Anatomy Of An Awful Goal Line Play

But now all I can do is laugh at how dumb that was

They put this guy in the worst possible position. Was trying to throw the ball dumb? Absolutely. But at that point, anything smart about that play had gone out the window

What do you guys think?

I think it’s retarded. Think about it! When all 22 players are bunched in the middle at the line of scrimmage, you have 9 blockers going against 11 defenders (obviously the QB and RB aren’t blocking). It’s an automatic mismatch. You can’t block them all, and JUST ONE defender getting through can blow up the play. These plays have been failing us for years. I’m so sick of losing games like this!!! I still have nighmares of Buckhalter and Westbrook getting stuffed in short yardage week after week.

When you’ve got less than a half yard to go, and you stupidly decide to step back to hand the ball off, you’re starting with -3 yards that you have to earn back before you can even think about getting to the endzone. By the time the snap is taken, the QB steps back and hands the ball off and the RB gets back to the line, at least a whole second has passed for the unblocked defenders to get through. And if just one of your blockers gets beat, that’s even more ways for it to fail.

It makes so much more sense to spread the D out along the LOS. Not all defenders can get in on every play that way.!!! There’s the threat of running left/right/middle, and of passing the ball. When everybody in the world, including the opposing defense, knows a run up the middle is coming, it tends to FAIL!!!

Vick has had huge success running for short yardage so that adds to the options. UGH

The fact that Harbor got out quickly and his guy slid by very fast seems to be a theme, not just with him, but the blocking schemes in general. There is a lot of non blocking and attempted mis-direction going on instead of just beating your man type of plays. This caused the Vick goal line fumble a few weeks ago, when the linemen decided to just kill the unblocked QB instead of bite the play fake.

I dont know if I am noticing this more as I watch for it now. This may be a new wrinkle with the fast athletic guys concept. The line is so worried about getting to the second level that they shoot right past their first assignments. Seems like a great thing to be able to pin down those little LBs, but it seems to not matter that much when the entire DL are all in the backfield.

Anyone else tired of hearing rahim morris say “youngry”

Thats friggin bs. Reid is just covering his player. There is NO WAY that is a pass run option.
Whats the logic ? Run into the friggin line and lateral the ball out if you dont get in the end zone ?
Brown fucked that shit up. Reid is just covering up for Browns stupidity (by making himself sound even MORE ignorant)

This just kind of sums up the season for me at the quarter poll. I just don’t know what to say except I love jason babin and shady mccoy. I still have faith but we got alot of work to do

They should just let Vick run it. He had 9 rushing TDs last season.

I think I can almost see what was supposed to happen. This was not a designed pass/run option (more on that below).

The left side of the line is collapsing down toward the center. It looks like they do a pretty good job. Peters also does a really nice job of breaking through the line and getting a hand on the MLB — if the play hadn’t blown up, that was probably just enough to keep the MLB from getting to the point of attack.

They left the right DE unblocked by design, and it looks like Devan is coming across to pick him up and seal him to the outside. If he gets there, there is a nice seam between RDE and the rest of the D line (which has been collapsed inward by Herremans and Peters). That “if” is the big problem with this play.

Harbor, who had been lined up opposite the RDE, goes out into a pattern, taking the LB and DB with him in coverage, making it a walk into the endzone if the RDE was sealed. Since Vick is left-handed, the defense needs to respect this in anticipation of Vick rolling left — so Harbor took two defenders with him into the pattern.

Schmitt’s assignment is to keep the safety to the outside (because the play is designed to go between the sealed RDE and the collapsed rest of the line). He probably should have stepped up to engage the safety, but the guy he was supposed to block kind of stayed in place, so Schmitt shadows him.

The play blew up when Kelce got blown backward right off the snap. Devan is supposed to pull off Kelce’s backside, and when Kelce got shoved backward Devan couldn’t get around him. To make things worse, Devan just did a faceplant. That left the RDE to come in free and destroy Brown.

I don’t see any way in which this was a designed run/pass option. As Jason noted in the write-up, Brown is going right at the line, so it’s tough to imagine this as a designed throw. Also, the only guy out into the pattern was Harbor, who was headed directly away from Brown — no realistic way for Brown to get the ball to him (far more likely that Harbor was just clearing guys out from the area to which the play was designed to go). And when Brown did try to throw, he was looking for Schmitt, who clearly wasn’t intended to be a receiver on this play.

My take is that Brown fucked up, completely on his own. He was going down and for some unknown reason thought it would be a good idea to try to throw the ball to Schmitt. Andy is covering up for his guy by saying that there was a run/pass option. (Andy is well-known for taking the heat for his guys — that’s why the players love him, and part of the reason why he makes the rest of us pull our hair out.) This one is completely on Brown.

You can see the foundations of a decent play. Good job by the left side of the line, and if Devan gets over to the RDE, Brown goes into the end zone easily. My problem is that it is just too fancy for the goal line. Too much can go wrong when you have this much back-and-forth in tight spaces.

As Harbor is running off the bottom of the screen, he does turn back to look into the backfield. Could be a good sales job, but he does have separation and a pass could be possible ( could , ugh!) .

Brown is charging towards the line and slams on the breaks. I am not so sure that he anticipates the carnage in front of him or has reactions to begin stopping so quickly.

The RDE coming in so quickly just destroys the play, if it were a run or throw.

Either way, the decision to eat the ball has to be made by Brown. The more important decision is not to call this bullshit. This is another item to add to the list of playing against the players strengths… people expect running backs to run, no one in their right mind would have him stop and pass, so that is EXACTLY what we should do . (insert evil cackle)

and if the o-line did its job it would of worked.

Is that had Harbor and Schmitt run blocked even a little… that’s an easy rushing touchdown

that Reid has no faith that his line can open up a whole at the Goal line. Get Kelce the fuck outta there and bring in Jackson at the very least on Goal line situations. I don’t give a fuck what Mudd wants, Andy needs to grow some balls and put his foot down. Its obvious Kelce cant block on short yardage situations.

It looks like if DeVan doesn’t randomly fling himself onto the ground, Brown actually has a really good shot at getting in. The run/pass option doesn’t make sense, but it does look like that run could have worked with at least an average RG