I found this play in a breakdown I did from Week 4 vs. Cleveland.  I didn’t have a place to publish it at the time so I’m posting it here without context.  Enjoy.

Discuss this piece in the forum here.

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Two “Cover-2 beaters” vs. Tampa-2

Situation: 2nd and Goal on the CLE 18, Right Hash

Offensive Playcall: “Double Smash-7” to the left, “Smash-Seam” to the right.

Defensive Playcall: “Tampa 2” with DT dropping into a 5th underneath zone

Tyrod Taylor is the far receiver on the right side.  Having an extra quarterback on the field means the defense should look for a gadget play (Screen-pass, Reverse-pass, etc).  Additionally, WR Torrey Smith is split very close to the formation (“nasty split”) whereas he is normally aligned outside of the numbers.  The defense should be aware that Smith is likely to get the ball up the seam or in the near flat.  Before the snap, Flacco knows this is a very good schematic playcall if he has Smith in man coverage against a linebacker or if CLE shows Tampa 2 which this defense tends to lean on.

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Cleveland’s Tampa-2

At the snap, the defense drops into their Tampa 2 with DT Billy Winn dropping into an additional underneath zone.  So what does Flacco see once he snaps the ball?

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Linebacker D’Qwell Jackson (between the hashes at the 10 yardline in this capture) opens his hips to the wide side of the field to drop into his deep hook zone.  Additionally, FS Tashaun Gipson (top right of this capture) sinks into his deep half zone.  You can also see DT Billy Winn dropping into his underneath zone.  Reading these two players’ drops as well as the clear zone responsibilities of the underneath defenders, Flacco knows he likely is facing Tampa 2 and looks to hit Torrey Smith in between the two deep safeties.

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At the time of the throw, Flacco just needs to have enough loft on his throw to get above the SAM linebacker’s head and between the safeties.  With a 3 man rush Flacco has plenty of time.  The middle linebacker has the disadvantage of having opened his hips to the opposite side of Torrey Smith (he is taught to do this since this side has more eligible pass catchers).  He has very little chance to make a play on this ball.  Flacco fits it beautifully between the two deep safeties.  Ravens just need to make the subsequent extra point (which they couldn’t) to put 7 on the board.

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The ball is in mid-air here and Smith is just now whipping his head around to catch the ball.  He fits right between the two safeties and the dropping middle linebacker to make an easy catch right on the “A” in the endzone.  This is a wide open look in the NFL.  Funny enough, Dennis Pitta (on the left hash, 10 yardline in this capture) would be wide open as well once he breaks his corner-route underneath the strong safety.  The corner on the far side of the screen is playing a “soft squat” technique where he looks to cover short curt/flat routes and will not drop to defend Pitta’s corner route.  BAL clearly did their homework as the playcalls on both sides of the field were classic “Cover 2 beaters.”

Dan Bryden
Dan Bryden

Dan played high school football at Wilde Lake and graduated from McDaniel College with a degree in Psychology. Dan is currently a Maryland Terp working on his PhD degree in Neuroscience. He has experience writing published scientific material as well as blogging for SBNation via Baltimore Beatdown. Beginning in the 2012 season, Dan has been writing about the Ravens focusing on the X’s and O’s of the game of football with heavy use of overhead (All-22) film analysis. The Columbia, MD native currently lives in Silver Spring.

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