Twitter: Interesting stat on Diggs vs Man/Zone splits

[quickccc]

The point is that the Safety made no attempt to get deep despite Diggs playing outside leverage.

Coverage must be prepared for plays when the pass rush is not effective.

Fans hated "bend don't break" then Nolan brought a scheme prone to breaking instead of just bending.

Summary: A rookie CB playing outside leverage vs a big WR with elite speed and no Safety help is doomed unless he pulls a miracle out if his backside.

+1

 

[TwoCentPlain]

Do teams play more zone on longer distances to go? Such as 2nd and 10 and 3rd and 8? More man on 1st and 10? Or is it the other way?
CBs have to have an eye on run support also and sometimes have to guess pass or run.
Might be a factor in some of these stats.

 

[JW82]

The kid had some good moments as a rookie and looks to have a nice size speed combo. That D was such an abomination last year its hard to look too deep into any negative stats.

 

[Tangle_Foot]

I'm going to wait and see what PFF has on his second year jump. I think it will be in line with the jump Michael Gallup had. Can you Digg it

 

[Oz-of-Cowboy-Country]

Safety X.Woods (and the scheme) is the reason that Metcalf was wide open.

Diggs played outside leverage. CBs must be deep inside help from a Safety when they play outside leverage.

Diggs did stumble a bit at when Metcalf faked a cut, but Woods has to be deep when Diggs is still in outside leverage at the point the WR going past Woods.
- It's football 101.

Woods was OK at the point shown in the image below, but should have immediately gotten deep starting then but did not.

On the opposite side, the CB played outside leverage and the Safety on that side moved over to cover the inside against the WR.

In 2020 the Cowboys repeatedly had failures in this 2-deep Safety alignment.
- The Safeties would end up not deep enough against the pass but too deep vs the run.

And that's the reason I'd love to see Dallas put some speed at the FS position. Anthony Brown wouldn't be the best, but he'd make enough plays to scare some from going deep.

Speed at FS is just my opinion.

 

[plymkr]

Even if Woods starts to get deep from the picture point forward, he'd still be no match for Metcalf with an unimpeded running start unless he risked cutting off Metcalf's route and draw a flag. However, my eyes immediately go to the protection Russell Wilson has. 5-6 yards from the nearest Cowboy to step into a throw with 2 OL free to head off an incoming threat, of which there was none. THAT is where this team will live or die on defense this year. We should be better against the run. The pass defense starting at the line is what concerns me. I'm not as high on Gregory as others (see what I did there?).

Haha, I see what you did there.

 

[JoeKing]

Diggs was a rookie then. He's got the talent to get much better. Those stats don't concern me at all.

 

[CowboyRoy]

We will be playing more of a zone, coverage scheme which should help Diggs based on his metrics from last season.

Not sure you can take much from a rookie season with a corner. You would have to also look more into when those stats occurred. Was Nolan leaving him to man coverage early in the year and then switch to zone later to simplify things? We were also playing some high octane offenses early in the year.

 

[Cowboyny]

Not sure you can take much from a rookie season with a corner. You would have to also look more into when those stats occurred. Was Nolan leaving him to man coverage early in the year and then switch to zone later to simplify things? We were also playing some high octane offenses early in the year.

Whenever you start a rookie corner the expectation is there will be growing pains, but they will get better as the season progresses. We can expect similar results with Joseph. Think Diggs will be a much better player in yr 2.

 

[Future]

The point is that the Safety made no attempt to get deep despite Diggs playing outside leverage.

Coverage must be prepared for plays when the pass rush is not effective.

Fans hated "bend don't break" then Nolan brought a scheme prone to breaking instead of just bending.

Summary: A rookie CB playing outside leverage vs a big WR with elite speed and no Safety help is doomed unless he pulls a miracle out if his backside.

There's just as good of a chance that Diggs thought he had inside help, but didn't, as there is Woods playing it wrong. We don't know what the playcall was.

 

[quickccc]

Not sure you can take much from a rookie season with a corner. You would have to also look more into when those stats occurred. Was Nolan leaving him to man coverage early in the year and then switch to zone later to simplify things? We were also playing some high octane offenses early in the year.

but also playing some scrub QBs later in the year per Cincy, (taylor).. Niners (mullins) ..Hurts (philly) ..that also seem to help as much.

 

[xwalker]

There's just as good of a chance that Diggs thought he had inside help, but didn't, as there is Woods playing it wrong. We don't know what the playcall was.

He played outside leverage off the snap...

Under the off chance that Diggs didn't play to the play-call, a veteran should be screaming at him prior to the snap which didn't happen.

Regardless of the play call, the Safety could clearly see that Diggs was in outside leverage. In that alignment the Safety's 1st job is to not give up the big play.

 

[Future]

He played outside leverage off the snap...

Under the off chance that Diggs didn't play to the play-call, a veteran should be screaming at him prior to the snap which didn't happen.

Regardless of the play call, the Safety could clearly see that Diggs was in outside leverage. In that alignment the Safety's 1st job is to not give up the big play.

If Woods is in a buzz role, his job is definitely not to play over the top and prevent the big play, nor is it to read the corner's leverage and adjust his coverage based on that. That's a turnover call. From the picture, it looks like the near-side safety has the deep middle. No way Diggs should be playing outside leverage if that is the case. He'd be in man, and shouldn't be expecting inside help from the safety on the far hash. It's the other corner who has outside leverage (which the image shows) and gets help in the middle.

It's not that he might have missed the playcall, but just misread the alignment and understanding of what the safeties were doing.

I don't really understand why we'd be making the assumption that Woods had his coverage wrong, when there was a deep third safety, but not that the corner had the wrong leverage.

 

[xwalker]

If Woods is in a buzz role, his job is definitely not to play over the top and prevent the big play, nor is it to read the corner's leverage and adjust his coverage based on that. That's a turnover call. From the picture, it looks like the near-side safety has the deep middle. No way Diggs should be playing outside leverage if that is the case. He'd be in man, and shouldn't be expecting inside help from the safety on the far hash. It's the other corner who has outside leverage (which the image shows) and gets help in the middle.

It's not that he might have missed the playcall, but just misread the alignment and understanding of what the safeties were doing.

I don't really understand why we'd be making the assumption that Woods had his coverage wrong, when there was a deep third safety, but not that the corner had the wrong leverage.

You're looking at the photo, not reviewing the All-22 footage.

Keep in mind that the didn't re-sign X.Woods despite him only getting a cheap 1-year contract elsewhere.

It has been well chronicled that Nolan's preferred coverage was 2-deep and that in his 2-deep coverage each Safety was responsible for his side of the field.

There is no possibility that they expected the far side Safety to give deep help to Diggs, especially considering that the other Safety is the slow footed Thompson.

There is no "deep 3rd Safety". They play a 2-deep scheme. Each Safety plays his side and moves up/back based on what he sees.

They played the same outside leverage in the same types of situations repeatedly last season.
- If the CB was playing the wrong leverage 10 times per game then there was a huge coaching problem.

It was well know that Nolan's scheme was dependent on the Safeties making the right read based on coming up or getting deep; whereas, the decision criteria for Safeties in Quinn's scheme is more right/left.
- We saw that the weakness with Kris Richard as the secondary coach was the right/left issue.
- Richard would cheat the single-high FS over to the side with 2 WRs (The slot WR side) leaving the CB on the opposite side with no help.

 

[Future]

You're looking at the photo, not reviewing the All-22 footage.

Keep in mind that the didn't re-sign X.Woods despite him only getting a cheap 1-year contract elsewhere.

It has been well chronicled that Nolan's preferred coverage was 2-deep and that in his 2-deep coverage each Safety was responsible for his side of the field.

There is no possibility that they expected the far side Safety to give deep help to Diggs, especially considering that the other Safety is the slow footed Thompson.

There is no "deep 3rd Safety". They play a 2-deep scheme. Each Safety plays his side and moves up/back based on what he sees.

They played the same outside leverage in the same types of situations repeatedly last season.
- If the CB was playing the wrong leverage 10 times per game then there was a huge coaching problem.

It was well know that Nolan's scheme was dependent on the Safeties making the right read based on coming up or getting deep; whereas, the decision criteria for Safeties in Quinn's scheme is more right/left.
- We saw that the weakness with Kris Richard as the secondary coach was the right/left issue.
- Richard would cheat the single-high FS over to the side with 2 WRs (The slot WR side) leaving the CB on the opposite side with no help.

K show me the all 22 then.

Assuming that the safety is wrong and the corner is correct is baseless. More likely is that Woods was in a buzz role and looking to jump a crosser, which we also saw a ton of.

Here's an OK look at it - there's no way Woods was supposed to be over the top. That's 100% a buzz call, and Diggs just got smoked. He never had middle help, and despite outside leverage at the LOS, that's not why he got beat. He got totally turned around on a double move.

 

[jrumann59]

The week before the Metcalf play, the Safeties/scheme had hung Diggs out to dry for similar reasons.
- The Falcons had a Wildcat QB in shotgun on 3rd and 2.
- The scheme had Diggs up in press-man vs Julio Jones in the slot.
- Both Safeties stayed up in the box area until Julio Jones was 15 yards downfield.
- Diggs managed to stay close enough to Jones to make it a difficult throw for the Wildcat QB and it was incomplete.

I was going to ask that how much of the man technique was he a victim of poor safety play

 

[Creeper]

Diggs struggled early but got better with more NFL experience. I would love to see these stats broken out by first and second half of the season.

 

[chagus]

Maybe Diggs should play FS.

Or at least more zone coverage.

no.

 

[America's Cowboy]

K show me the all 22 then.

Assuming that the safety is wrong and the corner is correct is baseless. More likely is that Woods was in a buzz role and looking to jump a crosser, which we also saw a ton of.

Here's an OK look at it - there's no way Woods was supposed to be over the top. That's 100% a buzz call, and Diggs just got smoked. He never had middle help, and despite outside leverage at the LOS, that's not why he got beat. He got totally turned around on a double move.

Go to the 0:50 second mark towards the end of the video. Watch it slowly over and over. Metcalf started running a lazy post before realizing Xavier Woods was playing too shallow, thus Metcalf put on the afterburners and ran past Diggs inside along the numbers. Clearly, Woods was supposed to play deep and provide help to Diggs with Metcalf in case Metcalf went deep, which he did. Xavier Woods was in the wrong, not Diggs, on that particular play, and I assume it's a big reason why Xavier Woods is no longer here while Diggs is.

 

[Future]

Go to the 0:50 second mark towards the end of the video. Watch it slowly over and over. Metcalf started running a lazy post before realizing Xavier Woods was playing too shallow, thus Metcalf put on the afterburners and ran past Diggs inside along the numbers. Clearly, Woods was supposed to play deep and provide help to Diggs with Metcalf in case Metcalf went deep, which he did. Xavier Woods was in the wrong, not Diggs, on that particular play, and I assume it's a big reason why Xavier Woods is no longer here while Diggs is.

Nope