Category Archives: Amateur Adventures in Film

AAF: The LA Rams Offence and Jared Goff

03 Sunday Dec 2017

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So this week I got a chance to take a look at the LA Rams offence and the turnaround of Jared Goff as they took on the New Orleans Saints..

So the first think I took away was that Jared Goff looks like a professional quarterback, which given how bad things were last season is not something to be sniffed at. There was interesting footage that came out in the week of the Rams lining up early in the play clock so that Sean McVay could call any audibles before the QB headset could cut out at 15 seconds left on the play clock. I’m sure that in future defences will start switching looks later in the play clock so this will be something to monitor.

However, in this game, it wasn’t so much the play of Goff that stood out as the construction of the offence. The Rams remained committed to the run, even if they did only manage eighty-eight yards from twenty-five carries. However, this was not a slavish insistence on running on first down out of an I formation, in fact most of the time the Rams were in 11 personnel, but was the commitment to the run to establish the basis of their numerous run fakes. They not only used traditional play action, but would motion Tavon Austin across the formation or line him up as the running back with 01 personnel on the ball. Even if these plays did not always succeed, the defence has to account for them and more than once after two run fakes held a safety long enough for a receiver to get behind the play.

Sean McVay also schemed a couple of quick backwards passes to receivers who once tossed the ball for Tevon Austin to run on and on another play, Cooper Kupp threw a horrible forward pass. Still if misdirection ruled the day, they did keep feeding the ball to Todd Gurley in space so that apart from his seventy-four yards on the ground, Gurley picked up fifty-four yards through the air.

The Rams did not have things all their own way. If Goff was unlucky when a ball he threw behind Sammy Watkins bounced off his trailing hand and straight into the arms of a trailing PJ Williams, Goff had no chance of escaping Cameron Jordan when he faked inside right tackle Rob Havenstein and the burst straight past him on the outside to get a quick sack. For Cameron’s first sack I would suggest that Goff shared some of the blame due to holding on the ball whilst Cameron drove Andrew Whitworth up field and then powered inside him to get the sack. There is only so long even the best of tackles can hold up one on one in pass protection.

Still, for the most part the Rams moved the ball well and even whey they didn’t they still didn’t turn the ball over. I am impressed with the turnaround Sean McVay has already produced in LA and will be fascinated to follow the development of Goff as surely after this season’s success McVay and Goff will have a number of years to develop this offence.

AAF: Case Keenum and the Vikings Offence

19 Sunday Nov 2017

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With the discussions about starting Teddy Bridgewater taking place I wanted to take a look at Case Keenum and the Minnesota Vikings offence in this week’s amateur adventures in film.

I have to say that for me this was a game of two halves as the Vikings played more conservatively in the second half, particularly in the fourth quarter where they were very much running out the clock and barely threw the ball.

However, focussing on Case Keenum it has to be said that in this game apart from two throws in the second half Keenum looked a very competent quarterback, but that is the word. It was not a case of the things he did leaping of the screen, but Keenum executing a well-designed offence. There was one occasion where tight end Kyle Rudolph had to wait for a ball to arrive on an out pattern in the first half and it was that kind of ball that caused Keenum’s second interception as DJ Swearinger leapt the route and intercepted the ball for the second time this game. For Swearinger’s first interception Keenum wasn’t able to step into his throw and sailed a ball over his receiver’s head and into the waiting arms of Swearinger. However, for a lot of the game Keenum was throwing to open receivers, with Adam Thielen particularly catching the eye with his route running.

It has to be said that both Thielen and Stefon Diggs impressed me with their all round game, not only with their route running but frequently being motioned near the offensive line and being asked to block on run and pass plays. The Vikings may have only just got over one hundred yards rushing for the game, but they looked very balanced in the first half, with left guard Nick Easton pulling and opening holes for Latavius Murray and Jerick McKinnon. It was only in the second half when they were getting more conservative and running out the clock in the fourth quarter that the run game bogged down.

This was also the second week in a row where I saw the use of unbalanced lines, with the Vikings lining up several times with a tight end playing tackle on one end of the line so that the Vikings’ two tackles could line up next to each other on the opposite side. There were also several occasions where because receivers motioned towards the line on blocking plays, they were also able to run routes stacked or behind tight ends which helped scheme open plays. The tight ends also managed to block down then roll out to catch balls. All of this contributed to a scheme that made life very difficult for Washington in the first half.

It would seem harsh to drop Case Keenum given the record he has amassed with this team and given that Teddy Bridgewater has had very little practice time in the last two years. To my eyes this is an offence that is setup to succeed thanks to an improved line and a pair of receivers that are quickly gaining a reputation as one of the best pairings in the league. The quarterback situation is definitely muddy in Minnesota, but for once I don’t this is going to damage the team.

AAF: Deshaun Watson

05 Sunday Nov 2017

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I am running out of time a little bit this weekend, but with the injury curse hitting the Houston Texans and me planning to take a look at their offence versus the Seattle Seahawks defence – I thought I would look at the good and bad of Deshaun Watson whilst I still could this season.

To do this I’ve picked two plays from the first and second quarters which represent the pass that stood out to me, the interception, Watson’s longest run and the sack that lost the most yards.

The first of these plays was a fifty-nine yard touchdown pass to Will Fuller. In a way this is a simple play. The Texans lined up in 11 personel, with tight end Ryan Griffin initially lined up wide left and then motioning back onto the line whilst Deshaun Watson is stood back from the play to complete the shotgun formation. The Texans then run a simple play action pass, with the fake being enough to hold Seahawks safety Earl Thomas at his starting position for long enough that he is not able to turn and get over to a streaking Fuller to stop him catching the ball behind the defence and scoring a touchdown. The impressive thing about Watson on this play is that Dwight Freeney is coming off the right side of the defence and it is running back Lamar Miller who has to block him. This is not an easy assignment and Fuller can only shove Freeney to delay the rush, but whilst keeping his eyes downfield Watson shuffles in the pocket to avoid the rush and then throws a deep ball over the defence for Fuller to get under and catch falling into the end-zone.

If that was the good, the equalising touchdown for the Seahawks was an interception thrown by Watson on his next series demonstrates some of his youthfulness. Again the Texans lined up with 11 personnel in a shotgun formation, this time on third and ten, with Watson executing a straight drop and throwing an interception. Watson does look right before locking onto Deandre Hopkins coming across the field from the left and throwing the ball, but Earl Thomas simply sits in his starting position watching Watson and jumps the route to intercept the ball and takes it back for a touchdown. I have no way of knowing what Watson’s read should be for this play, but given that Earl Thomas is one of the league’s best safeties, I have to imagine that accounting for him should be part of this and this will be a pass Watson would love to have back..

The run that I want to talk about demonstrates the danger of an athletic quarterback. The Texans are lined up with 11 personnel again, still with Watson in a shotgun position but with Lamar Miller lined up to the left of Watson and further back while Ryan Griffin lined up as full back to the left and further forward of Watson. This is another play action play, but this time defensive tackle Nazair Jones gets good pressure while being held up by right tackle Breno Giacomini, but the pair are very close to Watson when he looks up from the play action hand off. Watson evades the pressure and having seen that Kam Chancellor and both linebackers of the Seahawks have dropped back into zones leaving plenty of space in front of him; Watson takes off and runs for a first down before he has to slide – a very safe way for Watson to pick up eighteen yards.

Towards the end of the second half on second and eight with fifty-two seconds left on the clock, the Texans line up in shotgun with an empty backfield. I am pretty certain they are in 11 personnel with Ryan Griffin lined up to the right of the line, and running back Alfred Blue lined up wide right, but it is hard to make out Blue’s number to be certain. What is clear is that the Seahawks are lined up in a nickel with corner Justin Coleman looking into the backfield from the right side of the defence. Coleman is lined up in a press position opposite the Texans’ stacked receivers on the left hand side of their formation, but when the ball is snapped Coleman immediately rushes the passer and does not get picked up at all. Coleman rushing from the right and Michael Bennett who lined up as left end meet as they sack Deshaun Watson. In this play Watson starts of looking right, and doesn’t sense Coleman’s pressure until it is too late for him avoid the sack.

So what do I make of this overall? There is a huge amount of potential in Deshaun Watson, and whilst his interceptions ultimately cost the Texans the game, without his play they would never have been in the game and how many rookie quarterbacks could throw for over four hundred yards against the Seahawks’ defence in Seattle. Yes Watson is athletic, but the pocket movement on the touchdown to Fuller is as exciting as the long run play. The injury is yet another frustrating one for a league that seems beset by them to franchise players, and it really sucks to have the rookie season of an exciting prospect cut short like this. However, it does seem like the Texans have a quarterback they can develop and I’m sure everyone will be excited about him next season.

AAF: Cameron Jordan

29 Sunday Oct 2017

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I decided to watch Cameron Jordan on coaching tape having been impressed with his performance against the Detroit Lions in week six, but the week seven game against the Green Bay Packers was very different. This was probably because both David Bakhtiari and Bryan Bulaga started for the Packers this week.

Cameron Jordan played mostly left end in this game, although he did occasionally line up on the right standing up, or on the right as part of a 3-3 nickel look. As a consequence he spent most of this game going up against right tackle Brian Bulaga unless the blocking scheme sent Bulaga somewhere else. In fact the one quarterback hit Jordan did get was against a play action pass where tight end Richard Rodgers was assigned to block him and couldn’t hold up which allowed Joran to get to Brett Hundley whose pass was incomplete. Jordan was able to flush Hundley out the pocket on one other play when he lined up on the right and was able to get into the backfield but otherwise he was only able to apply pressure whilst fighting an offensive linemen.

Despite usually lining up in a four point stance, it was not so much first step and quickness that Jordan was using as speed to power rushes, but for the most part Bulaga held up, although Jordan was able to push the pocket more than once. In fact, on the final drive in the fourth quarter he was able to push Bulaga back and get a hand on a pass to break up the play. This was not the first time Jordan got his hand in a passing lane but was the only time he got a hand to the ball.

For me this is one of the harder bits of coaching tape to evaluate. It is pretty easy to comment on a speed rusher getting lots of pressure, but when the stats are quiet and there’s an equal battle going on between defensive lineman and offensive lineman it is hard to evaluate if you don’t know all the nuances and are not a coaching expert. To my eye Cameron Jordan held up in the run, was strong enough to hold up blocks, was double teamed several times, and did manage to get some pressure. It was not the kind of game where Jordan would definitely catch the eye, but it feels like he had a solid game and the Saints defence definitely looks to have improved on defence.

AAF: Adrian Peterson

22 Sunday Oct 2017

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So after an aborted attempt a couple of weeks ago, I have finally got through an entire game of coaching tape and so I’m very happy to be able to write up what I saw when I took a look at Adrian Peterson’s first game for the Arizona Cardinals against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last week.

I was not convinced that Peterson was going to make a huge difference to the Cardinals when he was traded to them from the New Orleans Saints but the move did make sense for both teams. It had been a couple of seasons since we had seen Peterson at his best and the criticism has been that he was not able to run out of shotgun formations and that given his ability in the passing game, when he was on the field it was too much of a tip to what was going to happen on that play.

In the game against the Buccaneers last week Peterson ran for one hundred and thirty-four yards on twenty-six carries giving him over a five yard per carry average, and he scored two touchdowns. Peterson did have one fumble, but he was bailed out by guard Earl Watford who recovered the ball for him.

The classic thing you hear about Peterson is that he is a volume runner and he runs best from the I-formation. Whilst he did not take many snaps in the shotgun formation, he was not the obvious indicator of a running play that has been talked about in recent years. The Cardinals spent most of the game in 11 or 12 personnel, with Adrian Peterson as the single back but for most of these snaps Carson Palmer was under centre rather than in shotgun. From here Peterson did run the ball effectively, with his longest run that counted being twenty-seven yards though he did also have a forty-one yard run called back due to an illegal blocking penalty, although Peterson was also called for taunting at the end of that play as well.

It has to be said that Peterson does not look to have burst when compared to the athletes around him, but he is a patient runner with enough experience and shiftiness to be effective. More importantly, he seemed to give the Cardinals balance and although he was only targeted once in the passing game, he did run a number of routes or play action fakes and so his presence on the field was not an indication of whether a run or pass play was coming.

It is too early to tell if he can continue this pace over the course of the season as he has not carried this level of  load for a couple of years, but the early signs are definitely positive and if he can give the Cardinals’ offence a genuine balance then he could help rescue their season. I look forward to seeing how the Cardinals do against the Rams in London this week.

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.