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In the first part of our breakdown this week, we looked at how the Denver Broncos put stress on the Green Bay Packers’ defense in the Week 15 loss by using 4×1 formations. They probed the Packers’ alignments and found that the defense never traveled the nickel with the passing strength and always aligned them to the field, even if the offense’s pass strength was into the boundary.
Eventually, the Broncos hit a couple of touchdowns and big plays against those defensive tendencies that helped propel them to the victory. In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the other ways they stressed the coverage and exploited those tendencies when not using a 4×1 formation.
Much like the first article, where we showed how they used motion and 4×1 to see where the nickel would go and set up a couple of big plays off of those information gathering plays, they did the same by stressing the corners to the nickel side of the defensive formation using motion into a 3×2 formation.
On these plays, they did indeed break the huddle and start out in a 4×1 formation. The only difference this time is they were motioning to a 2×2 and checking to see where the nickel would line up and what that defender would do in these situations.
On this first play, the Broncos motion to a 2×2 from a 4×1 and are running a double hitches concept against the off coverage to that side.
There was no change to the nickel’s responsibility in a 4×1 versus motioning to this 2×2.
Instead of playing poach quarters to the 4×1, the defense got into quarter-quarter-half or cover-6, staying in cover-2 to the boundary side, and playing off coverage to the two receiver field side.
At the motion and snap, the defense is still communicating, suggesting that they’re having some trouble figuring out who is doing what within the coverage. The inside hitch route eats up the nickel and leaves the outside hitch 1-on-1 with the corner playing off coverage.
The next time the Broncos ran it, the defense didn’t have to communicate as much. They knew if they saw it again what each defender would be doing.
The Broncos just flipped the formation because they were on the other hash this time.
The defense came out in cover-3 to drop the safety low into the hook zone to play the inside hitch so the nickel could buzz to the flat under the outside curl.
With the safety triggering quickly at the snap downhill, it’s certainly possible that was the plan for Bullard to buzz to the flat, and if it was, then he ran into the traffic and took himself out of the play. The Broncos gained nine more yards on an easy pitch and catch.
To not get caught off guard the next time the Broncos would line up in a 4×1 and motion to a 2×2, Hafley called a non-traditional Tampa-2 coverage that would walk the...
