SD played pretty much exclusively zone, which is what their DC Staley is known for. That’s why our RG better big yards per carry, particularly Pollard when he went outside.
TB was “better” against the run, because they had an extra man in the box pretty much the whole game. And Zeke being an amazing blocker against the blitz was pretty stifling the extra rusher when they brought it to try and get pressure against our OL and get to Dak.
In fact, most teams do what Tampa does, meaning expose their secondary to the paper Tiger Dak, which is why he has seen so much man coverage his whole career, even now with all these weapons at WR. This is why he can’t play consistently over stretches, as attested to by his conservative and risk-averse nature against zones and why we basically wasted so much time “training” this guy.
There is a reason Amari went from like 13 catches against TB to like 1 or 2 against SD. He’s disappearing against zones. I mean look at the critical catch he made on the last drive against SD. That was one safety deep, third down, Amari isolated on a corner with no help over top, meaning they actually went man coverage on that, I believe it was third down. Again, another first read throw by Dak staring him down the whole time, aided by a simple defensive look.