Tag Archives: Frank Reich

AAF: Colts Offence

25 Sunday Nov 2018

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For this week’s amateur adventure in films I have looked at the Indianapolis Colts’ offence against the Tennessee Titans, taking my inspiration from the Ringer’s NFL Podcast and Robert May’s enthusiasm for what was going on in Indianapolis.

There was a lot of flux for the Colts this offseason, not least of which was that they thought their new head coach would be the Patriots’ Josh McDaniels but after he had a change of heart and decided to stay in New England after the Super Bowl loss they has to find someone else. They decided to grab the winning offensive co-ordinator from the Super Bowls in Frank Reich whose main job was to revive the form of Andrew Luck, a quarterback who early in career talked of liking to get hit but who after playing though injury was not even throwing NFL footballs at the start of training camp and hadn’t taken a competitive snap in over a year.

It may have taken a few weeks to get going, and there was a lot of noise about Luck being pulled out of the game for a Hail Mary attempts as his backup Jacoby Brissett had the stronger arm, but it certainly seems to be flowing now. So how does it look?

The Colts played predominantly with 11 personnel but with good mix 12 and 13 personnel mixed in and one of my favourite was a grouping of 21 personnel with rookie running back Nyheim Hines lining up at receiver and Marlon Mack staying as the running back.

The Colts would usually stick with a single back in the backfield but would motion other players back there as well as mixing in some motion, in particular with the tight ends. Speaking of which, one of my favourite performances in this game was from Jack Doyle. I’m sure the focus of most discussions about the Colt’s offence would centre of Andrew Luck or TY Hilton and the big name in the tight end room would perhaps be Eric Ebron, but I loved the versatility of Doyle who was the every down tight end who moved round the formation, both blocking and as running routes whilst Ebron came in as the move receiving tight end.

However, focussing on Andrew Luck it seems the offence is really suiting him and part of that is that he’s getting the ball out quickly. Gone are the days of him holding onto the ball and trying to tough things out to make a play, the ball is coming out quickly with a good balance of run and play action keeping the defence honest. This is not a run first teams but a modern balanced offence, and in the second quarter the Colts scored almost a perfect play action touchdown where the fake handoff drew in the Titans’ single high safety and TY Hilton flew past his corner to score a sixty-eight yard touchdown. This is something that is possible when you have sprinkled enough run plays into the mix from the same formations that you are passing from and although the Colts only just made one hundred yards on twenty-eight carries in the run game, they established it enough to make the play fakes work. There were also some really good timing throws throughout this game to a number of different receivers although star of the show in terms of receiving was undoubtedly TY Hilton who caught all nine of the balls thrown his way and finished with one hundred and fifty-five yards and a pair of touchdowns.

Finally, whilst I was not focussing on the offensive line, the athleticism of Ryan Kelly caught my eye as it is not often that you see a centre pull as frequently in the run game as Kelly did and the whole line had a good day as they did not give up a sack and Luck only had to move a couple of times to avoid the rush even if a couple of throws were affected by pressure.

This was obviously a good game to see the Colts offence running smoothly, they managed a total of three hundred and ninety-seven yards, five touchdowns and gave up no sacks. They ran the ball well enough for the play action fake to be legitimate in the defence’s mind and structurally they were clever enough to elicit comment as I watched the game. It’s not that uncommon for me to talk aloud to the tape (I’m sure my partner loves this habit…) but it is kind of a test on offence and between their motion, route combinations and fakes they got enough separation for Andrew luck to complete twenty-three of his twenty-nine passes. The Colts have won their last four games and after a tough start to the season seem to be heading in the right direction with a large part of that being the position they are putting Andrew Luck in to succeed. It took me by surprise that Luck is already twenty-nine but as he heads into his prime it looks like the Colts are finally giving him the team to win consistently and they will have a large amount of cap room in the offseason. Don’t look now, but with the focus this season seemingly on the young quarterbacks coming up under Tom Brady and Drew Brees, Andrew Luck is reminding us all that he’s still there and should not be overlooked.

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The Week of the Safety

24 Wednesday Oct 2018

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18-10-24 C Littleton

Image Credit: therams.com

It may not be the headline most people would go for, but it will do for me as we had three safeties over the weekend, taking the season total to five on an increase of 250% in one day and that has to be more interesting than the Bengals and Dolphins getting beat this weekend.

Okay fine, I’ll start with the Bengals running into the buzz saw that is the Kansas City Chiefs at home. The fact that the Chiefs offence was good is of no surprise to anyone, although it would have been nice if the talented Bengals pass rush was more effective and the tackling was better. No one seemed to be able to stop Kareem Hunt and I knew the Bengals were in trouble when Al Michaels announced that the Chiefs’ defence hadn’t forced a punt in seventeen drives and the Bengals opened with a three and out then punt. In fact they punted on the second drive as well and it wasn’t until the second quarter that they scored any points when CJ Uzomah caught the Bengals only touchdown. It’s easy enough to write of this game as a fan of the Bengals but the prime time stats are worrying and the game against the Buccaneers takes on huge significance if the Bengals are going to turn things around.

So the Chiefs are really good, as are the LA Rams who remain unbeaten with a comfortable 39-10 win over the San Francisco 49ers and to no one’s surprise it is late October and the Patriots have rounded into form and have a sole lead atop the AFC East after a win over the Chicago Bears.

We had a really competitive London game where the LA Chargers ran out 20-19 winners over the Tennessee Titans who couldn’t make a two point conversion after two attempts. I can understand the decision Mike Vrabel made to go for it and try to get the win, particularly with all the travel to London and it’s clear that at least a section of the new head coaches obviously believe in this aggressive approach as Frank Reich tried it earlier in the season and also lost. However, I’m not sure with Marcus Mariota’s movement skills why you wouldn’t have him move on one of those attempts. Another coach who might want to think about his late game tactics is Hue Jackson as the Cleveland Browns lost their fourth overtime game this season to a Tampa Bay field goal, which means they have already racked up half an extra game for their players despite the shortened overtime period introduced this season.

Moving on to one of the more surprising results of week seven, the Houston Texans went to Jacksonville and won 20-7 meaning the Jaguars have two divisional home losses already and Blake Bortles has very much not take a step this season. In assessments that should have the Giants worried, plenty of commentators are suggesting that perhaps investing the pick the Jaguars used on Leonard Fournette was not wise given that they could have had Patrick Mahomes or Deshaun Watson with their fourth selection. In fact, of the quartet of high pick running backs we’ve had in recent years – Leonard Fournette, Ezekiel Elliott, Saquon Barkley, and Todd Gurley, it is only Gurley who is in the conversation for MVP and he also happens to have a head coach who’s quickly establishing himself as one of the best in the league as well as a very good young quarterback in Jared Goff. Just to heap it on a little more, apart from the hamstring problems that have side-lined Fournette for most of this season, you could argue that Fournette wasn’t even the most effective running back in his draft class given that Alvin Kamara was offensive rookie of the league last year. Now it is early and we could be saying different things in a couple of years and certainly Sqauon Barkley is some talent, but effective running backs are found at all kinds of rounds in the draft and sometimes undrafted too where as it much rarer to find quarterbacks outside of the early rounds. There’s a reason everyone makes a fuss about Tom Brady going in the fourth round or Tony Romo having the career he did having been un-drafted. It is not that plenty of quarterbacks picked early don’t flame out, but the low picked ones that make it are much rarer than effective running backs taken outside of the first round.

Moving away from draft strategy, but sticking to team building we have several teams who clearly are in win now mode and one that is very evidently tearing things down. Not content with trading away Khalil Mack, Jon Gruden has sent Amari Cooper to the Dallas Cowboys for a first round pick. There’s been plenty of criticism of the price the Cowboys paid given Cooper’s performance the last couple of seasons but they are belatedly trying to address the issues they have at receiver and the talk of the Raiders trading away Derek Carr is only increasing. Perhaps more intriguing is the New Orleans Saints move to acquire Eli Apple for a 2019 fourth round pick and a 2020 seventh round pick from the New York Giants. The Saints know they have a limited window given the age of Drew Brees but given that they have the second best record in the NFC already, you can see what they are doing in trading for a first round draft pick although given the recent moves to get up the draft (for defensive end Marcus Davenport) and in acquiring Teddy Bridgewater in pre-season. There are some thinner drafts coming, but with an ageing hall of fame quarterback you can see why they are trying to get him another ring now. I will assume that Dan, with his love of kicking, will cover the Saints winning thank to an unprecedented event or I will add it in myself if it is missed.

So finally, as I mentioned at the start of this post the #TWFSafties watch continues with the three we saw this week. Going through them in sort order from pro-football-reference.com we had a blocked punt that went through the back of the end-zone for a safety for the Ram against the 49ers. The fun stat about this play is that this is Cory Littleton’s fourth blocked punt since the start of last year, which is kind of incredible. I may have to dig into this a little more if I can find the stats to see how that compares historically. The second was pretty standard as Peyton Barber of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was tackled before he could get out the end-zone as the Buccaneers were on their own one yard line. It was Trevon Coley’s only tackle in the game but he scored the Browns two points and a field goal and it’s just a shame that they couldn’t put them to better use. Finally, the Buffalo Bills lost 37-5 against the Indianapolis Colts and two of those points they had very little to do with as a high snap bounced off Andrew Luck’s hands and into the end-zone before squirting out the back as players pursued the ball. I usually like to see a quarterback safety but my favourite for this week has to be the Littleton’s fourth punt block.

I now I need to start worrying about next week’s picks (not going well) and the Bengals which aren’t faring much better!

AFC Preview

04 Tuesday Sep 2018

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18-09-04 AFC

With the new season only days away I thought I would take you through a whistle-stop tour of the league starting with an AFC preview and I’ll give the NFC teams their own post before the Philadelphia Eagle and Atlanta Falcons get things under way on Thursday.

I don’t particularly like making predictions as there are too many variables and injury luck is can be such a huge part of team success so I’ll be breaking the divisions up into favourites, competitive, and likely to struggle as I work my way round the division compass so without further ado let’s make a start on the .

AFC North

Much as it is painful for a Bengals fan to say it, the favourite to take the AFC North division is still the Pittsburgh Steelers. They may have questions at linebacker thanks to Ryan Shazier’s injury, but the defence still finished top ten last year by DVOA in and the options in their offence are still terrifying. Time is ticking for Ben Roethlisberger but as long as he doesn’t suffer a dramatic fall off then this is going to be one of the teams of the conference who should have their eyes on the Super Bowl.

The AFC North is always a tough division, and even when the Browns are struggling they are often a tough out, but not so much under Hue Jackson. However, with a defence that has looked good in pre-season and the additions of Jarvis Landy and Tyrod Taylor as well as new offensive co-ordinator Toddy Haley it at least feels like the infrastructure for success is more solid. In a position to let rookie quarterback Baker Mayfield develop and not rush him I think the Browns will be more competitive than last season, but whether their ill-discipline (they got penalised a lot in pre-season) will allow them to win games I don’t know. I think we’ll know a lot more about this team by the end of the first four games.

The Baltimore Ravens are another team who are perennially competitive but had to do it with defence and special teams last year. With a kicker like Justin Tucker you can mask a lot of deficiencies in offence but the thing the Ravens coaches might be most happy about having drafted Lamar Jackson this year is the fire it seems to have lit under long time quarterback Joe Flacco. He may also have been helped by better receiving options and being healthy in the offseason for the first time in two years but if the Ravens’ Super Bowl winning play caller can lead the offensive to a better ranking than twenty-first by DVOA the Ravens will be right in contention for the playoffs again.

I’ve written a fair amount about the Cincinnati Bengals this pre-season and it is telling that neither of the offensive tackles two years that they drafted to prepare for a transition of talent have worked out whilst Andrew Whitworth looked great for the LA Rams last year. With new playbooks on both sides of the ball there have been a lot of changes to coaching and the roster. Whilst the Bengals have another young team there seemed to be a lot to like and if the O-line gels, then Andy Dalton should have a much easier time finding his myriad of skill players. I’m not pencilling them into the playoffs, but I’m not ruling it out and I wasn’t sure that would be the case when it was announced the Marvin Lewis was coming back.

AFC East

Is this the year that the New England Patriots falter? For the first time Tom Brady was not ever present through the off-season, their first round offensive lineman Isaiah Wynn ruptured his Achillies after they let starting left tackle Nate Solder leave in free-agency, and this was a team that went to the Super Bowl with a defence ranked thirty-first in the league by DVOA so they can ill afford an offensive wobble. I think we’re all at the point where we’ll believe Tom Brady is done when he has signed his retirement papers, but what will help them is that none of the rest of the division are exactly standing up as challengers at the moment and so the Patriots look to be favourites still. This could finally change though.

The Buffalo Bills made the playoffs for the first time in eighteen attempts last seasons, but they responded to this by cutting the quarterback that got them there, not signing the linebacker that led the league in tackles and trading their left tackle to the Bengals in the draft manoeuvres required to get their quarterback of the future. Have traded away AJ McCarron they have opted to go with rookie Josh Allen and Nathan Peterman as their QBs, but whilst Peterman has looked good in pre-season and Allen has flashed, the Bengals defensive line had a field day against Buffalo’s o-line and it could be a very long season for whoever starts. I was impressed with everything Sean McDermott did last season bar benching Tyrod Taylor but I don’t think this season’s roster is better than last years and I have a nasty feeling they will struggle for a lot of the season.

If you trade away your best offensive and defensive players for chemistry reasons, you had better have an awful lot of talent coming in and I’m not sure that Miami Dolphins do. I thought they had a good draft and I would say Adam Gase is a good coach but I’m not at all sure of the roster construction and this feels like the latest in a long series of make or break seasons for Ryan Tannehill. I believe that Gase can keep the locker room together and make them competitive but it would not surprise me if they fall into a difficult season. Nothing would make me happier than to be proved wrong, if only to cheer Dan through the season.

Finally we have the New York Jets, and I though Todd Bowles did an excellent job of coaching with a lack of talent on the roster last season and not sure many other coaches would have got as many wins. The most ready of the rookie quarterbacks fell into their laps in the draft and Sam Darnold looked good enough in pre-season that the Jets traded Teddy Bridgewater to the New Orleans Saints. I think it will take another or season or two to turn things round and I don’t know if Bowles will get the chance to complete the job, but I can see the Jets equalling their record of last season. There will be ups and downs with a rookie quarterback but the real question for this season is have the Jets finally got a franchise QB. Everything else after that can wait.

AFC South

The Jacksonville Jaguars continued to build their defence, stuck with Blake Bortles and their big free agent signing was a offensive guard. I thought that Bortles might have learnt a thing or two in last season’s playoff run but with the exodus at receiver and the injury to Marqise Lee this team will be as reliant as ever on their defence and the run game. The good news is that the defence will be no less scary and they should rightly be considered the favourites for this division.

The Houston Texans may have only won four games last season, but they revealed they could have a bright future as long as the young quarterback Deshaun Watson can recover his blistering form from last season before his knee injury. With the defence hoping a number of players stay healthy, including JJ Watt this could be really good team even if the offensive line looks to be a big problem. There are a lot of ifs there so whilst the Texans will start out competitively, how long they will remain so is the big question.

The Tennessee Titans ground their way into the playoffs with a run first offence and a defence that ranked twenty-first in the league by DVOA. This was not enough to save Mike Mularkey his job and there rookie head coach Mike Vraebel is hoping that Matt LaFleur can revitalise the offence and fourth year quarterback Marcus Mariota. The coaches with links to Bill Belichick have not necessary flourished as head coaches and Vraebel has limited experience as the man with ultimate responsibility so I am very curious to see how he goes. The honest answer is I’m not sure so this is one of the teams we’ll need to follow closely through the start of the season.

The Indianapolis Colts have struggled mightily with Andrew Luck being out injured but this also laid bare the problems with the rest of the roster and whilst there are signs that things are improving in the second year of Chris Ballard’s rebuild, a lot will depend on Andrew Lucks surgically repaired and extensively rehabbed shoulder. The good news is that he’s back to starting but new head coach Frank Reich will be hoping that he can get enough from his franchise quarterback that the season can be a success, but I have a feeling that being competitive would qualify as just that and would be a good place to start.

AFC South

The Kansas City Chiefs won the division last year and I have too much faith in Andy Reid to see this team as anything other than competitive and I would place them as favourites to win the division. That is despite trading Alex Smith to Washington to promote Patrick Mahomes as the starter after a season where the young quarterback sat on the bench. Mahomes has the arms to make use of the myriad of skills players the Chiefs can use in their offence that has borrowed liberally from college, whilst their defence was only ranked thirtieth by DVOA last year when they won the division. It wouldn’t take much to improve that ranking and with the potential of their offence the Chiefs could be one of the most fun teams to watch this season.

The other potential favourite in this division could be the LA Chargers but it would require them to get out of their own way and they couldn’t quite manage that last season. The abiding image of Philip Rivers for me these days is a player somehow functioning as an effective quarterback despite minimal protection from his line. The defence was just outside of the top ten with a fearsome pass rush led by Melvin Ingram and Joey Bosa and they should be competitive again this season. The problem is that they have a nasty habit of losing close games and their ‘home’ games in LA were frequently more like home games for the opposition thanks to fan turnout. I’d like to think they can improve but I’m not willing to just outright declare it, although I’d be very willing to be proved wrong again.

I’m not entirely sure where to begin with the currently Oakland soon to be Las Vegas Raiders. The big move of the off-season would have been luring Jon Gruden out of the commentary booth nine years after he last coached except they have just traded Khalil Mack, one of the best young defensive players in the league, to the Chicago Bears. The reasoning is that the Mack’s contract demands were just too big, and the Bears wasted no time in signing Mack to a six year deal with $90 million guaranteed days after Aaron Donald signed a contract with $87 million guaranteed. The difference between the three franchises is that the Rams still have a young quarterback on their rookie contract as does the Bears, whilst the Raiders have already signed Derek Carr to a five year extension. The issue is that Gruden has been out of the league for a while, even if he was staying plugged into the NFL through his media gig, and the defence his brother Jay Gruden [I appear to have gone made, too many ex-Bengal coordinators involved as it is in fact Paul Guenther who is the new defensive coordinator – Ed.] takes over was ranked twenty-ninth by DVOA with Khalil Mack. I’m really not sure what to expect out of the Raiders this year, and whilst I can see the salary cap argument to an extent (I don’t study it hard, maybe that’s a task for next off-season) the Mack trade amongst others does nothing to help the Raiders now and I think this club will be in for a very interesting time this year.

Last year’s AFC West strugglers the Denver Broncos will be hoping that the addition of Case Keenum at quarterback will be enough of an upgrade to the offence to give the still competitive if retooled defence a chance of winning games. In the one game I saw them this preseason the offensive line still looked to be a problem but after a good pre-season from Chad Kelly, the Paxton Lynch development plan has finally been shelved. It is way too soon to question a GM who has won a Super Bowl and given his history as franchise quarterback you would think that the job is John Elway’s as long as he wants it. However, whilst he’s made a number of sharp moves in free-agency, his record in the draft is a bit patchier and his choice of Vance Joseph as head coach didn’t exactly yield the early returns that Elway would have hoped for. Still, if either Keenum or Kelly can make the offence competitive then the Broncos will be a team no one will want to face, especially at home and that could be enough for them to be in the playoff race come December.

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.