The big run by Barkley: Analysis

[xwalker]

There is a saying. "If you spend all of your time pointing the finger you'll never solve the problem."


We are getting hurt in the run game because our linebackers are blindly running up to take their predetermined one gap responsibilities. That's what caused LVE to run directly into the back of Crawford.

So when the RB is lined up directly behind the QB there so many different gaps he can take that our one gap system doesn't work. Especially when you add in the fact that double teams will push our defensive linemen into spots that the linebackers are suppose to be covering.

Most can agree that there is a problem in our run defense. I'm just trying to give a solution. I would love to hear how other posters on this board would solve that problem without changing personal. So in my opinion...

When ever they see the RB lined up directly behind the QB they should switch to a two gap system.

Cause it ain't about who ran this system or who ran that system, it's about solving the problem we have. If we solve the problem we can all write letters to The Star if need be. So if anyone else has a way to solve our problem without making changes in personnel I'd like to hear it.

I don't get the impression that you even read my post.

You have an idea that just came to you but it's not based on the reality how other NFL teams function.

Most teams are 1 gap defensive schemes in 2019. Teams don't just switch back and forth from pure 1 gap to pure 2 gap.

Teams do mix in some 2 gap concepts for specific players.

The easy example was the Seahawks from a few years ago with 330 pound LDE Red Bryant.

The Seahawks were a 1 gap team but Red Bryant 2 gapped at LDE.

 

[DandyDon52]

Barkley could have had a 200 yd game if giants dont abandon the run.
I am interested to see what he does this year, only bad thing is , he is on such a crappy team.
And this shurmur HC , is not any better than the previous guy. He totally lost his cool over one
non call lol , that is not a good sign.

 

[ABQCOWBOY]

2ND & 1 AT NYG 18(11:25)
(11:25) S.Barkley up the middle pushed ob at DAL 23 for 59 yards (C.Awuzie).

Breakdown

• Crawford RDE squeezes down to close the inside gap.
• FS Woods was up on this play and played outside contain.
• He initially had inside position on the blocker but moved outside.
• CB Brown was already on the outside.
• Woods should know that Brown has the outside because the outside WR is blocking Woods.
• Brown and Woods both end up covering the outside.
• Crawford had squeezed down the inside gap that Barkley was initially going to run through.
• Vander Esch also covered the same gap that Crawford had closed down.
• That meant no defenders except Heath who was 15 yards back at the point Barkley crosses the line.
• The gap is technically outside of the LT who had moved inside blocking Crawford.
• Giants #88 did block Crawford in the back but that was not the cause of the big gain.
• Vander Esch appears to have been the primary cause.
• X.Woods was likely the next in line for blame.
  • Only 1 of Woods or Brown should have stayed outside.
• There was no chance that Heath could make that tackle.
  • It is possible that Heath was expected to cut off Barkley's outside path.
  • If Heath had cut off the outside then there are defenders to the inside.

Anybody heaping blame on Heath for this play has an agenda.
If Heath could make that open field tackle on Barkley, then Barkley is not very good.

I agree with everything right up to the last few lines. Heath could have made that tackle. Certainly not for a loss or no gain or even short gain but hey, both of those people get paid to play. Barkley to break big gains and Heath to stop him. There is no reason to suggest that Heath could not have made a play on Barkley. He should have limited him and he should have forced him towards help, that we both agree on, I think. I think that Heath could have made a play there and that Barkley could still be considered, very good.

JMO though.

 

[keysersoze]

Once a RB like Barkley breaks into the open most will have trouble

This also applies to EVERY starting NFL running back.

 

[DandyDon52]

the giants should have ran more, the fumble by eli in the redzone was a killer, they should have been handing off
to barkley or wide pitch, or swing pass.

 

[DandyDon52]

I agree with everything right up to the last few lines. Heath could have made that tackle. Certainly not for a loss or no gain or even short gain but hey, both of those people get paid to play. Barkley to break big gains and Heath to stop him. There is no reason to suggest that Heath could not have made a play on Barkley. He should have limited him and he should have forced him towards help, that we both agree on, I think. I think that Heath could have made a play there and that Barkley could still be considered, very good.

JMO though.

It would all be about the angle taken by heath, and if barkely is faster than heath think, the angle will be behind him.
This comes back to coaching too, how has heath been coached to react in that situation?
Best thing would be to take a high angle so even if he is faster than you think, you can still get over in front of him.
But is that something that has been coached to dallas safetys?
I will add that the instinctive thing would be to move up directly toward the RB,
which could easily put you on an angle that falls in behind him.

 

[xwalker]

I agree with everything right up to the last few lines. Heath could have made that tackle. Certainly not for a loss or no gain or even short gain but hey, both of those people get paid to play. Barkley to break big gains and Heath to stop him. There is no reason to suggest that Heath could not have made a play on Barkley. He should have limited him and he should have forced him towards help, that we both agree on, I think. I think that Heath could have made a play there and that Barkley could still be considered, very good.

JMO though.

The probability of any NFL Safety tackling Barkley on that play is less than 50%.

The probability of making the tackle on that type of play is never literally 0%.

 

[ABQCOWBOY]

It would all be about the angle taken by heath, and if barkely is faster than heath think, the angle will be behind him.
This comes back to coaching too, how has heath been coached to react in that situation?
Best thing would be to take a high angle so even if he is faster than you think, you can still get over in front of him.
But is that something that has been coached to dallas safetys?

No. The coaching doesn't come into play, IMO. I mean, if watch that play, Heath is clearly not the contain guy here. That is why I said, in my original post about this, that Heath wasn't responsible for the running lane but, that he was clearly responsible for giving up the big gain. He comes down, so hard on that run, that he actually has to stop and back track to even get into a trailing position. He miss judged speed right there. I've done it, anybody who has ever played Safety has done it but if you watch that play again, Heath has deep middle. When Barkley breaks out of the pack, Heath comes up and breaks down really early. This basically allows Barkley to shorten the gap but he has all of the left side of the field to create angle. Once Heath stops momentum, he's flat footed and Barkley is by him. He needed to force Barkley to either try and run over him or make Barkley flatten out and force him to the sideline. If he can do that, then help may get there. I mean, it's not an easy play for sure but that's why you are in the NFL. Heath will get most of the blame for this but he shouldn't. We just did so poor a job of contain on that play that it's one of those things where you can honestly look at it and say, "Heath Sucks!" Heath definitely did a poor job of forcing on that play but Barkley is going to win that deal like 95% of the time. Of course, our fan base will probably still blame Heath so...... yeah.

 

[ABQCOWBOY]

The probability of any NFL Safety tackling Barkley on that play is less than 50%.

The probability of making the tackle on that type of play is never literally 0%.

Yes, my point exactly.

 

[Stash]

I'm going to leave this here:

Crawford’s situation is being framed as managing his injury, but he did not play well in his handful of snaps on Sunday. Crawford played 43% of defensive snaps after missing the entire preseason following offseason hip surgery. He had just one quarterback hit and zero tackles in his 30 snaps.

https://cowboyswire.usatoday.com/20...ednesday-update-tavon-austin-tyrone-crawford/

Be sure to go and shoot that messenger too!

 

[DandyDon52]

No. The coaching doesn't come into play, IMO. I mean, if watch that play, Heath is clearly not the contain guy here. That is why I said, in my original post about this, that Heath wasn't responsible for the running lane but, that he was clearly responsible for giving up the big gain. He comes down, so hard on that run, that he actually has to stop and back track to even get into a trailing position. He miss judged speed right there. I've done it, anybody who has ever played Safety has done it but if you watch that play again, Heath has deep middle. When Barkley breaks out of the pack, Heath comes up and breaks down really early. This basically allows Barkley to shorten the gap but he has all of the left side of the field to create angle. Once Heath stops momentum, he's flat footed and Barkley is by him. He needed to force Barkley to either try and run over him or make Barkley flatten out and force him to the sideline. If he can do that, then help may get there. I mean, it's not an easy play for sure but that's why you are in the NFL. Heath will get most of the blame for this but he shouldn't. We just did so poor a job of contain on that play that it's one of those things where you can honestly look at it and say, "Heath Sucks!" Heath definitely did a poor job of forcing on that play but Barkley is going to win that deal like 95% of the time. Of course, our fan base will probably still blame Heath so...... yeah.

Well is the smart thing to take a 90 degree angle to the sideline, so you wind up in front of him?
If so that isnt what most would do, instinct takes you towards the guy.
and a safety by name lol is suppose to contain as to protect against big plays.
Barkley beat everyone on that play except the guy who caught him from behind, so kudos to awuzie
if it was him.
And I will add that this is the sort of thing barkley is good at, and he did it a bunch last year too, so
he is doing it to other teams as well.

 

[ABQCOWBOY]

Well is the smart thing to take a 90 degree angle to the sideline, so you wind up in front of him?
If so that isnt what most would do, instinct takes you towards the guy.
and a safety by name lol is suppose to contain as to protect against big plays.
Barkley beat everyone on that play except the guy who caught him from behind, so kudos to awuzie
if it was him.
And I will add that this is the sort of thing barkley is good at, and he did it a bunch last year too, so
he is doing it to other teams as well.

It didn't have to be 90 but you had to close in time to cut off the angle or take the proper angle to force him to flatten out. It's an either or.

For the record, I never said Barkley didn't do this to a lot of people or that we were the only ones. You said that. I said just the opposite in fact. Again, it wasn't an easy play but guys in the NFL, they don't get paid to make the easy plays. If they did, we would all be playing in the NFL.

 

[buybuydandavis]

Safeties are coached NOT to run through (take the legs out, etc..) of the ball carrier when they are the last line of defense.

Heath should have moved to the outside to entice Barkley back to the inside; however, Heath had a very minimal chance to tackle Barkley. An elite NFL RB should win against a Safety in the open field every time.

Elite RBs win most of the time, not every time.

And Heath wasn't the last line of defense, as evidenced by the result of the play. If he actually takes a stab at Barkley, even if he can't bring him down, if he slows him up some, the other guys can catch him earlier.

What Heath actually did made him irrelevant. He wasn't even a turnstile. He was a bystander on the road waving as Barkley drove by him.

 

[ABQCOWBOY]

Elite RBs win most of the time, not every time.

And Heath wasn't the last line of defense, as evidenced by the result of the play. If he actually takes a stab at Barkley, even if he can't bring him down, if he slows him up some, the other guys can catch him earlier.

What Heath actually did made him irrelevant. He wasn't even a turnstile. He was a bystander on the road waving as Barkley drove by him.

Exactly right.

 

[Doomsday101]

This also applies to EVERY starting NFL running back.

some more than others. Barkley is a hard man to bring down and with speed. So no not every RB.

 

[Oz-of-Cowboy-Country]

I don't get the impression that you even read my post.

You have an idea that just came to you but it's not based on the reality how other NFL teams function.

Most teams are 1 gap defensive schemes in 2019. Teams don't just switch back and forth from pure 1 gap to pure 2 gap.

Teams do mix in some 2 gap concepts for specific players.

The easy example was the Seahawks from a few years ago with 330 pound LDE Red Bryant.

The Seahawks were a 1 gap team but Red Bryant 2 gapped at LDE.

Hybrid defenses came into existence from one plain and simple thought. If a team keeps doing the same things over and over again their opponents will figure them out and start to take advantage of them. There are teams that switch from 4-3 to 3-4 and even throw in a little 3-3-5. But who cares. I'd like us to be able to go from one gap to two gap at the very least.

Because unpredictability comes from versatility. Versatility in personnel or scheme.

 

[DanA]

This is going to be long and detailed.

Verbiage

• Yes, I used a shorthand definition meaning outside contain relative the the player that I'm discussing.
• I would have used gap terminology but when I've done that in the past many people didn't understand it.
• I try to keep the wording as simple as possible for message board posting (generally but I'll go into detail on this post).

Barkley's Big Run

• Watch it again (It's easier to see on the coaches film).
• Crawford went inside of the LT to squeeze down the B gap.
• Crawford made a very deliberate move to play the B gap.
• Physically it would have been much easier to play the C gap.
• Both X.Woods and Brown played the D gap.
• LBs are required to react to the DL regardless of the defensive play design.
  • If playing LB in the NFL was as mentally easy as just hitting a specific
  • pre-assigned gap, then Bruce Carter would have been an All Pro.

Summary:

• Crawford made a very deliberate move to play the B gap.
• LVE also played the B gap.
• Woods initially had positioning to play the C gap but ended up in the D gap.
• Brown was also in the D gap.

Fault

• There is no way to know if Crawford was expected to play the B gap or C gap.
• Either way, LBs must react to the DL and find the uncovered gap.
• Both DBs were boxed out to the outside (D gap) against 1 blocker.

Cowboys vs Rams Game

• I did extensive analysis of the Rams game over the off-season.
• I've said repeatedly that the Cowboys should have had the RDE play the B gap against the Rams.
• Specifically on plays where the 1-tech was on the right side of the DL.
• Instead the Cowboys continued to play the C gap with the RDE.
• The Rams exploited the fact that they knew which gap assignments the Cowboys would play.

Reason for RDE to play B gap

• With the RDE playing outside (C or D gap), on outside runs to that side, the 1-tech initially aligned in the A gap would scramble to fill the B gap.
• The MLB was the LB on that side and needed to be able to move to the outside instead of filling the B gap which would be open if the 1-tech didn't fill it.
• The problem is that the Rams knew the 1-tech would flow to the play side taking him out of the middle of the line.
• The MLB would move outside but still needed to watch for the cutback to the inside.
• This allowed the Rams to get a blocker to the inside of the MLB on a run that was designed to be a cut back to the inside.
• They were able to "hold" the OLB on the backside with motion and other specifics within the offensive play design.
• They would then get a blocker to the inside of the backside LB.
• They would initially double the backside DT.
• Both LBs would get boxed out from the middle and the RB had a huge hole in the middle for the cutback run.
• The genius of this blocking was that the blocks on the LBs were delayed blocks.
• The Rams OL could initially have two double team blocks on DLinemen and then kick out 1 OL on each side to get the delayed block on the LBs.

Patriots vs Rams

• The Patriots changed their defense specific to the Rams for the Super Bowl.
• The Pats often had the RDE play the B gap.
• They then made other changes to accommodate this change.
• Some fairly simple changes totally mucked up the Rams precision blocking scheme.

Cowboys Fans should hope that Crawford was correct on his assignment with regards to the big gain by Barkley.

That would indicate that the Cowboys are changing things up that they needed to change vs the Rams in the playoffs.

All other teams saw that game and will try many of the same concepts until the Cowboys prove they can stop it.

1. Woods isn’t rushing, he’s playing press man coverage against the WR.

2. At no point does it look to me like Crawford is on the inside shoulder of the left tackle.

3. If Crawford was responsible for the B gap then that’s implying LVE doesn’t know his responsibility at all on the play because he can easily get outside the LT if it’s a pre-snap assignment. I think it’s far more likely that Crawford getting washed out and LVE is caught having to think quickly and adjust. Sean Lee might make that adjustment but it’s not surprising a 2nd year player didn’t.

4. If Crawford is responsible for the B gap then three guys are out of position (Crawford, LVE & Woods). As far as I can tell Crawford never gets on the LT’s left shoulder. If Crawford is responsible for the C gap then only Crawford is out of position.

5. It’s not being pedantic about verbage. Crawford was never outside the TE so was never in a contain role.

 

[xwalker]

Elite RBs win most of the time, not every time.

And Heath wasn't the last line of defense, as evidenced by the result of the play. If he actually takes a stab at Barkley, even if he can't bring him down, if he slows him up some, the other guys can catch him earlier.

What Heath actually did made him irrelevant. He wasn't even a turnstile. He was a bystander on the road waving as Barkley drove by him.

As I said he should have cut off Barkley's outside path.

Either way Safeties in that situation are coached NOT to come in hot diving at the feet of the ball carrier unless the attempted tackle is going to force the ball carrier back towards other defenders.

Last line of defense is just the deepest defender on the field. It does not literally mean no other defender has a chance to make the tackle.

Multiple players made mistakes on that play.

They also appear to be mixing thing up from a scheme perspective with regards to assignments. They were going to have to make some changes; otherwise all offenses would do what the Rams did and exploit the Cowboys lack of mixing up defensive assignments.

The change in assignments needs some refinement.

 

[ColoradoCowboy]

100% LVE.

If you are blaming ANYONE else, it is because of your preconceived perceptions.

Of course, you COULD just say that the Giants called the right play against the right defensive alignment and executed it well. Nah.

 

[xwalker]

I think it’s far more likely that Crawford getting washed out and LVE is caught having to think quickly and adjust.

Nobody forced Crawford to the inside as shown in this sequence.

Crawford takes himself to the inside.

Pic 1:
You can see LVE looking at the B gap area.
Jaylon had been pointing to that spot.
LVE moved over there (initially) from a more inside position.

Pic 2:
Crawford fires out into the outer shoulder of the LT initially.
You can see the LT is resisting Crawford moving inside.

Pic 3:
Crawford fights to get to the inside of the LT until he collides with LVE.
In this pick the LT actually pulled both hands back from Crawford.
The LT is definitely not forcing Crawford to the inside.
The LT appears to pull his arms back to reset and prepare for LVE coming up.

Pic 4:
I didn't post a 4th pic but Crawford's head is inside of the LT at the point he collides with LVE.