So yesterday, Chris 4949 asked me to look over the cut-up on YouTube of Harold Landry's game against VA Tech in 2017. Below is a 4500 word play by play break-down of his entire game, as well as a summary of my analysis.

This is the Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ulDXwYCatw

So I did exactly that, and provided a complete break down of every single play in the game (without using sound) and looked at each snap on it's own merit.

Each snap was looked at and assessed based on what Landry's role was with respect to each play, whether he reacted well to that play and whether he made a positive impact or a negative impact. Plays where he had no chance to make a play were still assessed based on whether he performed positively or negative toward his opponent.

In other words, even though he had no chance - did he dominate or did he get dominated? Some plays naturally were described as neutral because there simply was no chance for him to even make any sort of impact.

The results are below.

First thing to note is the basic criteria that I used to assess each play.

Neutral Play – Play occurs to quickly for a rating to be applied, or drops into coverage or similar where he has literally no impact on his opposition. Neutral may also be applied to situation where an initial negative is negated by a positive finish

Neutral Positive Play – No chance to make a play, but performs well on the play (is dominant over his opponent in his pursuit to end the play)

Neutral Negative Play – No chance to make a play, and also performs poorly on the play (is dominated by opponent or shows lack of effort etc)

Positive Play – Has a chance to make a positive impact on the play and does so by either a pressure, hurry, tackle or sack etc

Negative Play – Has a chance to make a play but fails to do so as he is outperformed by his opponent

Secondly, I've put together a quick summary of the pure results based off my assessment of each play. This helps define the types of Offensive plays that were run, to give you context on what decisions Landry had to make on each play. For example, was the play a Run Pass Option that lead to a run, or a pass? Was the play purely a run play, or was it an obvious passing situation?

These questions are important as they give context as to how Landry SHOULD react, and whether he performed as he is meant to as an EDGE player, or whether he performed poorly.

Simply because he engages with a Tackle for a second while he diagnoses a play, doesn't mean he is not doing what he should. He is analysing what is happening in front of him and THEN reacting, as oppose to over committing to a play one way or another and getting it wrong.

OK so in terms of the breakdown of plays across the entire game, this is what I found.

Total Plays – 65

Run Plays – 32

Pass Plays – 33

Total RPO Pass Plays and % against Total – 16 (50%)

Total RPO Run Plays and % against Total – 16 (approx. 50%)

As you can see almost 50% of the plays were RPO, and 50% of the RPO's were run and pass respectively. This gives you an idea that for the entire game, the defense (D-line, Linebackers etc) must be constantly on their toes in diagnosing the play and then pursuing the football.

In addition to these statistics, I compiled a list of the total of Neutral, Neutral Positive, Neutral Negative, Positive and Negative plays I assessed throughout the entire 65 plays. The results are as per the following:

So looking at the above results, 12.3% of his plays impacted in a negative impact. Now this does not necessarily mean that a TD was a result of the play, or a serious run with lots of yardage. There were only 2 plays out of 65 where his actions actually resulted in a negative result in terms of yards gained, and a TD in the other. Mind you the TD that was scored was IMO more on the LB who got totally wiped out on that play. Non the less, Landry did play a role in that TD.

Neutral Negative Plays, which account for nearly 10% of the plays are plays where he was physically dominated by his opponent in some way OR performed poorly. If you break down the 6 plays, I believe only 2 plays he was physically dominated, the others were poor technique on his behalf.

The Neutral Positive Plays were plays where he was able to apply pressure, a hurry OR dominated his opponent using superior technique. Neutral Positive Plays however did not impact on the overall outcome of the play, they are simply examples of him showing super skills to his opposing number.

The Positive Plays were plays that he was involved in a QB hit, Tackle, TFL or Sack or plays where he was able to push a Lineman into a RB or some other play where his play changed the intended outcome of the play.

Finally - below is the play by play results that you can read if you like.

Feel free to check them out in conjunction with the YouTube clip and let me know what you came up with.