Daily Norseman
I just couldn’t do it. Knowing about Carson Wentz’ shoulder, I couldn’t stomach watching him get sacked anymore and writhing in pain. So the series of where I place blame for sacks given up by the Minnesota Vikings will mercifully be missing a couple of weeks. Luckily, J.J. McCarthy is back and healthy. He took five sacks in this game and a couple of big hits. Let’s take a deeper look at what happened.
Detroit lines up in what looks like and odd 3-3 nickel set with three down linemen and one upright rusher. Minnesota has two receivers to the left and then motion T.J. Hockenson to the right. Anzalone follows Hockenson across the formation, so it looks like the defense is going to be in man coverage.
After the ball is snapped, we see Detroit drop back into man coverage. To me, it looks like they are in a cover-1 robber, with one safety staying deep and the other hovering over the middle of the field.
McCarthy is looking over to Hockenson as his first read. At the bottom of the screenshot, we see Justin Jefferson drawing a double team (as he should) and Nailor waiting there as a quick outlet. However, McCarthy really has no time to get his vision to the left side of the field, as he has to Houdini out of the way.
If you look at this image, you have to think that the play is completely over. There was not enough time for routes to develop, and the defense has McCarthy dead to rights. Looking from the endzone view, we see both Vikings linemen on the right side of the line lose their matchup.
Fries loses on a speed rush to his outside shoulder and Aiden Hutchinson delivers a nasty spin move against Brian O’Neill. Blake Brandel is out on an island, anticipating the stunt from the Lions’ defensive end.
This play gets blown up. It is never good to see an offensive lineman with his arm fully extended chasing after the defender that he was supposed to be blocking. McCarthy had absolutely no chance to make a throw here. This looks like he is going to get tackled at the half yard-line, but it’s just an optical illusion.
Now you see me, now you don’t! There is no way Carson Wentz is able to escape this pressure like McCarthy did. Despite the great move to get away from the sack, McCarthy doesn’t have anywhere to go with the football, so he attempts to tuck and run.
McCarthy was this close to beating the defender to the edge and possibly running for a first down, or at least a modest gain that could have made third down easier to convert.
Whose fault? Will Fries 45%. Brian O’Neill 40%. Great defense 15%.
On this designed play, McCarthy put a receiver in motion...
