Tag Archives: Ted Ginn

AAF: LA Rams’ Defence

03 Sunday Feb 2019

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

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So for my final amateur adventures in film post I took a look at the LA Rams defence playing against the New Orleans Saints’ offence.

This was an interesting match-up as the Saints’ offence ranked fourth in league by DVOA and the Rams’ defence ranked nineteenth.

For most of this game the Rams did not play in a base 3-4 four defence, predominantly playing a 3-3 nickel or 3-2 dime defence. The hybrid defensive line consisted of three defensive linemen and Dante Fowler moving to either side of the line as a stand-up pass rusher. This highlighted how important the trade for him mid-season was, and against the Saints the Rams’ defence held them to under three hundred yards. However, whilst the Saints were only able to run for forty-eight yards, there were stretches where they were able to move the ball freely and Drew Brees threw for two-hundred and forty-nine yards and two touchdowns.

The Rams rush defence was not great this season, but they managed to bottle up the Saints pair of runners in Mark Ingram and Alvin Kamara, but this was partly due to moments of brilliant from Suh and Donald rather than consistent run fits, although that did happen on some snaps. Still, it was very impressive to see Suh pushing back a centre of the quality of Max Unger as happened on a couple of plays.

However, for a lot of the game I was more impressed with the design of the Saints offence, with combinations of routes creating natural picks between defenders and several times using motion to get players open in the passing game. In the much talked about play where Nickell Robey-Coleman committed uncalled pass interference and a helmet to helmet hit, he was behind the Saints’ motion from before the ball was snapped so you can see why he desperately flew across the field and committed the interference to stop a touchdown. The problem for him this week will be that he admitted it and so the refs will be likely watching him closely in the Super Bowl and so despite him having some impressive pass breakups in this game, I wonder if he could struggle in a match-up against Julian Edelman in the slot.

The Rams secondary has some impressive names at corner, but Marcus Peters in known to gamble for the big play and Aqib Talib is ten days away from his thirty-third birthday. Too often the Saints were able to move the ball with short plays or scheme someone open, even if Michael Thomas was kept to a modest thirty-six yards, but Ted Ginn continued to prove his used in stretching the defence, whilst Alvin Kamara picked up ninety-six yards through the air as various players tried to follow him round the formation and often failed.

Overall there are a lot of big names in the Rams’ defensive unit, but they are really designed to play with a lead and counter a team passing the ball to catch up. For most of the year this was absolutely fine, but we shall have to see how it fairs this week in the Super Bowl. What price they will pay going forward given the number of high-price free-agents that comprise their star players, but the new acquisitions for this season were meant to get the Rams to the Super Bowl, so as far as the Rams are concerned the gamble was probably worth it.

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Conference Championship Games

20 Sunday Jan 2019

Posted by in Gee's Thoughts, Playoffs

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Tonight we get the top two teams from both conferences competing to see who goes to the Super Bowl, which is much more important than our trivia competition but we’re doing it anyway!

‘For this week I’ll keep it simple and its ONE point for each of the 3 questions.

In the 2018 Regular season who had the most sacks?

We have already asked which team has made the most Championship appearances (The Steelers with 16) but who has made the second most?

Finally, which team has won the most Championship games?

Dan still has a 1 point advantage – will that be the case come Sunday?’

Okay, so this is a varied set of questions, but let’s see how we go. I’m pretty certain that the answer to the first question is Aaron Donald, which just goes to show how impressive he is as he got them playing defensive tackle.

I’m slightly worried that there is a trick to the other questions because this brings back to my mind the overall record post I did in the summer before this season and so I am sure that the team with the most championship wins is the Green Bay Packers, but were they super-efficient and got it on fewer tries or are they second to the Steelers in terms of appearances? The Packers got thirteen championships (I have the spreadsheet to prove it) and if the Steelers were first with sixteen then the Packers were in at least thirteen championship games so I’m sticking with them for both questions. I look forward to being proved wrong…

‘I’m really feeling the pressure here – after a terrible pick-em season, I’m desperate to win the trivia competition, and with 3 weeks left (I think) I’m getting nervous!

Question one I’m going to go with Aaron Donald – it’s a bit of a guess but he’s been a sack machine for years so I’ll go with him for the most this season.
Sorry to jump around, but I’m going for the Patriots as the team who have won the most Conference Championships in Q3 and I’m between them and the Packers for second most appearances in question two… I think I’ll stick with the Patriots for both answers.’

LA Rams @ New Orleans Saints

The first game on Sunday sees the LA Rams take their second ranked offence and nineteenth ranked defence by DVOA to play the slightly more evenly spread New Orleans Saints. The Saints actually rank fourth in offence and eleventh in defence but fourth in overall DVOA.

What does this all mean given that all four teams playing this weekend are ranked in the top seven by DVOA?

At this stage of the season I’m not entirely sure. Neither team’s offence has been at the peak of their form in recent weeks, but the Rams performance on the ground against the Dallas Cowboys’ run defence was particularly impressive so you have to think that running the ball will feature heavily in Sean McVay’s game plan. The combination of CJ Anderson, picked up as a free agent late in the season, and a now healthy Todd Gurley created a fearsome tandem that the Rams used to amass two hundred and thirty-eight yards between them with both rushing for one hundred yard. I have again run out of time to finish the coaching tape I was watching this week, but I did see how the Rams managed to run the ball so effectively with 11 personnel. The mix of repeated jet motion, moving the tight end, and even end around runs by Josh Reynolds and fakes of the same created consistent motion going both ways that served to make a good run defence a step slow. The Saints rushing defence actually ranked two places higher by DVOA at the end of the season that the Cowboys, but a big question in this game is how will the injury to defensive tackle Sheldon Rankins last week affect the Saints ability to pressure and hold up in the middle of their defensive line.

The Saints might not be too dissimilar in the way they attack the LA Rams defence given that the Rams finished the season ranked twenty-eighth in rush defence by DVOA and the Saints have both Alvin Kamara and Mark Ingram able to run and catch passes out of the backfield. Kamara is devastating in space, whereas Ingram is a more powerful runner and the Rams will have their hands full dealing with this duo. Getting Ted Ginn back from injury has allowed the Saints to stretch the field more, but the awkward truth is that these days Drew Brees struggles a little to get the ball deep as the opening play interception in the game last week demonstrates because Brees underthrew Ginn. The worry for the Saints is that whilst the Rams rush defence is not great, they do have Aaron Donald who is probably the most disruptive defensive player in the league and left guard Andrus Peat is playing with a broken hand. I know offensive linemen are a different breed when it comes to injury, but this is not a great time to be nursing an injury and the Saints also had centre Max Unger dealing with a knee injury during the week.

In recent years it has been the home teams who have been getting through to the Super Bowl, but this game feels really tight. The Saints have a great home advantage, and the experience at head coach and quarterback, but there are some injury concerns and the Rams have several players who can take over a game as well as a really well schemed offence. I would lean to the Saints still, mainly because of Drew Brees’ experience as compared to Jared Goff and Sean Payton’s knack of being aggressive at the right time but it wouldn’t exactly be a surprise if the Rams won.

New England Patriots @ Kansas City Chiefs

I have been one of many who have wondered about the form of the Patriots this year, but that does not mean that I think they suck as Tom Brady claimed after their win over the Chargers this week. We are all pretty familiar with the legend of the sixth round quarterback and how he is still using that slight and others to motivate himself. Given the success that him and Bill Belichick have had over the years I was definitely not overlooking them last week, and lo and behold, they demonstrated what they are truly capable of. We had Julian Edleman throw back the clock and catch nine balls for one hundred and fifty-one yards whilst James White caught fifteen balls out of the backfield on screen plays and gained ninety-seven yards. Meanwhile Sony Michel ran for one hundred and twenty-nine yards, helped by the blocking of fullback James Develin and in particular Rob Gronkowski. Gronk may have had only one reception in this game, but he blocked effectively and looked good doing it as the Patriots put up forty-one points to give themselves control for the entire game. Now they take this offence to Arrowhead stadium and have to try to keep up with a great Chiefs’ offence. This the Patriots can definitely do, but it is frequently foolish to try to predict how the Patriots will approach the game. I suspect they will try to use their multiple running backs and short passing game to slow the Chiefs’ pass rush and given that their defence ranked twenty-sixth by DVOA at the end of the regular season they may stand a chance, but I’ll come back to that after we’ve talked the Chiefs properly.

The Chiefs have been one of the dominant teams of this season as well as one of the defining narratives thanks to the performance of Patrick Mahomes in his first full season of starting. The young quarterback has continually wowed with his ability to throw the ball as he racked up fifty touchdowns and over five thousand yards during the regular season. He showed few signs of nerves last week as the Chiefs made short work of a Colts team who had been as good as anyone in recent weeks. The defence has been the weakness of this team through the season, but they looked really good against the Colts even if Eric Berry continues to sit out. The Chiefs lost 40-43 in New England earlier this season and this was one of the few games where Mahomes showed some nerves and he threw two of his twelve interceptions that week. However, this week they welcome the Patriots to their own turf in what should be a second great game this.

This game is really hard to call, there is always an unpredictability to the approach that Bill Bilichick will take, whilst Andy Reid’s team has looked great all season. If anybody can silence the raucous Arrowhead crowd it is Tom Brady, but with a defence that is mid-table by DVOA the Patriots will need to keep up with the Chiefs offence. Given the time of year and the weather we may not get the explosion of points there were in their previous meeting, but Patriots have not been good on the road this season and so despite never wanting to bet against the Patriots I am leaning towards the Chiefs in this one.

We should be in for two great games today and then all of a sudden we’ll have two weeks full of news and no football (no, the Pro Bowl doesn’t count) and then it will be the big day. I’m looking forward to all three games as there are simply no bad matchup in any combination of the four teams left, let’s hope the games live up to expectations.

Saints @ Panthers

20 Sunday Nov 2016

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Carolina Panthers 23
New Orleans Saints 20

This was as good a Thursday night game as we have had in a while in that what started off as a very one sided game ended up with an exciting finish thanks to a late surge by the Saints and the Panthers struggling towards the end of the game.

The Panthers offence was up and down for most of the game as they struggled to make any headway in the run game and so were often forced to pass the ball with mixed success. The run game was particularly bad as Cam Newton, Jonathan Steward, and Ted Ginn all had runs of ten yards or more, and yet the Panthers managed a paltry fifty yards in total. Jonathan Stewart’s eighteen carries for thirty-one yards looks particularly anaemic, although these numbers will have been hurt by a dangerous attempt to run out the clock that nearly cost the Panthers the game in the fourth quarter. Cam Newton managed not to turn the ball over, but he completed less that fifty percent of his passes, but did manage to connect up with Ted Ginn for a forty yard touchdown thanks to a great catch at the back of the end zone at the end of the second quarter. This game could have been won a lot more easily if the Panthers had kept playing offence into the fourth quarter, but the offensive line struggled a lot throughout the game and the attempts to run out the clock just did not work.

The Saints defence played better than I was expecting, and whilst I knew it had taken some steps forward since the start of the season, I was not expecting them to cause as many problems for the Panthers as they did. The real star of the show was the Saints front seven who effectively shut down the Panthers running game, as well as getting two sacks and seven quarterback hits. In fact they hurried Newton several times, with Dannell Ellerbe coming up with four tackles, a sack, and two quarterback hits. The Panthers’ struggles in the passing game were as much to do with Cam Newton’s accuracy as coverage, but the pressure he was under was surely a factor and re-enforces the old maxim that good coverage helps create pass rush, and pass rush helps create good coverage.

The Saints offence had a harder time scoring than the Panthers for much of the game, but they actually out-gained the Panthers by nearly one hundred and fifty yards. That said, part of that seemed to be that their running game improved when Mark Ingram went out of the game in the third quarter and Tim Hightower came into the game. Hightower amassed sixty-nine yards on just twelve carries including a long of twenty-seven yards. The Panthers were able to pressure Drew Brees who was sacked three times and hit a further four times, but he threw for over two hundred and fifty yards and two touchdowns with only one interceptions. Rookie receiver Michael Thomas led the team with five catches for sixty-eight yards, but Brees had nine different players catch balls as he distributed the ball with characteristic skill, but in the end it wasn’t enough.

The Panthers defence has been better since the bye, the front seven coming back to form as their very young secondary came together. They struggled later in this game, with 6ft 6 Brandon Coleman catching the Saints’ first touchdown over 5ft 9 Robert McClain with Leonard Johnson having gone out of the game. However, the real worry for the Panthers will be Luke Kuechly who left the game sobbing in the fourth quarter and who is once more in the concussion protocol. Their leading tackler missed three games last season to a concussion, and whilst Friday’s Instagram picture with a smiling Kuechly may give hope to some, you have to be worry about how much more football he should play. As fantastic a player as Kuechly is, and I have been very bullish on my praise in the past, the troublesome nature of head injuries in football and the position he plays means it may be time for him to seriously consider his career.

This was a tight game that should have been a highlight of the Thursday night schedule, but with two players now in the concussion protocol the gloss has come off the game. As much as I love football, we cannot and should not ignore what can happen to players, and I just hope that both players make a full recovery and listen to their doctors.