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.