Patspsycho
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The Giants offense is a modification of the Oilers run and shoot from the early 1990’s which features the “posse” (4 WR/1 RB) to accommodate their three-head monster at WR (Cruz-Manningham-Nicks) and is basically a read and react off the defense, and instead of running one route, you have what is called a “decision tree” which is basically, “get open,” so it’s more of a concept/philosophy than a system (think Phil Jackson’s triangle offense). This explains why our young defensive backs have a really hard time with it. It basically is an offense that simply continues until someone gets open, so it’s full of double and triple-moves, and pretty much is fatal to inexperienced, undisciplined DBs (like ours), who might tend to let off the gas after a basic route has been run (because they assume the read is dead) or they don’t realize this kind of offense doesn’t need any time or route to develop, so you have to pay attention all the time (right Guyton?). Now two knocks against this offense is that one, it is not a clock burner (but works pretty good when you have very little time on the clock), and two, it got killed by the zone blitz. It’s an up and down system that’s great when it’s working, but when it’s not working, it’s terrible. It basically gave rise to that infamous punch by the frustrated Oilers DC, none other than Buddy Ryan, who loved to call this offense the “run and duck” (when the zone blitz got the QB). Fun fact: The guy he punched? The OC of the Oilers, Kevin Gilbride. Who is the current OC of the Giants? Kevin Gilbride.
So obviously, the weight of shutting down this offense really rests on the backfield, and not really with the guys up front. I think that we will open in the 4-3 nickel with a really reduced line, with the goal of not so much blowing up the pocket as sealing the edge for two reasons: Eli makes plays when he’s able to break out of the pocket, and so does Bradshaw. Bradshaw is pretty good at running on the outside, but his YPC is awful when running between the tackles. So if we contain both of them inside, their rate of success really drops. That is killing two birds with one stone.
With the nickel. I think the key to defeating the modified Oilers run-n-shoot is to disguise coverage as much as we can. Show man and go zone post-snap, such as shadowing any Giants pre-snap motion, to sell Eli and the receivers (they have to read as much as Eli does) on the man coverage, but we are simply switching zone assignments. Earlier this season, that kind of complicity would have been impossible, but at this point I think we are really up to it. In the Ravens game, we went from a pre-snap 3-4 to a post-snap 4-3 pretty seamlessly so I can only think that can be very encouraging. I think that while we’ll let Wilfork run amok and wreak havoc on the line, we’re going to use this as a feint and disguise our real intention which is to place priority on sealing the pocket. In this regard, the responsibility will be pretty much on the backfield. I would not be surprised to see McCourty start out playing a lot of safety, and only switch if one of the receivers get hot. They must be able to read Eli, especially his tendency to look at his first read right before the snap. The integral task is to keep Manningham and Nicks in front of them, and limit Cruz’s YAC ability.
And as for the offense, one thing I did was to take another look at the 17 point explosion in the 4th quarter of the Nov. 6 game to try to see if I could figure out what the elements were that led to that kind of success.
The first thing I saw was that Brady was getting rid of the ball a lot faster- it may be that his arm had warmed up sufficiently to overcome whatever injury he was experiencing at the time. The second thing I saw was that our offense was much more horizontal, forcing the Giants to play horizontal defense. We had a few misdirection plays, plenty of PA’s and went to the spread in the hurry up. On the first drive, we did a double-reversal, then froze them on a PA out of the I formation and that set the tone for the rest of the drive. Unfortunately, what killed this drive was a bad route run by Ocho which forced Brady to overthrow him (it looks like a bad throw, but is clearly an intentional overthrow. Ocho erroneously ran a flag where he should have known it was a go route out of the rollout). FWIW, Ocho also blew a play earlier on this drive. It was the right route, but the timing was just not there. On the second drive, we went to the spread, in the hurry up, and there was always one or two receivers on or outside the numbers.
This makes me think first, that the Giants D are quite formidable when they know what is coming. With their athleticism, speed, and size, they can crush the point of attack, and even more so if they are allowed to play vertical. But when they don’t know what is coming, or if they are forced to play horizontal, they can be rendered powerless.
Does that mean we’ll come out with stretch plays off the bat? I doubt it- I think it’ll be an ace that we’ll keep up our sleeve until the right moment. We don’t want to keep throwing horizontal play after play at them until they start to develop a feel for defending it.
But one thing I think we’ll see right off the bat is a lot of PA out of the ace (2 TE/ 2 WR/1 RB), especially the power O out of the gun in the spread (WS guard pull).
While the PA doesn’t really fool them, it does freeze them and force them into a read and react which plays against their strengths.
I’m pretty sure that the Giants will stick to their 3 safety package (Grant in backer) and dare us to run for the most part. The key is, as Bruschi points out, will BOB have the patience to stick with the run to wear down the front four if they make a point of sticking with this package?
Putting aside the X and O’s, and looking at BB and Brady. I have to mention that those are proud men, they’re keen competitors, and they’re not going to make the same mistakes again, and especially with BB, when he has seen an opponent enough times, he inevitably finds a way to defeat this opponent, and this will mark the 3rd time he has seen a team this season. This is the biggest game of the season, and the best players rise to the occasion. There’s no doubt we’ll see the vintage Brady, the Brady of old.
We’re going to win, and I don’t even think it will be close. I am a keen student of history and believe that there are peaks and valleys in career and in life, and I believe in opportunities for closure, for atonement. There are certain patterns throughout the course of history, especially in warfare, and this is one of them.
It’ll feel good to bring #4 home and let the Red Sox know: “Right back at ya, you’re at the bottom of the pile again.”
So obviously, the weight of shutting down this offense really rests on the backfield, and not really with the guys up front. I think that we will open in the 4-3 nickel with a really reduced line, with the goal of not so much blowing up the pocket as sealing the edge for two reasons: Eli makes plays when he’s able to break out of the pocket, and so does Bradshaw. Bradshaw is pretty good at running on the outside, but his YPC is awful when running between the tackles. So if we contain both of them inside, their rate of success really drops. That is killing two birds with one stone.
With the nickel. I think the key to defeating the modified Oilers run-n-shoot is to disguise coverage as much as we can. Show man and go zone post-snap, such as shadowing any Giants pre-snap motion, to sell Eli and the receivers (they have to read as much as Eli does) on the man coverage, but we are simply switching zone assignments. Earlier this season, that kind of complicity would have been impossible, but at this point I think we are really up to it. In the Ravens game, we went from a pre-snap 3-4 to a post-snap 4-3 pretty seamlessly so I can only think that can be very encouraging. I think that while we’ll let Wilfork run amok and wreak havoc on the line, we’re going to use this as a feint and disguise our real intention which is to place priority on sealing the pocket. In this regard, the responsibility will be pretty much on the backfield. I would not be surprised to see McCourty start out playing a lot of safety, and only switch if one of the receivers get hot. They must be able to read Eli, especially his tendency to look at his first read right before the snap. The integral task is to keep Manningham and Nicks in front of them, and limit Cruz’s YAC ability.
And as for the offense, one thing I did was to take another look at the 17 point explosion in the 4th quarter of the Nov. 6 game to try to see if I could figure out what the elements were that led to that kind of success.
The first thing I saw was that Brady was getting rid of the ball a lot faster- it may be that his arm had warmed up sufficiently to overcome whatever injury he was experiencing at the time. The second thing I saw was that our offense was much more horizontal, forcing the Giants to play horizontal defense. We had a few misdirection plays, plenty of PA’s and went to the spread in the hurry up. On the first drive, we did a double-reversal, then froze them on a PA out of the I formation and that set the tone for the rest of the drive. Unfortunately, what killed this drive was a bad route run by Ocho which forced Brady to overthrow him (it looks like a bad throw, but is clearly an intentional overthrow. Ocho erroneously ran a flag where he should have known it was a go route out of the rollout). FWIW, Ocho also blew a play earlier on this drive. It was the right route, but the timing was just not there. On the second drive, we went to the spread, in the hurry up, and there was always one or two receivers on or outside the numbers.
This makes me think first, that the Giants D are quite formidable when they know what is coming. With their athleticism, speed, and size, they can crush the point of attack, and even more so if they are allowed to play vertical. But when they don’t know what is coming, or if they are forced to play horizontal, they can be rendered powerless.
Does that mean we’ll come out with stretch plays off the bat? I doubt it- I think it’ll be an ace that we’ll keep up our sleeve until the right moment. We don’t want to keep throwing horizontal play after play at them until they start to develop a feel for defending it.
But one thing I think we’ll see right off the bat is a lot of PA out of the ace (2 TE/ 2 WR/1 RB), especially the power O out of the gun in the spread (WS guard pull).
While the PA doesn’t really fool them, it does freeze them and force them into a read and react which plays against their strengths.
I’m pretty sure that the Giants will stick to their 3 safety package (Grant in backer) and dare us to run for the most part. The key is, as Bruschi points out, will BOB have the patience to stick with the run to wear down the front four if they make a point of sticking with this package?
Putting aside the X and O’s, and looking at BB and Brady. I have to mention that those are proud men, they’re keen competitors, and they’re not going to make the same mistakes again, and especially with BB, when he has seen an opponent enough times, he inevitably finds a way to defeat this opponent, and this will mark the 3rd time he has seen a team this season. This is the biggest game of the season, and the best players rise to the occasion. There’s no doubt we’ll see the vintage Brady, the Brady of old.
We’re going to win, and I don’t even think it will be close. I am a keen student of history and believe that there are peaks and valleys in career and in life, and I believe in opportunities for closure, for atonement. There are certain patterns throughout the course of history, especially in warfare, and this is one of them.
It’ll feel good to bring #4 home and let the Red Sox know: “Right back at ya, you’re at the bottom of the pile again.”
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