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The only thing is, if Talib was playing Thomas man to man on an island, why does he immediately give up inside leverage to Thomas? It looked like he was expecting safety help. Could have been some miscommunication between Talib and the safetys that messed that play up.Based on my amateur knowledge of coverages (and somebody can feel free to correct me if they think I'm wrong), that play looked exactly like what people want to do with Revis. It was a 5-man blitz, and the four DBs (other than McCourty) plus Collins each had man coverage on a receiver. But more specifically, it sure looks to me like Talib was on an island, with McCourty playing more of a deep half on the opposite side, something like...
(Blus is coverage, orange is pass rush. The DTs cross, and then Hightower goes up the middle between them. There's no good way to draw that in Paint.)
Now there are two main reasons that I came to this conclusion. The three guys on the offensive right side all engage their defenders at the line. Talib doesn't. He goes straight into his backpedal without any attempt at a jam. A few moments after the snap, the coverage looks like this:
One of these things is not like the others. The three defenders on the offensive right side are jamming their receivers. Talib is not. If my thinking on this play is correct, that's because Talib needs to respect the deep ball more than the other defenders. They have McCourty backing them up, while Talib does not. And then...
There are two things happening in this picture. First of all, notice McCourty's position. The term you hear a lot is the "rotation" of the safeties. When the SS comes up in a shorter zone or in this case man coverage, usually the FS rotates more toward the middle of the field. There's no rotation back there. From the snap to when McCourty makes his break toward Demaryius Thomas, he's gone basically straight back 8 yards. Again, feel free to correct me, but I would think that if McCourty had any responsibilities as far as helping Talib, then he would at least made some movement toward that side of the field.
And of course, the other thing to notice in this picture is Talib. He's facing outside while his receiver flies by on the inside. Yes, I understand why Talib bit so hard on the fake outside. If Thomas beats him to the outside and Peyton delivers a good ball, it's a TD. At least by funneling Thomas inside, it was only a 29 yard play (and eventually a field goal) rather than a TD. Still, I think that's the biggest difference between Revis and Talib. Talib did a lot of good work singled up on some good receivers, but I would expect that Revis makes this kind of mistake a lot less often.
At least from my point of view, this wasn't at all McCourty getting beat down the seam. It was McCourty cleaning up Talib's mess. They were asking a lot from Talib on the play, and he couldn't do it. I think the announcers completely over simplified things, and unfortunately most people aren't going to give it any second thought.
Right after the play Talib said something to McCourty. Also to the other poster I don't think Phil Simms would lie do you. Talk the day before the game about a particular play and coverage that they thought they could hit and they hit it and Simms talked about. I put a little faith in Simms on this one.
I think inside is better than outside. Gregory was in position to defend the slant before going to pick up the RB. Further down the field, Talib didn't have coverage help on either side but at least had a backup tackler to the inside.
I don't think he was intentionally lying. I think that if nobody here with the ability to watch the play as many times as they want can definitively say that McCourty was supposed to be helping Talib, then Simms shouldn't be calling out McCourty for messing up moments after the play happens, much less going into a story about it. It's not possible to get a pass in before the late safety arrives if defending a pass to that receiver isn't the safety's job.
So you're trying to set it up that if the 2014 defense, adding Revis, Easley, Browner, Mayo, Wilfork, Kelly, etc. is better than the injury-decimated 2013 crew, that proves that Devin McCourty is just an average player? Nice trick.
I always felt that Talib benefited from having McCourty.
The Patriots were not plagued by bad cornerback play in 2013.
