Week 3 Film Study–An X’s & O’s look at a couple big plays from the past week in the NFL:

Eagles Hi-Lo Concept with RB Wheel

The Eagles got there first win of the season on Sunday with some help from the Hi-Lo concept. The Hi-Lo concept is a man coverage beater which involves an underneath “mesh” (crossers), with a curl route over the mesh. Chip Kelly adds a wheel route from the Running Back for two reasons: to clear out Linebackers from the middle of the field, and to potentially hit a big play if the Linebacker can’t cover the RB up the sideline. Below, the Jets are in a Cover 1 scheme with Man-to-Man across the board except for a “Centerfield” Safety in the middle of the field:

The Jets do a fairly good job of covering the crossing routes by jamming Tight End Zack Ertz as well as passing off the Wide Receiver crosser from the top of the formation. However, the Linebacker takes a poor angle covering Ryan Matthews, who is wide open for a Touchdown:

As seen below, the Eagles had run the exact same play just 5 minutes earlier in the game; the play was also wide open, but the Eagles couldn’t capitalize due to a poorly thrown ball. Look for the Eagles to continue to run Hi-Lo with an RB wheel against heavy man coverage teams. The Jets will almost certainly see this type of play against their defense in the coming weeks.

Bengals Ace Personnel Four Verticals

In a back and forth game between the Bengals and Ravens, Cincinnati hit on an 80-yard Touchdown to A.J. Green on Four Verticals. A deeper look shows what happens when a great play call meets perfect execution. The Bengals are in Ace personnel, which means there are 2 Tight Ends, 2 Wide Receivers and 1 Running Back. The Bengals shift to a Closed Tight End Trips formation, and the Ravens are in Cover 1 (Man-to-Man coverage with Safety Will Hill in the middle of the field):

Note the spacing of the vertical routes on the top of the formation by the Bengals Receivers; the outside WR (Marvin Jones) is almost at the sideline while the slot WR (A.J. Green) is outside of the numbers. This would be poor spacing against zone coverage. Outside Wide Receivers are generally taught to “stack” defenders instead of fading toward the sideline to give QB’s a bigger throwing window. However, against the Ravens Cover 1 it is the perfect call. Marvin Jones is almost at the sideline; this is ideal because the defender man turns toward him and is prevented from breaking on A.J. Green’s vertical route. Meanwhile, you can see below how hard A.J. Green works to get outside of his defender and outside of the numbers to stay away from the Safety Will Hill and give QB Andy Dalton a throwing window. Hill is shading towards Green pre-snap, but cannot get over fast enough because of the spacing Jones and Green created. The ball is delivered accurately, and A.J. Green does the rest.