Nope the hole opened up right and he missed it. Went left and then by the time he saw it, it was too late. Thats his problem. Tunnel vision and he always dives right up the middle.
Sorry, your wrong on this one CowboyRoy.
The play was designed to run through the A gap… basically running the ball up the gut, smash mouth football. You can tell from the snap of the ball the center and left side of the OL pushed Left of the A gap.. The right side of the OL was to push right, essentially parting the “Red Sea”. More evidence making this clear is..both Zeke and McGovern were running toward the A gap at the start of the play.
Unfortunately, Fletcher Cox blew up the play from the start. Martin needed to set on Cox’s inside shoulder and flip toward the right side like Steele was able to do (Steele was able to set right, but totally wiffed on the block). Instead, Cox flew to Martin’s inside shoulder with his outside shoulder pushing toward said A gap. At that point, Zack’s only recourse is to continue blocking and hope Zeke manages to redirect, which he did.. and so did McGovern for that matter(you can see McGovern shuffle/adjust his feet on the fly when he sees Martin is beat to the inside). With the play design blown up from the start.. It’s amazing that Zeke managed to get positive yardage at all. 90% of the time.. that’s a TFL. Zeke deserves some credit for his improvisation.
Side note: I’m not surprised Cox beat Martin, as both players are future HOF’s.. what aggravates me is how badly Steele missed on that play. If Steele manages any half-decent block, that could have been an easy 2nd level play. To be fair to Steele though.. had the play worked as designed, he wouldn’t have had to block much… he still could have done a better job imo
