Welcome back to Establish the Fun, where football is fun and I’m establishing that with more excitement than Jim Harbaugh’s random tweet in 2015.
It’s Conference Championship weekend, which means that we’re simultaneously one step closer to the Super Bowl and one step closer to the final Establish the Fun of the year. I’m sure that I’m going to say it when we get there, but I just want to thank all of you for reading and following along. I’m genuinely thankful to be in the space that I’m in, and writing these almost every week has been as much of a benefit to me as I hope it’s been to y’all reading.
Ok, now that we got the sappy stuff out the way, let’s have some fun!
The War for the Middle of the Field
The NFC Championship game between the Detroit Lions and San Francisco 49ers will be won and lost over the middle of the field.
Both offenses are proficient at targeting the most valuable areas of the field, but for the Lions and QB Jared Goff, it’s his moneymaker. Of all QBs in the NFL this year, Goff has the most passing attempts over the middle of the field, and has generated the most Total EPA over that area in the NFL. While Goff is a limited QB, what he can do is fire in passes off of play action and moving linebackers to create those gaps in the middle of the field. Where he and offensive coordinator Ben Johnson have both been on point this season is manufacturing those plays and generating explosives off of that. Detroit can use the threat of their run game to pull linebackers up and then hit right over them in the middle of the field.
Goff and co. weren’t at their peak output against Tampa Bay, but some things that Tampa Bay did will probably be replicated by the 49ers on Sunday. On this play action dropback, watch LB Lavonte David absolutely haul ass to get under this over route by the receiver, and force Goff to go underneath. Goff takes the easy throw to WR Amon-Ra St. Brown and St. Brown makes the most of it by making a defender miss.
The 49ers’ counter to these play action concepts over the middle of the field is simple: they have Fred Warner.
Warner is the best linebacker in football, but what truly makes him special is his range and instincts. Warner is like a great central midfielder in soccer, patrolling the middle area and being the connective tissue of the entire team. This season the 49ers are tenth in the NFL in EPA per attempt allowed over the middle of the field, but have also turned 14 of those passes attempted into interceptions, second most in the NFL. What Warner can do is not only eliminate those intermediate routes over the middle of the field, but then when the ball is checked down, he comes up and makes the tackle for a minimal gain. That’s where the 49ers want to get you; they want you to throw the checkdowns, and then their speed and physicality takes over and they turn short passes into shorter gains.
This is a similar concept to the one Goff threw above, but watch Warner here. Same number 54 as David, but the movements are so much different. Thus, a checkdown stays a small gain because of his play.
In the standard dropback area, Goff can still work those MOF targets, because he has a strong arm and even when the picture is muddy he can fit passes into small windows. That was on display with this touchdown to Josh Reynolds, where the windows are much smaller. A hi-lo is a really good concept against quarters teams, because the aggressive downhill nature of the safety leaves the corner on an island. In this 3×1 set, St. Brown is the decoy, and you can see that the safety’s eyes are on him the entire team. He’s keying on nobody else but him. That means if Reynolds can win against his man he should be open. The slot corner for Tampa Bay doesn’t run with Reynolds, and Goff uses his eyes to move the safety before throwing a strike.
This play is from very early in the season, but it’s a perfect example of who the Lions have to move in order to make these throws work. Pittsburgh is running a shallow crosser, with the TE running a dig behind it. The QB works from dig to shallow, hoping to hit in the middle of the field. Warner sees the shallow, and immediately takes away the dig. You can see QB Kenny Pickett step like he wants to get into the throw, but can’t. By the time the second read is open, the pass rush is there and he has to bail.
One area where I think San Francisco can get to Goff and the Lions’ play action game is through the blitz. They didn’t do it often vs. Green Bay, but against a more stationary target in Goff, the 49ers could tee off on him. The reason you can blitz against under center play action is because the QB is turning his back to the defense. The picture is different and he can’t see the free runner, putting more stress on the offensive line. San Francisco used it well here, forcing Love to bail on the pocket.
When you’re watching Lions-49ers in the NFC Championship, just keep an eye on the middle of the field. The players and concepts there will ultimately be what decides the game for either side of the ball.
The Final Boss
In many ways, the AFC Championship game between the Baltimore Ravens and Kansas City Chiefs feel like a final boss fight for both sides. For Ravens’ defensive coordinator Mike MacDonald and his defense that has put the NFL’s brightest offensive minds in the torture rack, the final battle between he and Chiefs head coach Andy Reid is the equivalent to seeing Goku and Vegeta fight all out. This is what we came here to see.
However, the same can be said about Chiefs’ defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo and Ravens’ QB Lamar Jackson. Spags has led one of the NFL’s best units all season, and Jackson has been rampaging his way to another MVP trophy. What might Spags break out to fluster Jackson? Well, we can kinda see it in how he defended Bills’ QB Josh Allen. Both Allen and Jackson are dynamic threats with their legs who can destroy opponents with their arm as well. The Chiefs’ defense limited the Bills offense to minimal explosive gains, forcing them to dink and dunk their way down the field. Then, when the time was right, Spags would send pressure, but not go completely crazy with the blitzes. I’m of the belief that when you’re playing an elite QB, you can’t let them sit back and dice you. you have to force the issue a little bit, force them to play on your time. It’s like a great shooter in basketball. Don’t just let them come off the screen easily, have a hand in the face, force them to put the ball on the ground. Let’s see how Spags did it, and what the Ravens’ might do to adjust.
When I say Spags would send pressure, but not go crazy, what I mean is this: Josh Allen is one of the best QBs against the blitz in the NFL. With his legs as a legitimate run threat and the arm to kill opponents in 1v1 situations, he’s like a walking answer to the blitz problem. What Spags and co. did was send pressure, but keep the structural integrity of their coverages. Running fire zones isn’t super revolutionary, but what it does is it forces the QB to speed up their process and either force throws on the outside or throw into windows with dropping defenders.
Here, Allen decides to go for the killshot on the outside, and the Chiefs’ DB makes a fantastic play. Up front, you see the defense bump with the motion, and watch LB Nick Bolton’s body language change with the motion. He gets to bailing immediately after that motion, walling off any number three. The nickel and LB Drue Tranquill blitz (you’d like to see the defensive lineman wait before immediately dropping, in order to draw the eyes of the left guard), but it forces a low percentage throw on the outside.
Here, they catch Buffalo in a full slide to the left. Both second level defenders show blitz pre-snap, you can actually see LT Dion Dawkins point out the second defender as he walks up. Because that’s WR Stefon Diggs in the backfield, Buffalo is essentially in a 5-man protection here, with Allen hot off any free man. What Spags and the Chiefs get the Bills to do is waste the left guard, by dropping the defender Dawkins pointed out. Instead, Bolton comes on the blitz, the right tackle has to squeeze down because the guard and center are working on Chris Jones, and George Karlaftis gets free to bat the pass. That’s how you force the issue without leaving holes for big plays.
Now let’s go to the Baltimore side of things, because they had a very interesting Divisional round game. What Houston did was simple: they turned up the chaos button. Going full Chiaotzu from Dragonball Z, they decided that if Lamar was going to beat them with big plays, they were going to force the issue by bringing relentless pressure. In the first half, the answer to this was “Lamar, go do something cool”. While that can work, and Lamar can do that, it leads to high variance plays against your favor, such as sacks and low percentage throws.
Sometimes they ended like this:
But most times, it ended like this:
What the Ravens decided in the second half is to let Lamar’s mind and arm work against the blitz instead of leaning into the variance. The passes were shorter, quicker and Lamar used dummy counts to get the Texans to show their hand before the snap.
The first snap out of halftime, the Ravens motion TE Isaiah Likely, forcing Houston to bump everyone. The blitz comes, but Lamar and the Ravens are ready, and he throws a quick hitch route to Nelson Agholor for nine yards.
This next rep by Lamar is going to be pivotal in their matchup with Kansas City. The Texans are going to send S Jalen Pitre on a blitz, but are zoning off behind it. Lamar motions the back and then uses a dummy count to get the defense to declare what they’re doing. He sees their hand, they have two cards of the same suit. Jackson reloads, snaps the ball and whizzes in a dart between Pitre’s hands and into WR Rashod Bateman’s to move the chains. Jackson had a royal flush, but concealed it until the Texans showed their hand first.
On Sunday, the battle between the Chiefs’ defense and Jackson might resemble an old west standoff. Spags and the Chiefs’ defense showing feints and disguised pressures, never going all out. However, Jackson and the Ravens have shown they can adjust to the disguised pressures, and with the presumed NFL MVP playing his best ball, it’ll be a surefire classic.
