps in which they were able to secure the edge and allow for Alfred Morris room to run on the outside – Morris’ first 2 runs of the game were tosses to the left and he gained up 11 and 16 yards on consecutive plays.

Good scheme on 2^nd Quarter run by Morris with toss and design cutback to take advantage of the quick flow of the LBs who had already been beat on a couple of toss plays to the outside – Morris gained 13-yards on the design misdirection run (Seattle could attack or exploit the aggressive and fast flowing Defense of the Falcons with some deception plays both in the running and passing game this weekend).

Morris had another 29-yard run late in the 2^nd Quarter on toss play in which he did good job of cutting inside the fast flow of the play-side LB and the WRs did a good job of blocking the Safety and CB to allow for Morris to run for the big gain – Atlanta repeatedly struggled to defend the outside edge in the running game, allowing for the Morris to accumulate 81 of his 115 rushing yards vs. the Falcons in Week 5 on runs outside the OT (11 rushes to edge in the form of the toss, sweep, read option, or off-tackle zone read).

RG3 had success on a couple of plays on play-action pass of Read-Option run fake in getting the ball to his WRs behind the LBs who reacted to the run fake, but the Redskins only ran 1 true Read Option run play in their Week 5 game vs. the Falcons (2-yard loss by Morris).

Atlanta does an excellent job with their personnel groupings and formation variation to dictate favorable matchups in the passing game, especially with moving Roddy White around with pre-snap motions and/or aligning him in different tight, stacked, bunched formations to get him in favorable matches (free releases).

The Falcons alignment and formations, along with their personnel groups help dictate the likely scheme and coverage tendency of the opposing Defense, which not only helps Matt Ryan read the field and go through his progressions, but get the Falcons skill players in favorable matchups (46 completions of 20+ yards, 7 for TDs).

In Week 5 vs. the Redskins, Atlanta motioned Roddy White from his slot alignment in the backfield next to Matt Ryan’s right in the Shotgun with tight, stacked formation to same side of White with Tony Gonzalez and Harry Douglas (basically a variation of a bunch formation) causing the Redskins to play zone style coverage and getting Roddy White matched up on ILB, London Fletcher who he beat on angle/arrow route over the middle for 20-yard completion (excellent play design and scheme).

In Week 10 vs. New Orleans the Falcons used motion from tight, stacked formation to have Roddy White cross the formation to give Matt Ryan a clue that the coverage was likely a zone scheme with no defender going White across the formation and the route combination of White’s corner route and the underneath out route by Tony Gonzalez put the CB in a bind and allow for Ryan make the throw to White for 26-yards on corner route.

In Week 11 vs. Arizona the Falcons were in 20 Personnel with 3 WRs on the field and Roddy White and Harry Douglas were aligned in tight, stack alignment to allow for free releases up the field and it disrupted the 2-Deep Man Under coverage schemes because the Cardinals DBs had to trade off WRs and White beat CB, William Gay on his deep crossing route for the 26-yard completion (good scheme, design and execution).

Of Roddy White’s 18 catches of 20+ yards, only 5 of them came with him in a normal split (wide alignment) between the numbers and the sideline, with 13 of his receptions coming with him aligned either in a tight, stacked, bunched or in the backfield formation – Atlanta will also motion White at times to change his pre-snap alignment (White clearly is the Falcons’ movable chess piece on their Offense).

Atlanta likes to secure its pass protection schemes and take some shots down the field when they align in tight, stacked or bunch formations to allow QB, Matt Ryan the needed time to throw the ball down the field to his explosive WRs, Julio Jones and Roddy White.

White is the movable chess piece in the Falcons’ Offense who will align from all over the formation (split wide, slot, wing, backfield, etc…) and is a more complete WR than Julio Jones in regards to his route tree and variety of patterns he will run for the Falcons Offense – Jones is a vertical WR who is great size/speed combination.

New England does as good a job with Personnel and formation variation to dictate favorable matchups in both the running and passing game – Week 14 vs. Houston the Patriots and Tom Brady repeatedly attacked the Texans LBs and Safeties in getting them matched up on TE, Aaron Hernandez (beat LB, Bradie James on out route for his 1^st TD of the game) and WR, Wes Welker on several plays for key completions.

Brady is one of the best QBs in the NFL of researching and reading the Defense prior to the snap and getting his team into optimum looks to place his Offense in the best situation to be successful on a play to play basis (will attack defenses based on matchups and schemes based on which best would attack the Defensive alignment) – when Brady has the particular matchup he likes he will speed up the tempo of the Offense and run hurry-up to prevent the Defense from making any substitutions.

New England’s Offense Line does a good job of working together to pick up D-Line stunts and pressure schemes in trading of defenders to prevent clean rushers at Brady, but at times their mechanics break down at the point of contact causing them to get driven back in the pocket at times (Brady like most QBs struggles when he is forced to move his feet) – Patriots O-Line does a good job playing to their schemes, but can be beat physically.

Tremendous play design and scheme on Brandon Lloyd’s 1^st Quarter TD pass in Week 14 vs. Houston – New England was in 13 Personnel (1 RB, 3 TEs, and 1 WR) and ran hard outside zone play-action fake with all Offensive Line stepping in unison to sell the run hard and Lloyd’s hard stem inside sold the crack back on the Safety and allowed him to get over top the Secondary (the Patriots ran similar zone run play-action pass on the play before Lloyd’s TD from same personnel, but just different formation).

Another cool concept within the Lloyd TD pass in Week 14 vs. the Texans was the subtle protection scheme concept with their Center, Ryan Wendell pealing back with Brady’s bootleg action and sealing the backside edge to allow for Brady to have clean pocket to throw from.

Tom Brady did a good job of changing the strength of the formation with motioning the TE across the formation after the Texans Defensive Front aligned (J.J. Watt normally aligns to the strong side of the formation in normal down and distances, especially running situations), which allowed the Patriots to run away from Watt – 2^nd play of the game vs. Texans in Week 14 they motioned run blocking TE, Michael Hoomanawanui away from Watt across the formation and used him to wham block the DT (Antonio Smith) to open up running lane for Stevan Ridley for the 14-yard run.

New England did a great job of formation and personnel variation to create confusion, hesitation and uncertainty for the Texans Defense in their Week 14 game – the Patriots and Tom Brady do a good job of playing with fast tempo and forcing opposing Defenses to play out of position and with poor discipline.

Houston matched up to the Patriots in Week 14 with their Dime Personnel package with 6 Defensive Backs on the field with bringing in Safety, Quentin Demps and Brandon Harris to better match-up vs. New England’s WRs/TEs/RBs – the Patriots picked apart the Texans Dime Package and that was without TE, Rob Gronkowski who gives them another dynamic pass catcher who dominates the middle of the field (tremendous run blocker).

Early in the game in Week 14 against the Patriots, J.J. Watt had little success generating much pressure on Brady in passing situations with New England sliding to Watt and double teaming him at times – Watt’s play improved in the 2^nd Half and he was able to get some QB pressure both from the inside and outside (Watt could be moved to edge in passing situations more in this weekend’s game to help dictate single blocking from the Patriots OTs; Watt quickly beat Nate Solder off the edge and hit Brady forcing incomplete pass in the 3^rd Quarter).

On last TD pass of the game in Week 14 vs. the Texans, Houston doubled both Wes Welker and Aaron Hernandez on a 3^rd and 10 play, which forced Brady to make an excellent throw down the field to Donte Stallworth in tight coverage – look for the Texans to try and take away Brady’s primary targets on crucial plays in this weekend’s game and force the Patriots complimentary players to make plays to beat them down the field.

Since the addition of Aqib Talib the Patriots Secondary has improved and given them added depth with allowing Devin McCourty to play Safety (athletic back end cover guy with good range) and starting Rookie DB, Alfonzo Dennard opposite of Talib, allowing Kyle Arrington to play as their Nickel DB – improved depth and ability in the Patriots Secondary, but still vulnerable at times down the field in pass Defense.

When the Texans went empty in their Week 14 matchup vs. the Patriots, New England blitzed the formation and ran Cover-0 with no deep help over the top to force Matt Schaub to have to get the ball out of his hands quickly because of the unaccounted defender in pressure scheme – a pivotal matchup this week, is how Schaub will handle the Patriots pressure schemes.

In Week 14 vs. Houston, New England’s Defense ran a variety of different looks with mixing in multiple pressure schemes, as well as running coverage based schemes with rushing only 2 defenders and dropping 9 out into coverage (mixed up their coverage schemes well in this game) – attempt to confuse Matt Schaub and cause uncertainty in his reads (still are some voids an openings down the field vs. Patriots’ Defense).

On Matt Schaub’s first INT in Week 14 game vs. New England (1^st Quarter) he did a poor job of holding/moving the Free Safety, Devin McCourty and allowing the DB to make the play on the skinny post route by Kevin Walter (Walter did poor job of widening the CB and could have given more space for the throw to be completed with widening his stem) – Patriots’ pressured Schaub on the play and his mechanics and discipline broke down (stared down the WR) resulting in big turnover early in the game, deep in New England’s territory.

Patriots’ DT, Vince Wilfork played a phenomenal game in Week 14 vs. the Texans and was a big reason for why the Texans had little success running the football with holding their explosive RBs to less than 4 yards per carry – Wilfork did a great job of holding his ground vs. double teams and scraping over the top of blocks and making plays on runs away from him (Wilfork finished with 4 tackles, 1 Sack, 1 pass defensed, and a forced fumble).

Patriots’ DT, Trevor Scott played 38 snaps in Week 14 vs. the Texans with Rookie DE, Chandler Jones a little dinged up; Scott showed good athleticism and versatility in playing the run, rushing the passer and dropping out into coverage – Scott showed good movement skills to run with Texans’ TE, Owen Daniels on seam route when he dropped out into coverage on a play in the 1^st Quarter.

Houston has struggled to find a 2^nd receiving option behind Andre Johnson this season with Kevin Walter being the 2^nd leading Wide-Receiver on the Texans with only 41 catches and 518 yards, which causes Houston to struggle to win on the outside when opposing Defenses take away Andre Johnson – in Week 14 vs. the Texans only Lester Jean (2 catches for 31 yards), DeVier Posey (1 catch for 19 yards), and Keshawn Martin (1 catch for -4 yards) had catches other than Andre Johnson for the Texans. Houston needs to find another reliable and consistent pass option for them to improve their Offensive consistency (Andre Johnson had 1,598 receiving yards and all other WRs had only 841 receiving yards).

New England kept their Safeties tight to the hashes in their 2 Deep Man Under coverage schemes to help prevent the Texans from making throws down the middle of the field, between the numbers – the Patriots CBs did a good job of playing trail technique and playing to their help over the top from their Safeties.

In the middle of the 2^nd Quarter the Texans had a play where they had only one option for Matt Schaub off of play-action fake to Foster (stretch run fake) and Andre Johnson ran a deep post route and the Patriots had good coverage on it, which forced Schaub to throw the ball away (poor play design with only on receiving option).

 
On Dalton’s 2^nd pass attempt of the game in Week 15 vs. the Eagles he had wide open WR on angle route from inside alignment of trips on Red-Zone play, from bunch formation with the design of the play working perfectly with the WR beating the coverage, but Dalton didn’t pull the trigger and pulled the ball back down and the play resulted in a Sack – needs to trust what he is looking at and get the ball out within the rhythm and timing of the play (indecisive and hesitant at times).

 
Dalton struggled vs. Philadelphia with seeing the field and reading the Defense, as well as reacting to pressure and bodies around him causing him to move prematurely in the pocket and even move into the pressure at times, resulting in him leaving several plays on the field.

 
Cincinnati had great play design on Dalton’s Sack, Fumble in 2^nd Quarter in Week 14 vs. the Eagles with double move on stutter-go from slot WR where RT, Andre Smith quickly got beat due to his poor mechanics and technique with dropping his back foot and leaning at Eagles DE, Brandon Graham who beat him to force the fumble – Dalton could have anticipated the coverage and route and threw with urgency to get the ball down the field on this particular shot play (poor blocking resulted in missed opportunity).

 
Andy Dalton has been highly inconsistent and inaccurate at times this season which has resulted in the 2^nd year QB leaving a number of possible big plays on the field this season, even though he has had a statistically strong season for the Bengals – Dalton will need to improve his play if Cincinnati will have any hope of advancing past the Texans in their Wild-Card game this Saturday.

 
Andy Dalton and the Bengals Offensive Line will need to fine-tune their play heading into this week’s Wild-Card matchup vs. the dominate Texans’ Defensive Line – the inconsistency on Offense has resulted in some negative outcomes for the Bengals versus better teams and they may look to give Dalton extra help with max protection schemes and/or chips and nudges by his TEs and RBS.

 
Houston’s Offense is most efficient and productive when they can stay on schedule and ahead of the down by effectively running the ball to prevent getting into 3^rd and long situations – Houston ranks tied for 20th in the NFL on plays of 3^rd and 8 or more plays, with converting on only 33.3% of those plays into 1^st Downs.

 
The Texans ability to keep Defenses honest to defend both the run and pass correlates to more consistent success generating explosive plays in the passing game and sustaining drives, in return it leads to more points being scored and allows their dominant D-Line and pressure schemes to dial up QB pressure and cause havoc for opposing Offenses – their overall team success and level of play is most directly related to the success of their Offense to sustain drives and stay ahead of the down (Houston is not built to play from behind where they must rely on Matt Schaub to drop back and pass every play – he is a better game manager than every down passer).

 
The Vikings are a one dimensional Offense whose success relies almost entirely on the success of their running game and Adrian Peterson – Minnesota’s passing attack is a simplistic, either/or game-plan that puts little onus or stress on Christian Ponder (high majority of pass attempts are 10-yards or under).

 
Vikings’ QB, Christian Ponder is scattershot QB who is quick to move in the pocket, even when he has ample time to step up and make a throw – hurried and hectic QB whose mechanics and technique are inconsistent to say the least (poor footwork on his drops and throwing mechanics).  A prime example of Ponder’s play would be on a play in the 2^nd Quarter in Week 12 vs. the Bears where he had a WR open down the middle of the field and he moved into pressure causing him to underthrow his WR and result in INT (had room to step up and make throw with proper mechanics).

 
Green Bay had a very balanced Offense in their Week 13 win vs. the Vikings with rushing 32 times for 137 yards (James Starks ran 15 times for 66 yards and Alex Green rushed 12 times for 58 yards) and Aaron Rodgers dropped back 41 times going 27 of 35 for 286 yards with 1 TD and 1 INT (Sacked twice).

 
Minnesota did a good job of mixing up their pre-snap looks to muddy the field for Packers QB, Aaron Rodgers in Week 13 – the Vikings used a good amount 2 Deep Safety alignment to better protect the back end coverage with the explosive Green Bay passing attack.

 
Minnesota played primarily from Nickel Personnel in Week 13 vs. the Packers and their pass heavy Offense, which allowed the Packers to have better fronts to run against – the Vikings move CB, Antoine Winfield into the slot in Minnesota’s sub packages and the Nickel CB, AJ Jefferson aligned outside.

 
Green Bay took advantage of the Vikings’ Nickel CB, AJ Jefferson on their opening drive on James Jones 32-yard TD catch where Rodgers took shot down the field with single coverage after the Safety came down to cover the dig route by slot WR, Randall Cobb – Jones made contested catch in the end-zone for the TD where Jefferson struggled to find and play the ball (questionable ball skills).

 
On several plays in Week 13, Vikings CB, Antoine Winfield motioned across the formation with the Packers WR prior to snap, which generally is clue to potential man coverage from the Defense (and the Vikings outside DBs also had inside alignment prior to the snap to sell the illusion of man coverage) but instead the Vikings ran base Cover-2 on several occasions to confuse Rodgers post-snap reads.

 
Antoine Winfield also does an excellent job of disguising the coverage from the slot with carrying the slot WR up the field and then releasing off him and reacting to the route combination to confuse the reads for opposing QBs (just like in Week 13, Aaron Rodgers and the Vikings coverage schemes will be pivotal chess match in this week’s critical game).

 
Throughout the Week 13 game, Minnesota’s Defense often won in the first phase of the play because of their multiple and complex coverage schemes causing Rodgers to have to improvise to make plays, which he did a good job of on several occasions – the Vikings won early in the play, but Rodgers and his athleticism won late in the play.

 
Minnesota used a conservative Defensive approach against the Packers and their dynamic Offense led by Aaron Rodgers with only blitzing the Pro-Bowl QB on 3 of his 41 drop backs (only 7%) and used a high majority of 2-Deep Safety looks to stop the pass first and make Green Bay run the football.

 
Minnesota’s Defensive Line was able to generate pressure and collapse the pocket around Aaron Rodgers in Week 13 forcing him to move from his launch point and extend plays with his legs – Rodgers ability to make plays with his legs, allowed him to keep plays alive when the pass protection broke down in their first matchup (dual threat QB).

 
Minnesota ran some more Man Coverage schemes late in the game vs. Green Bay in Week 13 and had some success – the Vikings felt comfortable matching up Safety, Harrison Smith with Packers TE, Jermichael Finley on the outside in passing situations, but Finley did beat Smith for 7-yard gain on slant route on a 3^rd and 5 play in the 4^th Quarter (could be a match-up to follow this weekend in the rematch).

 
Minnesota played from a 2-Deep Safety Alignment on 54 of the Packers 73 total Offensive plays in Week 13 (74%) and only aligned with a single Deep Safety on 19 plays – of Green Bay’s 41 drop backs against the Vikings in Week 13 Minnesota played 32 of those snaps with some sort of Zone Coverage concept (78%); Minnesota played Man coverage on only 9 of Green Bay’s passing plays in Week 13 (22%).

 
Adrian Peterson continued his fairy tale of a season by running over the Packers defense in week 17 for 199 yards – Peterson ran for 409 yards in the 2 regular season games vs. Green Bay on only 55 carries, a crazy 7.43 yards per rush.

 
Peterson had repeated and consistent success running the football from closed formation sets in Week 17 vs. the Packers and running the ball to the closed side of the formation because it required Secondary players like Tramon Williams of the Packers to have to play as a force defender and Peterson ripped off 4 runs of 20+ yards from straight I-Formation sets.

 
Vikings talented TE, Kyle Rudolph showed up in Week 17 vs. the Packers both as a blocker, showing very good strength to take on defenders and control them in the running game (and even put Clay Matthews into the dirt on one occasion), as well as the showing proper technique to make him an all-around effective blocker at the line of scrimmage.

 
In the 2 games vs. the Packers, Peterson had tremendous success running the football behind his bruising FB, Jerome Felton (NFC Pro Bowl FB) – Peterson had 41 of his 55 carries with Felton leading his way and an amazing 339 of his 409 total rushing yards in the two contests.

 
The majority of the times Peterson had received a handoff in the last several weeks of the season opposing Defenses had loaded the box with 8+ people, but he still amazing had repeated success rushing the ball, which is a testament not only to his special ability, but to the determination with which he competes – not to mention the great play of his Offensive Line and his FB to pave running lanes for him to attack.

 
A key match-up in this week’s Wild-Card rematch between the Vikings and the Packers is Green Bay’s DT, B.J. Raji vs. the Vikings’ LG, Charlie Johnson – in Week 17 Johnson consistently struggled and was controlled/dominated by Raji (could be key factor in Packers success to slow down Peterson and the Vikings running game).

 
A.J. Hawk has been inconsistent this season and has struggled to defender the run this season – Hawk continuously gets blown up by fullbacks, and rarely gets off a block successfully, as well as lacking the needing athleticism and movement skills to get to the football on edge plays (a number of Peterson’s big gaining runs against the Packers have been a direct result of A.J. Hawk losing a battle; look for Minnesota to run at Hawk this weekend).

 
Colts’ Rookie QB, Andrew Luck’s pocket presence and feel for bodies around him is far beyond his years in how he does a great job of protecting the ball within the pocket until he decides where he wants to throw the ball – tremendous job of sensing pressure and subtly moving to buy more time to throw the football.

 
Luck’s inexperience, vision and mobility vs. the Ravens multiple looks and blitz disguise is keep component in this week’s play-off game – Baltimore does a great job of mudding the field for opposing QBs and creating hesitation and doubt of what they are seeing (not always blitzing QB, but blitzing protection scheme instead).

 
Andrew Luck has the complete skill set needed for success in the NFL with his deceptive athleticism and movement skills, which allow him to elude the pass rush and keep plays alive with his legs; he also has tremendous pocket mobility and presence, as well as the vision to go through his progressions and find his targets down the field; lastly his arm strength and accuracy allows him to have success throwing down the field into tight windows, which is needed in the NFL and in critical 3^rd and Long situations.

 
Indianapolis and Rookie QB, Andrew Luck have surprisingly been especially efficient and productive in 3^rd and Long situations, with converting 43.2% of 3^rd and 8 or longer pass plays, leads the NFL with 13 first downs on 3^rd and 10+ situations.

 
The Colts showed the high tendency to align in a 3 by 1 set with trips to one side of the field and they like to align TE, Dwayne Allen as the inside WR or TE alignment – Allen will sometimes be used to chip the edge pass rusher to help secure the pass protection for Luck prior to releasing down the field.

 
A great example of this 3 by 1 set with Allen in as the most inside WR, would be against the Bills in Week 12 on a 3^rd and 16 play where Allen chipped the DE and delayed release as check down WR and the stacked release on the outside allowed for the 2 WRs to get clean release up the field on vertical stretch with Wayne running deep crossing/dig route – the RBs route out of the backfield held the backside LB down and Luck’s movement up in the pocket controlled the middle LB, opening up the lane across the field for Wayne to make the catch for a 25-yard gain (great ball security and pocket presence by Luck on this play to buy just enough time to get the throw off).

 
Indianapolis’ ability to attack opposing Defenses down the field and convert on 3^rd and Long situations have allowed the Colts to sustain drives and give their Offense more plays and opportunities to generate points – Indianapolis ranks 10^th in the NFL with averaging 362.4 Total Offensive Yards per game and is scoring 22.3 points per game, behind their talented Rookie signal caller.

 
The Ravens executed an excellent stretch run with good backside seal block (cut block by RT, Kelechi Osemele) to allow for Ray Rice to cut back and get through huge running lane for the big 46-yard gain on the 2^nd Offensive snap of the game for the Ravens in Week 14 vs. the Redskins – on Baltimore’s first drive of the game the Ravens aligned in primarily I-formation sets (straight and off-set) and had cutback design built into their called run plays (Ray Rice ran for 63 yards on the first 3 plays of the drive).

 
Baltimore RB, Bernard Pierce is a solid all-around back who has good size, speed and quickness as a runner and has good balance and body control to keep his feet after contact is made – physical, tough runner who finishes off his runs (capable WR out of the backfield; good compliment to Ray Rice).

 
Good play call on TD pass to Anquan Boldin in Week 14 vs. Washington on out and up route to bait the Redskins Secondary to think Joe Flacco was going to throw his normal Isolation routes on the outside and Boldin beat the CB for the TD – Baltimore played from base 21 Personnel, I-Formation sets for the whole possession on their first drive of the game (expect Baltimore to adjust some things to take advantage of their tendency to throw outside on isolation routes).

 
Under former Offensive Coordinator, Cam Cameron, the Ravens were a predictable Offense who rarely strayed from their expected game-plan (basic, simplistic formations and concepts), especially when they are playing from in front – over the last couple of weeks the Ravens did sprinkle in some new schemes and formations to help their WRs get open down the field for Flacco, such as bunched or stacked formations (good scheme on Jacoby Jones’ 24-yard completion from bunch formation in Week  17 vs. Cincinnati.

 
Ravens’ LT, Michael Oher plays with poor mechanics and technique when pass setting to protect Flacco – Oher lacks the foot speed and general athleticism to kick-set and slide to stay in position to make his blocks in pass protection schemes. Oher is a concern and possible liability in their Wild-Card match-up vs. the Colts and their speed, edge rushers – look for Baltimore to give him some help with chips and nudges from RBs and/or TEs.

 
On Flacco’s 3^rd Quarter INT last week vs. Washington he failed to read the Cover-0, all-out blitz by the Redskins which resulted in a free edge rusher and Flacco held onto the ball too long allowing for OLB, Ryan Kerrigan to hit him in his throwing motion resulting in the ball going up into the air and London Fletcher picking it off for the huge turnover (Flacco has struggled at times with blitz/pressure schemes at times this year; Indianapolis may have some success with mixing in some blitz concepts in this week’s Wild-Card match-up).

 
Washington used a specialty blitz vs. the Ravens’ 3 by 1 Formation in Week 14 (trips to one side and single WR to the other) with bringing double slot pressure to the 3 WR side and running a trap coverage behind it with Single Safety Rotation with man coverage on the backside; and Joe Flacco and Baltimore struggled vs. this scheme, but the Redskins are vulnerable down the middle of the field if the inside most WR in the trips formation runs vertically down the field because the LB must account for him in a man coverage concept (look for Seattle to try attack this tendency of the Redskins this week with their athletic TEs).

 
Seattle has shown great execution running zone Read Option plays over the last 4 weeks of the regular season in which the Seahawks won all 4 games and clinched a playoff spot – Rookie QB, Russell Wilson having good feel for when to hand the ball off and when to keep it himself (Seahawks have had success running the Read Option over the last 4 weeks with gaining 7.3 yards per rush on read option plays and have been in the pistol on 30% of this rushes).

 
Seattle utilized the Read Option fake to set up the pass in Overtime vs. the Bears in Week 13, which helped create uncertainty and hesitation for the Bears Defense because of the success they had running the Read Option previously and it allowed Wilson to get out on edge and find WR, Sidney Rice on crossing route for the game winning TD – 10 of Seattle’s 12 plays on their game winning drive in Overtime in Week 13 vs. the Bears had a Read Option element to it with either Russell Wilson keeping the ball to run, him handing it off to the RB to run, or him pulling the ball out to throw the football – excellent play design and execution to exploit the conflict they put on the Bears Defense.

 
In the last couple of weeks of the season Seattle became more multiple and versatile with their formation variation and personnel groupings, which has caused opposing Defenses more difficultly with matching up to stop both their rushing and passing attacks – Seattle’s Offense has become multi-faceted and is difficult to game-plan and match-up with because of the athleticism and versatility of their Rookie QB, Russell Wilson.

 
As a lot of teams have done this season, Buffalo struggled to play disciplined and account for both the QB and RB in the Read-Option schemes of the Seahawks in Week 15, which opened up big running lanes for both Lynch and Wilson – opposing Defenses need to commit specific players to stop the RB and QB (emergence of the true option in the NFL this season have create problems for Defenses, especially with the new young, athletic QBs).

 
Russell Wilson has good feel and understanding for tucking the ball down and running when opposing Defenses are unable to keep him in front of them and give him a lane to step up and run, especially vs. Man Coverage, Wilson will hurt you with his feet (dual threat who is a pass first QB who does good job of keeping his downfield focus when extending plays with his legs).

 
When in the Red-Zone, Seattle likes to run trips formation with both inside WRs running vertical routes against Zone Coverage and the outside WR running under route to give him space to run after the catch (Golden Tate’s TD catch to tie the game vs. Bears in Week 13), and when the Defense is in Man Coverage the inside WRs run out routes (middle slot runs short out and inside slot runs deeper out) with outside WR running under route off this natural rub element from route combination.

 
Washington’s ability to run the football and the dual threat of Robert Griffin, III helps create conflict and uncertainty for the Defense – the Redskins have done a good job of using their dominate running game to help open up passing lanes with hard play-action passes (like to use read option for play-action because how it stresses the whole Defense to defend it).

 
In the Redskins first matchup vs. the Cowboys on Thanksgiving Day in Week 12, Washington and RGIII took advantage of the Quarters Coverage tendencies of the Cowboys attacking the Safeties with hard Read-Option play fake to influence them down and allow for the WR, Aldrick Robinson to get over the top on his post route (post/cross combination scheme) for 68-yard TD – Washington was in their Pistol formation (full house with RB, FB and TE in the back field with RGIII, and he made an excellent throw deep down the field to allow Robinson to run under the ball for the long TD pass.

 
Washington has good Offensive balance with a run first approach with running the ball on 52.2% of their Offensive snaps (2^nd most in the NFL, behind only Seattle; only 3 NFL teams have ran more than 50% of their snaps this season) allowing them to keep Defenses honest and attack base personnel with pass plays down the field (53 completions of 20+ yards on the season, with 12 of those passes going for TDs).

 
Washington is 5^th in the NFL in Total Yards Gained per game with averaging 383.2 yards per game and lead the NFL in Rushing Yards per game with averaging 169.3 rushing yards per game – the Redskins ability and success running the football allows them to have repeated success off play-action fakes throwing the ball down the field (difficult Offense to account for and slow down).

 
Redskins’ QB, Robert Griffin, III is still not 100% and struggled to accelerate with the same explosion and burst when deciding to keep the ball on their Read Option schemes or carrying out his fakes after the hand-off the last couple of weeks but has shown some improvement from week to week (will be closer to 100% this weekend).

 
Washington used a lot of backfield action with using WR motion to created hesitation over the last couple weeks and did a good job of running interior runs with the RB and outside runs with either the RB or the WR in motion – WR, Santana Moss ran for a 12-yard gain on a reverse early in the game vs. the Eagles in Week 16.

 
Washington’s WR Corps has a good mix of speed and quickness, which allows them to have success attacking down the field off run action with a lot of 2 WR route combinations, which allows Washington to keep more men in to secure the pocket with their pass protection schemes – Pierre Garcon, Aldrick Robinson, Santana Moss, Josh Morgan and Leonard Hankerson all have taken turns making plays down the field for the Redskins this season (Ranks 1^st in the NFL with 8.29 yards per pass attempt).

 
To start the game in Week 16 vs. the Eagles, Washington’s Defense played man coverage schemes with an aggressive approach with pressed coverage on the outside with their CBs, which allowed them to do some creative things up front and with their Safeties – Washington did solid job of filling lanes and playing their gaps, but struggled to make tackles vs. the Eagles ball carriers at times.

 
In Week 16, as the game wore on Washington mixed up their coverages from man to zone coverage schemes to mix up the reads for Rookie QB, Nick Foles – the Redskins Defense does a good job of mixing in blitz/pressure with their coverage schemes (man, zone, Cover-0) to make opposing Offenses have to account for a lot of different looks.

 
Redskins DT, Barry Cofield did an excellent job of hustling down the line and running down the screen pass to Jeremey Maclin, which was set-up perfectly by the Eagles and would have had a shot of scoring on the play because he had blockers out in front of him – Cofield has had a very good season and is excellent run defender, and can pressure the QB from the inside (3 Sacks and 14 QB hits on the season).

 
Washington’s Defense loves to pressure off the slot and will have several plays each week in week they send extra defenders off one of the edges – the Redskins blitzed the Eagles 14 times in Week 16 (3 Sacks off blitz) of Foles 54 drop backs (26% blitz frequency); Washington blitzed Tony Romo 30 times in Week 12 of his 64 drop backs (47% blitz frequency).

 
Barry Cofield does an excellent job freeing up the his teammates in their pass rush schemes on the Redskins defense by locking into blockers and opening up lanes for this teammates to get pressure on the QB – Washington is good stunt and pressure team who execute their schemes well – great example of this was last week vs. the Cowboys in the 4^th Quarter when Cofield grabbed two Linemen, allowing London Fletcher to come off the edge instead of through the A gap for the big Sack of Tony Romo.

 
Washington blitzed Tony Romo on the highest percentage of dropbacks as they have all season (23 of 39 drop backs 59%).  Romo was only 10 of 21 (47%) for 128 yards, 1 touchdown, and 2 interceptions (43.5 Passer Rating) when facing the Redskins blitz – Washington brought pressure with the blitz on the majority of Dallas’ 3^rd down plays last week (10 blitzes on 13 Dallas 3^rd downs). Romo on 3^rd down when facing the blitz in week 17 – 4 of 9 for 68 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT, 1 SACK

 
Washington’s WRs may have issues matching up against the press man style Seattle’s Secondary because they are more finesse and speed players and the Seahawks have big, physical CBs who will get in your face and disrupt your releases off the ball to throw off the timing and rhythm of your passing game. A key matchup to watch for will be in the slot with how the Redskins can use Santana Moss vs. Marcus Trufant match-up in the slot, as it is the best match-up on the field for Washington when on offense.

 
Washington’s defense will have to make a massive adjustment to play against Seattle’s offense after playing Dallas in week 17.  Dallas has only run play action pass looks on 9.8% of their drop backs this season, which is by far the least percentage in the league.  Seattle, on the other hand, has run play action plays on 36% of their drop backs this season, which ranks second behind Washington with 39%.

Cincinnati and Dalton are primarily a dink and dunk pass Offense who likes to get the ball out of their QB’s hand quickly after the snap with 351 of his 472 total pass attempts 10 yards or fewer from the line of scrimmage (74.4% of his attempts are less than 10 yards from line of scrimmage, which is 2^nd most frequent in the NFL behind Christian Ponder of the Minnesota Vikings) – the Bengals scheme is a conservative, methodical one that doesn’t have many shots down the field, unless it’s designed shot play (45 attempts of over 20-yards this season, with only completing 13 of those passes which is 22^nd in the NFL).

In their first matchup (Week 7) Pittsburgh ran a lot of creative, deceptive pressure schemes with sending 2^nd and 3^rd level (DBs) defenders to pressure and confuse the Bengals pass protection schemes and the reads for Dalton in the Steelers win last week.

Dalton has not been as efficient and productive as he was last season with throwing 14 INTs through 14 games and has thrown at least 1 INT in 10 of the Bengals 14 games – poor decision making and inconsistent mechanics have resulted in more negative plays and plays left on the field this season compared to last year.

*11 of 14 of Dalton’s INTs were his fault (one was hail mary and 2 others went through WR’s hands).

*Dalton’s INTs were result of poor mechanics (sidearm delivery) causing him to not get ball over the top or around defenders (2-3 tipped INTs), inaccurate passes to open WRs and bad decisions of where and when to throw the football.

On Dalton’s 2^nd pass attempt of the game last week vs. the Eagles he had wide open WR on angle route from inside alignment of trips on Red-Zone play, from bunch formation with the design of the play working perfectly with the WR beating the coverage, but Dalton didn’t pull the trigger and pulled the ball back down and the play resulted in a Sack – needs to trust what he is looking at and get the ball out within the rhythm and timing of the play (indecisive and hesitant at times).

Dalton struggled last week vs. Philadelphia with seeing the field and reading the Defense, as well as reacting to pressure and bodies around him causing him to move prematurely in the pocket and even move into the pressure at times, resulting in him leaving several plays on the field.

Cincinnati had great play design on Dalton’s Sack, Fumble in 2^nd Quarter with double move on stutter-go from slot WR where RT, Andre Smith quickly got beat due to his poor mechanics and technique with dropping his back foot and leaning at Eagles DE, Brandon Graham who beat him to force the fumble – Dalton could have anticipated the coverage and route and threw with urgency to get the ball down the field on this particular shot play (poor blocking resulted in missed opportunity).

Andy Dalton was highly inconsistent and inaccurate last week vs. the struggling Eagles Defense with missing open WRs down the field and struggling to maintain proper mechanics to take advantage of some potential plays to his WRs.

Andy Dalton and the Bengals Offensive Line will need to fine-tune their play heading into this week vs. the Steelers active and talented Front-7 if they want to hold onto their play-off hopes and get one step closer to clinching – the inconsistency on Offense has resulted in some negative outcomes for the Bengals versus better teams.

In Week 11 vs. the Eagles kept to their old offensive ways to start the game against the Redskins, even with a rookie quarterback making his first NFL start.  There first play of the game was a shot play out of max protection with a 2 WR route combo to the left – in the past that the Eagles have a very high tendency to start games with a shot play, but a little surprising to see Eagles do this week Rookie QB.

Another point to make that displays the Eagles poor game management of Nick Foles is that they started the game calling 11 pass plays to only 3 rushes in their first two drives, which both resulted in interceptions thrown by N. Foles.  With good RBs in LeSean McCoy and Bryce Brown, and a rookie QB making his first start, there are no excuses to call such a pass heavy scheme in any point of the game.

In 1^st Quarter of their first meeting in Week 9 Washington’s FB, Darrel Young, starts split wide right, with Griffin in the shotgun with Eagles Safety Nate Allen aligned over him and goes with Young’s motion into the backfield (to give Griffin clue of man coverage).  With Allen now aligned in the box, Griffin ran play-action fake to Alfred Morris, in which Nate Allen reacted to run action and Young was open in the flat for 6-yard TD catch.

In the 3^rd Quarter in Week 11 vs. the Redskins, Eagles defenders Brandon Boykin and Kurt Coleman showed their weaknesses in coverage and general ball skills on the miraculous 61 yard touchdown pass from RGIII to Santana Moss on 3^rd down – Moss was doubled covered on the play but made the catch in traffic and was able to fight into the end-zone for the TD (Man Free Coverage from the Eagles).

Washington Rookie QB, Kirk Cousins got off to a rough start last week vs. the Browns in his first NFL start with not seeing the field great and forcing some of his throws, resulting in incomplete passes and negative plays for the Redskins Offense – Cousins was 1 for 5 with an INT to start the game last week.

Cleveland took an aggressive coverage approach with playing majority man coverage concepts to limit the separation and openings for the Redskins WRs – Browns DB, TJ Ward did an excellent job of using trail coverage technique on his 1^st Quarter INT because he had help over the top from the Safety. Cousins forced the ball to Pierre Garcon on deep dig route with Ward in perfect position to play the ball and the play resulted in and INT which Ward returned inside Washington’s 10-yard line and the Browns scored on the next play (6-yard TD run by Trent Richardson).

Cousins settled in after the shaky start and did a better job of making plays down the field and reading the Defense to get the ball out to his playmakers in space – surprising athleticism and movement skills, which was displayed on his 1^st Quarter TD pass to Hankerson with the accurate throw deep down the field to Leonard Hankerson (accurate pass into tight coverage; good at throwing on the run).

Cousins left some throws on the field because of his questionable vision and understanding for coverage schemes and tendencies, especially when throwing from the pocket (left 3 potential big plays on the field) – can create confusion and hesitation in his head with mixing up coverages and pre-snap looks.

Cousins has above average arm strength and has quick release to allow him to get the ball out of his hands – can make all of the throws, but is not an elite arm talent.

Cousins struggles some from the pocket on straight drop back passes, with the field seeming muddied and his reads unclear, but Washington did a good job of simplifying his reads and moving him from the pocket with using a good amount of play-action passes – Cousins went 15 of 19 for 229 yards on play-action passes last week vs. the Browns. Cleveland’s Defense did a poor job of keeping contain and preventing Cousins from getting the edge on sprint and boot action pass plays.

Washington ran the same style Offense with Cousins at QB as they used all season with Robert Griffin, III but just aligned with Cousins under center more with traditional running schemes with zone/stretch running plays and play-action off them with similar WR route combinations.

On the second play of the game last week vs. the Falcons, Eli Manning took an extra two steps at the top of his drop, and delivers a late pass on a curl route to Nicks, which Asante Samuel was able to jump for the Interception – Manning drifted from the midline on his dropback allowing the pressure off the edge to affect his area to throw from (Giants RB, David Wilson showed his weakness in pass protection on this play with getting pushed back into Manning’s face).  Eli Manning was exceptionally late when throwing balls outside the numbers last week versus Atlanta.

Eli struggled with his mechanics in his drop back and delivery throughout the game and there were many occasions where he just did not drive his hips through the throw, which in turn hurt his accuracy and throwing strength – late in the 1^st Quarter last week, Eli Manning missed a big play opportunity by overthrowing Hakeem Nicks, who split the CB and Safety on a post route, but ends up not being able to haul in the deep ball by Manning.

Last week the Falcons clearly game planned to take away Victor Cruz on 3^rd Downs with doubling him majority of the time on the critical situations in the game – Cruz finished the game with only 3 catches for 15 yards last week vs. the Falcons in their 34-0 loss.

The Falcons ran and inverted Cover-2 with the Safeties rotation down and the CBs dropping back at the snap on Manning’s 2^nd Quarter INT by Thomas DeCoud – DeCoud played trail technique and undercut the dig route by Nicks and was able to make diving Interception; the coverage fooled Manning and the slight inaccurate throw, behind Nicks led to the turnover (double coverage on Nicks).

As they did in their week 2 matchup against Denver, Atlanta got creative with their defensive schemes and pre-snap confusion to shut down Eli Manning, as they did Peyton Manning. Eli could not seem to figure out what Atlanta was doing, and struggled to define his reads and decision making.

Peyton Manning and the Broncos took a shot on the first play of the game last week vs. Baltimore’s Defense off play-action fake with post/cross route combination and Manning miss read the Coverage and threw the ball down the field to DeMaryius Thomas on post route with the Safety getting over the top and the crossing route was opening up underneath – good job by outside CB and Safety to read the route combination and carrying the deep route down the field, forcing the incompletion (shot play).

The Ravens did a good job with their defensive game-plan and schemes in mixing things up to give Manning and the Broncos’ WRs multiple looks and coverage schemes to muddy their reads in the passing game, but on some plays where the correct coverage was called the Ravens just got beat physically by Denver (3^rd Down conversion in 1^st Quarter on pass to Stokley in the slot in which the CB could have undercut the out route because of Safety help over the top but the WR’s route won).

Denver’s WRs run excellent routes with setting up defenders with their stems and how they attack them coming off the ball, as well working back to the football when coming out their breaks – both Stokley and Eric Decker did a great job of generating separation and working back to the ball vs. the Ravens.

Baltimore’s CBs struggle to stick with WRs out of their breaks down the field, having questionable transition skills and hips to redirect and change direction – Jimmy Smith struggled to open up and close on the football on Eric Decker’s 14-yard completion in the 2^nd Quarter which led to 1-yard TD run by Jacob Hester.

Baltimore’s LB Corps struggle with recognition and responsibility at times since Ray Lewis has been out with his injury, especially in the running game – the return of Lewis will help anchor the Defense and solidify their ability to be in be in proper position to make plays (Lewis is committed defender who quickly reads and reacts).
Denver’s Run Defense has been much better since veteran LB, Keith Brooking has been inserted as the starting MLB in Week 6 – from Weeks 1-5 the Broncos allowed 120.2 rushing yards per game (3.8 yards per carry and 4 TDs); but from Week 6-15 with Brooking starting Denver has allowed only 74.8 yards per game (3.39 yards per carry and only 1 TD) during Denver’s 9 game winning streak.
Ravens’ RB, Ray Rice was indecisive and hesitant this past week vs. the Broncos when running the ball with doing too much dancing and bouncing runs to the outside, instead of sticking to the design of the run and picking up the yards that were there which led to him leaving plays on the field – Rice’s inability to just drop his head and pick up tough yards resulted in Baltimore not converting 1^st Downs on a couple of drives (Rice runs with questionable vision and feel at times).
Joe Flacco showed some problems reading Denver’s Defense last week, prior to the snap and getting the ball out of his hands prior to the unblocked defender getting to him or affecting the accuracy of his pass attempt – at times Flacco does not seem to be on the same page with the pass protection schemes (even with the RBs release or block).
The Ravens have a simplistic Offensive approach with a lot of I-formation sets from base type personnel groups with the Broncos running a good amount of Cover-2 to take away Flacco’s tendency to throw isolation routes on the outside – Baltimore needs to become more multiple with its formation variation and play calling to make things more difficult for opposing Defenses, as well as to help their WRs get open with their schemes and route combinations.
Eli Manning has thrown 15 Interceptions through 14 games, which is tied for 6^th most in the NFL (Drew Brees and Andrew Luck lead the NFL with 18 INTs each) – Manning has struggled this season more against Zone Coverage schemes because it creates uncertainty and confusion for the New York QB, with 9 of his 15 INTs coming vs. pure Zone Coverage schemes (4 INTs coming vs. Man Coverage with 2 of them being the result of dropped passes by WRs; and the other 2 INTs were combination man/zone coverages, both vs. the Bengals.
Manning has made some poor decisions and inaccurate throws throughout this season, which has been a contributing factor to some of the big games they have lost – last week vs. the Falcons, Eli Manning had 2 costly Interceptions early in the game, which helped the explosive Falcons Offense to get out to a comfortable lead early in the game in Atlanta.
The 49ers operate from 0 or 1 WR sets more than any other team in the NFL in normal down and distance situations, which allows them to not only the run the football with their excellent Rush Offense ranking 2^ndin the NFL with 162.9 rush yards per game, but also helps them dictate favorable match-ups in the passing game with their 2 dynamic pass catching TEs in Vernon Davis and Delanie Walker (San Francisco had 0 or 1 WR on the field on 10 of their first 19 Offensive snaps in Week 6 vs. the Seahawks).San Francisco leads the NFL with 57 dropbacks from 0 or 1 WR sets and they have been the 3^rd most efficient passing Offense from this type of personnel set with a QB Rating of 132.4 – Smith and Kaepernick have completed 33 of his 51 pass attempts for 555 yards (next closest has only 245 pass yards, Christian Ponder from the Vikings) with 6 TDs and 1 INT, as well as being Sacked 6 times.

Because of San Francisco’s ability to attack Defenses down the field from obvious running formations and personnel groups it prevents Defenses from loading the box with 8 or 9 men like teams normally would, which further opens up running lanes for Frank Gore to run the ball (great example is 7-yard run on 1^st play of the game last week vs. Seattle in Week 7).

Last Week vs. the New England Patriots the 49ers were able to once again generate favorable matchups from multiple TE sets to allow them to attack the Defense down the field in the passing game – good example of this was TE, Delanie Walker’s TD catch in the 2^nd Quarter with the 49ers in 22 Personnel with only 1 WR on the field (Randy Moss) with the Free Safety shading to Moss’ side of the field because he already beat them for TD in the 1^st Quarter; both Vernon Davis and Delanie Walker ran vertical routes to attack the same CB to the closed formation of the field and Colin Kaepernick did good job of throwing off the defender for the TD.

San Francisco’s Offensive Line does as good a job as any O-Line in the NFL with their double teams at the point of attack to drive interior Defensive Lineman off the ball and affect the space and room for 2^nd level (LBs) defenders to make plays around the line of scrimmage in the running game.

The 49ers Offensive Line is very athletic and has the movement skills to execute their blocking schemes to perfection in their running game – good fold, trap, scoop, pull blocking unit who work together well to take advantage of angles and defensive alignment.

San Francisco had repeated success running quick trap play to exploit the up the field rush tendencies of the Seahawks D-Line in their first matchup in Week 7, resulting in a couple of big runs for Frank Gore – LT, Joe Staley does good job of using quick swim move to avoid DT (defender who is trapped) and get up the field to 2^nd level in the 49ers Trap running schemes.

The 49ers were in 0 or 1 WR sets with multiple TEs and RBs on 25 of their 55 Offensive snaps (45.5%) last week vs. Seattle and were very successful both running and passing the ball – 19 runs for 71 yards (3.74 yards per carry) and Alex Smith went 4 of 6 for 53 yards and the only TD of the game (12-yard pass to Delanie Walker); 124 of San Francisco’s 313 total Offensive yards in Week 7 vs. Seattle came from this personnel group (40%).

Seattle showed great execution running zone Read Option plays against Buffalo last week, with Rookie QB, Russell Wilson having good feel for when to hand the ball off and when to keep it himself (Seahawks have had success running the Read Option over the last several weeks) – Buffalo looked extremely confused and off balance the entire game when defending the read option.

In Week 13 vs. Chicago, Russell Wilson rushed for 71 yards on 9 carries, with a number of them coming late in the game and overtime to help the Seahawks come from behind to win the game; and last week vs. Buffalo, ran for 92 yards on 9 carries with 3 rushing TDs leading Seattle to their 3^rd straight win.

Seattle utilized the Read Option fake to set up the pass in Overtime vs. the Bears in Week 13, which helped create uncertainty and hesitation for the Bears Defense because of the success they had running the Read Option previously and it allowed Wilson to get out on edge and find WR, Sidney Rice on crossing route for the game winning TD.

10 of Seattle’s 12 plays on their game winning drive in Overtime in Week 13 vs. the Bears had a Read Option element to it with either Russell Wilson keeping the ball to run, him handing it off to the RB to run, or him pulling the ball out to throw the football – excellent play design and execution to exploit the conflict they put on the Bears Defense.

Last Week vs. Buffalo the Seahawks showed a lot of different looks with their personnel groups and formation variation, especially early in the game – Seattle’s Offense has become multi-faceted and is difficult to game-plan and match-up with because of the athleticism and versatility of their Rookie QB, Russell Wilson.
Pete Carroll and the Seahawks have given Russell Wilson more responsibility in how they are more multiple and complex Offense then they were earlier in the season – Seattle now does more with their Offense then they usually used throughout the season thus far.

Seattle capped off their first drive of the game last week with a Read-Option play where Wilson kept the ball when the Defense of the Bills reacted and flowed towards the RB creating a lot of space for Wilson to run for his first TD of game – good at the mesh point of creating uncertainty for the Defense.

Buffalo struggled to play disciplined and account for both the QB and RB in the Read-Option schemes of the Seahawks last week, which opened up big running lanes for both Lynch and Wilson – opposing Defenses need to commit specific players to stop the RB and QB (emergence of the true option in the NFL this season have create problems for Defenses, especially with the group of young, athletic QBs).

Russell Wilson has good feel and understanding for tucking the ball down and running when opposing Defenses are unable to keep him in front of them and give him a lane to step up and run, especially vs. Man Coverage, Wilson will hurt you with his feet – his 2^nd TD run of the game came on play where he stepped up and ran for long TD run in 1^st Quarter (the Seahawks can expect to see a good amount of man coverage this upcoming week vs. the dominant 49ers Defense).

When in the Red-Zone, Seattle likes to run trips formation with both inside WRs running vertical routes against Zone Coverage and the outside WR running under route to give him space to run after the catch (Golden Tate’s TD catch to tie the game vs. Bears in Week 13), and when the Defense is in Man Coverage the inside WRs run out routes (middle slot runs short out and inside slot runs deeper out) with outside WR running under route off this natural rub element from route combination.

 
Even when Chicago loaded the box with extra defenders to slow down the dominant rushing of Adrian Peterson, they struggled to generate consistent penetration and prevent Peterson from breaking off some big runs – the Bears Defensive Line was controlled by the Vikings Offensive Line and their LBs struggled to scrape and get off blocks in pursuing the ball in the running game (LB, Lance Briggs had solid game and was most productive of their LB Corps).

 
The Vikings are a one dimensional Offense whose success relies almost entirely on the success of their running game and Adrian Peterson – Minnesota’s passing attack is a simplistic, either/or game-plan that puts little onus or stress on Christian Ponder (high majority of pass attempts are 10-yards or under).

 
Vikings’ QB, Christian Ponder is scattershot QB who is quick to move in the pocket, even when he has ample time to step up and make a throw – hurried and hectic QB whose mechanics and technique are inconsistent to say the least (poor footwork on his drops and throwing mechanics). An prime example of Ponder’s play would be on a play in the 2^nd Quarter last week vs. the Bears where he had a WR open down the middle of the field and he moved into pressure causing him to underthrow his WR and result in INT (had room to step up and make throw with proper mechanics).

The Ravens executed an excellent stretch run with good backside seal block (cut block by RT, Kelechi Osemele) to allow for Ray Rice to cut back and get through huge running lane for the big 46-yard gain on the 2^nd Offensive snap of the game for the Ravens last week vs. the Redskins – on Baltimore’s first drive of the game the Ravens aligned in primarily I-formation sets (straight and off-set) and had cutback design built into their called run plays (Ray Rice ran for 63 yards on the first 3 plays of the drive).

Good play call on TD pass to Anquan Boldin last week vs. Washington on out and up route to bait the Redskins Secondary to think Joe Flacco was going to throw his normal Isolation routes on the outside and Boldin beat the CB for the TD – Baltimore played from base 21 Personnel, I-Formation sets for the whole possession on their first drive of the game.

Washington clearly game-planned to take away the tendency of the Ravens to throw Isolation routes to their split WRs in using a variety of different looks to take away these throws for Joe Flacco last week – used several creative coverage concepts, such as designed trap plays to try and bait Flacco into forcing the ball to the outside into coverage.

Great throw by Joe Flacco on Anquan Boldin’s 2^nd TD catch of last week’s game vs. the Redskins on slot seam route on Sluggo-Seam route combination and play design – Flacco did a great job of looking the Sluggo to Torrey Smith and moving the Safety, then coming back to the slot Seam route by Boldin and made excellent throw over the top for the TD (Boldin beat DeAngelo Hall immediately off the ball).

Under former Offensive Coordinator, Cam Cameron, the Ravens were a predictable Offense who rarely strayed from their expected game-plan (basic, simplistic formations and concepts), especially when they are playing from in front – this past week vs. the Redskins, the Ravens did have success running the ball from their base personnel and sets and Offense played well in the 1^st Half (Baltimore’s RBs rushed for 174 yards on 28 yards and 1 TD last week vs. Washington), but couldn’t close out the game.

Ravens’ LT, Michael Oher plays with poor mechanics and technique when pass setting to protect Flacco – Oher lacks the foot speed and general athleticism to kick-set and slide to stay in position to make his blocks in pass protection schemes. Oher got beat quickly by Redskins OLB, Rob Jackson on Sack, Fumble which resulted in turnover in 3^rd Quarter where Oher did not move his feet to stay in front of Jackson and was unable to engage the defender properly.

Baltimore’s inability to take care of the football (turnover on their first 2 possessions of the 2^nd Half) and to sustain drives (3 and out on their 3^rd and 4^th possession of the 2^nd Half) allowed for Washington to creep back into the game and eventually win the game in Overtime – in the 2^nd Half and overtime the Redskins had only 1 possession that resulted in points of their 6 possessions (2 turnovers and three 3 and outs).

On Flacco’s 3^rd Quarter INT last week vs. Washington he failed to read the Cover-0, all-out blitz by the Redskins which resulted in a free edge rusher and Flacco held onto the ball too long allowing for OLB, Ryan Kerrigan to hit him in his throwing motion resulting in the ball going up into the air and London Fletcher picking it off for the huge turnover (prior to this INT the Ravens had marched down the field, mostly with runs to get down to Washington’s 11-yard line).

Washington used a specialty blitz vs. the Ravens’ 3 by 1 Formation (trips to one side and single WR to the other) with bringing double slot pressure to the 3 WR side and running a trap coverage behind it with Single Safety Rotation with man coverage on the backside; and Joe Flacco and Baltimore struggled vs. this scheme, but the Redskins are vulnerable down the middle of the field if the inside most WR in the trips formation runs vertically down the field because the LB must account for him in a man coverage concept (look for Cleveland to try attack this tendency of the Redskins this week).

Baltimore RB, Bernard Pierce is a solid all-around back who has good size, speed and quickness as a runner and has good balance and body control to keep his feet after contact is made – physical, tough runner who finishes off his runs (capable WR out of the backfield; good compliment to Ray Rice).
On the Ravens’ last 3^rd Down play of the game they had good play call to have WR, Anquan Boldin on a stick-nod-go to attack MLB, London Fletcher on double move against the Redskins slot pressure package they have ran several times in the game, but Boldin could not win and Flacco had to pull the ball down.

The Giants have the most Red-Zone drives in the NFC and the 2^nd most in the NFL, behind only the New England Patriots – New York’s ability to convert those Red-Zone trips into TDs is a crucial factor in their upcoming game vs. the Falcons and did a good job of doing that last week vs. the Saints converting 4 of their 6 drives in the Red-Zone into TDs on their way to a decisive win.

The New York Giants have had 54 Red-Zone Drives with scoring 28 TDs, which is tied for 6^th most in the NFL (New England leads the NFL with 40 Red-Zone TDs) – the Giants have converted 17 of 31 of their 3^rd Down plays in the Red-Zone through 14 weeks (Ranks 13^th in the NFL).

The emergence of TE, Martellus Bennett has given the Giants another playmaker in the passing game, especially in the Red-Zone because of his good size and athleticism – Bennett sees a lot of favorable match-ups in the red-zone and critical situations in the game because Defenses focus on stopping WRs, Victor Cruz and Hakeem Nicks from beating them by using combo/double coverage schemes.

On Martellus Bennett’s Red-Zone TD catch last week vs. the Saints, New Orleans doubled both Cruz and Nicks, which matched up Bennett on Saints’ LB, Curtis Lofton over the middle of the field and Bennett beat him across his face for easy TD (tough to match up to the Giants skill players in the Red-Zone).

Atlanta’s Defense struggled to slow down Cam Newton and the Panthers Offense last week in Carolina, allowing four plays of 20+ yards and giving up 475 total yards – the Panthers rushed 32 times for 195 yards in the Week 14 win over their divisional opponent.

Houston’s Offense is most efficient and productive when they can stay on schedule and ahead of the down by effectively running the ball to prevent getting into 3^rd and long situations – Houston ranks 28^th in the NFL on plays of 3^rd and 7+ plays, with converting on only 20% of those plays into 1^st Downs.

The Texans ability to keep Defenses honest to defend both the run and pass correlates to more consistent success generating explosive plays in the passing game and sustaining drives, in return it leads to more points being scored and allows their dominant D-Line and pressure schemes to dial up QB pressure and cause havoc for opposing Offenses – their overall team success and level of play is most directly related to the success of their Offense to sustain drives and stay ahead of the down.

The Texans’ LBs and Secondary immensely struggled this past week in their loss to the Patriots to slow down the Patriots dynamic and multiple pass Offense – New England had Receivers open all over the field in both man and zone coverage situations; the Colts and Andrew Luck will have opportunities to attack the Texans in the passing game, as long as Indianapolis can protect Luck.

Luck’s pocket presence and feel for bodies around him is far beyond his years in how he does a great job of protecting the ball within the pocket until he decides where he wants to throw the ball – tremendous job of sensing pressure and subtly moving to buy more time to throw the football.

Andrew Luck has the complete skill set needed for success in the NFL with his deceptive athleticism and movement skills, which allow him to elude the pass rush and keep plays alive with his legs; he also has tremendous pocket mobility and presence, as well as the vision to go through his progressions and find his targets down the field; lastly his arm strength and accuracy allows him to have success throwing down the field into tight windows, which is needed in the NFL and in critical 3^rd and Long situations.

Indianapolis and Rookie QB, Andrew Luck have surprisingly been especially efficient and productive in 3^rd and Long situations, with converting 43.5% of 3^rd and 8 or longer pass plays, leads the NFL with 12 first downs on 3^rd and 10+ situations.

The Colts showed the high tendency to align in a 3 by 1 set with trips to one side of the field and they like to align TE, Dwayne Allen as the inside WR or TE alignment – Allen will sometimes be used to chip the edge pass rusher to help secure the pass protection for Luck prior to releasing down the field.

A great example of this 3 by 1 set with Allen in as the most inside WR, would be against the Bills in Week 12 on a 3^rd and 16 play where Allen chipped the DE and delayed release as check down WR and the stacked release on the outside allowed for the 2 WRs to get clean release up the field on vertical stretch with Wayne running deep crossing/dig route – the RBs route out of the backfield held the backside LB down and Luck’s movement up in the pocket controlled the middle LB, opening up the lane across the field for Wayne to make the catch for a 25-yard gain (great ball security and pocket presence by Luck on this play to buy just enough time to get the throw off).

Indianapolis’ ability to attack opposing Defenses down the field and convert on 3^rd and Long situations have allowed the Colts to sustain drives and give their Offense more plays and opportunities to generate points – Indianapolis ranks 7^th in the NFL with averaging 382.6 Total Offensive Yards per game and is scoring 22.5 points per game, behind their talented Rookie signal caller.

New England does as good a job with Personnel and formation variation to dictate favorable matchups in both the running and passing game – last week vs. Houston the Patriots and Tom Brady repeatedly attacked the Texans LBs and Safeties in getting them matched up on TE, Aaron Hernandez (beat LB, Bradie James on out route for his 1^st TD of the game) and WR, Wes Welker on several plays for key completions (New England runs a lot of multiple TE sets, which requires the Defense to decide if they want to stay in base to better play the run or play from sub package to matchup better to the pass).

Brady is one of the best QBs in the NFL of researching and reading the Defense prior to the snap and getting his team into optimum looks for his Offense to be in the best situation to be successful (will attack defenses based on matchups, schemes, and designs based the Defensive alignment) – when Brady has the particular matchup he likes he will speed up the tempo of the Offense and run hurry-up to prevent the Defense from making any substitutions or adjustments (did this on Hernandez’ 2^nd TD of last week’s game vs. the Texans).

New England’s Offense Line does a good job of working together to pick up D-Line stunts and pressure schemes in trading of defenders to prevent clean rushers at Brady, but at times their mechanics break down at the point of contact causing them to get driven back in the pocket when singled on defender – the Patriots O-Line are a solid unit, but can be beat physically at times by Defensive pressure.

Tremendous play design and scheme on Brandon Lloyd’s 1^st Quarter TD pass last week vs. Houston – New England was in 13 Personnel (1 RB, 3 TEs, and 1 WR) and ran hard outside zone play-action fake with all Offensive Line stepping in unison to sell the run hard and Lloyd’s hard stem inside sold the crack back on the Safety and allowed him to get over top the Secondary because they hit the run action hard.

Another cool concept within the Lloyd TD pass last week vs. the Texans was the subtle protection scheme concept with their Center, Ryan Wendell pealing back with Brady’s bootleg action and sealing the backside edge to allow for Brady to have clean pocket to throw from.

Tom Brady has had an MVP caliber season thus far, in throwing 29 TDs with only 4 INTS – Brady has been especially impressive in the most critical and pressure based situations with having the 2^nd best QB Rating of 121.6 and throwing 18 TDs with no INTs when facing the blitz (5 or more defensive pass rushers); Brady also has been the best QB in the NFL on 3^rd Down this season, accumulating a QB Rating of 121.6 with 12 TDs and only 1 INT.

Eagles Rookie QB, Nick Foles is very calm and comfortable in the pocket and doesn’t react to pressure or bodies around him, keeping his downfield focus and surveying the field to allow him to get the ball out of his hands prior to taking a hit (if his WRs can win) – could speed up his mechanics and delivery some to get the ball out of his hand more quickly when deciding the throw the ball.

Foles took a lot of hits (early and often) in last week’s come from behind win vs. Tampa Bay due to both his poor O-Line and the Eagles WRs/TEs inability to separate from defenders and get open at times.

The Eagles Offensive Line got handled by the Buccaneers deep and talented D-Line last week forcing Foles to get rid of the ball quickly and limiting running lanes for RB, Bryce Brown who was unable to get going (12 carries for only 6 yards) – both OTs, Dennis Kelly and King Dunlap struggled to make blocks both in the running game and pass protecting for Foles (struggle to position themselves to make blocks).

On the Eagles TD drive in the 2^nd Quarter, Foles did a good job of extending plays to allow for breakdowns in the Buccaneers Defense – the first ad-lib play was on his long completion to Jason Avant when he stepped up to elude pressure off edge and moved from the pocket and hit Avant down the field on the run for the big completion; then on his 10-yard TD scamper he did good job of not forcing the throw on the designed RB screen, but instead pulling it down and running when the blitzing CB off the slot lost contain.

Foles has good pocket presence and feel for bodies around him, which is seen in his ball security and movement to prevent him from getting into problematic situations with protecting the football.

The Eagles used a questionable game-plan last week vs. the Buccaneers speedy and active Defense with spreading the field and using a throw first approach (with the Eagles O-Line clearly outmatched vs. Tampa Bay’s Front-7) and with too many designed runs to the outside to allow for the Buccaneers athletes to run down the ball carrier.

Eagles LG, Evan Mathis does a phenomenal job of making blocks in space in the running game and screen game for Philadelphia with using his athleticism to get into position to make his blocks and does a great job of controlling defenders by locking on the inside of the defenders chest and controlling them through the play (locks onto blocks like Velcro; very good mechanics and technique).

Foles has showed steady improvement over the last 4 games and displays some potential for the future for the Eagles – even with some ups and downs the Eagles have to feel they have something to work with in the future, especially when some of their players start to get healthy again (O-Line specifically) and they improve at some positions.

The Eagles Defense had a much different look this week with their approach, alignment and schemes with using more over and under alignments (first snap of the game was an over front) with their D-Line and actually ran Cover-2 Tampa with MLB running down the hole on the first 3^rd down play of the game vs. the Buccaneers last week – Philadelphia’s Defense clearly looked much different this week.

Last week vs. the Buccaneers, the Eagles started LB, Jamar Chaney at their strong side LB position and moved Mychal Kendricks to the weak side, which is a better fit for the Rookie LB who has excellent speed and range and can make more plays in space with his legs from the weak side – Chaney made a very good play on the 2^nd play of the game of scraping over the top and tackling Tampa Bay RB, Doug Martin for a minimal gain (LB Corps looked more comfortable last week vs. Buccaneers).

Mychal Kendricks had a very solid game this past week vs. Tampa Bay particularly in some man coverage situations against Buccaneers TE, Dwight Clark showing good quickness and speed in coverage – Kendricks looked more in place from the Weak LB alignment this past week than his strong-side role through majority of this season.

Eagles reserve Safety, Colt Anderson started this past week vs. Tampa Bay due to the injury to Kurt Coleman and showed good decisiveness and commitment in how he attacked downhill to plays in front of him – did a good job of filling running lanes, but does struggle in back-end coverage because of his minimal quickness and general closing speed (not much difference in Coleman and Anderson).

Josh Freeman had a very uneven performance last week vs. the Eagles in missing open receivers down the field, struggling to stay poised in the pocket and keep solid mechanics when throwing the football and the improved play of the Eagles Defense causes his inconsistency due to better discipline and execution – when Freeman play is hurried and he is forced to move his level of play drops off.

On 3^rd Down the Colts ran 4 vertical routes and the Lions coverage expanding deep into the end-zone and forced Andrew Luck to throw the ball away – on the game winning play the Colts went back to the same formation as 1^st and 2^nd Down and had WR, Donnie Avery run drag/under route behind the same 4 vertical routes as they ran on 3^rd Down – at the point when Luck threw the ball to Avery on shallow cross, all of the Lions coverage defenders were in the end-zone because of the expanding style of coverage they ran on every play in this red-zone sequence of the drive.

Luck’s movement from the pocket helped make the play on the Colts game winning TD because it caused the coverage to react to Luck’s eyes when he flushed from the pocket, which further opened the lane for Avery to catch the ball and get into the end-zone (if Luck would have kept the football and ran with it, he likely would not have been able to score because of pursuit of Lions LB, Justin Durant).

Tennessee QB, Jake Locker is an inconsistent player whose mechanics and technique are not always there, which force him to leave plays on the field due to both him missing open WRs and not making the reads to find his WRs down the field.

Locker is not a quick twitch passer, but instead seems unsure of what he sees when he is in the pocket and surveying the field, this coupled with his questionable mechanics and technique (tendency to not step towards his target causing inaccurate and off-target passes) has resulted in consistent QB play for the Titans QB.

Tennessee’s Rookie WR, Kendall Wright has flashed some good playmaking ability with his explosiveness and acceleration with the football in his hands – Wright has made several plays this season after the catch. Physical, attacking WR who quickly gets up the field and has shown good speed when running with the ball, but has been inconsistent on a week to week basis and needs to improve this as he progresses as an NFL player.

Tennessee’s Offense showed questionable effort and hustle at times in last week’s loss to the Texans with finishing the play, especially from some players on the backside, away from the flow of the play – need to fix this issue and have guys getting to the ball and finishing plays because you never know which play will change the outcome of the game.

On the first 2 plays of the game last week vs. the Eagles, Dallas opened gaping holes for DeMarco Murray for back to back big runs – Philadelphia’s Defense plays with poor gap discipline and their LBs do a poor job of aggressively attacking downhill when stepping up and taking on blocks in the running game, allowing for bigger lanes for opposing RBs to run through.

Cowboys’ RB, DeMarco Murray returned this past week from a lingering foot injury and had a productive game, statistically, rushing for 83 yards but only averaged 3.6 yards per carry on 23 runs – although Murray has good size, he is a timid runner and does not do a good job of finishing off his runs (hesitant RB with limited physicality when approaching contact; an upright runner who ran out of bounds and got tackled too easily last week vs. Philadelphia).

One of the Cowboys issues this season has been their inability to take advantage of potential big plays and leaving plays on the field – last week vs. the Eagles, Tony Romo missed a wide open TE, Jason Witten on corner route on a designed shot play with only 2 Receivers going out into patterns and blocking with 8 men; Romo’s not pulling the trigger to his wide open TE is a good example of the up and down play of Tony Romo and the Cowboys Offense.

Although Tony Romo has left some plays on the field, he also has made some of the best improvisational plays where he eludes the pass rush and keeps the play alive to allow more time to find his Receivers down the field – Romo did an excellent job of keeping the play alive and scrambling to find WR, Dez Bryant on a 3^rd and short play in which Bryant took the short pass and was able to find the end-zone for TD in 1^st Half of last week’s game vs. the Eagles (excellent sense for pressure and escaping it).

Philadelphia once again had a handful of busted coverages in last week’s loss to the Cowboys from both their LBs and Secondary in which Dallas players were running free in both zone and man coverage schemes – the Eagles Defense has been horrendous over the last month in all phases of the game, struggling to stop the run and inconsistency in their Secondary play.

Philadelphia’s Offensive Line did solid job in pass protecting for Rookie QB, Nick Foles last week vs. the Cowboys Defense, especially early in the game – the Cowboys had little success rushing the QB last week with their D-Line.

The Eagles did a good job of using double teams vs. the more dynamic Cowboys’ pass rushers and/or helping their weakest pass blockers with uncovered Lineman or use TEs/RBs to help with chips/nudges on pass rushers to slow their acceleration off the ball for their teammates.

Eagles Rookie RB, Bryce Brown has very good burst and acceleration through the hole and up the field – decisive and committed runner who has the speed-power combination to be successful downhill runner and lateral runner on plays to edge (Eagles may have found a good compliment to LeSean McCoy).

At times Dallas’ Defense played with poor gap discipline and scheme in their alignments (double A-gap pressure with the most outside defender in the box inside the TE, allowing for easy edge seal on big outside run by Brown in the 2^nd Quarter last week) – the Cowboys defenders also take bad angles and are undisciplined in their assignments, resulting in running lanes for opposing RBs to gash them.

Due to the inconsistent play of the Cowboys Secondary and some of the injuries on their team, the normal Rob Ryan aggressive Defense who blitzes a lot has only blitzed 99 times in 12 games this season (19% of their opponent’s dropbacks) – inconsistent DB play man coverage situations, prevents the Cowboys from dialing up more pressure (Dallas blitzed only twice on Nick Foles 35 dropbacks last week).

The Cowboys once dominant Defensive Line has not been as consistently disruptive this season and has only 24 total Sacks, which ranks 22^nd in the NFL – outside of DeMarcus Ware (10 Sacks) no other Cowboys has been consistently productive from week to week, especially when it comes to pressuring the passer (injury to DT, Jay Ratliff preventing him to play in only 6 games and has no Sacks this season).

Dallas’ LBs, Dan Connor and Ernie Sims are journeyman players who have greatly struggled since playing for the injured Sean Lee and Bruce Carter – Connor lacks the natural athleticism and movement skills to make plays in space and out on the edge; Sims has good movement skills but limited strength and plays with poor vision and understanding (plays out of position and struggles to identify his reads and react).

A microcosm of the Ravens’ Offensive inconsistency and problems was seen on the critical Sack, Fumble of QB, Joe Flacco last week vs. Pittsburgh late in the game on key 3^rd down play – the Steelers played pressed, man coverage across the board to disrupt the release down the field for Baltimore’s WRs and TEs with doubling RB, Ray Rice out of the backfield on his angle/option route to take away the tendency of Flacco and Ravens to go Rice in critical situations. At the top of Flacco’s drop on this play he wanted to go to his TE, Dennis Pitta who was matched on Steelers’ Safety, Ryan Clark (good matchup for Ravens) but he did not win and Flacco had to hold onto the ball, which allowed for James Harrison to get to Flacco forcing the big turnover leading to Steelers victory.

Baltimore’s Offense has a simplistic approach with its alignment and scheme, in how they tend to align from normal splits and alignments to allow for opposing Defenses to play them more aggressively and limit the defined reads for Joe Flacco – in recent years those Defenses who pressed and challenged the Ravens’ WRs at the line of scrimmage tended to give Baltimore and Joe Flacco the most problems on a play to play basis (WRs struggle to separate vs. tight man coverage; minimal stacked or bunch formations used to help their WRs get open).

With the Ravens’ inconsistent commitment to running the ball weekly with Ray Rice, their passing tendencies often lead too tight coverage and small throwing lanes/windows for Joe Flacco, due to the limited scheme and variation with which Baltimore plays – traditional formations, alignment and route combinations used on regular basis by Ravens (isolation routes and standard splits – little help to allow their WRs to get open in the passing game).

Washington had a run first approach last week in their divisional win vs. the Giants with 31 runs and only 21 passes – the Redskins were able to rack up 207 rush yards (6.7 yards per carry), while Griffin only passed for 163 yards, but took care of the football and had a couple of critical passes to extend drives.

On the season the Redskins are one of the 3 NFL teams (including Seattle and San Francisco) which have rushed the ball more frequently than they have passed – Washington has rushed 379 times compared to 361 total pass plays (51.2% run play selection).

Although Washington aligns in the Pistol formation a good number of snaps a game, their rush Offense is still a conventional and tradition NFL one with zone, stretch run concepts often from an off-set I-formation style alignment but just with Robert Griffin, III aligned in short Shotgun formation.

Washington creates problems for opposing Defenses with their ability to place conflict and stress on particular defenders among the Front-7 of opposing Defenses (D-Line and LBs) when both running and passing the ball off of the Read Option style schemes – Redskins run base dive option, lead option, and triple option (from normal back field alignment or using split WR) to create stress on several defenders.

Washington’s ability to go from traditional sets to “Read Option/Pistol” sets gives the Redskins a lot of versatility and requires the Defense to switch style of play and responsibilities causing a lot of potential uncertainty and confusion for opposing Defenses.

The unique alignments and formations of the Redskins resulted in some different Defensive alignments by the Front-7 of the Giants last week, especially the LBs, which allowed Washington to run some schemed runs to exploit the bubble or voids in the Defensive alignment – the Offensive Line often flows away from the design of the Read Option to influence movement away from the run, which worked several times vs. the Giants resulting in big runs for the Washington.

Although RGIII and the Redskins multiple, Read Option Offense from the Pistol formation has generated some problems for opposing Defenses, Washington’s Offense runs much more traditional style runs (zone, stretch, lead dive) – Washington ran only 6 Read Option plays in the game of their 31 called run plays, with about 5 or 6 play-action passes from the Pistol with Option fake to affect underneath coverage (difficult package to defend because of ability to both run and pass successfully from it).

Surprisingly the Vikings aligned in empty, Shotgun formation on the first play of the Week 12 vs. the Bears with the play resulting in a Sack by Bears DT, Henry Melton who immediately beat the Vikings Center, John Sullivan with quick swim move – the Bears rushed 4 men and the Vikings doubled Julius Peppers, which allowed for single blocks on their other dominant pass rushers.

Minnesota had only 18 rushes compared to 47 QB dropbacks (only 28% run) in last meeting vs. Chicago with Adrian Peterson running for 108 yards on all 18 of the Vikings carries (6 yards per rush), but didn’t stay committed because of playing from behind for most of the game – the Vikings Offense is most efficient and productive when they have a balanced attack and have an even run/pass ratio.

After the Sack on the 1^st play of the game the Vikings then reverted to go into a heavy run formation on 2^nd and 19 and ran the ball against a loaded box for a 1-yard gain by Adrian Peterson (questionable play calling based on down and distance situation on Minnesota’s first possession of the game).

Early in game against the Bears in Week 12 the Vikings decided to pass on 1^st Down and run on 2^nd Down, which put their Offense in unfavorable situations in the 1^st Quarter – Peterson had good success running on 1^st Down in the game with gaining 63 of his 108 total rushing yards on 10 rushes.

Minnesota has a simplistic and mundane Passing Offense which consists of a lot of mirrored routes to allow Ponder to choose one side of the field based on pre-snap reads and normally make an either/or read, as well as a good amount of play-action, bootlegs, and quick drops (a lot of short, crossing routes requiring quick decision making) – minimal vertical passing element to the Vikings Offense (74.4% of Ponder’s pass attempts have been under 10-yards from the Line of Scrimmage this season).

Ponder showed the tendency to hold onto the football too long at times when his initial read is taken away, resulting in some unneeded Sacks if he were to get rid of the ball to his secondary options (check-down WRs) – Ponder has been Sacked 27 times this season (tied 21^st in NFL).

With Minnesota’s most explosive WR (Percy Harvin) inactive, Ponder consistently looked the way of TE, Kyle Rudolph, especially in 3^rd Down and red-zone situations – Ponder underthrew Rudolph on pass to the end-zone in the 2^nd Quarter on a corner route, which allowed for the Free-Safety to get to the ball and prevent the completion for the TD.

Minnesota used the same play on two 3^rd and 1 plays in Week 12 against Chicago, which resulted in two 1^st Downs for the Vikings Offense – with the Bears loading the box to stop Adrian Peterson the Vikings ran hard play-action from 22 Personnel (2 RBs, 2 TEs, and 1 WR) with bootleg action and TE, Kyle Rudolph who was the inside TE to side of formation with both TEs aligned and ran delayed out route off initial down block look (used spin move to generate separation from the defender) and the outside TEs down block and then vertical release to create rub element resulting in easy completions and 1^st Downs.

Minnesota had some success running from “Full-House” formations (RB, FB and TE in reverse wishbone or Power-I formations) in Week 12 vs. the Bears because it’s a balanced set and allows for the Vikings to run the football to either side because the Defense normally aligns in base/even alignment (Peterson had 4 rushes from this formation for 53 yards last week) – this package also allows for potential shot plays down the field because of the ability to have additional help in their protection schemes with 3 players in the back field (Ponder will throw hot from this formation when a Defense loads the box to stop the run).

Christian Ponder does not look comfortable, nor is he affective operating from the Shotgun with ranking 27^th in the NFL with a QB Rating of 78.7 when playing from the Shotgun – Ponder struggled last meeting against Chicago from the Shotgun, completing 14 of 27 passes for only 97 yards with no TDs and no INTs and was Sacked twice (had 60.3 QB Rating from Shotgun last week).

Minnesota’s WR Corps struggled to generate much separation in Week 12 vs. the Bears, in conjunction with Ponder being pressured and not seeing the field well resulted in a poor performance for the Vikings Offense, especially passing the football.

With WR/RB, Percy Harvin sideline with an injury the Vikings did show more commitment for getting Adrian Peterson (clearly the most explosive Vikings playmaker on Offense) the ball in a more variety of ways – even though Peterson had only 18 rushes, he was targeted 7 times and had 6 catches for 30 yards (25 total touches and 138 yards from scrimmage last week vs. Chicago).

In obvious passing situations the Bears have high tendency to use D-Line stunts to break down the pass protection schemes of the opposing Offenses – good scheme and execution to help get each other free pass rush lanes (E-T, T-E, T-T, and Long Sticks) with just base 4-man rush.

Bears CB, Charles Tillman does a tremendous job of reading the WRs hands and movements to time up when to make a play on the ball, both when defending a pass (good passed defended on 3^rd Down play in the 1^st Quarter in Week 12 against the Vikings) and when to punch at the ball when approaching the ball carrier in the open field to knock the ball out and force fumbles.

Bears’ LB, Lance Briggs is one of the most instinctive LBs in the NFL with how plays both the run and pass – Briggs does good job of reading through the O-Line too the RB to get to the ball and make plays vs. the run, as well as hunting up route combinations and getting underneath and into throwing lanes down the alleys in Chicago’s Cover-2 based Defense (savvy, smart defender).

Chicago’s Safety, Major Wright is a much improved run defender who does a good job of reading run and hitting running lanes hard to close down alleys for opposing RBs – Wright did great job on a play late in the 2^nd Quarter last meeting vs. Minnesota of immediately attacking downhill and beating the block of the TE to tackle Adrian Peterson in the hole for no gain on a play where it seemed he had room to run.

Chicago’s Defensive scheme with tight underneath coverage on the short routes with Safety help over the top (mostly with 2 Deep Safeties) helped take away the short, quick passing game of the Vikings last week – the Bears are a good zone coverage team who do a good job of working together to take away short to intermediate passing game.

The Bears’ backside LB does a great job of scraping over the top of the other LBs who are caught in traffic and making tackles laterally down the line of scrimmage – good range displayed by both Lance Briggs and Nick Roach to make plays from sideline to sideline in defending the run.

The Bears’ Defense is one of the best units in the NFL of working together in all 3 levels of their Defense (DL, LB, DBs) to help each other to defend both the run and the pass on a weekly basis – discipline Defense who executes pressure schemes (stunts/blitz) and coverage concepts well.

With the issues on Green Bay’s Offensive Line the Packers have used more creative pass protection schemes including  help from RBs and/or TEs to secure the protection for Aaron Rodgers – TE, Jermichael Finley did a great job of chipping Minnesota DE, Brian Robinson (ended up blocking 2 defenders) on a critical 3^rd and 12 play late in the 4^th Quarter, allowing for Rodgers to escape the pocket to his right and he found WR, Randall Cobb coming across the field for the big completion and 3^rd Down conversion on the game clinching drive in which the Packers kicked a Field Goal.

Green Bay’s Offense is most dynamic and explosive when they can protect their QB, Aaron Rodgers and give him ample time to throw the football within the rhythm and the timing of the play – the Packers ability to pass protect is a key factor for the success of their Offense on a weekly basis.

Green Bay’s Offense has been inconsistent this season and has some injury issues at their WR position to affect the continuity and production level on a weekly basis with key players like Greg Jennings and Jordy Nelson – the Packers 2^nd Year WR, Randall Cobb has emerged as Aaron Rodgers most targeted WR (82 targets on the Season); and Cobb has been used in a multitude of different ways based on alignment and disruption to help dictate favorable matchups for the speedy and shifty Green Bay WR.

Both New England and Houston have excellent 1^st Down passing Offenses who do an excellent job of keeping opposing Defenses off balance with a good mix of run and pass on 1^st Down – both the Patriots and Texans ability to run the ball, and their good QB play allows them to exploit and take advantage of Defenses early in drives from running personnel and formations (Tom Brady leads the NFL with 1,564 passing yards on 1^st Down, while Matt Schaub has thrown for more 1,230 yards; 12^th best in the NFL).

The Patriots do as good a job of dictating match-up problems with their dynamic TEs – opposing Defenses are stuck deciding whether to play from Nickel or Dime Personnel to match up to the pass, but then Tom Brady may audible to a running play, or if they stay in their base Defense you have a LB or Safety on some of the more explosive TEs in the NFL (Aaron Hernandez).

Houston’s Defense runs a lot of man coverage concepts in the Secondary coverage, even when just sending base pressure from their normal fronts, which puts stress on their coverage defenders as the play wears on if they don’t pressure the QB – with this coverage approach the Texans Defense has allowed more yards than expected through the air with ranking 19^th in the NFL giving up 235 passing yards per game (their pressure and coverage efficiency coincide with their success as a unit).

Texans’ D-Line and Front-7 do a good job of mirroring the QB and reading his arm motion of when to get their hands up into the throwing lanes when they are unable to initially pressure him off the ball – Houston Defense has 33 Batted Passes at the line of scrimmage through 13 games this season, which is the most in the NFL (J.J. Watt leads the NFL with 14 Batted Passes, 5 of which have been Intercepted); no other NFL team has more than 17 (San Diego Chargers).

Texans’ DE/DT, J.J. Watt has incredible feel and ability to read the QBs eyes and get into passing lanes and disrupt their throwing lanes, which is reason why only 2 TEAMS IN THE NFL HAVE MORE BATTED PASSES THAN J.J. WATT HIMSELF. Watt now holds the NFL record for batted passes in a single season with 14, surpassing Reggie White and Cleveland Browns LB, Jamir Miller who both had 13 batted passes (since 1991 when batted passes became an official statistic).

No team in the NFL has blitzed the passer (rushed 5 or more defender) than the Houston Texans who have blitzed 224 times this season thus far through 13 games (over 17 blitzes per game) – and have been effective causing issues for opposing Offenses in critical situations with 5+ man pressures and tight man coverage schemes behind the pressure. The Texans have sent 5+ man pressure (Base pass rush pressure from their 3-4 Defense with D-Line and 2 OLBs) on 47% of their Defensive snaps in which the opposing QB dropped back to pass (224 blitzes of 476 drop backs).

New England and Tom Brady are one of the NFL’s best play design and execution Offenses in the NFL – the Patriots do an excellent job of game planning to attack particular tendencies of their opponents and Brady does an excellent job of getting his Offense into the right play call and properly executing the play.

San Francisco does as good as any team in the NFL of formation and personnel variation to help dictate and create favorable matchups for their skill players in the passing game – the 49ers athletic TEs, Vernon Davis and Delanie Walker help create matchup problems with playing from run formations (0 or 1 WR formations) getting their explosive playmakers matched on Safeties or LBs.

San Francisco has attempted a league high 39 passes from 0 or 1 WR personnel sets, completing 26 passes for an NFL leading 470 yards with 5 TDs and 0 INTs (NFL best 147.7 QB Rating) – the 49ers have 4 completions of 25+ yards from these formations (no other team has more than 1).

In Week 11 vs. Chicago, the 49ers had great play design on Vernon Davis’ 32-yard reception with the pre-snap motion from their 22 Personnel, run formation into an empty spread formation; which resulted in Davis being matched on LB, Lance Briggs in the slot and Colin Kaepernick recognized the favorable matchup and was able to make a tight throw into a small window to Davis on the crossing route (Kaepernick showed good touch and pace on pass to get it over LB and in front of Safety).

Kaepernick has a big time arm and can make any throw on the field, which he showed this past week vs. the Saints with driving the ball down the field, as well as throwing to the sideline fitting the ball into tight windows – Kaepernick gives the 49ers a better chance to be a more consistently explosive Offense with his arm strength and athleticism (good pocket movement to extend plays by eluding the pass rush).

Surprisingly the Vikings aligned in empty, Shotgun formation on the first play of the game last week vs. the Bears with the play resulting in a Sack by Bears DT, Henry Melton who immediately beat the Vikings Center, John Sullivan with quick swim move – the Bears rushed 4 men and the Vikings doubled Julius Peppers, which allowed for single blocks on their other dominant pass rushers.

Minnesota had only 18 rushes compared to 47 QB dropbacks (only 28% run) last week vs. the Bears with Adrian Peterson running for 108 yards on all 18 of the Vikings carries (6 yards per rush), but didn’t stay committed because of playing from behind for most of the game – the Vikings Offense is most efficient and productive when they have a balanced attack and have an even run/pass ratio.

After the Sack on the 1^st play of the game the Vikings then reverted to go into a heavy run formation on 2^nd and 19 and ran the ball against a loaded box for a 1-yard gain by Adrian Peterson (questionable play calling based on down and distance situation on Minnesota’s first possession of the game).

Early in game against the Bears last week the Vikings decided to pass on 1^st Down and run on 2^nd Down, which put their Offense in unfavorable situations in the 1^st Quarter – Peterson had good success running on 1^st Down in the game with gaining 63 of his 108 total rushing yards on 10 rushes.

Minnesota has a simplistic and mundane Passing Offense which consists of a lot of mirrored routes to allow Ponder to choose one side of the field based on pre-snap reads and normally make an either/or read, as well as a good amount of play-action, bootlegs, and quick drops (a lot of short, crossing routes requiring quick decision making) – minimal vertical passing element to the Vikings Offense (74.4% of Ponder’s pass attempts have been under 10-yards from the Line of Scrimmage this season).

Ponder showed the tendency to hold onto the football too long at times when his initial read is taken away, resulting in some unneeded Sacks if he were to get rid of the ball to his secondary options (check-down WRs) – Ponder has been Sacked 27 times this season (tied 21^st in NFL).

With Minnesota’s most explosive WR (Percy Harvin) inactive, Ponder consistently looked the way of TE, Kyle Rudolph, especially in 3^rd Down and red-zone situations – Ponder underthrew Rudolph on pass to the end-zone in the 2^nd Quarter on a corner route, which allowed for the Free-Safety to get to the ball and prevent the completion for the TD.

Minnesota used the same play on two 3^rd and 1 plays last week against Chicago, which resulted in two 1^st Downs for the Vikings Offense – with the Bears loading the box to stop Adrian Peterson the Vikings ran hard play-action from 22 Personnel (2 RBs, 2 TEs, and 1 WR) with bootleg action and TE, Kyle Rudolph who was the inside TE to side of formation with both TEs aligned and ran delayed out route off initial down block look (used spin move to generate separation from the defender) and the outside TEs down block and then vertical release to create rub element resulting in easy completions and 1^st Downs.

Minnesota had some success running from “Full-House” formations (RB, FB and TE in reverse wishbone or Power-I formations) because it’s a balanced set and allows for the Vikings to run the football to either side because the Defense normally aligns in base/even alignment (Peterson had 4 rushes from this formation for 53 yards last week) – this package also allows for potential shot plays down the field because of the ability to have additional help in their protection schemes with 3 players in the back field (Ponder will throw hot from this formation when a Defense loads the box to stop the run).

Christian Ponder does not look comfortable, nor is he affective operating from the Shotgun with ranking 27^th in the NFL with a QB Rating of 78.7 when playing from the Shotgun – Ponder struggled last week vs. Chicago from the Shotgun, completing 14 of 27 passes for only 97 yards with no TDs and no INTs and was Sacked twice (had 60.3 QB Rating from Shotgun last week).

Minnesota’s WR Corps struggled to generate much separation last week vs. the Bears, in conjunction with Ponder being pressured and not seeing the field well resulted in a poor performance for the Vikings Offense, especially passing the football.

With WR/RB, Percy Harvin sideline with an injury the Vikings did show more commitment for getting Adrian Peterson (clearly the most explosive Vikings playmaker on Offense) the ball in a more variety of ways – even though Peterson had only 18 rushes, he was targeted 7 times and had 6 catches for 30 yards (25 total touches and 138 yards from scrimmage last week vs. Chicago).

In obvious passing situations the Bears have high tendency to use D-Line stunts to break down the pass protection schemes of the opposing Offenses – good scheme and execution to help get each other free pass rush lanes (E-T, T-E, T-T, and Long Sticks) with just base 4-man rush.

Bears CB, Charles Tillman does a tremendous job of reading the WRs hands and movements to time up when to make a play on the ball, both when defending a pass (good passed defended on 3^rd Down play in the 1^st Quarter last week against the Vikings) and when to punch at the ball when approaching the ball carrier in the open field to knock the ball out and force fumbles.

Bears’ LB, Lance Briggs is one of the most instinctive LBs in the NFL with how plays both the run and pass – Briggs does good job of reading through the O-Line too the RB to get to the ball and make plays vs. the run, as well as hunting up route combinations and getting underneath and into throwing lanes down the alleys in Chicago’s Cover-2 based Defense (savvy, smart defender).

Chicago’s Safety, Major Wright is a much improved run defender who does a good job of reading run and hitting running lanes hard to close down alleys for opposing RBs – Wright did great job on a play late in the 2^nd Quarter last week vs. Minnesota of immediately attacking downhill and beating the block of the TE to tackle Adrian Peterson in the hole for no gain on a play where it seemed he had room to run.

Chicago’s Defensive scheme with tight underneath coverage on the short routes with Safety help over the top (mostly with 2 Deep Safeties) helped take away the short, quick passing game of the Vikings last week – the Bears are a good zone coverage team who do a good job of working together to take away short to intermediate passing game.

The Bears’ backside LB does a great job of scraping over the top of the other LBs who are caught in traffic and making tackles laterally down the line of scrimmage – good range displayed by both Lance Briggs and Nick Roach to make plays from sideline to sideline in defending the run.

The Bears’ Defense is one of the best units in the NFL of working together in all 3 levels of their Defense (DL, LB, DBs) to help each other to defend both the run and the pass on a weekly basis – discipline Defense who executes pressure schemes (stunts/blitz) and coverage concepts well.

Green Bay’s Offensive Line was solid early in the game and did some good things in the running game when the game was close enough to stick with the run (good job of double teams), but when they turned one dimensional as the game wore on their O-Line had some issues with pass protecting for Rodgers against the Giants formidable pass rushers.

Green Bay attacked the aggressive tendency on Giants’ CB, Corey Webster on their first possession of the game with attacking him with a double move, stutter-go by Jordy Nelson for the long TD pass to tie the score at 7-7 – later in the 1^st Quarter the Giants trapped Rodgers and baiting him with outside CB, Webster jumping inside to Intercept the slot hitch route off the play-action fake, fooling Rodgers in his pre-snap read.

New York LB, Chase Blackburn was very active and productive last week vs. the Packers – Blackburn does a great job of quickly reading and reacting to the play, decisive and committed player who attacks downhill and makes a lot of plays (not the most physically gifted player, but is around the ball a lot).

Packers’ QB, Aaron Rodgers didn’t see the field great and left some potential plays on the field last week vs. the Giants – Rodgers was not as sharp in his post snap progression reads and was a little hurried and rushed with his movements and decision making, as well as his O-Line playing inconsistent (missed a seam route and a deep crossing route in the 1^st Half that were open for potential big plays).

Rodgers was very uncomfortable last week vs. the Giants with having questionable mechanics and footwork, which has resulted in some erratic accuracy on throws he normally makes.

The Packers decided to single block Osi Umenyiora and committed to slowing down and stopping Jason Pierre-Paul and Justin Tuck, and Umenyiora made them pay with a Sack, fumble of Rodgers late in the 2^nd Quarter and another pressure and QB hit right before the end of the 1^st Half off inside spin move.

The Giants Offense Line did a much better job last week vs. the Packers in generating a push in the running game to give their RBs lanes/alleys to run through, as well as doing a solid job of providing and secure pocket for Eli Manning to pass from.

New York’s O-Line did an excellent job on Ahmad Bradshaw’s TD run with generating a good push on their double team, driving Packers DT, Jerel Worthy back into the scraping LB, AJ Hawk’s lap preventing him from getting over the top, to the ball carrier – the Giants Offensive Line worked together much more cleanly last week vs. Green Bay than in previous weeks.

The Bengals had little problems with the porous Raiders Defense last week on their way to a convincing win (34-10), with rushing for 221 yards on 34 carries (6.5 ypc) and Andy Dalton throwing for 210 yards – Oakland had a lot of holes in their coverage, allowing a lot of easy completions and run after the catch.

Dalton was not particularly sharp and precise (inconsistent accuracy) last week vs. the Raiders completing only 16 of his 30 attempts, but had 3 TDs and no Interceptions – Dalton left a few plays on the field and his timing and accuracy was slightly off at times with his WRs (erratic QB play last week).

Cincinnati has a pretty simplistic passing game with tight formations, quick drops, play-action, bootlegs; which allows Dalton to quickly make his reads and get the football out of his hands to his WRs (helping his O-Line with their protection schemes buy not holding onto the ball long) – dink and dunk Offense with a lot of short passes, with an occasional shot down the field to AJ Green.

Bengals’, AJ Green is an explosive, smooth WR who runs fluid, precise routes and has the vertical speed and explosiveness to win vertically down the field – good route runner who understands how to set up defenders and has excellent ball skills to track the flight of the ball and make tough catches down the field in traffic (good adjustment and catch on deep pass in 4^th Quarter of last week’s win vs. the Raiders).

Dalton was erratic and showed questionable decision making on a couple of his pass attempts against the Raiders last week – Dalton showed the tendency to play fast when pressured and bodies were around him, which was seen on a play in the 3^rd Quarter when he was blitzed (Cover-0) and he threw right into the defensive rotation (should have been a INT returned for TD but Safety dropped the pass).

At times, Eagles QB, Nick Foles holds onto the ball a little too long and causes issues with the timing and rhythm of play design – when all things are on balance and executed properly, Foles can really drive the ball to the intermediate levels of the field (solid arm strength and velocity).

On 3^rd Down play in the red-zone on the Eagles first drive of the game, Foles starred down his WR running down the alley on a seam route, which allowed the Single-High Safety to read the throw the whole time and make a break on the ball (should have been an easy INT).

The Eagles Offense threw a lot of short passes consisting of defined reads for their Rookie QB, but do mix in their traditional shot plays down the field off play-action fakes with secure protection schemes to try and allow more time for Foles to throw the ball – Philadelphia’s O-Line was better this past week vs. the Panthers, especially in the running game, but still have inconsistent players across their line resulting in too many breakdowns in pass protection schemes, especially from their OTs.

As the play wears on, Foles play decreases because of his minimal athleticism and movement skills, along with his inability to get to his secondary receiving options – had at least 3 passes which should have been Interceptions, but the defender dropped the pass (starred down throws at times too).

Despite winning the game 2 weeks ago in Pittsburgh, the Ravens amassed only 200 total yards of Offense compared to the Steelers 311 yards – Ray Rice was held to only 2.0 yards per carry on 20 carries (40 total rushing yards), and Joe Flacco threw for only 164 yards on 34 dropbacks, completing 20 of 32 passes (Sacked twice by Steelers in Week 11 matchup).

Pittsburgh turned the football over 3 times, which led to both of the Ravens Offensive scoring drives (2 FGs by Justin Tucker) which ended up being the difference in the 13-10 victory for Baltimore just 2 weeks ago – Jacoby Jones’ 63-yard Punt Return TD in the 1^st Quarter was the only Ravens TD scored in the game (Jones leads the NFL with 3 Return TDs this season; 2 Kick-Offs and 1 Punt Return).

Pittsburgh’s Front-7 (D-Line and LBs) were dominant vs. the Ravens in Week 11, with controlling the line of scrimmage and generated good push and penetration to make things difficult for Baltimore to both run and pass the ball – the active play of their Defensive Linemen, allows their middle LBs to play with more freedom and space in running down the ball and making plays (Larry Foote and Lawrence Timmons).

The dominant play of their D-Line allowed the Steelers to commit their Safeties to coverage based responsibilities for a good portion of the game and especially in the red-zone – Pittsburgh were able to defend the run with minimal commitment to number of defenders down in the box.

Joe Flacco missed a potential big play in, Week 11 vs. Pittsburgh, in the middle of the 1^st Quarter on a 1^st and 10 play from base 21 Personnel (2 RBs, 1 TE, 2 WRs) off play-action (twins formation with WRs with closed formation to other side) and had good protection and time to attempt pass to Torrey Smith on deep post route which got behind the Safeties who were occupied by the underneath crossing route by Anquan Boldin – Flacco threw the ball vertically up the field (down the hash mark) instead of leading Smith across the field away from the coverage of CB, Ike Taylor who had outside leverage.

Joe Flacco does a good job of taking advantage of isolation routes on the outside when Defenses give it to them, and he did this several times in Week 11 vs. the Steelers, mostly targeting Anquan Boldin on curl and out routes – Flacco throws with good timing and has excellent arm strength to make throws on the outside in 1-on-1 coverage.

Although Flacco made a couple of nice throws in Week 11 vs. Pittsburgh, he had an inconsistent game and made some inaccurate passes, leaving some completions and plays on the field.

Although Baltimore didn’t have much success running the football against Pittsburgh in Week 11, they did have a little success on a couple of zone running schemes allowing for their RBs to find running lane and make downhill cuts, both to the play side and back side (potential cut-back lanes vs. Steelers).

Pittsburgh’s Defense did great job mixing up their coverage schemes to take away the tendencies of Ravens Offense in Week 11 – the Steelers used several different combination coverages (double schemes) on Ravens most explosive WR, Torrey Smith to prevent Flacco from getting the ball to his favorite target; also committing their coverage to stopping Ray Rice in the passing game with certain coverage concepts, such as chips and doubles to prevent him from making plays on critical 3^rd Down plays (good job of this on the last 3^rd down play of the game for Baltimore’s Offense).

Washington used several different variations of the “Read Option” concept vs. the Giants in their Week 7 matchup – Robert Griffin, III aligned in “Pistol” formation (Shotgun with RB aligned behind him) on the first play and ran dive play for 5-yard gain; then on the 2^nd play they ran Pistol again and ran triple option where Griffin gave the ball to Morris on lead dive and he carried out the option fake with Josh Morgan.

Washington has a very creative running game, which causes opposing Defenses to prepare and defend a multitude of different looks and schemes – difficult Offense to defend and stop because of the versatility; in Week 7 vs. the Giants the Redskins ran for 248 yards (rushed 35 times for 207 yards and RGIII scrambled 3 times for an additional 41 yards).

On the 4^th play of the game in Week 7 vs. the Giants (1^st and 10), the result of respecting the run allowed Griffin to pull the ball out of his RB’s stomach (run action sucked up LB, Chase Blackburn towards line of scrimmage) and hit his TE, Logan Paulsen for 19-yard gain down the seam off the play-action fake – Washington aligned in the same Pistol formation with Alfred Morris aligned behind QB (Washington ran this same play on the 1^st play of the 2^nd Half and the Giants defended the pass and RGIII did good job of pulling down the ball and scrambling for 11-yard gain).

Washington RB, Alfred Morris is good fit for Mike Shanahan’s Offense with his one-cut, downhill running style, which is a good fit for the Read Option schemes, as well as the Redskins zone running schemes – Morris is physical runner who runs with good pad level and has good balance to allow him to stay on his feet and finish off runs well (484 of his 982 rushing yards have come after initial contact by the defense).

Washington has a very good run blocking Offensive Line who has good athleticism and the movement skills to make the blocks needed to succeed in the zone running game, as well as blocking out in space in the option running game.

On Washington’s first drive of the game in Week 7 vs. the Giants, they had a 16 play drive, 93-yards which resulted in a Field Goal by the Redskins – Washington aligned in the “Pistol” on 10 of their 16 plays on their first possession of the game.

RGIII does an excellent job in the play-action passing game, especially when it’s off the Read Option design because he holds the fake as long as possible and does a good job of seeing the field and making the correct reads and throws – made excellent throw on his 23-yard completion to Leonard Hankerson on deep crossing route off play-action in which it held the underneath coverage and he made nice throw with good pace down the field in Week 7 vs. the Giants.

On back to back plays out of the “Pistol” formation in Week 7 vs. the Giants near the end of the 2^nd Quarter, Washington ran lead option look, but on the first play RGIII kept the ball and ran to the outside for 28-yards after the DE bit down on the dive; then on the very next play RGIII handed it off to Morris on lead dive and he cut to the back side for 30-yard run (great double teams from O-Line).

Washington aligned in the “Pistol” formation on 21 of their 29 Offensive snaps (72%) in the 1^st Half of their Week 7 game vs. the Giants, having repeated success both running and throwing the football – 16 rushes for 122 yards and 5 dropbacks, completing 4 of his 5 attempts for 59 yards.

RGIII’s athleticism and explosiveness as a runner creates problems for opposing Defenses pass rush because if they do not contain him, he will escape to the outside and scramble for good yards; and if you rush too far up the field then he will step up and scramble if the Defensive coverage dictates that.

Washington’s deceptive Offense had the Giants explosive and athletic Defense off balance and hesitant with the misdirection and option style Offense in Week 7 – especially the edge defenders defending the Read Option, with Washington making them wrong with their reads/decisions (as the game wore on the Giants Defense played more discipline and more decisive, which helped slow down the Redskins some).

In the 2^nd Half in Week 7 vs. the Giants, the Redskins aligned in the “Pistol” formation on 16 of their 40 Offensive snaps (40%), having much less success than the 1^st Half – 10 rushes for only 25 yards and 6 called pass plays, going 2 of 3 for 29 yards with 1 INT and 1 Sack, and one 11-yard scramble.

In the Week 7 matchup vs. the Giants,Washington ran 37 of their 69 Offensive snaps from the “Pistol” formation (52%) and accumulated 147 rushing yards on 26 rushes and passed for 88 yards on 11 dropbacks with 1 INT and 1 Sack.