How does BB and McDaniels attack Seattle's defense?

Inspired by the other thread about how we handle there offense. How do we go about moving the ball against Seattle's vaunted cover 3 shell?



I think there weakness is running the ball right into the teeth of their defense. If we can gain reasonable yardage on the ground, the play action to Gronkowski down the seem is another weak point of a cover 3.

Any thoughts?

Like you said pound the rock, I can live with constant 3-4 yard gains, keep 3rd downs at 4-5 yards and I think we move the ball okay. Work the middle of the field and go after their 3rd and 4th DBs, take calculated shots at **** Sherman keep him honest.

Straight north south runs with a leading FB.

Going with the consensus here - run it!

Green Bay were getting decent chunks on the ground in the first half then just abandoning it when it came to short yardage. So I'd go 6 OL + FB and pound the rock.

Run it, run it, run it. Set up the play action! Hopefully we will be really successful on the ground that they will start cheating coverage.

Running the ball will definitely help in order to keep the down and distance manageable. The toughest thing about this Seattle D is how quickly they swarm to the ball and how well they tackle. That means we're unlikely to have a lot of success with screens, dumpoffs, or quick hits. We might manage a few, but in general we're going to have to catch the ball past the first down marker in order to move the chains.

Test Sherman and Thomas early with those injuries. If the line holds up, take some shorts deep on them. Or line your bigger guys (Gronk or LaFell) on Sherman then run the ball, letting your guys give them some shots. If they stop it, fair play to them for being tough and muddling through. If they don't, you can open up a lot.

Here's my quick and dirty early take.

Hurry up offense. Play like Chip Kelly. Go, go, go.

Flood the zone, as GB showed on Cobb's TD.

Drags, digs/outs and curls from an empty shell.

Inside traps and cross pull blocks to implement the OP's plan to run inside.

Stacks, motion, shifts, several almost every play.

This is the obvious and general stuff. I am sure there's going to be a lot more. I'd be psyched if I were JM because I think the Pats strengths play well to Seattle's weaknesses. Of course, Seattle will change up its D for this game, playing more man coverage and brining 5-6 on every pass.

TomPatriot said:

Of course, Seattle will change up its D for this game, playing more man coverage and brining 5-6 on every pass.

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God, I hope so! Brady will eat up the blitz if they use it too much.

I really hope this isn't going to be a run first game plan. Seattle is a good run. They allow runs, but they also penetrate and stuff plays. The only way our offense gets bogged down is when we play "the
stay on schedule" game. Every game that I can remember the Patriots struggling on offense is when they played small ball and tried to get to 2nd and 7, 3rd and 3, etc. Even though in those games we convert a high percentage of 3rd downs, we do not score a lot of points because we need a bunch of them strung together.
This offense is at its best when its getting 1st downs and big plays on 1st and second down.
I see a lot of opportunity for that in this matchup. There are seams in that defense and we have receivers that are outstanding at exploiting those seams.
I hope we spread them out and throw a ton of passes in the 7-14 yards downfield range. I want to hit those seams, and if they go man, exploit the safeties and nickel back.

I'm usually a proponent of sticking with the run but here I'm not so sure. Isn't Seattle top 3 or 4 in terms of rushing yards/gm? They eye test did indicate in the NFCC that they can be run on but something tells me overall they may be difficult to run on. I do know in the 2012 game we couldn't get anything going on the ground, yet Brady had success moving the ball through the air on them - just made some critical errors in the red zone. I believe if we execute better the primary way to go is through the air, espcially with the injuries in their secondary. Then once we wear that D down a bit mix in some Bluount.

is there anything to be said for deflating balls?


anyone?


too soon?

Run to Sherman's side, hammer that elbow with LaFell, Gronk. Or a screen to that side with Geonk blocking downhill on Sherman. Run up the gut with LGB Gray to make Thomas make tackles with that shoulder

PATSYLICIOUS said:

I'm usually a proponent of sticking with the run but here I'm not so sure. Isn't Seattle top 3 or 4 in terms of rushing yards/gm? They eye test did indicate in the NFCC that they can be run on but something tells me overall they may be difficult to run on. I do know in the 2012 game we couldn't get anything going on the ground, yet Brady had success moving the ball through the air on them - just made some critical errors in the red zone. I believe if we execute better the primary way to go is through the air, espcially with the injuries in their secondary. Then once we wear that D down a bit mix in some Bluount.

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This is kind of a pet peeve of mine. In this case Seattle has good run D numbers, but the eye test says they can be run on. The reason is that they aren't great defending the run in some situations, but are in others.
Its similar to the old Colt teams who were awful vs the run, but on obvious running downs, they would shoot a gap and make a play in the backfield, just that instead of awful but make a play sometimes, they are pretty good and make a play often in run situations.
The only time the Colts won a SB, they ironically did it because of their D and because of their run D. Teams came out and tried to run every down. KC (with Herman Edwards and Larry Johnson) were the worst. So the Colts D that couldn't defend the run to save its life unless they sold out to do it, were encouraged to sell out and it worked.

In this game, what I see is if we try to run a lot, we will have some success, but also have drive killing 3 yard losses, and thats the MO for stopping out offense. Get us to think about down and distance and convert a ton of 3rd downs and we move the ball but bog down.

I like TomPatriot's suggestions best.

Run it... AFTER you come out in hurry-up with short passing game. Use Vereen exclusively. Go to Edelman short. Amendola too.

And, one safe pass to LaFell short just to see what Sherman can do out there.

After the first or second series of hurry-up, hopefully you've scored a TD. Then go with running game more.

AndyJohnson said:

This is kind of a pet peeve of mine. In this case Seattle has good run D numbers, but the eye test says they can be run on. The reason is that they aren't great defending the run in some situations, but are in others.
Its similar to the old Colt teams who were awful vs the run, but on obvious running downs, they would shoot a gap and make a play in the backfield, just that instead of awful but make a play sometimes, they are pretty good and make a play often in run situations.
The only time the Colts won a SB, they ironically did it because of their D and because of their run D. Teams came out and tried to run every down. KC (with Herman Edwards and Larry Johnson) were the worst. So the Colts D that couldn't defend the run to save its life unless they sold out to do it, were encouraged to sell out and it worked.

In this game, what I see is if we try to run a lot, we will have some success, but also have drive killing 3 yard losses, and thats the MO for stopping out offense. Get us to think about down and distance and convert a ton of 3rd downs and we move the ball but bog down.

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Very true, which is why I'd roll with Brady primarily, he is on fire as well as the OL with the quick hit passing game. I think we should just keep going with that until somebody proves they can stop him. Of course I'd prefer to have success with a mixed attack but not so certain we can run on that D.

dink and dunk passing is probably the hole in Seattle's secondary.
They are by far the #1 team in giving up explosive 20+ yard passes but quick slants can be effective.

Seattle usually just stacks the box with Chancellor making it very difficult to run until the opposing team abandons the running game. They can get away with this because Earl Thomas is so good. They are the #3 rushing defense in the NFL after all, even though the DT depth is thin and not as good as last year, Chancellor masks a lot of its weaknesses. Chancellor is also the one who covers the TEs in cover 1.

Hall Of Fame tightends have given this defense problems, I'm talking about T.Gonazles, A.Gates and even J.Witten to an extent., but tight ends that are considered "elite" like J.Graham and Vernon Davis are non-existant against seattle.

Gronk will probably be your x-factor on offense. He's going to need to have a career game.

PATSYLICIOUS said:

I'm usually a proponent of sticking with the run but here I'm not so sure. Isn't Seattle top 3 or 4 in terms of rushing yards/gm? They eye test did indicate in the NFCC that they can be run on but something tells me overall they may be difficult to run on. I do know in the 2012 game we couldn't get anything going on the ground, yet Brady had success moving the ball through the air on them - just made some critical errors in the red zone. I believe if we execute better the primary way to go is through the air, espcially with the injuries in their secondary. Then once we wear that D down a bit mix in some Bluount.

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I don't think you should look at regular season stats to evaluate their run D. They have injuries on D that have affected their run defense. The weakness of their D is up the middle and they are definitely susceptible to a power run game.

PATSYLICIOUS said:

Very true, which is why I'd roll with Brady primarily, he is on fire as well as the OL with the quick hit passing game. I think we should just keep going with that until somebody proves they can stop him. Of course I'd prefer to have success with a mixed attack but not so certain we can run on that D.

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With the defense we have on the other side of the ball, a game plan of having how the GOAT QB plays decide the game, is good by me.

resdubwhite said:

is there anything to be said for deflating balls?


anyone?


too soon?

Click to expand...

Prepare for 80 pages of madness.

Most importent is hurry so they have to keep the same ppl on the field.