| Megatron96 |
01-20-2023 05:24 PM |
I watched the Brett Kollmann video as well, but I watched the entire thing on the KCSN podcast with BJ Kissell (it might be KJ; I always mess that up for some reason), and he goes into more detail and also talks about what happened in the LAC game. And he brings up some good points.
In short, JAX runs a lot of 2x2 formations and mesh concepts (crossers). Oh, they run a lot of 3x1 as well, but many times they put one of them in motion and it becomes 2x2 before the snap.
Okay, so because they run a lot of mesh, many of their primary receivers break inside towards the middle of the field. LAC ran a lot of cover 3 (iirc), and basically were trying to clutter up the middle of the field, because they knew JAX receivers would mostly be breaking to the inside. And it worked. To the tune of 4 INTs on four straight drives.
But in the second half JAX broke their tendencies and started breaking outside towards the sidelines, and you could see that took LAC a little by surprise, because they tried to jump inside the route, but the receiver broke outside and consequently got wide open, which is how they started getting chunk plays, and scoring. If you watch the highlights, in particular you can see both Derwin James and one of their top DBs (don't remember that guy's name/number) jump to the inside of a route on what I think are two consecutive plays, but the receiver breaks outside, leaving both f them in the dust.
Now the LAC DC got spooked by those big gains and went to a 2 high (iirc) and one of their safeties got raped by the deep post/crosser for another score. To my amateur eye, it looked like the LAC defense just didn't have a plan B more than anything else. They came into the game thinking that JAX was just a between-the-numbers passing offense and didn't have an answer when they broke their own tendencies.
So anyway, Kollmann has a good point. If Spags runs his defense traditionally, he could get burnt multiple times when JAX breaks their tendencies. Howeever, certain things are going to be mainstays for JAX, such as Christian Kirk lining up in the slot the majority of the time; he kind of has to, and JAX needs Kirk to ahve a big day to have a chance at winning.
But McDuffie is probably going to follow C. Kirk, especially in the slot, and Trent should reduce Kirk's effectiveness a lot with his abilities and intelligence.
Also, while I'm sure we'll see a lot of 2-high, I also think Spags will run that to try and bait Pederson/Trevor into thinking the intermediate-deep middle will be open, and Spags will shut the door on that. It's going to be a good chess match, because Pederson is pretty good at what he does but Spags is pretty familiar with Pederson's offense and concepts, mainly because it's pretty much the same as much of what KC runs as well.
Then factor in the fact that JAX is still not quite buttoned up in how they run their routes (they drift/run poor routes), the chemistry between Trevor and his receivers (not in sync/not on the same page), Trevor's footwork in the pocket (drifting to one side or the other), and just Trevor's decision-making at times, I think our defense will contain their offense at some point. Of course, Spags is going to run something base for the first series or two so he can figure out how JAX is trying to operate, but by half time he'll start trying to bait Trevor into making mistakes, if not late in the first half.
Anyway, I'm not too worried about it because these are concepts that Spags and our defense has played against several times over the last 4 years vs. other teams, and our defense has pretty much always been able to meet those challenges in the past. It might be more of a challenge because this time it's Pederson, but our defense doesn't operate quite the way it did back in week 10 either, so sauce for the goose.
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Let's talk about the Jaguars (AFC Divisional Round)
(https://chiefsplanet.com/BB/showthread.php?t=347009)