Mile High Report
RJ Harvey had a very showing game against the 49ers in the first week of the NFL Preseason, showing us flashes of his speed and agility. He proved that he has the potential to be a game changer in Denver and that he could/ should take the title of starting running back this year.
But his performance did not come without criticism. Most of his reps included him bouncing the run to the outside rather than hitting the intended gap. The bounces weren’t always his fault though. The offensive line did not give Harvey that good of a look, so bouncing it might have been a necessity. Though there are examples of him unnecessarily bouncing it.
So let’s take a deeper look at what happened on Saturday and play a little Preseason Blame Game.
Just a quick disclaimer though: of the criticisms I’ll give, I am not concerned by anything I saw in this game. The offensive line will be fine, and Harvey made some very fixable mistakes. Let’s not lose it over one unofficial game. Also, I am nothing but an armchair OC at this point. I don’t know exactly what the Broncos wanted to do on each play, so I might be wrong with any of the assumptions I make.
RJ Harvey had six rushes for 24 yards (four YPC).
One average he was contacted 0.5 yards in the backfield on his carries and managed 4.5 yards after contact (both numbers skewed by bouncing it but we’ll get into that in a moment).
One of his rushes were designed to hit the outside while the other five were intended to hit between the tackles/ tight ends.
Two of the rushes were gap-scheme, while the other four where zone-scheme.
Quick Toss
Harvey is going exactly where he is supposed to go. The slot receiver gets a good crack block on the DE, Garett Bolles makes the right read and turns his defender to the inside, and that is supposed to open up a rushing lane. The main culprit here is Devaughn Vele not getting any displacement on his assignment.
The play fails due to a receiver missing their block, and as an offensive line coach, those are some of the most annoying words I can say/ type.
Inside Zone
I don’t blame Harvey for bouncing it on this play. Ideally he hits the playside A/B gap, but he hits it to the D gap due to congestion in the middle.
Now let’s determine the cause of this congestion. I think the most important piece of this play is the DE slanting across Trautman to the C gap. This forces Trautman to have to wash the DE inside, and clogs an inside rushing lane up. The person I’m going to blame on this play is Mike McGlinchey, the RT. The most common block he’d have on this play is helping Quinn Meinerz double team the DT up to...
