Well it's back. I had a blast doing last year, but I feel I'm seeing things better even more this year (having access to Coaches film on certain snaps certainly helps). In addition to just tracking coverage, I'm taking note of our guys are doing in getting pressure. A hurry to me is where the quarterback is directly affected by the pressure by a certain player. A hit seems pretty self-explanatory and should be almost 95% accurate to ESPN's box score. I may have different tracking methods on certain snaps (penalties for example that don't get recorded as official plays).
Pass D Metrics Table Yeah, Shields struggled a bit this week. Didn't show like he made much progress and struggled equally against Henderson and Meachem, two guys who he matches up fairly well with. Not sure what it was, but it didn't look his mind was in the game. He seemed a little too anxious to jump routes and make interceptions (I think he tasted blood in the Championship game). I hope he tries to become Tramon and not Woodson because that's not his game! It takes a special player to play like Woodson and Shields doesn't have it. He needs to get technique sound, play cautiously, and even if it means getting bored and not getting thrown at, that should be plenty. Hope he turns it around.
Tramon played another terrific game. Sure people will point at that touchdown, but as we saw, there was more to it than meets the eye, as the 4.1 YPA shows. Looks like Collins read something and changed coverage. No one else received the memo. It was a pure zone (looks like Cover 3 at the outset) which you can see by the way the linebackers immediately opened up once they recognized pass, as well as Tramon. No way Capers intended to play a Cover 0 or Cover 2 with the corners playing deep safeties (especially since Woodson didn't play that conservatively). Not entirely sure what Collins saw there. Everyone but Tramon and Charles bit for the playaction fake.
And yes, as you noticed, I'm splitting credit this year on certain plays. It was something that I regretted not doing last year. Each player will be given a target (and netted out from the total) and given credit for half of the yards, touchdowns, and first downs. Of course this will hurt the YPC more than the YPA, but oh well.Woodson looks no worse than last year, which is a terrific sign for this defense this year. Burnett looked terrific flying to the ball this year. Not sure why I didn't like him live, but he had a much better game than I initially gave him credit for.
We played A TON of zone today against Brees and didn't show them too many very aggressive blitz packages tonight...no big surprise against a veteran QB like him. He found a couple holes and shredded this defense. I think we should have been more aggressive and gone straight with these guys, mixing it up a bit considering how bad we were getting hit in the second half. Though to be fair, a lot of the damage came toward the end of the game which is not where you want to be making sudden adjustments.
Walden's numbers don't look that impressive, but he was beaten in man coverage by Graham a couple times. On the whole though, he has great athleticism, good instincts and even showed the ability to generate a little bit of pressure on the QB. I'm not sure if he's the "answer" but he's a nice stop gap. I don't see any problems with him in the lineup.
As for the pressure front, not a bad day overall considering the line and particularly QB we played against. But damn is Hawk good at timing those A-gap blitzes. He's in the backfield before the guard gets out of his stance.