Scripted play analysis Daboll v. Dorsey (The Court Case of the Millenium)

[HoofHearted]

3 hours ago, boyst said:

Go ahead, id like your take

 

I know the scheme is old enough but am curious how it can be used so efficiently to have no breakdowns of seams the field corner being exposed often. I think it goes back to the athleticism of the current NFL athlete.

Quarters

So as far as terminology goes most coaches differentiate Quarters from Cover 4. Cover 4 is your true spot drop - defensive backs playing their lanes - coverage (think an umbrella coverage - keep everything in front of you - super safe). Quarters has many names - Quarters, Palms, 2 Read (there may be more but those are the main three). This is a man match coverage concept with varying coverage calls and rules based on the offensive formation/alignments. You have your 2x2 concepts and your 3x1 concepts and those can/will vary based on the alignment of the offense. It's up to the Safeties to get the secondary into the best coverage call vs what they are seeing from an offensive alignment. So in 2x2 for example you could have one call for 2x2 normal splits, a different call for 2x2 wide splits, a different call for 2x2 stack, and a fourth call for 2x2 condensed splits. All of those will have their own sets of post-snap match/coverage rules. Then you'll have your various ways of playing 3x1, again based on personnel/alignment and what you want to do with that backside Safety.

 

Cover 6

Cover 6 will play Quarters to the field, but now play Cover 2 to the boundary. There's various ways to play 2 into the boundary, more often than not it's going to be a 2 Carry concept where the corner will sink with 1 vertical until the ball pulls him off of it, but you could also play a hard Cover 2 or even Trap to that side of the field. Again you have your different menu of calls based on splits and it's up to the Safety to put you in the best call. 3x1 to the field is where it gets interesting because your backside Safety is now occupied in coverage to the boundary so there will be multiple calls that will vary based off of how you want to play 3 vertical.

 

As far as athleticism goes - every year players are becoming more and more athletic as there are advancements in sports science. With the game continually trending more and more towards passing obviously players are going to need to be more athletic at positions that, even 10 years ago, were more built to stop the run first. This increase in athleticism doesn't just magically make one coverage better than another though.

[HoofHearted]

On 10/16/2023 at 7:40 PM, FireChans said:

Common knowledge among the NFL is that the first 12-15 plays from scrimmage is "scripted," partly based on what the team thinks the opposing team is going to do on defense and partly based on what was worked on throughout the week.

 

I remember the Bills had a great run of having a solid script.  I think we had a streak scoring on the opening possession going at one point.

 

So I decided to do the analysis from the "Josh Allen is elite" era.  The script is probably the biggest thing the OC does from a gameplan perspective and is much easier to measure than "adjustments."

 

Let's look at the numbers!

 

2020: 7/16 games had a TD or FG on opening drive

 

2021: 11/17 games had a TD or FG on opening drive

 

2022: 3 straight to open the year, and 4 of our first 6 but ultimately 6/16 on the year.

 

2023:  2/6 so far

 

So what does this tell us?  To me, this is a clear indication that our scripted "easy plays" in film study and gameplan preparation are anything but easy lately.

 

Even more troubling is the steep decline from the first 6 weeks of 2022.  I'm sure there's something to be said for tendencies that teams look for and gather info on, so I'm not sure if that is significant or not and may have been partially buoyed by no one knowing what Dorsey liked.

 

This definitely lends credence to how laborous the offense looked through the second half of 2022 into our current season this year. Now, 4/6 was probably unsustainable, but we have really only scored on 4 opening possessions of our last 16 regular season games?  With Josh Allen at QB?

 

I'm sure I could have done some better datamining, but I think this is a good start.  Daboll's 2021 offense was clearly elite from a script perspective. Dorsey's was even better for the first 6 weeks in 2022 and has fallen off a cliff since.  What is the reason?

Without context I don't think it "clearly" tells us anything.

[FireChans]

On 10/19/2023 at 12:07 PM, HoofHearted said:

Without context I don't think it "clearly" tells us anything.

It clearly tells us that we are worse at scoring on our scripted plays. There are a multitude of contextual reasons why that could be. You are welcome to offer some.

[Big Turk]

On 10/19/2023 at 12:01 PM, HoofHearted said:

Quarters

So as far as terminology goes most coaches differentiate Quarters from Cover 4. Cover 4 is your true spot drop - defensive backs playing their lanes - coverage (think an umbrella coverage - keep everything in front of you - super safe). Quarters has many names - Quarters, Palms, 2 Read (there may be more but those are the main three). This is a man match coverage concept with varying coverage calls and rules based on the offensive formation/alignments. You have your 2x2 concepts and your 3x1 concepts and those can/will vary based on the alignment of the offense. It's up to the Safeties to get the secondary into the best coverage call vs what they are seeing from an offensive alignment. So in 2x2 for example you could have one call for 2x2 normal splits, a different call for 2x2 wide splits, a different call for 2x2 stack, and a fourth call for 2x2 condensed splits. All of those will have their own sets of post-snap match/coverage rules. Then you'll have your various ways of playing 3x1, again based on personnel/alignment and what you want to do with that backside Safety.

 

Cover 6

Cover 6 will play Quarters to the field, but now play Cover 2 to the boundary. There's various ways to play 2 into the boundary, more often than not it's going to be a 2 Carry concept where the corner will sink with 1 vertical until the ball pulls him off of it, but you could also play a hard Cover 2 or even Trap to that side of the field. Again you have your different menu of calls based on splits and it's up to the Safety to put you in the best call. 3x1 to the field is where it gets interesting because your backside Safety is now occupied in coverage to the boundary so there will be multiple calls that will vary based off of how you want to play 3 vertical.

 

As far as athleticism goes - every year players are becoming more and more athletic as there are advancements in sports science. With the game continually trending more and more towards passing obviously players are going to need to be more athletic at positions that, even 10 years ago, were more built to stop the run first. This increase in athleticism doesn't just magically make one coverage better than another though.

 

Isn't Palms one of those disguised coverages that tries to show you one thing pre-snap and another with the rotation post snap? Seem to remember seeing breakdowns showing the Bills generate a lot of their INT's out of Palms.

 

Agree with the athleticism point...you could use their athleticism against them by getting them flowing the wrong way real quick and get them out of a play faster to go back the other way.

Edited October 20, 2023 by Big Turk

[HoofHearted]

1 minute ago, Big Turk said:

 

Isn't Palms one of those disguised coverages that tries to show you one thing pre-snap and another with the rotation post snap? Seem to remember a lot of breakdowns showing the Bills generate a lot of INT's out of Palms

You can disguise (or not disguise) any coverage. Haven't seen any of the breakdowns but would be interested in seeing them if you remember where you found them.

[Big Turk]

1 minute ago, HoofHearted said:

You can disguise (or not disguise) any coverage. Haven't seen any of the breakdowns but would be interested in seeing them if you remember where you found them.

 

Here is one but the video I remember was on youtube and it showed the Bills and how they generated TOs from it a lot.

 

https://www.cover1.net/dane-jackson-executes-blue-coverage-for-the-interception/

3 minutes ago, HoofHearted said:

You can disguise (or not disguise) any coverage. Haven't seen any of the breakdowns but would be interested in seeing them if you remember where you found them.

 

I would assume some coverages are much more effective to disguise than others tho?

[PrimeTime101]

On 10/16/2023 at 9:48 PM, FireChans said:

absolutely DISGUSTED that this post didn't do numbers.

[HoofHearted]

2 hours ago, Big Turk said:

 

Here is one but the video I remember was on youtube and it showed the Bills and how they generated TOs from it a lot.

 

https://www.cover1.net/dane-jackson-executes-blue-coverage-for-the-interception/

 

I would assume some coverages are much more effective to disguise than others tho?

More often than not their tied to stunts, so yeah, but its effectiveness is based on hiding the whole look not specifically the coverage.

 

Huh, that Cover 1 article was interesting. There wasn’t any disguise, or what I would define as disguise, on that play. Plus they weren’t even in Quarters coverage there.

Edited October 20, 2023 by HoofHearted