Acme Packing Company
The Packers came from behind on Sunday to win 27-23 over the Cardinals, a game which they did not lead until late in the 4th quarter and the defense was both a burden at times and a savior at others.
The positive: the defense recorded six sacks and pressured quarterback Jacoby Brissett on 19 of his 46 dropbacks per Pro Football Focus, with one sack resulting in a fumble and recovery by the defense. They would have had seven sacks but a hip drop penalty negated a Micah Parsons sack, which would have given him four in the game instead of three.
On the first sack of the game, Parsons won off the right edge but the sack was also created by good coverage on the back end of the defense to force Jacoby Brissett into holding the ball too long with nowhere to throw.
The Cardinals offense aligns in a 3×1 formation with the running back offset to the left of Brissett. They’re running two end zone routes with return routes underneath. The defense is in red zone quarters post-snap and matches the route concept so that there is tight leverage over the top of the routes.
As Brissett drops back surveying the field, he hits the top of his drop and where he’s looking for Marvin Harrison Jr on the double move quick post into the end zone. Against the Packers quarters coverage, there’s nothing to threaten the safety so there’s no window to throw into.
He could have pulled the trigger underneath and set up maybe a 4th and inches situation. Parsons ended up into the backfield before Brissett could reset to look for a throw.
Later in the second quarter, Quay Walker got penetration up the middle when the defensive front was able to get the offensive line to slide away from his blitz. This put him 1-on-1 with the running back in protection.
The defense shows potential blitz front with the linebacker walked up and the rest of the coverage showing press man. The coverage rotation is to Tampa-2 with Edgerrin Cooper zone dropping to the intermediate middle from the line of scrimmage and the corner bailing to the deep half.
With the defensive alignment showing blitz plus two defensive linemen to the offense’s right side, the strength of the protection slides to the right. This leaves Walker 1-on-1 with the running back because the center worked to his right.
Walker blasts through the block of Bam Knight and drives him into Brissett before reaching and grabbing him down to the turf.
Later in the third quarter, Rashan Gary had a strip sack and fumble that was 100% the quarterback’s fault because he should have thrown the ball at the top of his drop.
The Cardinals are running a stick/spacing concept out of a double tight end YY formation with the tight ends running the stick/flat concept and the receivers to the left running spacing. The Packers defense is playing cover-3 vision and reading the...
