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- Jun 3, 2014
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- junkman
What goes into the design of a critical short yardage running play? In the case of Brian Schottenheimer, surely madness. Watch this play a few more times, and you'll see what I mean.
http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/20141...deos&menu=gameinfo|contentId:0ap3000000413633
It started out with a pretty traditional looking formation. Tre Mason standing behind Harkey in an I formation. The Rams brought in extra OL Person who lined up outside of Long on the left (and would figure prominently in this play), with two tight ends on the right, Cook and Kendricks. It is worth noting that Saffold was out, replaced by Joseph at RG.
At the snap, things were already a little interesting. While Mason ran left, Harkey ran right. David was getting ready to hand off to the left to Mason, so where was Harkey going? Barksdale (!) has stood up and is getting ready to pull.
A split second later, you can see where this was going. The entire Seahawks D took the bait and keyed off of Harkey (perhaps?) thinking this was where the ball was going, and crashed the Rams line over RG Joseph who got pushed back 2 yards. But Harkey's job really was to stop any backside pursuit with Barksdale pulling. Wells, worthless as always, submarined the line and was immediately a player of no consequence. Barksdale, who was ideally supposed to have made it all the way across the formation to lead block for Mason (really? Schotty? That's what you were thinking?) had to run around Joseph and wound up trailing Mason on the play.
The good news? Person #73 had totally sealed the edge, riding RDE Bennett (#72) into the middle of the line before planting him. Robinson and Long stood up and buckled DT McDaniel (#99). That left Mason one on one with CB Bailey (#28) who had stepped up into perfect position to contain Mason (expecting **something** to be coming from the inside to help him out.
But either by design or luck, there was no pursuit at all coming from the inside. No LBs. No safeties. Mason took the quickest route to the first down and found clear sailing behind Person and found only Cam Chancellor between him and the endzone.
We know what happened next, that Mason juked Chancellor, but got stripped from behind by Seahawks #53, scrum, recovery...
But seriously, what an odd play call. I guess I shouldn't second guess it, 'cuz it worked. Maybe it'd have been better with Saffold instead of Joseph so we would have gotten some push from the RG. Maybe it would have worked better with my dead grandmother instead of Wells at C (which is to say someone who is more likely to have contributed positively to the play). In the end it worked.
PLUS grades on the play to Robinson, Long, Person, Mason.
NEGATIVE grades on the play to Wells, Joseph.
~~~
The fumble and recovery almost gets it's own set of grades. Mad props on the play to Harkey for all he did. After the ball squirted out from under Harkey, Sherman should have had the recovery. Barksdale was the 2nd on the scene (after Harkey) but actually got pushed over the pile. Next came Long who got behind Sherman and Cook who jumped on top of Sherman.
Person (#73) was pretty late to the party, and in a less fair world, could have gotten a piling on penalty. There is no knowing (which is to say I don't want to know) what happened at the bottom of that pile, but I'm 95% sure that Person was the 2nd most important guy in recovering that fumble, behind Harkey. You can see him below really working Sherman over. And let's not forget from the sequence above that Person was also the guy that sealed the edge and planted Bennett only a few seconds earlier.
Of course, it was really Harkey's hustle that saved the day, finishing off his blocking assignment and following the play down field.
After all was said and done, THIS was my favorite still from this play, after clearing everyone off the pile. At the bottom of the pile was Richard Sherman lying flat on his back after being totally worked over by Long, Person, Cook and Harkey. Cam Chancellor leans over Sherman's corpse, and you can almost hear him saying: "Dude. You OK?"
http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/20141...deos&menu=gameinfo|contentId:0ap3000000413633
It started out with a pretty traditional looking formation. Tre Mason standing behind Harkey in an I formation. The Rams brought in extra OL Person who lined up outside of Long on the left (and would figure prominently in this play), with two tight ends on the right, Cook and Kendricks. It is worth noting that Saffold was out, replaced by Joseph at RG.
At the snap, things were already a little interesting. While Mason ran left, Harkey ran right. David was getting ready to hand off to the left to Mason, so where was Harkey going? Barksdale (!) has stood up and is getting ready to pull.
A split second later, you can see where this was going. The entire Seahawks D took the bait and keyed off of Harkey (perhaps?) thinking this was where the ball was going, and crashed the Rams line over RG Joseph who got pushed back 2 yards. But Harkey's job really was to stop any backside pursuit with Barksdale pulling. Wells, worthless as always, submarined the line and was immediately a player of no consequence. Barksdale, who was ideally supposed to have made it all the way across the formation to lead block for Mason (really? Schotty? That's what you were thinking?) had to run around Joseph and wound up trailing Mason on the play.
The good news? Person #73 had totally sealed the edge, riding RDE Bennett (#72) into the middle of the line before planting him. Robinson and Long stood up and buckled DT McDaniel (#99). That left Mason one on one with CB Bailey (#28) who had stepped up into perfect position to contain Mason (expecting **something** to be coming from the inside to help him out.
But either by design or luck, there was no pursuit at all coming from the inside. No LBs. No safeties. Mason took the quickest route to the first down and found clear sailing behind Person and found only Cam Chancellor between him and the endzone.
We know what happened next, that Mason juked Chancellor, but got stripped from behind by Seahawks #53, scrum, recovery...
But seriously, what an odd play call. I guess I shouldn't second guess it, 'cuz it worked. Maybe it'd have been better with Saffold instead of Joseph so we would have gotten some push from the RG. Maybe it would have worked better with my dead grandmother instead of Wells at C (which is to say someone who is more likely to have contributed positively to the play). In the end it worked.
PLUS grades on the play to Robinson, Long, Person, Mason.
NEGATIVE grades on the play to Wells, Joseph.
~~~
The fumble and recovery almost gets it's own set of grades. Mad props on the play to Harkey for all he did. After the ball squirted out from under Harkey, Sherman should have had the recovery. Barksdale was the 2nd on the scene (after Harkey) but actually got pushed over the pile. Next came Long who got behind Sherman and Cook who jumped on top of Sherman.
Person (#73) was pretty late to the party, and in a less fair world, could have gotten a piling on penalty. There is no knowing (which is to say I don't want to know) what happened at the bottom of that pile, but I'm 95% sure that Person was the 2nd most important guy in recovering that fumble, behind Harkey. You can see him below really working Sherman over. And let's not forget from the sequence above that Person was also the guy that sealed the edge and planted Bennett only a few seconds earlier.
Of course, it was really Harkey's hustle that saved the day, finishing off his blocking assignment and following the play down field.
After all was said and done, THIS was my favorite still from this play, after clearing everyone off the pile. At the bottom of the pile was Richard Sherman lying flat on his back after being totally worked over by Long, Person, Cook and Harkey. Cam Chancellor leans over Sherman's corpse, and you can almost hear him saying: "Dude. You OK?"
