With all the hype that came with two great Quarterbacks playing against each other in the playoffs, this game became one of the most one sided matches of the playoff season. Despite the Colts opting to drop back Andrew Luck 23 times in the first half, they only had 12 positive plays come out of it, a success rate barely passing 50% which includes two penalties. How did the Patriots do it?

Rob Ninkovich Will Break You

The Patriots were well aware of the Colts potent passing attack and had to figure out a way to keep them from being able to stretch the field, which they would try to do plenty of times in the first half calling for verticals, deep ins, posts, and corner routes. The Patriots even dared them to try by only rushing four players on each down and playing with one deep safety for a majority of the half. You know what stops deep routes from getting hit though, pressure and coverage.

If there was a game ball given for just the first half of a game, Ninkovich would be far and away the obvious candidate for the most valuable player. He managed to beat his man and force Luck to move in the pocket 8 times by my count (with some help from Chandler Jones) and bat down 2 passes in just two quarters of football. The Patriots identified that RT Joe Reitz had trouble reacting to stunts and couldn’t keep up with Ninkovich’s speed rush so they abused him with both.

On the second play of the game the Patriots line up Ninkovich as a LDT with Chandler Jones as a LEO, they use this wide formation often this game, daring the Colts to run into the big gaps with only two Linebackers out on the field. Jones will press the outside lane to get Reitz to turn his hips perpendicular to the yard line and then crash inside, Reitz will time and time again overcommit at this point and let Ninkovich just slide right by.

Here they are doing it again, this time Jones doesn’t even sell it as well but Reitz still is way late on getting around to Ninkovich. Luck completes this pass, but Ninkovich still manages to make it difficult for him in the pocket.

Later on, it’s Ninkovich doing it for Jones. Reitz just can’t do anything about it.

Then there’s the speed rush. On all of these plays below Ninkovich controls Reitz throughout the entire process. In the first he even takes the time to completely knock Fleener off his route (off screen) before rushing and still manages to pressure Luck. But that’s not even the end of Ninkovich’s dominance in the first half.

But then there’s also these:

How are you going to deal with this? Ninkovich is so well disciplined that he realizes when he can’t make the rush and still is able to make the play. That’s 10 out of 23 passing downs in the first half that Ninkovich made his presence felt.

For a deeper look at Rob Ninkovich’s Game Against the Colts, click here.

Playing Your Opponent

In the offseason the Patriots made the big move to get king of shutdown cornerbacks Darrelle Revis and the big physical cornerback Brandon Browner. These moves along with the emergence of Devin McCourty as one of the leagues best free safeties gave the very loud impression that the Patriots were about to become an (almost) exclusively Cover-1 man team and no surprise, they did. However, it wasn’t just these two FA’s who would end up making a big impact in coverage; homegrown Logan Ryan would begin to emerge as a real presence and even Kyle Arrington came out and made himself known. Belichick told them to man up and they did.

One of the more interesting parts of this half was Browner’s usage of covering only the Tight Ends and sort of doubling as an in the box safety while Revis dealt with one of Nicks or Moncrief. You would think they would put a lot more attention on someone like T.Y. Hilton but to Belichick the biggest threat on the field was Andrew Luck’s ability to go through his progressions. The best way to stifle that strength would be to force him to rush and to force the Wide Receivers to win man battles, a tactic that’s much easier said than done. What it did show was Belichick’s awareness of his own players strengths and abilities and ability to match those up with the opponents.

Already shown above in the way Belichick chose to put Ninkovich out in a LEO role in order to allow him to speed rush constantly against Reitz, he did the same with his CBs and personnel. The Patriots would use a 4-2-5 Nickel setup (4 Defensive Linemen, 2 Linebackers, and 5 Defensive Backs) for a majority of the half switching to a more traditional 3-4-4 only once the Colts reached the redzone. He knew the Colts wanted to spread the field and he didn’t want his Linebackers being tasked with covering either of the two tight ends the Colts employ.

Kyle Arrington

On the first passing play of the game, the game plan is in motion. The CBs are manned up with Arrington, the weakest of the group, on Hilton in the slot. The reason, Arrington is fast enough to keep up with Hilton and his role would be to funnel Hilton into McCourty as many times as possible. You can also see Browner on Fleener at the bottom of the screen, keeping close on a corner route.

Then you have plays like this, where Arrington is lined up against Hilton right at the line, giving him the chance to press. Can you even tell what route Hilton wanted to run? Arrington shuts down whatever he was thinking.

Devin McCourty

It helps a lot when you have someone like McCourty covering the backside, he quickly diagnoses the deep out from Allen and drops down to cover the open space. Meanwhile, everyone else is completely covered out of the play.

Then on this play McCourty quickly reacts to the vertical pick on Arrington and takes Hilton as his man.

Just Win, Baby

Another play where everyone is fully covering their man. Duron Harmon is dropping down to take out Fleeners route, while Arrington and McCourty double up on Hilton on his vertical. At the top, Logan Ryan has Wayne blanketed and is leaving him no space to work with. Even though Luck helps by throwing this ball a little too early, there’s just nothing to work with.

The same goes with these two plays. The way Belichick chose to use his personnel in this game paid off big even when he had his best corner manned up with the offenses smallest threat.

“They Just Wanted It More”

It’s not as if the Colts didn’t try to beat the Patriots man game plan, but they looked obviously like they were giving it away at some points. There were a few plays where the Colts made some real progress, getting routes that when timed together would pick off some Patriots defenders and found some soft spots in their coverages- but the miscues by Luck and Hilton and the vastly superior play by the Patriots defensive line wrecked most of the passing plays.

Andrew Luck and T.Y. Hilton

This dynamic duo haunted teams in the regular season with their ability to make any vertical play into a game ender but the Patriots suffocated Hilton and in the few situations where Hilton had the chance, Luck just couldn’t make it happen and never for the same reason twice.

On this play, Hilton’s wide open underneath and a pass ahead of him will result in a first down on 3rd and 10. Ninkovich and Jones are generating a ton of pressure, showing that the Colts offensive line was not ready for this game, and Luck ends up throwing this behind Hilton.

Then on 1st and 10 with the 13 personnel out, they catch the McCourty/Arrington duo just right with McCourty heading outside and Hilton able to bend Arrington outside as well (he takes a small subtle step outside two steps before breaking out of the vertical stem) and then goes inside for the post, but Luck misses. Luck takes a hit from Jones, but Jones never actually gets the chance to affect the throw- it’s just a miss.

Finally on this play, Luck reads the field, fakes to Nicks on the underneath route and then throws to Hilton, but when Luck fakes to Nicks, Hilton lets up on his route and slows down instead of finishing. There’s no winning for these two.

Where There’s A Will There’s A Way

Obviously we all know the outcome of this game, but at this point in the half there were still some things that the Patriots had yet to have answers to. With the Patriots committed to keeping McCourty deep, they played both Linebackers further back in the first half to stop the intermediate routes, especially on the few zone calls they had. This opened up the field to pick plays and underneaths, where the Colts did find success.

Fleener picks off and carries Wayne’s defender for at least 6 yards allowing Wayne a free path to the outside. Luck misses, but this shows that they can make this work.

Just like before where a Vertical route picked off Hilton’s defender, this time the Vertical keeps McCourty from coming over this route and allows Luck to drop a dime right on the sideline.

Finally, against a Cover-3 Zone the Colts get the Tight End on a delayed release, and Allen ends up making a wide open catch. This situation comes up a few times on delayed releases for the Colts, mostly for the Running Back.

That’s it for the first half. I’ll be putting up the next half soon, and focusing on how the Colts adjusted to try and take this game into their own hands and what the Patriots defense did to keep kicking the Colts while they were down.

Click Here For The Second Half.

Deeper Look At Every Pass Play In The Half On The Next Page