Film Room Preview: Week 8
Will Cordarrelle Patterson Finally Hit A Big Play Against The Bucs?
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have been one of the worst teams in the NFL so far this season, losing in blowout fashion on multiple occasions and sitting at the bottom of the weakest division in football. They have the worst passing defense in the league according to various metrics, and simply look lost when they don’t have the ball so far this year.
This is all odd for a Lovie Smith-coached team, who is one of the best defensive coaches of this decade, but a lack of talent and a failure to correctly implement the scheme has the team unable to slow down opposing offenses. This weekend, the Bucs take on the Vikings, who have a big-play receiver waiting to break out in Cordarrelle Patterson.
During Week 1’s game against the Rams, Patterson was handed the ball on three occasions, and gained big yards on all three plays. Since then, he’s not been utilized in the running game as often, even though the Vikings are without Adrian Peterson. But will the flaws in the Tampa defense lead to the Minnesota offense getting Patterson more involved?
In a Thursday night blowout loss to Atlanta, the Buccaneers surrendered this embarrassing play to the Falcons’ Devin Hester:
The Falcons will call an end-around to Hester, with a run action heading right. The entire Tampa Bay defense will buy into the fake, and the play will work to perfection.
The left tackle for Atlanta leaves the defensive end unblocked, which is common on backside run blocking situations, and allows him upfield. He then heads to the second level to seal off the linebacker closest to the running lane the Falcons are setting up for Hester.
With the block in place, and a fullback leading the way, all Hester has to do is walk into the end zone. The defensive end on the left side crashed in to chase the tailback, and didn’t maintain gap integrity to help force this play toward the inside, where help was waiting.
The play worked as designed for Atlanta, as they were able to take advantage of a flaw in the Tampa Bay defense. The Bucs have struggled to play sound, fundamental football all season on defense, and simple misdirection plays can be a simple way to take advantage of a defense that isn’t getting the basics right.
As the Saints proved a couple of weeks later, when they ran the same sort of play against the Buccaneers, and succeeded once again.
On this play, Brandin Cooks will line up to the left and come around for the ball, while the run action will move right.
And of course, the Bucs bite hard on the blocking and run action, including the right defensive end, who breaks his contain to crash in to tackle the player he thinks will be getting the ball.
This is nearly the same exact play the Falcons ran, and the Bucs acted as if they’d never seen the play before. The linebackers are flowing toward the run action, and the backside defensive end failed to keep contain, leaving a wide open running lane for Cooks once he got the ball.
The Buccaneers are a mess on defense, especially on passing plays and on any sort of play action or run fake. The Tampa Bay linebackers are not playing with discipline, and the defensive ends are too easily brought upfield and beaten with screens and reverses.
The Vikings have a playmaker capable of turning these sorts of breakdowns into huge plays, and they’d be absolutely foolish to not use him this week. Their opponent has struggled against screen passes, end arounds and misdirections all season, and those are Cordarrelle Patterson’s strong suits.
They succeeded in getting CP84 the ball during a Week 1 game against the Rams, and haven’t gone back to the well since, but if there was ever a time to get their most explosive player the ball on offense, it’s this weekend against the Bucs.
Why To Not Trust Bryce Brown
The Buffalo Bills lost starting running backs C.J. Spiller and Fred Jackson to injuries during last weekend’s game, and discussion began instantly about Bryce Brown’s newfound value as the running back in Buffalo. Brown is a former Eagle with a trio of big games to his credit which many fans and fantasy players recall when they hear his name.
This ignores the fact that he’s been inactive for the Bills all season, and was passed on the depth chart by Anthony Dixon, but with multiple injuries ahead of him, the time has arrived for Brown to get his shot on the field. So why shouldn’t you trust Bryce Brown this weekend in daily fantasy? There are multiple reasons.
The first is the fact that Dixon is a more well-rounded player, which is why he was active ahead of Brown last weekend. Dixon is the equivalent of Fred Jackson in this scenario, with Brown representing a poor man’s C.J. Spiller.
The second is the matchup. Brown has three big games in his career, and those games came against the 2013 Bears (one of the worst run defenses in recent history, and last in the league that season), the 2012 Cowboys (who finished 22nd in rush yards allowed and 27th in yards per carry allowed that year), and the 2012 Panthers (who finished 18th in yards per carry allowed). He has otherwise been relatively quiet, and has struggled against good run defenses, like the one he’ll face this weekend in the sixth-best yards per attempt rushing defense of the Jets.
The third is that Brown isn’t a reliable, every-down back. He has speed to break big plays when presented the opportunity, but on an every-play basis, he can’t be trusted to make the right reads and get positive yards.
Here are some examples from his time with the Eagles in 2012, when he wasn’t playing for a Chip Kelly offense. This first play was against the Buccaneers in 2012, who had a strong rushing defense just like the Jets do this season.
Here Brown is faced with a tough spot, as he can press the ball upfield or break it outside, but will be faced with the defensive back either way. Instead of taking the sure 2-3 yards by surging ahead and possibly shaking the defender and getting a bigger gain…
…Brown gives up ground to go outside of the tackle and get chased toward the sideline for no gain.
He made a similar decision against the Bengals during the 2012 season, passing up a possible big play to continue to string a play to the outside.
You can see that a lineman is coming across to block the pursuing defender, giving Brown a lane to run upfield for what could have been a big gain.
But Brown kept moving toward the sideline and didn’t gain anything on the play.
Here is one final example, also against the Bengals. Brown has two options upfield, and his outside blockers have leverage to the inside. His read should be to go up the middle, as the defensive end is outside of his left tackle and moving upfield.
Brown even starts upfield in the right direction, heading into a hole that could have netted his team 4-5 yards (or more if he was able to explode through and shrug off a tackler). But instead…
He gives up ground to get outside of his tackle and attempt to win a race to the sideline.
This all feeds into Brown’s big-play mentality, as he’s always looking for the home run. He struggled with vision and ball security in his rookie season, both byproducts of what seems to be a laser focus on breaking a big play every time he has the ball.
So if the Buffalo Bills were hesitant to use C.J. Spiller all that often this season, why would they trust Brown with a significant amount of touches? The Buffalo offense was trending toward being Fred Jackson’s show before his injury, and that’s because Jackson does the little things right.
Don’t expect much out of Bryce Brown this weekend, but don’t be surprised if there’s a big play on his box score when all is said and done. He’s quick enough to take advantage of mistakes, but he makes too many errors of his own to be trusted as anything but a very, very speculative GPP option.
Is T.Y. Hilton a Must-Play Without Reggie Wayne?
Reggie Wayne’s status for this weekend is in doubt, which may spark an interest in fellow Indianapolis wideout T.Y. Hilton. After all, Hilton did see more work last season without Wayne in the lineup, right?
Sort of. Hilton was targeted heavily without Wayne in the lineup, as he saw double-digit targets three times in the nine games the veteran receiver sat out, and only saw fewer than seven looks once during that span. But he didn’t find the end zone after a breakout three-score game during the first Wayne-less contest for the Colts, and was passed up by several other teammates for looks in the red zone.
Hilton’s role in the Indy offense is “big play receiver,” and that doesn’t change with Wayne out of the lineup. Despite seeing 22 more targets than any other player on the offense from Week 10 on last year, Hilton had only 2 more red zone targets than Griff Whalen, who was trusted in the red zone on a higher ratio of his targets than the speedster.
Here’s an example of how the offense was catered to Whalen in the red zone last season without Wayne in the lineup.
Hilton is the slot receiver at the top, and he’s going to run a very basic drag/in route that has no chance of scoring a touchdown. His route is really an afterthought, as the play is designed to go to Whalen, who has one-on-one coverage at the bottom of the image.
As you can see, Hilton is running a basic route that isn’t ever going to score a touchdown, while Whalen is breaking open for a score.
Here’s another example, this time with Whalen in the slot and Hilton on the outside. Hilton’s route is a total throwaway, as he runs to a landmark in the end zone, turns around slowly, and seemingly knows he’s not involved in the play from the start. Meanwhile, Whalen is going to make a double move and then break toward the post for a touchdown.
Here you can see Hilton turning around casually in the end zone, seemingly running a route designed just to clear out the defenders from the middle of the field and to allow Whalen to score.
This season, Ahmad Bradshaw, Dwayne Allen, Reggie Wayne and Hakeem Nicks all have more red zone targets as T.Y. Hilton, and Trent Richardson has just as many as the lightning-fast wideout. You can trust that volume will be there for Hilton, who is still one of the top targets for Andrew Luck, but similar to Bryce Brown, his chances of scoring are based on breaking big plays, as he doesn’t get any work in the red zone.
If you want to chase touchdowns on the Indianapolis offense with Wayne out, Allen and Nicks are the likely candidates to be thrown at when the team is in scoring position. Hilton is a fine play on DraftKings, where his reception numbers (and possible 100+ yard performance) will make up for his lack of scoring, but on a site that doesn’t reward volume as heavily, Hilton is far from a must-play, even with Wayne sitting out.
Arizona Cardinals Still Can’t Cover Tight Ends
Zach Ertz and the Philadelphia Eagles take on the Arizona Cardinals this weekend, and anyone who checked a “defense versus position” chart last year knows that any combination of “tight end versus Arizona” is potential DFS gold.
The same is true this season, because while tight ends haven’t found the end zone all that often against the Cardinals, they are still performing well as Arizona still struggles to match up with tight ends on defense.
Julius Thomas scored twice against the Cardinals, while Jordan Reed, Antonio Gates and Larry Donnell all picked up over 80 yards against the Cardinals. But a look at the statistics may show you that the Cards are better against tight ends than last year.
That’s because Vernon Davis didn’t play against the Cards when San Francisco was on the schedule, and the Oakland Raiders don’t have a good tight end, so the overall “defense versus position” for this season looks a bit better than last year, but those numbers deceive. Here’s a look at a couple examples from this season which show how the Cardinals still struggle to defend these hybrid receivers.
On this play, Antonio Gates will be “covered” by Rashad Johnson. He plays nearly every snap for the Cardinals, and draws the tight end in coverage quite a bit.
He’s not very good at it.
Not only does Gates find room to settle in for a catch underneath Johnson, but…
Johnson whiffs on the tackle, and Gates is able to pick up extra yards.
The same exact scenario unfolded at the end of the Washington game, as Jordan Reed caught a pass in front of Johnson, who failed to secure a tackle and allowed extra yards.
But what happens when Troy Jefferson lines up against a tight end? Jefferson is another safety for the Cardinals, and his performance was just as poor on the play below.
Antonio Gates is going to run a double move, and Jefferson has fallen hard for the fake. You can already see the defender selling out to cover an out route, but Gates is going to turn back upfield…
… and make the easy catch for a big gain.
Even when lined up against Sam Acho, who is one of the lone bright spots on the team in pass coverage according to Pro Football Focus grades, Gates was still able to get open…
The Cardinals are easily beaten by opposing tight ends, and offensive coaches are well aware of that fact. Zach Ertz is on one of the best offenses in the league, and has good chemistry with his quarterback, so that should be more than enough to provide a big day through the air at a position in need of cheap plays this weekend in daily fantasy football.
Ertz has been quiet lately, and his price has slipped a bit as a result. This is a perfect chance for a bounce-back game in a matchup against a team that may play like Superman on defense on occasion, but is easily defeated with tight end kryptonite.