Redskins at Seahawks gifs

Play 1 - Heater's delayed blitz. At least I assume it's a delayed blitz, because it's slooooooow. He has no shot of reaching the quarterback or even pressuring him, really. This may be a big part of why the team doesn't blitz more often, for whatever reason they do it really poorly.

Play 2 - Mebane vs Trent Williams and Chris Chester. Mebane is playing the three tech here and shoots off the line at the snap. The guard blocks down and Williams isn't able to get over to Mebane quick enough. Mebane gets so much penetration he screens out Chris Chester, who is pulling from the right guard spot. Red Byrant tosses Fred Davis aside and stops Roy Helu for no gain.

Play 3 - Kam Chancellor vs Fred Davis. Davis blocks long enough to get Chris Clemons off balance, which buys enough time for the full back to follow up with a cut block. He then releases into a drag route across the field. Kam Chancellor jams Logan Paulsen and continues with him well into Leroy Hill's zone. By the time Kam sees Davis it's too late, he's too far out of position and can't recover.

There's been some talk about Chancellor being the highest rated defensive player in Brian Burke's metrics. It's awesome, and it speaks to Chancellor's play making ability, but we should be aware that a play like this doesn't appear anywhere in those stats. It's a pretty huge blind spot that makes me leery of using those individual defensive stats.

Play 4 - Seahawks max protect. Anyone curious how Seattle handled one of the best pass rushing teams with a right side made up of back ups? Here were the pass plays on their first offensive possesion: Screen, 3 receivers running routes with Marshawn chipping before releasing into a route, and then this max protect play. Pretty extreme measures. As the run game got going they opened it up more, but these max protect plays didn't go away.

Play 5 - Heater vs Roy Helu. Hawthorne has the opportunity to stop this play near the line of scrimmage but he takes a bad angle in the hole and Helu is able to keep his legs moving through the arm tackle.

Play 6 - Heater confusion. I've watched this play multiple times and I still don't know why Hawthorne stops and tries to change direction at the last minute.

Play 7 - KJ Wright and Red Bryant vs Maurice Hurt and Fred Davis. Wright drives Davis back and seals the edge really nicely while Bryant does his thing. Hurt isn't able to get over quick enough to be anywhere near in position to handle Bryant.

Play 8 - ET vs Rex Grossman. Guess who wins.

Play 9 - Heat confusion, part 2. Same deal, starts off in the correct direction before suddenly changing course and putting himself out of position. I don't know a ton about Shanahan's offense, but from what I do know and what I saw from Hawthorne in this game, I think it puts a ton of pressure on the middle linebacker.

Play 10 - David Vobora and Brandon Browner vs Red Grossman. Vobora switches sides of the defensive line at the last minute and comes clean on his blitz, forcing Grossman to make a quick throw. Browner makes an excellent play on the ball that looks a lot like the pick he had earlier.

Play 11 - Clemons in coverage. Pretty cool play call here. Malcolm Smith rushes behind McDonald and Brock, overloading the right side of the offensive line. On the left side of the line Clemons drops into coverage on Davis and does a nice job. It's not the fastest blitz, but Smith does a really nice job of avoiding the tackle and coming clean to the inside. Grossman rewards the play call with a classic Grossman throw and Chancellor nearly comes away with a pick.

Play 12 - Leroy Hill vs Roy Helu. Really nice play by Hill here, slicing through the offensive line to tackle Helu for a loss. Hill is a very under rated component of this run defense.

Play 13 - Run blocking dominance. I don't have a lot to say about this, some of the readers who are more knowledgeable about offensive line play can probably point out a few interesting things about why this run was so successful. All I know is that gets about four yards of push and Lynch isn't touched until he's about nine yards downfield. Kudos to Michael Robinson for a nice cut block on London Fletcher that seals off a lot of trash from spilling out in front of Lynch.

Play 14 - More run blocking dominance. This is pretty classic zone blocking. Robert Gallery and Max Unger team up to get good push up the middle and seal off a couple linebackers who over-pursue to the play side. Meanwhile Anthony McCoy and Russell Okung cut block the back side, leaving a nice cut back lane for Lynch.

Play 15 - KJ Wright vs Rex Grossman. This is an outstanding play by Wright. He drops back into a zone, staying right in front of Donte Stallworth. He sees Helu slipping out into the flat and moves to cover him. He's never stops reading Grossman's eyes though, so when Grossman goes back to Stallworth, Wright is able to react, come back to his man and break up the pass.

Play 16 - TJack vs the 8 man blitz. Guess who wins! This play is actually a little confusing and not all on TJack. Not seen, TJack appears to audible or call a hot route of some kind, as he's pointing and tapping his head before hiking the ball. This is backed when Obo turns in to take a quick screen pass, which would have gained at least a few yards. Unfortunately TJack is stuck on Golden Tate, who get's absolutely owned by DeAngelo Hall. Tate goes nowhere and has completely given up by the time TJack is sacked. There really isn't the opportunity for Jackson to make more than one read, so it's hard to be too upset with him. It's just a shame that his first read took him to Tate instead of to his left, where Zach Miller is also a possibility.

In case you're wondering, the flag was for a hold by Giacomini.

Play 17 - TJack vs the blitz, part 2. For reasons unknown, Photobucket decided to reject this gif. Instead I'll use a couple pictures to show the play. It also rejected a gif of KJ Wright doing his best Aaron Curry impression, but a rookie being a bonehead isn't a big enough deal for me to go through the effort.

Shotgun formation, Obo and Baldwin to TJack's left, Tate to his right, Forsett the single running back at his side, Zach Miller lined up to the left of Okung. Ignore the yellow circle, that's just Jim Mora. The Redskins put 9 men on the line on scrimmage. They've done this two previous times, one of those is the 8 man blitz gif above and the other was a 7 man blitz, with Landry dropping into coverage. You can see TJack looking at his receivers and patting his head, presumably calling a hot route or alerting them to the blitz.

Sure enough, the Redskins send another 7 man blitz with Landry dropping into coverage on Miller.

Unlike in the gif above, none of the receivers are looking for a quick pass. Miller is blanketed by Landry, who does a great job cutting off the only route that might be considered a safety valve.

Miller could only just now be considered anything close to open and Jackson is already done. The receivers are all off the screen, you never see any of them looking back before they disappear about 10 yards down field.

I'm not sure how you could consider this anything less than a monumental failure in play calling, either by TJack or Bevell. After watching the entire game and seeing them send this incredibly risky blitz with inpunity, I'm most critical of TJack. The Redskins defensive staff had no fear of Jackson's ability to make a play under pressure, and they used these blitzes in key situations which ended up winning the game for them on defense.