I’ve only watched through the 2nd play so far, but this is good stuff. I have a question for those more knowledgeable though…
Since the DT was lined up outside Patrick’s outside shoulder on that 2nd play, you would think the play could be tweaked for that, couldn’t it? Like when a WR runs his route based upon what the DB does on a pass play. Both WR and QB need to read the same thing for it to be successful though.
Ideally, they would want the WR fake sweep motion to freeze or even pull that DT in a bit on the snap. But once it didn’t happen, there was really no way for Patrick to get to the outside to seal him. So shouldn’t the RB have seen that and cut it up behind him? Wouldn’t have likely gotten much, but better than doing his best run sideways Cohen impersonation…
I kind of waited to see if anybody else was going to answer this, but, since nobody did, I'll explain it to the best of my ability. This may be a pretty long post.
First off, I'm going to put in an example of how to stop the outize zone that Brett Coleman discusses in his breakdown of Cole Strange. It's almost the exact same look that is illustrated in the video.
Go to 4:15 of the video and just watch Kollman's breakdown of why they shift a DT into the B gap. He's, as usual, completely right in his breakdown and analysis. Furthermore, Kollman does a good job of paralleling why this O will benefit both the Patriots and the Bears. I like his analysis, but I think there's a wrinkle that he's missing.
In general, the assignments that OL follows are 1.) Head up 2.) Inside Gap 3.) Downfield. Again, that is the general assignment most OL are taught beginning in PeeWee. Yes, that does get changed. But, understanding that assignment, you can see that the purpose is to bait the Tackle into blocking towards his inside gap. This would ultimately bait the cross block. Under standard assignments, the T would block inside on the DT and the G would cross out to take on whatever defender crashes the Edge of the play. The issue is the stacked LB can either read the gap completely unmolested by the crossing OL and either shoot off the DT's hip or crash the pulling G to disrupt the play. Either way, as Kollman says, the D really wants to force the cutback into the strength of the D.
Now, when faced with this front, Morehead actually pulled the playside G and used him as a lead blocker.
For those of you who understand OL blocking, and who saw my other post, you will know that I pointed out that the guy who was breaking down that Morehead tape actually missed the pulling G, because pulling playside is just not done. I had to rewind the film a few times because I saw another blocker coming playside, and I was like, where did he come from? Holy shit, they pulled the playside G! No fucking way! In general, pulls come from the backside to both hide the pull and protect the playside with extra blockers.
So, there are three types of footwork that could be used to hit that block.
Kollman illustrates the superhuman deep step to cross the defenders face and still hit the block by turning to the 45 degree oblique.
The other two methods are the short step to the power step, which you see all of the other OL using in that picture. This the one that is standard because it requires much less athleticism. The third one is the one I'd might have my guys do which is use the short step out at the 45 into the power step and drive block. Yes, that one is the most dangerous because the OL turns his back to the playside and might get blown up before he could root into his stance and anchor into a pass block, but it is do-able. Anyway, I digress.
Now, as far as using the Jet sweep to freeze a DT, nope. In general, a DT doesn't give a shit about motion or the backfield. They have their assignment to play. Their assignment is usually the gap and then the read. Since the DT is lined up in the B, his assignment would not be to penetrate into chase, but to penetrate into hold and read on the snap. Remember, he's there to bait the X and facilitate the LB's assignment: blitz or read to scrape.
So, as you correctly pointed out, there really wasn't a way for Patrick to get to the block as he's nowhere near the level of athlete Cole Strange is to make a block across the defender's face in order block to the outside and seal. That's a crazy level block. I don't know too many players that can consistently hit that block at the pro level. I'm sure that GB had to make an adjustment on that blocking scheme. They either had to pull playside, crazy as that sounds, like Morehead or they would have had to cross block and play to the D's intentions.
