Last Guy on the Bench Posted August 16, 2015 Posted August 16, 2015 (edited) I was curious about the impression a lot of people seem to have that Taylor makes one read and if he doesn't like it takes off out of the pocket. So I went back and watched each of his passing or running plays in the game several times, paying particular attention to his line of sight - what he was looking at when. I didn't find the one read and run pattern AT ALL. Here is my breakdown of each of his passing and running plays in the game. Sorry it's so long, but I got into it. First Drive 1st & 10, Bills 45 – Play action, immediately rolls out to the right – looks either designed or like he decided to keep it right away because he had so much room to run on that side. Glances up the right side of the field a little bit while he’s running, but would never have had time to set his feet anyway because the LDE was all over him. He just had to sprint past the dude. Picked up 10 yards. 1st & 10 Carolina 45 – Under center, stays in pocket, looks to the right and center then launches it to Goodwin going deep down the left sideline - incomplete. Great read. Goodwin could have caught it, though Taylor could have placed it inside a little more to make it easier. Definitely not his first read, unless he was purposely looking everyone off. Either way, not a stare and throw at all. 2nd & 10 Carolina 45 – Shotgun, fakes the handoff, immediately rolls to the right – not under pressure, this is designed. Does seem to hesitate while he looks up the field a little, clearly has the option to throw, but keeps it and runs after a brief scan. Seems to me that on this kind of play, he is never going to be looking way over to the left anyway, because it would be against the grain of the way he is running. I don’t think it is exactly first read and run, though, either. He is not in the pocket. He seems to be scanning the half of the field he is running toward and has the option to toss it to someone or keep it. He keeps it to good effect. Picks up about 18 yards (plus an additional penalty tacked on). 2nd & 10, Carolina 12 – Under center, drops straight back, looks downfield to the right, then looks over to the right flat at Williams swinging out of the backfield, then looks straight down the center of the field. Sees a big hole open up in front of him and takes off running, hesitates before crossing the LOS and either thinks about throwing or fakes it to buy himself more space to run. Gains 9 yards (plus horse collar penalty tacked on). Definitely not a one read play – he looked at three distinct places on the field before he took off. Second Drive 2nd & 8, Bills 12 – Under center, drops straight back, looks left, sees Goodwin open 6 yards in front of the LOS and throws it to him, Goodwin cuts back across the middle of the field and gains 28 yards. This was a first read, but the read was open so he threw it. Crisp throw. 3rd & 4, Bills 46 – Shotgun, drops straight back, very quick glance to the right, then looks downfield middle. In the meantime, the RDE has blown by Darryl Johnson (listed as a guard, but playing left tackle here) and is about to take Taylor’s head off when Taylor makes his most ridiculous move of the night. He takes a quick step to the right like he is running away from him then does a supernaturally quick U-turn and runs back to the left while the RDE dives helplessly trying to tackle the empty space where Taylor used to be. Taylor has just purchased himself a vast amount of real estate as the defense has been pulled heavily to the right. He could clearly run it for a good gain, but keeps his head up and sees Williams about 12 yards in front of him and coolly feathers it to him. Williams chugs for another 10 yards before he’s knocked out of bounds. 13 yard gain (if that math seems strange, it’s because Taylor was way behind the line when he tossed it the 12 yards to Williams). 1st & 10, Carolina 41 – Play action, rolls to the right. He clearly checks out Hogan running a pattern down the right sideline first. Then he swings his head toward the center and is looking at Gray who has run a short pattern from the right TE position and Mulligan who has run a deeper pattern crossing the field from the left TE position. Taylor obviously doesn’t like what he sees, but he takes one more hesitation right before the LOS (either for a fake or because he is still looking for somewhere to throw) then runs across the line and slides for a gain of four. As on most previous plays, he checks out different areas of the field quite quickly, so if you don’t look carefully, it can seem like he has a quick trigger to run, but he is definitely not just looking at one receiver and then going. 3rd & 5, Carolina 36 – Shotgun, looks immediately to the left where Brown has swung out into the flat. Throws it to him – soft throw that lets him keep his momentum. Brown runs for the first down and a yard or two extra. 2nd & 3, Carolina 23 – Play action, bootleg to the left. This is an immediate bootleg, clearly a called play. He is not even looking downfield, just trying to get the first down. This is that crazy play where the DB hustles up in run support and dives at Taylor’s legs, knocking him off balance and seemingly stopping him two yards short. But as Taylor is falling he does a little hop back to plant his feet then dives forward for two yards and the first down before falling out of bounds. This dude is fun to watch. 1st & 10, Carolina 20 – Shotgun, drops back a few yards, looks downfield middle, then looks left and throws to Deonte Thompson running straight down the sideline. Thompson has his man beat by a step. Ball hits his fingertips in the endzone, but he can’t pull it in. Good read, pretty good throw. No chance for an int. Could have been caught, though it would have been a nice catch. Taylor holds his head in frustration. Third Drive 1st & 10, Carolina 46 – Shotgun, looks downfield middle, seems to glance very quickly to the short left as well, then pivots to the right and tosses it to Brown sidling out into the flat. The Panthers respond quickly and Brown gets nailed behind the LOS. Not sure this was a great decision, but it definitely wasn’t the first read. Hogan was open for at least a few yard gain in the left middle (I think this is where Taylor’s quick glance to the left went), but Brown did seem to have some space in front of him to work with – it just disappeared very quickly, so I can see why Taylor threw it there. Either way, he was scanning the field, again, before throwing to Brown. 2nd and 11, Carolina 47 – Shotgun, stays calm in a nice pocket, looks downfield right, then downfield middle, then short middle where he throws to Hogan a couple of yards in front of the LOS, Hogan runs laterally and is tackled for a short gain. Taylor held the ball in the pocket for four seconds before dumping it to Hogan. He looked right and middle, but never looked left. If he had, he would have seen Brown swinging out of the backfield with MILES of space in front of him. Brown would have been off to the races. The slot DB was at least 10 yards away from him, and I think that’s the only guy he would have had to beat for a huge gain. Too bad. 3rd & 8, Carolina 44 – Shotgun, drops back a couple extra yards, looking downfield left. Again, Darryl Johnson at LT gets beat on the edge, and the RDE is on Taylor within two seconds. Taylor quickly steps up into the pocket. The pocket is now pretty clean, due to the step up and to the fact that Johnson has subtly hooked his dude from behind and then used his momentum to push him to the ground. Taylor could, at this point, have settled in the pocket for a little longer, but he sees a lot of space off to the left and he heads for it quickly. As soon as he is clear of the original pressure, his head is up and he is looking downfield left again, though this time more toward the middle than the sideline. It’s only after taking a measured, jogging look downfield that he makes the decision to hit full speed and cross the LOS. Picks up about 5 yards. 4th & 3, Carolina 39 – Shotgun, steps back, sits in the pocket calmly, very quick glance right then looks over to Thompson running down the left sideline again. Lofts it toward him quickly (he only held the ball for two seconds) and overthrows him by a couple of yards. Thompson had half a step on his man, but he seemed to me to slow a bit as he looked up for the ball. Wasn’t a great throw, landed just out of bounds. Thompson could have stayed at full speed and maybe given himself a shot. But it would have to have been a great catch – not sure anyone would have gotten to it. Still, a reasonable decision, though not high percentage. Just not a great throw. Summary Overall, a few of the times he “left the pocket” early seemed like designed rollouts – don’t think there was supposed to be a pocket. At other times, Taylor does like to buy himself some time and space by slipping out of the pocket – and perhaps he does do this too early at times. Nevertheless, at no time was he just making one read and then taking off and running. He always looked at at least 2 or 3 sections of the field (except when he threw to his first read), and he always had his head up when running. He also often hesitated before crossing the LOS, trying to find someone to throw to downfield. Edited August 17, 2015 by Last Guy on the Bench
Kelly the Dog Posted August 16, 2015 Posted August 16, 2015 Great post and thanks for the time you took. That was was terrific. On the first scramble/run, TT said that the Panthers took away Robert Woods or knocked him out of his route, which was his read so he started running.
Juice_32 Posted August 16, 2015 Posted August 16, 2015 Thanks for taking the time to do this. Much appreciated. It definitely feels like TT's first instinct is to take off, but I agree that some of what we saw on Friday was because the play call dictated a roll out with "1 read or run".
Wayne Cubed Posted August 16, 2015 Posted August 16, 2015 In the first series on that 2nd and 10 from the Carolina 45, I'm pretty sure that was a designed read-option run. I counted 3 designed runs of his 6 total.
NickelCity Posted August 16, 2015 Posted August 16, 2015 Much appreciated. I'm glad you had the same opinion of the horse collar play. People kept saying he had gray open but I didn't think gray turned his head or body until after TT was past the LOS running. To me it looked like he was definitely looking to throw but no one was open or ready for a pass. But I don't have a way to replay the game, so I don't know if I am just misremembering this play or what.
Scooby77 Posted August 16, 2015 Posted August 16, 2015 He's fun to watch, but come regular season when coaches can game plan for him, he'll be shut down. He's also small; he'll last about 5-6 games.
Last Guy on the Bench Posted August 16, 2015 Author Posted August 16, 2015 (edited) He's fun to watch, but come regular season when coaches can game plan for him, he'll be shut down. He's also small; he'll last about 5-6 games. Great analysis. Guess we'll see. Much appreciated. I'm glad you had the same opinion of the horse collar play. People kept saying he had gray open but I didn't think gray turned his head or body until after TT was past the LOS running. To me it looked like he was definitely looking to throw but no one was open or ready for a pass. But I don't have a way to replay the game, so I don't know if I am just misremembering this play or what. Good memory. Just went back and looked. It's kind of hard to tell, because Gray runs upfield offscreen right away. But TT is definitely looking his direction when he hesitates at the LOS, and right toward the end of the play when Gray comes back into view he is in the end zone running away from TT with his back to him. So unless Gray had been open and facing TT earlier when he was offscreen, TT had no chance to throw to him. The ball would have hit Gray in the back of the head. Edited August 16, 2015 by Last Guy on the Bench
klos63 Posted August 16, 2015 Posted August 16, 2015 He's fun to watch, but come regular season when coaches can game plan for him, he'll be shut down. He's also small; he'll last about 5-6 games. Or not
Last Guy on the Bench Posted August 16, 2015 Author Posted August 16, 2015 Great post and thanks for the time you took. That was was terrific. On the first scramble/run, TT said that the Panthers took away Robert Woods or knocked him out of his route, which was his read so he started running. Interesting. That makes sense. Just went back and looked. Woods goes in motion to the left, then at the snap cuts back to the right behind the LOS and then starts running along the right LOS sort of in parallel to TT's rollout. But the LB gets on Woods right away and kind of wraps his arms around him (could have called holding). So Woods has no chance for a reception let alone any RAC. However, Woods being Woods, when he sees that TT is going to run it, he starts blocking the LB instead of trying to escape him and drives the guy 10 yards downfield, helping extend TT's run considerably.
John from Riverside Posted August 16, 2015 Posted August 16, 2015 He's fun to watch, but come regular season when coaches can game plan for him, he'll be shut down. He's also small; he'll last about 5-6 games. Could you please go a little more in depth into your opinion.....how will defenses shut him down in 5-6 games? I am curious to hear the answer on this.
Augie Posted August 16, 2015 Posted August 16, 2015 He's fun to watch, but come regular season when coaches can game plan for him, he'll be shut down. He's also small; he'll last about 5-6 games. In order to game plan, they have to give something else up. That helps us in other ways. Definitely fun to watch. I'm hoping he can be "Russell Wilson Dangerous", and not put himself at risk too much. I don't think a true running QB will last long, but hopefully that's just one aspect of what he offers. He came pretty close on a couple of long balls.
Last Guy on the Bench Posted August 16, 2015 Author Posted August 16, 2015 Thanks for the post, OP. Cheers.
WhitewalkerInPhilly Posted August 16, 2015 Posted August 16, 2015 Thanks OP! From what I was going on it hardly seemed as if Taylor was unable to make throws from the pocket like some people seemed to indicate. He's fun to watch, but come regular season when coaches can game plan for him, he'll be shut down. He's also small; he'll last about 5-6 games. Dude...you could have faked it to make it *look* like you read the OP.
Dorkington Posted August 16, 2015 Posted August 16, 2015 (edited) Great post, thanks! Didn't quite match what I thought I saw live, but it's very easy to miss things live 👍 Edited August 16, 2015 by Dorkington
Bad Things Posted August 16, 2015 Posted August 16, 2015 Great post. Thanks for the write-up. I felt the same way about him, when watching him live. I personally thought he had a great pocket presence.
stony Posted August 16, 2015 Posted August 16, 2015 He's fun to watch, but come regular season when coaches can game plan for him, he'll be shut down. He's also small; he'll last about 5-6 games. It's not the game planning I'm worried about, it's his size. He needs to watch A LOT of Russel Wilson tape and how he slides and avoids hits.
NickelCity Posted August 16, 2015 Posted August 16, 2015 It's not the game planning I'm worried about, it's his size. He needs to watch A LOT of Russel Wilson tape and how he slides and avoids hits. Has he run in a way that suggests he doesn't avoid big hits? I'm legitimately asking not being snarky.
CountryCletus Posted August 16, 2015 Posted August 16, 2015 Very good break down!!! This is exactly what I was trying to get across in my first half e v a l in the game thread... I was reading a lot of comments (or so it seemed) that said he needs to stop looking to run... Through my evaluation of the first half, it appeared that even on that bootleg to his right early in his snaps that it may have been a designed run as you can see Goodwin blocking downfield shortly after he broke... Not sure if it was a broken play or designed bootleg, but it worked... There were times it seemed that TT was going through at least 3 progressions before running, and seldom did it appear to be a one read and run type of approach. Having said that, TT doesn't seem to be the type of QB that will sit back and let a play develop too long, like what you see the best passers in the league do... Maybe too long is the wrong way to say it... The best (with protection) will sit back and slide and wait for a WR to come free before throwing where TT seems to look through his progressions and if nothing's there there tucks and runs- and most of the time for good yardage... I'm good with the way TT ran the offense!
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