Category Archives: Amateur Adventures in Film

AAF: Super Bowl

12 Sunday Feb 2017

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I like to go back and look at the coaching tape of the Super Bowl as I cling on to the final game we have to tie us over until preseason, but these days I have learnt painfully that you have to focus on something or you can spend so much time on every play as there is a huge amount to look at. I stuck with my original plan to cover the match up of the Atlanta Falcons league leading offence going up against the New England Patriots defence which conceded the fewest points in the league this regular season.

The first quarter was unexpectedly scoreless, with both offences getting off to slow starts. The Falcons are a team that are known to play a lot of traditional two running back personnel groupings and this was certainly the case in this game. Their opening drive got off to a great start when Devonta Freeman ran left for thirty-seven yards. This play also demonstrated the way that the Falcons like to attack a team with personnel and formations as they may have lined up in a standard offset I formation, but full back Patrick DiMarco motioned out to line up as a receiver. However that drive soon petered out with two short gains and a sack on third down when Trey Flowers simply overpowered left tackle Jake Mathews to get to Matt Ryan. The Falcons’ second drive followed a similar pattern with Tevin Coleman starting it off with a nice nine yard run, which was followed by a ten yard pass to DiMarco before the drive bogged down and Matt Ryan was sacked on third down. This was less of a pass rush than a coverage sack as Ryan looked to his right and moved up in the pocket, being brought down by Alan Branch as Ryan moved past him although it was only credited as half a sack. Looking at the coaching tape it does appear that Julio Jones did find a soft spot between corner and safety on the left of the offence but as we don’t know the play call or read progression it is hard to comment on whether Ryan should have seen this or not under the circumstances.

The second quarter was one where the Falcons offence leapt into life, remembering that they had Julio Jones and seeing a switch in personnel groupings moving to 12 and 11 personnel, with full back DiMarco not playing and them replacing him with a tight end or receiver. Their third drive started with a pass forced into Julio Jones who wrestled the ball away from the corner trailing him. He then followed this up with a toe tapping catch at the side line despite having both a corner and the deep safety track him across the formation as he motioned before the snap. Then Freeman took over the drive, running on three straight plays which resulting in the first score of the game. The fourth drive also started with a big pass play when Taylor Gabriel ran a deep in against what looks to be a two deep zone coverage with Malcolm Butler staying out wide whilst Gabriel cuts in underneath the two safeties and gaining the Falcons twenty-four yards. On a play action pass on the next play Julio Jones was able to get single coverage for about the only time in the game and Matt Ryan was able to find him down the side line whilst under pressure. After a running play by Tevin Coleman, Matt Ryan was able to find Austin Hooper in the end zone on the second time of asking when Hooper was matched up against Patrick Chung. On the previous play Chung was able to break up the pass, but this time Hooper was running round him and through the end zone to make the catch with fellow safety Devin McCourty doubled up on Julio Jones.

The Falcons offence would not get the ball back in the first half after Robert Alford took his interception of Tom Brady back eighty-two yards for a touchdown. The Patriots were noticeably doubling up on Julio Jones, but Malcolm Butler seemed to be playing left corner rather than following a receiver round the formation for a particular match up, although the Patriots did look to be playing man coverage mixed in with zone.

The third quarter saw the last points the Falcons were to score in the game, and they got off to a poor start with a three and out with Devonta Freeman getting stuffed in the backfield for a three yard loss and the drive never really recovering. However, their sixth drive was more reminiscent of the second quarter. The Falcons remained in predominantly 11 personnel, making use of a third receiver, opening the drive with a seventeen yard catch by Taylor Garbiel although they did bring back their full back for two plays. On one of these Garbiel ran past Malcom Butler as he fell down and caught the ball before the safety Duron Harmon could get across as he was shaded towards Julio Jones on the other side of the field. The Falcons were able to march down the field and scored a touchdown where they lined up with three receivers on the right of a shotgun formation and Tevin Coleman lined up to the left of Matt Ryan. They then brought Coleman across the formation whilst the receivers ran up and in patterns, which got Rob Ninkovich caught up enough that we was unable to get to the edge and stop Coleman getting into the end zone.

The problem for the Falcons then began here, which is why I am stepping away from the quarter by quarter break down. Not only did the Patriots find a formula on offence that began to move the ball, but their offence started having problems of their own. The next time the Falcons got the ball, their drive came to an end when Ryan Schraeder was over powered by two rushers and Matt Ryan was sacked. The following drive the Falcons had only given up a field goal on defence, but first Tevin Coleman went out of the game with an injury, and on the very next play Devonta Freeman could only bump Dont’a Hightower on his way to sack Matt Ryan who fumbled the ball and the Patriots recovered.

Even after these troubles the Falcons were ahead 28-20, and on the opening play of the drive ran a play action pass to Freeman who took the ball thirty-seven yards to midfield. After a nothing run play somehow whilst on the move Matt Ryan finds Julio Jones who makes another spectacular side line catch. At this point the Falcons are on the Patriots twenty-two yard line with around four minutes on the clock. There has been a lot of talk about second guessing the plays, and staying aggressive, but at some point you have to pay attention to the game flow. You are eight points up with four minutes left and a field goal makes this a two score game. I have a lot of sympathy with those who say run three times and kick the field goal, or run play action. But not only did Devonta Freeman get stuffed on first down for the loss of a yard, but Trey Flowers managed to bull his way past Alex Mack to bring down Matt Ryan for a loss of twelve yards. Whatever your thoughts on the play calls, Ryan has to get rid of the ball in this situation. The then Falcons nearly get themselves back into field goal range with a pass to Mohamed Sanu, but it gets wiped out by a second holding call of the game against Jake Mathews and Matt Ryan can’t get the pass complete to Taylor Gabriel.

The Patriots tie up the game, the Falcons have one last ditch to go ninety yards in fifty seconds, but fall way shot and the rest is overtime and Patriots folk lore. The clever thing is that the Patriots didn’t win with one thing, but on defence a combination of coverage and enough pass rush to end drives won them the game. Out of ten drives the Falcons were only able to score on three of them, and that is telling in that when the ball moved well for the Falcons they scored very quickly, but that was really only for a quarter and a half. Even then, with a little more attention paid to game flow they could have kicked a field goal and won the game. A Super Bowl loss will always generate a lot of what if type questions, but I have the feeling that the Falcons will have more than most.

And now we move onto the offseason and I’m taking a break for a couple of weeks, but it won’t be long before the itch to write about football returns. For now it is time to take a break from football and get to different writing and hobbies. Maybe that would be good for all of us.

Thursday Night Pick

22 Thursday Dec 2016

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So it is time for the annual scramble round trying to get picks/blogs out round Christmas, starting with tonight’s game.

Giants @ Eagles (+2.5)

The Eagles ran the Ravens close last week, but whilst the Giants are struggling on offence, they are not as erratic as the Ravens and I think they will win out in this divisional game against an Eagles team that has a lot of rebuilding to do in the offseason, but looks like they have got their quarterback of the future.

Gee’s Pick:          Giants
Dan’s Pick:          Giants

AAF: AJ Klein

04 Sunday Dec 2016

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So this week’s amateur adventures in film is based on a comment from Ross Tucker on his podcast this week that AJ Klein was one of the best backup linebackers in the NFL, that he doesn’t start because they have Thomas Davis, Luke Kuechly, and Shaq Thompson, but that he looks a lot like Kuechly when he’s out there and made a bunch of plays. I thought I would take a look for myself.

Now his stat are pretty good with five tackles, and a play that doesn’t seem to have been credited as a sack where he stopped a scrambling Derek Carr as he tried to make a first down by stopping him behind the line and forcing a fumble. This was a very nice play as Klein started the play by showing blitz, then dropped back into coverage before chasing Carr to the side line. However, as the game moved on there were a couple of big plays that Klein was involved with.

Very few linebackers are as good as Luke Kuechly when he is in full flight, but Klein certainly looked good for large parts of this game, dropping into coverage smoothly or attacking gaps against the run. However, whilst he was capable of running with the slot receivers or tight ends, he gave up several plays in this spot including a touchdown to Clive Walford in the fourth quarter. In fact the fourth quarter was a difficult period for Klein. He did not get his head around and so was only able to wave an arm as the ball from Carr went to Walford in the back of the end zone for aforementioned touchdown. However, Klein also gave up a fifteen yard facemask penalty when trying to disengage from a block by Michael Crabtree against a run play, and gave up a thirty-two yard pass play to Crabtree as he followed him down the field. Not only did the pass get completed, but Klein gave away a declined pass interference penalty that ensured the pass was effective regardless of whether the catch was made. A matchup of a linebacker against a receiver down field is always going to be advantageous to the receiver, so I am not going to be too critical of this play, but it was a bad moment.

It does however highlight one problem when you are going through film, which is you can’t know the call. You would frequently see the linebackers swapping round as the Raiders shifted, and you could see Klein follow his player out when he had plays, sometimes slowing down or breaking up a play with his closing speed such as when he reached running back Latavius Murray as he received the pass to break up the completion or again later in the game when he tackled Murray for a loss. He was also unafraid to attack the hole or take on blockers, but the Raiders line is a very large group of men and I wouldn’t exactly say he won his battles with Gabe Jackson. That said, when a team only gives up fifty-six yards on thirty-one attempts, then your run defence is doing something right and whilst he wasn’t slipping off blockers easily, nor was he getting pancaked and when you’re taking on three hundred pound plus linemen that is not to be sneezed at.

As ever, I feel a little under qualified for grand pronouncements on players, but it was really interesting watching AJ Klein play and he certainly seemed to move in space well when dropping into zone, which he did a lot. It may not look to me that he diagnosed plays as fast as the man he was replacing, but that’s an unfair comparison for many a linebacker in the league and I did think he looked good for parts of this game, even if did give up some key plays. However, he kept on coming and I’ll be interested to see how the Panthers get on against the Seahawks in tonight’s game.

AAF: Joe Thomas

20 Sunday Nov 2016

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So this week’s amateur adventure in film was inspired by the block ‘em up podcast where Geoff and Duke selected Joe Thomas as their all NFL left tackle through the first half of the season, and then I watched him get beat for a couple of key plays in that week’s loss to the Baltimore Ravens. There is a thin line between success and failure and so having spotted those plays last week, I wanted to take a closer look at Thomas for the whole game.

I have watched Thomas before, and the thing that struck me then was his balance, and whilst I’m not expert on line play, he always seemed to be in control. For most of the game in Baltimore, Thomas was indeed in control. He is not the kind of lineman that is constantly flattening opposing players in the run game, but he seals his player up very effective in the run game, and he still looks balanced in the pass game.

It is interesting to me that the Browns seem to use run style blocking on passing plays without any play-action motion from quarterback quite a lot, and I don’t remember seeing that from other teams before. Perhaps I should be paying more attention.

However, for most of the game Joe Thomas seemed in control of his man whilst pass blocking, occasionally getting help from left guard Spencer Drango, but for most of the time he was asked to matchup man to man and usually he was up to the job.

The problem seemed to come however when he was matched up against Terrell Suggs, as unlike when blocking someone like Za’Darious Smith, there were multiple occasions when Suggs was able to get round Thomas and affect the play. There were two occasions where this really made the Browns pay.

In the third quarter Suggs was able to get round Thomas and get a piece of Josh McCown’s arm as he threw the ball and his pass was intercepted.

In the fourth quarter, getting round Thomas again he was able to knock the ball out of McCown’s hand and recover the football.

These were the major plays, but there were a couple more where Suggs was able to get round Thomas but couldn’t make the play. On all of these plays, some combination of Suggs speed and angle meant that Thomas was reaching and not able to stay in front of Suggs. Let’s not forget that Terrell Suggs has been an effective pass rusher and quality player so it should not surprise that he represented the major challenge that Thomas would face in this game.

For the majority of the game though, Thomas looked good, but such are the margins in the NFL, and particularly for a tackle, that it only takes perhaps a handful of plays that are not quite right for your quarterback to have a bad day. What I don’t know, is the line calls, whether the ball should have been out of the quarterback’s hand earlier. From the rest of his play you wouldn’t say that Thomas is a declining player, and I’m certainly not going to disagree with NFL lineman when they say that Thomas is as good as anyone in the league. However, on a short week as part of a bad team, a handful of eventful plays can catch the eye, and certainly Joe Thomas deserves to have played on better teams than he has, but the Browns show signs they could take real steps if they stick with the plan, and I don’t think Joe Thomas is going anywhere in the near future.

AAF: How Do You Solve a Problem Like Ezekiel?

23 Sunday Oct 2016

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I wanted to take a look at the Cowboys running game against the Packers defence, who were giving up less than two yards a carry against the run coming into this game, as this looked to be the match-up of the week and so it proved.

In a game where your defence gave up one hundred and ninety-one yard games, it might seem strange to say that for large parts of the game the run defence held up well, but to my eyes for good chunks of the game the Packers did well against the run. The Packers’ front seven were not pushed off their run fits and there were no huge holes for Ezekiel Elliott to run through. However, they were clearly unable to contain Elliott who finished the game with one hundred and fifty-seven yards on the ground.

The big chunk plays that Elliott did manage to pick up were when he ran off the end of the line to attack the periphery of the defence where he was able to run the ball consistently. That’s not to say however that he did not have success up the middle, as Elliott only requires a small crease to get a good pick up as he hits the hole so hard. Even when there were no holes up the middle, the Cowboys offensive line is good enough for them to get positive yardage by pushing their men back. The other thing that struck me about Elliott though is that he is a running back who rides contact effectively as well as being able to make defenders miss, which means that it is hard for defenders to get a hit on him and even when they do he doesn’t go down easily. This when coupled with his speed and acceleration makes him a fearsome runner which allowed him to generate these kinds of numbers against a defence that wasn’t playing badly.

His longest run was a twenty-nine yard play in the fourth quarter where coming out of a double tight-end formation with one either side of the formation and there was no player over left tackle Tyron Smith. With Packers’ linebacker Blake Martinez bursting through between guard and centre but unable to disrupt the hand off, Smith was able to seal off safety Ha Ha Clinton-Dix and Elliott had enough space to run up the middle for the huge gain. This was really the only time that the defence was miscalled, and whilst the Cowboys line did occasionally open up some nice holes, most of the time it was Elliott’s ability to run the ball as much as anything that did the damage.

So how do you solve a problem like Ezekiel? Well since he has developed some patience after the first couple of games, he has consistently run for over one hundred and thirty yards a game so the answer appears to be at the moment that you don’t. In this game you do wonder why he was in during the last series given the Cowboys were two touchdowns ahead, but numbers aside, Elliott has got off to an excellent start behind a no doubt very good offensive line. The big problem for the Cowboys last year was their inability to win without Tony Romo, but with both Romo and Dez Bryant out again this year, the new foundation of Elliott combined with rookie quarterback Dak Prescott has the Cowboys at 5-1 and whilst we shouldn’t get carried away yet, the signs are hopeful in Dallas. I would not be too worried about the defence for the Packers as they still looked good against the run for large parts of this game, and I doubt they will be the last to get gouged by Ezekiel Elliot.

AAF: Bengals Offence and Line

16 Sunday Oct 2016

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Dallas Cowboys 28
Cincinnati Bengals 14

This game was pretty upsetting to watch last week, but going through the coaching tape and trying to understand what happened on offence I am more frustrated than sad. My intention was to look at the offensive line play as that was one of the big talking points, but I have taken in aspect of the rest of the offence as I went through my latest amateur adventure in film.

The Bengals actually gained three hundred and forty-give yards of total offence in this game, with nearly one hundred yards on the ground from only nineteen carries, but they gave up four sacks and nine QB hits whilst only getting into the end zone in the fourth quarter when the game had already escaped them.

There are a lot of new or changed parts to the Bengals offence this year with a new offensive coordinator, new number two and three receivers, tight end Tyler Eifert still not being fit, and a new right tackle in Cedric Ogbuehi. This has led to a lot of nearly but not quite plays rather than flat out bad play, but it is really causing the Bengals’ offence problems in maintaining drives and in particular, being efficient in the red zone.

The timing is not quite there yet with the new receivers, and so whilst Brandon LaFell caught two touchdowns whilst looking pretty good, Tyler Boyd only made a couple of and had a particularly bad drop in the third quarter.

Moving to the offensive line, there is only one new player in effective rookie Cedric Ogbuehi, but this does seem to be causing them some problems at times. I am not an offensive line play expert, but it’s not that they look particularly bad in pass protection, but Andy Dalton has been hit too often and you can see why. The chemistry still appears to be developing between right guard Kevin Zeitler and Ogbuehi so whilst they are doing fine when facing a straight rush, any time that defensive linemen stunt, or someone loops round to the right side of the line  it seems to be causing the Bengals issues. Towards the end of the game Ryan Davis was getting round Ogbuehi repeatedly, but generally up field and so Dalton was stepping up and able to make the underneath passes the Cowboys were leaving them.

The run game of the Bengals features pulling guards fairly regularly, particularly Clint Bolling, and this is included in their play action passing which can lead to some interesting protection assignments. On one play Tyler Croft had to come across the back of the formation to seal the defensive end and was not able to hold up in what is a pretty challenging blocking assignment. You would also see this kind of movement in the running game where in mirrored action on plays early and late in the game, the tackle and guard of the same side would pull whilst a receiver motioned towards the line would have to cut the defensive end seal that side of the line. When the left side of the line performed this play, Brandon LaFell was able to make that cut block and the run worked, but later in the game when the right side performed the action, Tyler Boyd could not stop Ryan Davis from getting into the backfield and disrupting the play.

This is the problem with the Bengals offence at the moment; it’s just not quite clicking. A lot of the time they were in 11 personnel, and were only blocking with six players. Sometimes you would see Giovani Bernard lined up just behind the line between centre and guard, and he would be effective as part of the blocking unit, but they were not using big formations or lots of blockers to help sure up the pass protection. This might seem like a bad plan given what has been going on this season, except for large parts of the game it was fine but the timing was off with the receivers and the pass was incomplete. Then they would give up a pressure or sack.

Overall I still think the Bengals offence could come together, and so could the line, but my worry is that with them going to New England this weekend, making four road games out of their first six and with one of their home games in London in week eight, the Bengals could be too far behind to make it into the playoffs. The loss of coordinator Hue Jackson, on top of Marvin Jones and Mohamed Sanu at receiver, coupled with Tyler Eifert getting injured in the Pro Bowl and not making it back to the field yet has given the Bengals offence a huge amount to deal with at the start of the season, but whilst not a complete disaster, it has been enough to derail them so far. On to New England then…

AAF: The Titans Smash-Mouth Offence

09 Sunday Oct 2016

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For a team that are ranked twenty-first overall in offence by DVOA, I found a lot I liked about the Tennessee Titans’ exotic smash-mouth offence, but there are some critical flaws that are holding them back. However, I do not think these are particularly to do with the structure of the offence.

The first thing I should say is that although the Titans use a lot of double tight end, double tight end with two backs, and even  triple  back formations, they also spend plenty of time in the usual shotgun sets. They use a lot of pre-snap motion and spend a lot of time shifting formations as they move tight ends around, frequently from the backfield to the line or vice versa, but also flexing them out as receivers. They will also frequently keep their receivers close to the line and in bunches.

In this game, DeMarco Murray played the vast majority of snaps at running back, picking up ninety-five yards from twenty-five attempts as he had a mixture of runs that mostly went well with the occasional stop due to a lack of running room. The Titans looked to be pulling their guards often and use plenty of motion to have extra blockers going to where they are intending to run the ball. They managed to get over one hundred yards when you combine all carries and the offence sustained several long drives so whilst they were not generating overwhelming numbers, they would look good in a balanced offence, but this is where the problem lies for the Titans.

I like their use of formations and misdirection, but there are a couple of factors that appeared to be hampering the Titans to my eyes.in the passing game. I like the way that they move Delanie Walker around the formation, but Marcus Mariota was only able to connect to him twice for thirty-four yards despite targeting Walker eight times. In fact, Mariota was only able to complete thirteen of his twenty-nine attempts in this game, which is perhaps not surprising given that he seemed to frequently over throw his target completely or place the ball too high. He only threw one interception, but was simply not productive enough in the passing game. Mariota was not helped by his receivers, who often seemed to struggle to get open on their own or challenge the defence deep. This allowed the Texans to play closer to the line, although they were also helped by several good plays in their secondary with AJ Bouye catching my eye multiple times as he broke up passes. The one exception to all this was when Rishard Matthews got open on a double move and Mariota found him deep for a 60 yard play, but otherwise the Titans really didn’t achieve much in the passing game. Their receivers were often stacked or in trip sets on one side of the formation so they were trying to scheme them open. The only sack of the game came on a play where the Titans were max protecting with only two receivers running routes and Murray slipping out the backfield after a block, but no one was open in time as Mariota was chased down and sacked but this was partly because of his ability to scramble.

I think the Titans’ system could well work, but even if you are trying to focus on running the ball, you need receivers who can get open as if you can’t convincingly make plays in one phase of your offence, then all the defence has to do is focus on stopping the phase that does works. As obvious as it sounds, until some combination of Mariota making more accurate throws and receivers getting more open leads to better passing numbers, this team are going to continue to struggle on offence, and I wonder what the long term goal is for this franchise. If their ownership commits to the current setup then it might be possible to make things work, but they need the front office and coaching staff to work in step for long enough to see it through and I just don’t know if the current coaching/GM setup is good enough or if they will get the time.

AAF: JJ Watt vs the Patriots and Injury

02 Sunday Oct 2016

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This article has shifted on somewhat during the week as after listening to a podcast and hearing a discussion on the Patriots always scheming against JJ Watt well, I had already started working my way through the coaching tape when the news of JJ Watt’s re-injuring his back broke. He has already had surgery and will be out for the rest of the season, and I just hope he gets back to full fitness as he really is one of my favourite players in the NFL.

Looking at the coaching tape, Watt did indeed have a quiet game, although there were moments where he was still able to generate penetration, but was a step slow to get to the quarterback or stop a run. However a big reason for this was that the Patriots were playing him cleverly. Watt was frequently double teamed, but not in the over top way I have sometimes seen when other teams have played the Texans. More often than that though, the Patriots would run the ball away from Watt’s side of the line, or they would throw the quick pass before anyone would have been able to generate a pass rush. The Patriots would still block him with a single lineman, and sometimes Watt would shed the block to affect the play even if he didn’t get the tackle, but more often it was a case of avoiding Watt rather than over adjusting the blocking scheme.

I’m not going to speculate when or how Watt got injured, but I did notice there were a couple of drives where he was rested for a few snaps and then brought back, usually in passing downs. Whenever it was, the idea of trying to do anything on an NFL field with a back problem serious enough to be operated on a few days later is kind of terrifying. I tend to vacillate between an appreciation for the other worldly physical talents of NFL players, and remembering that they are only humans at another moment. The toughness so frequently displayed by NFL players has me bewildered given how painful I have found even relatively minor injuries.

There is all kinds of speculation about whether Watt came back to soon, or trained too much after the surgery are going round. It is hard to argue against this given that Watt re-injured his back, but given that Watt’s game is built around toughness and effort I would imagine most would struggle to hold him back.

The big question now is how healthy can he get, given that back injuries are notoriously difficult to recover from and you frequently hear about how people never feel the same after back surgery. The only real answer to that question is time will tell, but I like to think that he will make a full recovery as watching a potentially all-time great player in the making is an absolute pleasure. It’s possible that he will never reach those heights again, but I’m hoping that Watt proves the doubters, including me wrong on this one.

AAF: Carson Wentz

25 Sunday Sep 2016

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So I thought I would take a closer look at Carson Wentz this week given that he has led the Eagles to a 2-0 stretch.

I’ve heard several people I respect break down what has been working for Wentz, but I will try to base this only on what I was able to see on tape for myself, but I suspect it will sound similar.

In a 29-14 road victory over the Chicago Bears, Wentz’s number did not look spectacular as he threw for a mere one hundred and ninety yards on twenty-one completion from thirty-four attempts with one touchdown and no interceptions, but there was much more going on than these numbers might suggest.

For starters, at the beginning of the game, in his first regular season road game, Wentz started his opening drive with a series of empty backfield passing plays. He completed the majority of them with quick throws that allowed him to quickly select a receiver and make the pass. However, it has to be said that he was clearly in complete control of the offence, certainly appearing to make adjustments and looking like a quarterback who has been playing in the NFL for years.

It has to be said that it did not look like he was not being asked to go through complex progressions, seemingly work with fairly straight forward reads and a fair amount of play action passes, but this looked to be a feature of good coaching. It is in fact to head coach Doug Pederson and offensive coordinator Frank Reich’s credit that they have schemed so well for their young quarterback. He was not being asked to do much more than three or five step drop passes, or work from shotgun, but he was in clear command of what he was being asked to do.

I can’t say that his arm amazed you with the throws he made, but to be honest all the talk of cannons for arms seems to be overdone when evaluating quarterbacks and despite one hopping a couple of passes under pressure, there were no problems for Wentz in delivery catchable balls. In fact there were at least two drops I noted, one of which really should have been a touchdown to Jordan Mathews as the pass was dropped in nicely as he ran into the end zone. My only real concerns were that Wentz took a couple of unnecessary hits on scrambles, which I’m sure his coaches will want him to protect himself from, and that the offence was not terribly efficient in the red zone, only getting three field goals in the first half.

All in all though, Carson Wentz looks like he could turn himself into a very good NFL quarterback, and it really is very impressive to see him in such control of the offence so early in his career. The big tests are yet to come, starting this evening against the Pittsburgh Steelers, but he certainly has done pretty much as well as you could have asked of a rookie quarterback thrown into the starting line-up straight away.

AAF: Week One – 49ers O-Line

18 Sunday Sep 2016

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For my first amateur adventure in film of the season, Dan asked me to take a look at the Los Angeles Rams’ visit to the San Francisco 49ers, and after putting out an appeal on social media Simon from the Gridiron Gentlemen was kind enough to suggest I look at their offensive line to see how they tamed the Rams.

I am by no means an expert on line play, but I do enjoy watching defensive lines so it will be nice to turn the tables for the week.

I think it may be impossible to completely shut out Aaron Donald, but he had a remarkably quiet game. The 49ers’ line was certainly good in pass protection, often giving Blaine Gabbert a clean pocket, even if that didn’t always result in a completed pass. In fact, several times he simply saw the space open up before him and scrambled for a gain or first down. The Rams didn’t get a sack in this game, and the closest they came was probably when Donald beat left guard Zane Beadles when matched up one on one with him but couldn’t get to Gabbert before he threw the ball and was called for roughing the passer. This was not the only occasion Donald got through the line, he put a lovely swim move on centre Daniel Kilgore in the third quarter when the Ram’s blitzed five, but Gabbert was able to get rid of the ball or escape for a run. It may have resulted in a three and out for the offence, but they avoided the turnover and in so doing they negated what should have been one of the strengths of the Rams.

The run blocking was less obviously good overall, but the highlight of the week for me watching the line was a play that Simon mentioned on twitter, which really was beautiful. At the end or their second drive in the first quarter, the 49ers were 2nd & 11 on the Rams’ 11 yard line when Carlos Hyde ran in the touchdown thanks to some beautiful blocking. The 49ers lined up with 12 personnel in a shotgun formation with both tight ends to the right of the formation, one on the line and one behind, and Carlos Hyde stood to the left of Blaine Gabbert. On the snap of the ball right guard Andrew Tiller pulled left and sealed Rams’ end Robert Quinn whilst left tackle Joe Staley crashed down on Cam Thomas playing tackle and then blocked middle linebacker Alec Ogletree. For the Rams, Mark Barron who is listed as a linebacker/safety and lined up close to the line had correctly identified the gap the 49ers were aiming for, but tight end Garrett Celek had also pulled left and cleared out Barron easily, allowing Hyde to run in the touchdown whilst barely being touched before he crosses the goal line. There weren’t too many such exciting run plays in this game, but as the line develops in their new scheme under head coach Chip Kelly this play serves as a tantalising example of what might be possible.

Dan asked me to watch this game as he wanted to know what happened, to which I think the answer is that the Rams offence was ineffective, which is hardly unusual, but also their offensive line was able to control what should have been one of the Rams big advantages. The 49ers face a very tough ask this week in Carolina, and the offence is hardly flowing but it’s possible that their line at least is heading in the right direction.