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

The Wrong Football

Tag Archives: Keenan Allen

AAF: Chargers End of Game Play Calling

15 Sunday Nov 2020

Posted by gee4213 in Amateur Adventures in Film, Gee's Thoughts

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Tags

Anthony Lynn, Carl Nassib, Donald Parham Jr., Hunter Henry, Jalen Guyton, Justin Herbert, Kalen Ballage, Keenan Allen, LA Chargers, Lamarcus Joyner, Las Vegas Raiders, Mike Williams, NFL, Nick Kwiatkoski, Trayvon Mullen, Trey PipKins III

I am trying something a little bit different this week with my Amateur Adventures in Film post because as I have discussed on the podcast, I am struggling to find time to grind an entire game’s worth of tape, even if I am only looking at one side of the ball in a game.

However, having complained about the LA Chargers play calling at the end of their loss to the Las Vegas Raiders I thought I would take a look at the coaching tape and go through it in a little bit more detail, particularly as having gone back and watched the whole game after recording the podcast on Monday there was another red-zone play that caught my eye that I wanted to contrast against the final two plays.

Rookie quarterback Justin Herbert had led the Chargers seventy-one yards using up four minutes and thirty-one seconds of play clock and using all three timeouts, but spiked the ball with six seconds left on the clock and only needing four yards to score a touchdown and win the game. Perhaps not the best clock management, but the Chargers were in a position where they could win the game, yet here is where the problems start.

The Chargers’ first call on second and four with six seconds left was a fade pass to Mike Williams who had lined up on the right side of the field with the team in a shotgun formation with 11 personnel (one running back & one tight-end) on the field. There was no motion and so this was an execution play relying on the six foot four Williams to come down with a contested catch in the back corner of the endzone. It was a nice enough thrown ball, but this was really a fifty-fifty shot and it did not work.

I am not a huge fan of the goal line fade route, but calling one from four yards out really gives the pass target a very tight area with which to work. Additionally, the Chargers were static before the snap of the ball so there was no indication of the coverage and more importantly they didn’t make the Raiders’ defence have to adjust with seconds left on the clock and the game on the line.

I knew I didn’t like this call when I watched the game highlights on Monday, and was wrong about the player targeted when recording our podcast that night, but there is an additional factor that made these two end of game plays worse, so let me take you back to the second quarter for an end zoneplay that resulted in a touchdown.

The Chargers are lined up on the Raiders five-yard line on fourth and one. The Chargers come out in 11 personnel and line up in a single back formation. First they motion tight-end Hunter Henry right so he swaps sides of the formation and now lines up on the right-side of the offensive line and a Raiders defender follows him (I’d love to identify them properly but the Raiders’ silver on white numbers are not that easy to pick up on coaching tape). The Chargers then send receiver Jalen Guyton left in jet motion left before the snap of the ball with Raiders corner Trayvon Mullen following. The play is a simple toss right, but the blocking in this play is what caught my eye when watching the game on Tuesday as Keenan Allen was lined up close to the formation on the right hand side and when the ball was snapped, Allen blocks in pushing Raiders defensive end Carl Nassib left. This isn’t a pancake block or anything physically impressive because it doesn’t have to be, as Herbert tosses the ball right to running back Kalen Ballage, all Allen had to do was push Nassib far enough left as the defender rushes up field that Ballage can get outside of him, which is what happens. This has the effect that it frees up right tackle Trey Pipkins III to pull right without worrying about Nassib and he blocks safety Lamarcus Joyner as Hunter Henry takes the unidentified Raiders defender who followed his motion, which when combined with Dan Feeney getting to the second level and cutting line-backer Nick Kwiatkoski and delaying him just enough, means there is enough of a lane that Ballage can run the ball in for a touchdown with hardly any contact.

I was hoping to diagram this play up, but I am still looking for the right application to allow me to do that and I ran out of time. What I liked about the play was the double motion before the ball and the inventive blocking scheme. Now, I think you should already be able to see the contrast between that scoring play and the static goal line fade that didn’t work. However, whilst I can understand wanting to throw the ball quickly to get another chance if you only have six seconds on the click, with one second on the clock you know that this play is it so it had better be a really good one so let’s take a quick look at that.

The Chargers line up in shotgun with what I think is 12 personnel, but this time the have a quad of players on the left side of the formation, and tight-end Donald Parham lined up on his own on the right. Once again, the Chargers are static before the snap and they throw another fade right to Parham who caught the ball, but couldn’t hold onto it as he hit the ground. On the left side of the play Keenan Allen drops into a receiver screen position behind the other three Chargers’ players blocking, although the Raiders have an extra defender in the area. However, I do not understand why with the game on the line the Chargers abandon motion before the snap, there is no kind of trickery just another fifty-fifty fade pass. It is even more frustrating when you see such a nice goal-line play earlier in the game like the one that I wrote up.

I developed a lot of respect for Anthony Lynn whilst watching Hard Knocks before the season started, but a combination of game management and play calling lost what was a winnable game and I really struggle to believe that the final fade pass was the best play the Chargers had available to them.

The Chargers keep losing close games, and if you look at the final drive in this game I think you can see why and the combination of game management and play calling like this is a big part of why. It is reasonable to expect Justin Herbert to get better at clock management as he gains experience, but the team have to be calling the right plays and at this point, I think it is fair to wonder if the Chargers will correct it and if they don’t, then big changes could be coming this off-season.

Week 6 Amateur Adventures in Film

25 Sunday Oct 2015

Posted by gee4213 in Amateur Adventures in Film

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Tags

Aaron Rodgers, Antonio Gates, Corey Liuget, Green Bay Packers, James Starks, Keenan Allen, Ladarius Green, NFL, Philip Rivers, Richard Rodgers, San Diego Chargers

I decided to look back at the Chargers at Packers game for my week six adventures in film, which was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. Both teams used more just the five linemen formations with their tight ends detached than I remember seeing before, and both teams were more effective on offence than defence. It is hardly a ground breaking insight that this game featured two of the best quarterbacks in the game, but they were impressive in different ways this week.

The only place I can start with in this game is the Chargers offence and the franchise record breaking performance of Phillip Rivers, who threw for five hundred and three yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions. He accomplished this with forty-three completions from a mammoth sixty-five attempts. The Chargers did a better job of protecting Rivers in this game, but this was because they spent virtually all of the game in shotgun formations allowing Rivers to survey the defence and get the ball out quickly. In the first half they used 12 personnel extensively, with tight ends Antonio Gates and Ladarius Green lining up in various spots as both receivers and tight end. In the second half they moved more to 11 personnel until Keenan Allen injured his ankle nearly ten minutes into the third quarter, when they returned back to 12 personnel. It is remarkable that in only forty minutes of game time, Allen amassed fourteen catches from fifteen targets for one hundred and fifty seven yards. However, Anotnio Gates and Malcom Floyd also chipped in with ninety-five yards each, whilst Danny Woodhead chipped in with sixty-three yards of his own through the air. The Chargers were unable to run the ball effectively through most of the game, so it is not surprising they had such high passing numbers, particularly when they were having so much success.

The Packers defence had been doing better this season, but whilst they stood up in the running game, their pass defence obviously struggled. They were unable to get their pass rush to Rivers in time, only getting three sacks despite generating seventeen QB hits, but Rivers was just getting the ball out too quickly. The coverage also struggled at times, on one play in the second quarter, the Chargers’ slot receiver dragged one of the two deep safties in to cover him, allowing Keenan Allen to catch a huge deep ball having got a step on Sam Shields. On the very next play Allen demonstrated more amazing body control to get two feet down so not all of the passing yards was due to coverage, but you don’t give up this much yardage if you are playing well. Going back to the pass rush, Clay Mathews flashed once as he split the left tackle and left guard, whilst Julius Peppers pressured from the right and having sent five the Packers got the sack as a team, but there were simply not good enough to disrupt Rivers sufficiently.

If the Packers defence really struggled, their offence was good if not as exceptional as you might expect. They used many more personnel groupings than the Chargers, and they were using Richard Rodgers, who is listed as a tight end, all over their formation as both tight end and full back. He may have only caught two balls, but he was heavily involved in their offence, but the real worry for this team is that they are banged up at receiver and the lack of Jordy Nelson is possibly beginning to show. They were able to rack up one hundred and thirty-three yards in the running game, but sixty-five yards of that came from the James Starks’s first quarter touchdown run. However, if you take that run out of the equation they still averaged four yards per carry, but they only ran the ball seventeen times in total. The real problem was that the Packers only had the ball for twenty-two minutes, and Rodgers threw an uncharacteristic sixteen completions form twenty-nine throws, gaining two hundred and fifty-five yards and two touchdowns. Neither team was good in the red zone in this game, which is surprising and tells its own story.

The Chargers defence did better against the pass than they have done in previous weeks, but were not inspiring. They did manage to get three sacks, but did not get a lot of other pressure and the sacks they did get was when they sent five rushers and were able to push the pocket up the middle. That said, defensive linemen Corey Liuget did cause some problems up the middle and was rewarded with a sack. The secondary may have done better in this game, but safety Jahleel Addae over committed to stopping James Starks’s run up the middle and got caught up by the line, which is why Starks was able to break it to the outside and get all the way to the end zone. In fairness it is hard to know how he is coached to play the run in this situation, but no one could get across to the side in time to stop the touchdown.

This was a very entertaining game to watch, and the Chargers came very close to tying the game up at the end of the fourth quarter, marching the ball down the field, but ultimately were unable to punch the ball into the end zone to force the game into overtime. They will do better against lesser opposition, but whilst the Packers may not be as dominant as they looked in the first couple of weeks, they are still unbeaten and look set to be amongst a handful of teams preparing to push deep into the playoffs.t

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