Acme Packing Company
In the last article, we covered the six defensive sacks in the Packers 27-23 week seven win over the Cardinals. While the sacks were impressive in their own way and helped the defense achieve the end result, a few of the sacks simply didn’t matter because of explosive pass plays given up on the same drive that led to Cardinals touchdowns.
The issue of explosive pass plays given up is a concerning trend that deserved monitoring to see how it would play out since the tie in Dallas. A bye week didn’t help clear up the issues as the Packers gave up several more explosive pass plays to the Bengals.
The same would hold true for the third week in a row where the defense gave up four more explosive pass plays that led to two touchdowns. And those two touchdowns were the direct result of coverage busts at the worst times.
The first coverage bust occurred after a 2nd down sack by Quay Walker that forced the Cardinals into a third and long situation. This should have been a relatively easy ask for the defense to get the Cardinals offense off the field but it wasn’t. The opposite happened when Jacoby Brissett hit a 43-yard pass down the right sideline.
The Cardinals are running a 3-verticals concept called “989” against the Packers Tampa-2 zone coverage. Tampa-2 is cover-2 with a defender dropping to the deep middle zone between the half safeties.
Safety Evan Williams is the deep half safety to the bottom of the screen. He never really widens to the half and instead backpedals initially down the hash. He should have been widening while gaining depth because the middle vertical was not a threat with coverage underneath. If he had widened sooner, he would have been in a better position to make a play on the pass. As a result, it just missed his outstretched hand.
On the same drive, the Cardinals worked their way down to the red zone where Brissett found Trey McBride for a touchdown after the defense busted their quarters coverage assignments.
The Cardinals are running a double post/double corner concept with the slot receivers running corner routes and the outside receivers running post routes. It’s essentially a scissors concept on both sides.
The defense is in red zone quarters so it’s key here that the safeties and corners are reading the releases and stems of the receivers in a 2×2. If either receiver goes vertical and then cuts inside or outside, the defenders should pass them off to the next defender inside or outside. A good example of this is at the top of the screen where the corner and safety pass off the routes.
Keisean Nixon carries the vertical and chases the post stem inside for a couple of steps before passing him when he sees McBride breaking to the corner. It’s too late. Nixon can’t recover and McBride catches the pass uncontested at the front corner pylon for a touchdown.
Later...
