Tag Archives: Patrick DiMarco

AAF: Darius Leonard

28 Sunday Oct 2018

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So getting back to watching a full game of coaching tape I wanted to take a look at something else on defence and a quick check of the NFL league leaders brought me back to a player I was hearing buzz about earlier in the season, namely Darius Leonard of the Indianapolis Colts who currently leads the league in tackles. So for this week’s amateur adventures in film I watched the Colts number fifty-three as they hosted the Buffalo Bills.

Sticking on the game the first thing that leapt out to me about Leonard was his fast feet that were twitching on the snap of the ball and allowed him a quick response to what was going on in front of him. A true three down backer he plays weakside or will linebacker in the Colts base 4-3 defence but the Colts spent a lot of this game reacting to the Bills’ 11 personnel package with nickel and dime defences but Leonard didn’t leave the game until the Bill’s final drive in the fourth quarter. This is not surprising as the rookie second round pick is a long athlete who very much moves well in space. He tends move round blocks although I did see him take on the Bills’ fullback Patrick DiMarco, shed the bloc and make the tackle, but I did also saw lineman and tight ends get their hands on Leonard and take him out the play. However, mostly he made the tackle, which is hardly surprisingly given he leads the league in tackles despite missing a game through an ankle injury. He is always around the ball and even if he is not the first there he will be helping with the tackle. It’s strong trait and whether he’s quickly diagnosing the play and rushing forward, reacting having dropped into a zone, spying on the running back, or following someone on a route he reacts and gets there quickly. A couple of times he couldn’t quite make the initial tackle and on one play Chris Ivory got round him to the edge and made a big pickup although Leonard did make the tackle in the end.

Leonard is not a big hitter and doesn’t look to set the edge which is why he play on the weak side, but he very much looks like a modern linebacker, athletic and able to play in space, which is increasingly necessary in the current NFL. The tackle statistic is one that is a slightly dubious one to put too much faith in as a bad team will give a player more opportunities to make a tackle as the opposing offence will be on the field longer but in a game where the Bills kept giving the Colts the ball with short fields, the defence was on the field without much rest and Leonard kept coming. It is early but he looks very promising and already the Colts defence ranks over ten places higher than last season by DVOA and I would say Darius Leonard had a big part in that.

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AAF: Super Bowl

12 Sunday Feb 2017

Posted by in Amateur Adventures in Film, Playoffs

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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.

NFL Week 3: Buccaneers @ Faclons – Deconstructing a Debacle

21 Sunday Sep 2014

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Where do you start with a game this one sided? I confess I only made it through three quarters of coaching tape, but by then this game was well and truly done.

My things to watch for the Buccanneers were Josh McCown at quarterback and their Pro Bowl linebacker Lavonte David, whilst for the Falcons it was how rookie Jake Matthews plays at left tackle and whether they could generate the a pass rush this year. After watching the broadcast of the game, I also decided I would take a look at the Falcons fullback Patrick DiMarco and the left side of the Bucs line with Logan Mankins and Anthony Collins.

This game got out of hand so quickly for the Bucs, my first note of the game was woeful defence as the Falcons drove the ball for an opening drive touchdown. They would give up twenty-one unanswered points in the first quarter alone, and fifty-six before finally getting on the score board themselves in the fourth quarter. They were beaten so soundly, but I shall do my best to go through what happened.

The reason I wanted to take a look at the left side of the Bucs’ line was that Logan Mankins is a six time Pro Bowl guard and Anthony Collins was a backup tackle who was so good for the Bengals last season that when their left guard went down, the Bengals own Pro Bowl tackle Andrew Whitworth moved inside and Collins played at left tackle. In this game they actually held up pretty well, although it did look to me like there might have been some communication issues with Mankins who arrived very late in preseason, but the only time I saw them flat out beat was on an overload blitz. However, the Bucs gave up three sacks in this game, including one where Jonathan Massaquoi came untouched from left end due to a protection break down and another when tackle Corey Peters came through Patrick Omameh at right guard. Add to this, thirty yards of penalties from two unnecessary roughness calls against Evan Dietrich-Smith and overall you can see the start of the problems on offence.

So where else did it go wrong? Well neither team held onto the ball that well, and whilst Bobby Rainey’s two fumbles stood out, the Bucs fumbled the ball five times, losing it four times. Still, the Falcons fumbled it four times themselves and lost three. What I’m not sure of is how these stats account for one play where the Falcons’ Levine Toilolo fumbled the ball after a catch, only for Devin Hester to force a fumble from Mark Barron and then recover it himself. This was the pattern of the game, whenever the Bucs did do something right, they shot themselves in the foot shortly after, plus Devin Hester doing good things. These combined when the Bucs punted the ball fifty-six yards to Hester, who with one move seemed to run past most of the coverage team and then break away to score his twentieth punt return touchdown, the most in NFL history.

In fact, Devin Hester had a great game. As well as causing his usual problems in the return game, he also caught a twenty-five yard pass and ran in a twenty yard touchdown. His so fast and shifty, and at thirty-two is still having a big impact on games.

The other Falcons players I was specifically focussing on were Jake Mathews and Patrick DiMarco. I thought that Jake Mathews held up well, and if not always dominating. I didn’t see him beaten badly either and could often see him steering his rusher past Matt Ryan, but I’d like to see him develop his run blocking. Fullback Patrick DiMarco caught my eye catching a couple of pass out of play-action passes, and watching him the whole game he really impressed me. He wasn’t exactly flattening people, but he was athletic enough to get out where he needed and open holes for the Falcons in the running game, and made some nice catches. In a league where the fullback is slowing dying out in favour of three receiver or two tight end sets, it was nice to see one being used so effectively.

Now unfortunately, we get back to the Buccaneers and my focus on Josh McCown didn’t last long as he was out of the game with over three minutes left in the second quarter. He went five for twelve in the passing game and was picked off in the first quarter when Kemal Ishmael read the play and jumped in front of the pass to Vincent Jackson. In fact, Mike Glennon looked better almost straight away when he came into the game and we’ll have to see if there is a decision to be made for the Bucs regarding quarterback going forward.

Watching Lavonte David play for a defence that gave up six touchdowns was never going to show him in the best light, but frankly I was more impressed with Dane Fletcher who at least flashed with a good pass defence going across the middle, half a sack and five tackles. David had more tackles with seven, but his play didn’t stand out. In fact the Buccaneers defence as a whole seemed to struggle to get off their blocks, their zone coverage was soft enough that Matt Ryan picked them apart, and they gave up some bad plays. Hester ran virtually untouched in a twenty yard counter play that saw all of the Bucs’ linebackers go with the play then get sealed so they couldn’t make the tackle, and Dashon Goldson should have stopped Antone Smith from running in the Falcons final touchdown, which is a shame as he made an excellent play earlier in the game to stop a fumble going out of bounds so the Bucs could recover it.

In fairness no aspect of their game shined, unsurprising in a blow out loss, and Lovie Smith will have a big job to pick them up and do something to make them better.

If you want to understand how badly this game went for the Buccaneers, look at the following series of four plays. At 8:31 in the third quarter Matt Ryan connects with Julio Jones who makes a great over the shoulder catch for a forty yard touchdown. After a touchback on the ensuing kick off, the Buccaneers proceed to snap the ball over Mike Glennon’s head and turn the ball over. On the next play, Steven Jackson somehow runs through three tackles to score a touchdown. That pretty much tells you all you need to know about this game, and would have saved me eight hundred and fifty odd words. Roll on tonight’s games and let’s hope that next week’s Thursday night game of the Giants at Washington is closer.