• Home
  • Picks Competition
    • Pick’em Group
  • Gee’s Thoughts
    • Amateur Adventures in Film
  • Dan’s Thoughts
  • Newsletter
  • Podcast
    • As One Door Closes…
  • About
    • The Tao of The Wrong Football
    • The Team
    • Links

The Wrong Football

~ A UK American Football fan writes about the game he loves

The Wrong Football

Tag Archives: Joe Thomas

AAF: Joe Thomas

20 Sunday Nov 2016

Posted by gee4213 in Amateur Adventures in Film

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Cleveland Browns, Joe Thomas, NFL, Terrell Suggs

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.

Browns at Bengals, Coaching Tape Madness, and Week 9 Picks

08 Sunday Nov 2015

Posted by gee4213 in Amateur Adventures in Film

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Alex Mack, Andrew Luck, Andy Dalton, Cam Newton, Carolina Panthers, Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, Indianapolis Colts, Joe Thomas, Johnny Manziel, Luke Kuechly, NFL, Randy Starks, Tyler Eifert, Week 9 Picks

I’m attempting a little personal madness this morning as I try to fit three separate things I usually write into one week saving article so here goes.

The Bengals welcomed the Browns to town this Thursday as the battle of Ohio played out in from of a national audience, and it was a dramatic turn around from last year’s game that the Browns won, leaving Andy Dalton with 2.0 passer rating.

On offence the Browns started Johnny Manziel and it feels somewhat strange that he is starting and we’ve had barely a mention of the incident with his girlfriend in their car. We don’t know all the details yet so it is too early to judge, but given that the NFL are investigating what happened, it feels odd for him to be playing in this new world of investigations and Commissioner’s exempt list that we have become so familiar with. On the field he demonstrated both the flaws within the structure of the offence that is the real criticism of his play, and that when plays brake down you get glimpses of the play making ability that tantalise some into thinking that he could make it work. Whilst you wouldn’t say he exactly played badly, the one touchdown drive he had relied heavily on three long plays where he was forced out of the pocket and was able to find a receiver down the field. The problem is that the Bengals adjusted at half time to focus on keeping him in the pocket and the Browns didn’t score another point. The Browns generated a measly two hundred and thirteen yards total offence, unable to run or pass consistently to sustain drives leading to them getting ten less first downs than the Bengals in the game.

Part of the Browns struggle was that despite having two very well known offensive linemen in Alex Mack and Joe Thomas, they really struggled against the Bengals defensive line who were able to get pressure on Manziel consistently even if they only started sacking him in the second half. Watching the line you frequently saw Geno Atkins disrupting plays with penetration and he got himself a sack whilst Carlos Dunlap picked up two. There were also a number of batted passes when Manziel was throwing the ball, as the defence adapted and stiffened to keep the Browns contained all game.

The Bengals offence took advantage of the Browns problems with run defence gaining one hundred and fifty-two yards split between the team leading Giovani Bernard and Jeremy Hill. Meanwhile Andy Dalton was quietly efficient in the passing game, throwing for two hundred and thirty-four yards on twenty-one completions from twenty-seven attempts with Tyler Eifert catching all three of his touchdown passes. Eifert has been one of the huge differences to the Bengals this year with the matchup problems he creates and the help he has given in the red zone contributing to this team’s number two ranking on offence by DVOA.

I don’t feel there’s a lot to write about the Browns defence having already mentioned their season long problem with defending the run, but they did manage to get a couple of sacks and actually looked quite good against the pass in this game. However, even when things went well the Browns gave up points in Brown like ways. In the second quarter on the drive where they gave up a touchdown, Randy Starks stuffed Giovani Bernard and immediately gave up a fifteen yard penalty for taunting, and not content with that later on he gave the Bengals a first down and rescued their drive when he was caught offside on a play that should have turned the ball over due to an incompletion.

In the first half I thought my pick for the game might stand a chance with the Browns only four points behind at the end, but the defence adjusted and the Bengals eased themselves out to another win. I’m still waiting for things to go wrong, but obviously I am thrilled with how the season has gone so far. The Browns were shopping players at the end of the trade window, although who would think that they would make the most of any of the draft picks they were looking for. There needs to be a much more stable plan in Cleveland if they hope to ever do something in the AFC North.

Now it is time for me to move into the coaching tape write up, which this week I am combining with my normal weekly column as I am running out of time this week, but also I fell into one of the traps that highlights the joys and the madness of the NFL.

We all enjoy the excitement, admire the skill, and marvel at the physicality of watching football on game day, but there is also a whole other world of things to discover in the coaching tape. The all twenty-two and end zone views allow us to study all the personnel groupings, formations, and schematic battles that occur on every down, showing us why a receiver is wide open, why a player is dancing through the offensive line to make a tackle or sack in the backfield.

The problem for someone like me is that this season I am picking one game to go through, and then I have everything to look at. I am still refining my note taking, but I sat for an hour going through the Colts at Panthers from week eight and didn’t even make it out of the first quarter!

What I did see was that the Panthers defence is really good, and if you look at the end zone view you can really see why Luke Kuechly is such a special linebacker. Not only is he active before the snap, but he diagnoses the play so quickly and can knife forward to stuff the run at the line of scrimmage or drop seamlessly into coverage. It was also interesting to look at the Panthers offence and see just how they are maximising their output from Cam Newton, who is playing better this season but still overthrows receivers regularly in the passing game and can lack touch. However, he is a unique weapon in the running game as you simply do not see a quarterback regularly run head down like a running back into the opposing defence. It would terrify me if I was a Panthers fan as he takes so many hits, but he also pops up into the kind of face to face confrontation with the tackling defender in a way reminiscent of a running back, which is a lot of fun.

I didn’t see that many snaps by the Colts offence due to the flow of the quarter, but it is strange to see the media narrative surrounding Andrew Luck’s season, where he has gone from the next generational league saving quarterback in the preseason to a failing quarterback. There are worrying trends this season, he’s always thrown interceptions, but they are getting worse this season, and I got to see that in the one quarter of football in this game that I did see. On third down Charles Tillman playing right corner dropped into an under zone and Luck clearly did not account for him when he threw to TY Hilton running a route behind the corner, and so Tillman was able to intercept the ball before Hilton had a chance to make the catch. The problem is not so much the receivers, but the offensive line they have put in front of Luck and the twenty-fifth by DVOA rush offence they have given him this season. A young quarterback is always helped by a rushing game, and there has been a long string of quarterbacks who have been knocked out of the league by playing behind lines that could not protect them. The Colts fired their offensive coordinator and promoted Rob Chudzinski in a weirdly timed move given they have a short week before facing the leagues best defence and then go into a bye.

If you  read anything about NFL coaching, then you will likely hear about the hours they put into looking at tape and coming up with plans, and as an amateur with an interest it easy to how. When you start looking at the personnel on the field, how they are lined up on both sides of the ball, what the offence is running, what coverages are the defence playing, how well each player executed, down and distance, what reads a player had to make… the list really could be if not endless, extremely long. At least if you are a position coach then your area of focus is defines, and I think this is how I am going to try to reduce the task for me as I simply can’t spend hours and hours looking at one game no matter how much I want to. However, I can see how coaches do it, and why there’s always something else to see, because it is endlessly fascinating. Whether it’s watching route combinations to see how they get a player open, how a defence has balanced getting pressure against covering the five possible receivers of the offence, or the simple joy of watching a pass rusher setup an offensive linemen with a series of outside speed moves before bull rushing up the inside to get a sack, there is always a new nuance to learn or play to admire. There are so many coaching hours put into what we see each week, and the margins are so fine that very capable people can look foolish when they have probably been stressing all week a particular point that a player simply didn’t execute on Sunday. That is one of the strengths of the Patriots, they are so well coached that they appear ready each and every week despite the fact that they play such radically different game plans depending on the opponent.

I could continue to wax lyrical, but I would rather say that if you have NFL Game Pass, do yourself a favour and take a look at some coaching tape. It’s okay to be lost, but stick with it and I think you will start finding new things to admire and be fascinated by.

Now I finally move into the picks for this week, where Dan has already picked up a game on me this week so let’s see if I can get it back:

Dolphins @ Bills (-2.5)

I’m not convinced by either side who were both meant to be competing for the AFC East title this season, but things look at lot more familiar with the Patriots running away with the division. The Dolphins lost a huge part of their defence in Cameron Wake, and whilst I don’t expect a repeat of he beating they took last time they played, the Bills are getting some players back and have to get something going soon if they want to save their season

Gee’s Pick:    Bills
Dan’s Pick:    Dolphins

Packers @ Panthers (+2.5)

I think this is game of the week and it is being show for free on Freeview in the UK this weekend. I’m not sure why the Packers have got a five and half point swing given that they are on the road and the Panthers have playing very well this season. I think this is going to be a close game and if I am getting points as an unbeaten home team then I’ll take them, even if the Panthers do have to lose at some point

Gee’s Pick:    Panthers
Dan’s Pick:    Packers

Titans @ Saints (-7.5)

The Titans have fired their coach, and visit a Saints team who have definitely got their offence working better although the Giants’s defence was as poor as the Saints’ in last week’s highly entertaining game. I don’t see the Titans winning, and whilst the Saints may struggle to get this far ahead with their defence, it’s not going to stop me picking them.

Gee’s Pick:    Saints
Dan’s Pick:    Saints

Raiders @ Steelers (-4.5)

The Raiders are for real this season, beating a Jets team that may not have looked like themselves, but the Raiders have a winning record and hope for the first time in years. This week they face a different kind of team in the Steelers who are coming off a tough loss to the Bengals where they also lost Le’Veon Bell for the season. The Steelers have hung tough all year with a defence that has kept them in games whilst their potentially explosive offence has rotated injuries. I can see the Steelers winning it, but given all that’s going on I’m not sure why they are giving up more points this week against Raiders, even if the Raiders do have to come across from the west coast.

Gee’s Pick:    Raiders
Dan’s Pick:    Raiders

Rams @ Vikings (-2.5)

This looks to be another good game, but it might be one too many for a Vikings team who have quietly done well, but may well struggle against this Rams defence, whilst rookie Todd Gurley is rapidly looking like one of the best running backs in the league.

Gee’s Pick:    Rams
Dan’s Pick:    Rams

Washington @ Patriots (-13.5)

Things have faded in Washington whilst the Patriots go from strength to strength and whilst the points give me pause, not for long enough to go against the Patriots at home.

Gee’s Pick:    Patriots
Dan’s Pick:    Patriots

Jaguars @ Jets (-6.5)

The Jets quarterback situation alone is enough for me to think that this game will be closer than this line suggests, and whilst I have a history of getting Jaguar picks wrong, they are coming off a win in London where they finally had to put together a late drive to win and did. I could regret this, but I’m jumping back on the Jaguars bandwagon for another week.

Gee’s Pick:    Jaguars
Dan’s Pick:    Jets

Falcons @ 49ers (+6.5)

The Falcons have flaws, and I might be worried about this line if it was not for the fact that the 49ers are starting Blaine Gabbert at quarterback this week. Watch me be wrong spectacularly later today, but I can’t pick it.

Gee’s Pick:    Falcons
Dan’s Pick:    Falcons

Giants @ Buccaneers (+2.5)

The Giants have activated Jason Pierre-Paul, and whilst I have no idea if this will impact their pass rush or not, I have more faith in their offence than the Buccaneers defence. I just don’t trust the Buccaneers even if they did beat the Falcons last week.

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

Broncos @ Colts (+3.5)

The Colts new offensive coordinator has his toughest test in his first week, and whilst the points do give me a little pause given that the Colts are at home, they are not a good team and I think the Broncos remain unbeaten for another week behind their amazing defence. It will be interesting to see if their offensive performance against the Packers was an anomaly or a sign of things coming together after their bye week.

Gee’s Pick:    Broncos
Dan’s Pick:    Broncos

Eagles @ Cowboys (+2.5)

The Cowboys have not won a game since losing Tony Romo, and the Eagles defence is what they have been leaning on this year. You can never be certain about anything with the Eagles this year, but I think they will win this one.

Gee’s Pick:    Eagles
Dan’s Pick:    Eagles

Bears @ Chargers (-3.5)

The Chargers’ injury problems continue as they lost Keenan Allen for the year to a lacerated kidney, which is an injury that makes you shudder just to write it. The Chargers defence is a mess, whilst Rivers has to play at a high level to keep his team close in losses, and they have had no home field advantage. I think the Bears will keep this one close as they have at least become solid in John Fox’s first year even if this hasn’t turned into wins.

Gee’s Pick:    Bears
Dan’s Pick:    Bears

NFL Week 10 Browns @ Bengals Recap

09 Sunday Nov 2014

Posted by gee4213 in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Andy Dalton, Brian Hoyer, Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, Joe Thomas, Marshall Newhouse, NFL

As a Bengals fan this was a tough game to watch live, and I only made it through so much coaching tape as it was just horrible to pick the debacle apart. At the start of the year my things to watch for these teams was left tackle Joe Thomas and the quarterback situation for the Browns, and for the Bengals it was AJ Green, Geno Atkins and Vontaze Burfict. The problem with the Bengals players was that coming into the game Burfict was out with a knee problem, and having watched the game live, the only real stories for me were Andy Dalton’s epic melt down and Marshall Newhouse’s problems at right tackle. I gave up making notes of BE#14 incomplete pass or variations of, as well as BE#74 beaten or gives up pressure, but before we get into that let’s start with the positive things in this game.

One of the things I was interested in at the beginning of the season was the quarterback situation for the Browns, and whilst this is bubbling under, there is no controversy in this game. Brian Hoyer is a competent quarterback who has led his team to a 6-3 record this season, with an overall record as a starter of 9-4. He doesn’t exactly set the world alight, but he is a solid starter who threw for 198 yards on fifteen of twenty-three passes with no touchdowns and no interceptions. The Browns rushing game had been struggling since Alex Mack went out injured, but they managed to run for 170 yards in this game. The interesting thing for me was that at the end of the game when the Bengals had pulled Andy Dalton, the Browns didn’t put Johnny Manziel into the game to get him some reps, and I can only think that this is because they knew what a media circus this would cause, and that in of itself is a little worrying.

However, what the Browns’ QB does not have to worry about is pressure from the right side of the opposing defence. Their left tackle Joe Thomas is seven time Pro Bowler, four time First-Team All-Pro player, and he certainly looks the part. The Bengals pass rush has not been good this season, and certainly didn’t look to trouble Thomas. I’m no expert in line play, but he was always in control of the engagement in pass protection, never off balance and didn’t look like he was going to give up pressure in this game at any point.

Pretty much the complete opposite could be said of Marshall Newhouse who was standing in for Andre Smith at right tackle. There were very few plays where he didn’t seem to be giving up pressure or being forced back into the play, and these were usually when he wasn’t being rushed. He also managed to give up a couple of drive killing holding penalties, and the problem is further exacerbated by Andre Smith being currently listed as questionable due to his ankle problem with the Bengals about to go to New Orleans, not the kind of place you want to play if you are having line issues.

Whilst the Bengals offence looked bad all game, the defence hung in for a while, but it is worrying that a team with starting defensive tackles of Domata Peko and Geno Atkins are ranked dead last in rush defence by DVOA. Some of this will be down to how little Vontaze Burfict has played all season, and Rey Maualuga is currently out as well with a hamstring problem, but there are clearly issues with stopping the run. The only real bright spot in this game was Geno Atkins bursting through the line so quickly he was able to tackle Brian Hoyer before he could hand the ball off. In this age where players come back so quickly from ACL tears, it seems like Atkins is still getting his burst back, and I would not be surprised if we see a resurgence from him next season.

The one player who needs resurgence straight away is Andy Dalton. I have been impressed with the way that Hue Jackson has been running the offence, with a good amount of creative play calling, which included a thirteen yard run by wide receiver James Wright off what looked like normal receiver motion in the slot, and a good looking run by Jeremy Hill who was lined up at fullback. However, the commitment to the run that was so vaunted before the season doesn’t quite seem to be working in practice, and Andy Dalton has been having issues in the last couple of weeks.

There is a narrative that Dalton is not good under the pressure of nationally televised games, and certainly his record is pretty paltry. This game however was the worst, with Dalton finishing with a quarterback rating of two. He threw for eighty-six yards, completing ten of thirty-three attempts with three interceptions, and should have had a fourth when he overthrew another pass straight to Browns safety Tashaun Gipson who leads the league in interceptions yet somehow dropped it. It was straight after this dropped interception that Dalton was sacked twice and I gave up watching the coaching tape.

For the first sack Desmond Bryant straight beat Marshall Newhouse at right tackle to get to Dalton, then on the very next play the Browns only sending three pass rushers, somehow Bryant ended up one on one with Bengals rookie centre Russell Bodine and got his second sack. However, these were the only sacks  of the game and  the problems began much earlier.

The Bengals opening drive finished in an interception, when Dalton threw to Jermaine Gresham who wasn’t really open and Craig Robertson simply beat him to the ball. The fact that the Bengals only managed three points in this game is made worse by the fact that the offence did not really generate them. On their second drive of the game, the Bengals initially stalled and it was only that the Browns fumbled the ball on the resulting punt return that got the Bengals decent field position, but they couldn’t really take advantage of it. The drive was only kept alive, when on fourth and ten, Andy Dalton’s pass to Mohamed Sanu fell incomplete, but Buster Skrine was called for pass interference. The drive continued to falter until finally on third and fifteen, Andy Dalton ran past the line of scrimmage and then threw an illegal pass which fell incomplete and Mike Nugent kicked the field goal. I’d just like to remind you that this was the only scoring drive of the game.

Every now and a gain the Bengals would start a drive with a good run or complete a pass, but they could not sustain anything and this was not a surprise as Dalton kept missing throws, often by quite a margin. It wasn’t until the fourth quarter that Dalton actually threw more interceptions, but by the time the second and third ones came the game was already over, and it just added more insult to the horrible performance by Dalton.

The Browns have been competitive year and whilst I don’t know if they will be able to maintain their push for the playoffs, things are looking up in the city of Cleveland. For the Bengals, I said it was a playoff win or bust this season. There have been injuries, but frankly I’m not sure they are even going to make the playoffs. The regular season record of Andy Dalton got him his contract extension, along with having AJ Green to throw to, but if he doesn’t find a way to win nationally televised games regularly then the Bengals are going to remain the team with the longest playoff drought in the NFL.

I think I need to take a break from football for a bit now…

Subscribe

  • Entries (RSS)
  • Comments (RSS)

Archives

  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • May 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014

Categories

  • Amateur Adventures in Film
  • Dan's Dad's Thoughts
  • Dan's Thoughts
  • Fantasy Football
  • Gee's Thoughts
    • Hard Knocks
    • Off-Season
    • Playoffs
    • Pre-Season
    • Season Goodbyes
    • Thursday Night Football
    • Uncategorized
  • Picks Competition
  • Podcasts

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy