Sporting Brain

Part I: Health | Part II: Giants Big Nickel D

No other team in the NFL was as bad as being good as the Washington Redskins during the 2011 campaign. Here was a team that statistically ranked high in many categories, yet continously stunk week in and week out. Well, except when they were playing the New York Giants, whom they swept this year, convincingly. The Patriots will be watching the game tape from these two battles to see if there are a few things they can riff off of during the Super Bowl.

After watching both of these games here are a few of my own suggestions:

1. Fade Outs to the weak side in a Trip-Weak formation: The Redskins used the deep fade to the weak side very effectively throughout both games, often making Rex Grossman seem less gross, man. The key to this play were two-fold. Firstly a fast WR that would line up in a trips-weak position. Using a close-cover trips formation the Redskins would bring the linebackers up, or if it was against that Big Nickel (see Part II) the extra safeties would stack up on themselves. Secondly a very quick release from the QB in order to get the ball off prior to that DL rush.
2. End-Around Strategery: One play I saw work against the Giants a few times were end-arounds or fake-end-arounds and just handing it off to the RB. Overall I think that having some motion in the backfield from a WR (in the case of the Pats I'm envisioning Edelman) locks up those safeties and it even puts the DL on their heels a bit not knowing if they need to side-step or rush. I'm guessing that Belicheck is going to be pulling out a few of these end-around plays in the first half to at least keep that secondary honest.
3. Breakin' Tackles: With all the might that is represented in that Giants D front four they don't always tackle that well, particularly against thicker backs like a Kevin Faulk, and to a lesser degree Woodhead. In the second game the Redskins really took advantage of this with Young and Helu and you can see even the great JPP having trouble wrapping up when the RB comes in pumping those legs and lowering those shoulder pads. The Pats need to run the ball early and often to bruise up those guys, the yardage will be there if they get low.
4. Hit Inside of the OL: The interior of the Giants offensive line is suspect and can be exploited. The Skins did not employ that many blitzes, yet pressured Manning several times including a big 13-yard sack on 4th and Goal near the end of game 2. Now this ONLY works well on obvious non-passing downs, but shooting the gaps with Vince Wilfork, Anderson and Warren could provide some big plays for the Patriots defense, and more importantly if you can do it with only 4 DLs you can keep 7 back to help defend the pass.
5. Get Physical: The game plan Bill Belichick put into place before Super Bowl XXXVI is now legendary: Cover Marshall Faulk on EVERY play, and hit their WRs on EVERY play. This Super Bowl the latter will be very applicable. The Skins were up on the line often and hitting Cruz and Nicks whenever they could, I believe this helped create some of those dropped passes later in the game (although Nicks was just awful throughout Game 2). I'd get real chippy with the two main receivers, and a dash of Manningham, just to get into their head...you might even want to take a 15-yard penalty early to truly make the point.

Obviously the two Giants/Skins games had a bunch of other issues including some really bad drops and penalties, but I do think some of the things done by Washington will help the Pats come this Sunday.

Part I: Health

You’ve heard it thrown around a lot over the past week, and probably before if you are a 49ers fan, the Giants “Big Nickel Defense”. Well, what is it, why is it used, and why will we see even more of it versus the Patriots?

The Big Nickel is simply a Nickel defense (five defensive backs), but of the five defensive backs, three of them safeties. This means that a linebacker has been replaced with a safety and it protects the defensive against strong passing games. The 49ers used this a lot under Mike Nolan and the Giants seemingly use it on every non-apparent rushing down.

There are obvious pros to going to the Big Nickel and this involves great coverage downfield, leading to that strong defensive front getting more sacks, or pressuring a QB into doing things he doesn’t want to do, i.e. turnovers. At it’s core the Big Nickel truly gives that front four about three extra rushing seconds, and versus a QB like Tom Brady who doesn’t really roll that effectively this can be a recipe for success. So how do the Patriots combat it? A variety of ways, some of which showed up in their week 9 matchup:

1. An extra offensive lineman: In many sets during their regular season matchup the Patriots had six offensive lineman, plus a fullback, plus tight ends. This not only created better protection for the QB, but also allowed for traditional TE bump and cut passes, and draw rushes using a small RB (Woodhead in particular). Unfortunately this also backfired on the Pats a few times leading to turnovers
2. Slot Receivers/TEs: Putting a WR or one of the TEs in the slot versus the Big Nickel is risky but can pay great dividends, particularly when they replace Kiwanuka in that front. If you can get the guy open quickly and deliver the ball in front of him you are nearly promised a 15 yard gain since the DBs often cross each other up and mistackle in these scenarios.
3. Audible: One thing that the Giants can do well is fake the Big Nickel, showing as if they have five defensive backs, but bring one of them up on the line as the play unfolds. Recognition of this is critical and something that Brady can do very well. When he sees this type of alignment he’ll typically drop into a rushing formation and/or do one of the dump passes to the RB on the wide side.

Beating the Big Nickel, as with most scenario-focused football, is all about matchups. The Patriots clearly have the OL to deal with this, just watch their first meeting, but the fullbacks play a HUGE role in making this all happen. My guess is that you are going to see a lot more of Woodhead and even Faulk on Super Bowl Sunday. Those two guys can help the initial blocking on the pass, float to the outside for a dump, and even take the defense off their toes by running through the gut while stretching out the field with WRs.

Beating the Big Nickel is hard, but it can be done, just ask the Washington Redskins, who we will look to for part 3 of our Super Bowl preview.

Forget Super Bowl 42. It is irrelevant. These are different players, different motivations, different reasons why each team is here this year. The Patriots don’t care about revenge, they care about winning Super Bowls, and the opponent matters only in the execution of the game plan. It just happens that the team the Pats play in XLVI is the same team that they have played seven times in the past four years (pre-season, season, post-season), breeding a large amount of familiarity. It also just so happens that when the Patriots line up for the National Anthem this Sunday they will also be playing a Giants team that they have an advantage over in six of the nine key positions.

So how come this game will be SO close? Throughout this week I’ll be posting up thoughts on various topics that will ultimately culminate in my prediction for the game.

Health

Let’s face it, any sort of injury to Rob Gronkowski is a staggering blow to a Patriots offense that has depended not simply on Gronk, but the lethal combination of Aaron Hernandez and Gronk. One without the other is simply not that effective and it means the defense can focus more solely on another section of the offense, such as coming over the top of the other WRs, or even blitzing more, which is something the Giants don’t even have to do often, yet have the best pass rush in the league.

But the other injury that might be of more concern is the one that has been hobbling Sebastian Vollmer. With that strong Giants defensive line the Pats offensive line becomes even more important. The lack of Vollmer was apparent to even non-football aficionados last week and if Vollmer is not available the Giants will throw their “four-Ace” defense much more often, and the Pats will need to use the TEs or extra OLs to block (as they did during the regular season matchup), which goes back up to the importance of Gronk’s health. This is all a dangerous game of dominoes.

The Giants also have their health issues, the main one being C David Baas, who gets the unbelievably difficult challenge of playing against a possessed Vince Wilfork during the Super Bowl. Baas has been hurting the past several weeks and went in and out of the conference championship game. Earlier in the year when the Pats lost Connolly I talked about how it would slow the offense a bit, and it was during that time frame when the offense did slow down (relatively). The Giants will be in the same trouble of Baas can’t play every down, allowing the Pats to pressure Manning from the interior and more importantly stuff the run.

Speaking of the run, and health, Ahmad Bradshaw is another concern for the Giants, having foot and back injuries this year. He looks ready to go, but for a bruiser RB his health could be something to watch. Finally, on the Pats side you have another wild-card type health issue with Kyle Arrington who injured his eye in the Baltimore game. This is most likely a non-issue, but something to watch this week as reports come out of Indianapolis.

NEXT TIME: The Giants “Big” Nickel Defense and what it means for Brady

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