We have Man to man coverage. Kerrigan/Rak and Fletcher are blitzing leaving one one for the rest of the defenders.
Good result. We were in our 3-4 base defense. We had Rak/Kerrigan and Fletcher blitzing making it six men on the blitz. The rest of the defenders Riley Jr on the HB, Hall on C. Johnson , Amerson on WR2, J. Wilson on WR3 and Merriwhether had deep responsibilities while keeping an eye on the TE that leaked out.
Now pay attention to the second play. Same formation but a different defesive coverage is called.
Notice how far off Kerrigan and Fletcher are from the line of schrimmage. Yes its 2nd and 17. However lining up that far off of the line gives away the coverage your in and leaves a running lane wide open. Which is exactly what happens.
same play different view. 2nd down 17
As you can see a massive running lane opened up. All because Kerrigan and Fletcher decided to cheat because they are dropping into coverage.
Result.
OK now its 3rd and 8. Notice how Kerrigan and Fletcher are lined up now. Now the must respect the run. However the same exact coverage is going to be called. Which is a Hybrid tampa 2 out of the 3-4. Fletcher will drop into deep coverage. Its really more of a cover 3 but they just call it tampa
2. Its weird doing it out of a 3-4 because traditionally its done with four men rushing.
OK so as you can see the same exact coverage was called. What I dont like is Kerrigan and Orakpo are dropping into coverage. Leaving only three men rushing the QB. Rak and Kerrigan have proven they are not that good in coverage. As you can see we had alot of men in coverage yet one man beat that coverage. Also notice Merriwhether failing on the play.
This must be part of our base defense. Here it is again observe.
Notice how both Kerrigan and Fletcher freeze even though they see the ball carrier. Thats because they have zone and are afraid of the playaction pass and the TE and WR are both in the area.
All three of the defenders miss that tackle and Merriwhether misses him as well resulting in a TD. It was doomed from the start because the run lane was already open with Kerrigan and Fletcher 5 and 9 yards off the line.
Once again our defenders fail in a zone coverage.
Here Orakpo is in coverage. Also Merriwhether again fails to make the play. More proof Rak/Kerrigan need to be blitzing full time.
And once again our LBS in coverage burnt for a TD.
You can see that they are actually in good position on the last two TDs.
However it seems pretty obvious that Orakpo and Kerrigan arent very good in coverage. Heck they arent supposed to be. They are natural defensive ends coming from a 4-3 in college. Lets just have them rush or at worst get the flats.
Now look at this here. Orakpo and Kerrigan both alleviated of coverage duties. They are free to disrupt the backfield.
They are not dropping in coverage. They are causing havoc in the backfield. Result loss for the offense.
Here again. Man to man no Zone balogney. Orakpo and Kerrigan are in the backfield causing havoc.
We had pressure on the QB. Man to man every man was covered. Result was a pick six.
I watched the game over and over a couple times. The Lions rushed for about 68 yards and Stafford passed for about 400 plus. He completed only 25 passes of 50 or so. Which is about fifty percent. So if he is at fifty fifty.
If we had taken at least 25 percent of the Zone calls into Man coverage calls/blitzes we might of lowered that percentage by a lot.
What I saw from the film. Is that the Skins defense is capable of playing a basic defense. They failed when they tried complicating things. When they put a man on man while providing adequate pressure on the QB they were successful most of the time.
Also note that every big play came when Orakpo and Kerrigan one or the other were in coverage. That tells me that either they need to learn to cover better or just stop sending them into coverage because naturally they suck at it. Thats the truth you have the proof in front of you.
Finally I dont think its all on Haslett. By design the defensive calls should work. Two TDs had three men around the ball and one had a double team. So can we really say thats Hasletts fault?
Well you can partially. If you had sent Kerrigan and Orakpo in on a blitzing doing what they do best? Maybe they would of disrupted the play in the backfield. Remember when you drop Orakpo and Kerrigan in coverage that leaves the run open and three men rushing the QB.
Also when you give Orakpo and Kerrigan Zones they just arent recognizing the play quick enough. Either they hesitate to attack the run. Or just flat out cant cover a WR which no LB can.
I did see adjustments at least. I think we will see more moving forward.
these were not hard tackles to miss, these were guys that just failed to make tackles right in front of them
