Offensive Review: Giants

[Slingin Sammy 33]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

In pass protection, Heyer may be the weak link of the group, but he held up pretty well against Justin Tuck all things considered.

First off, great job as always GTripp, good read.

IMO, Heyer must do a better job of aggressively working to engage the DE. Again, I know he was going against Tuck and likely not wanting to whiff, but his backpedaling hurt us. Especially on the 3 & GL from the 6 in the 2nd half, where JC didn't have time to hit the open China route by ARE behind Cooley's seam.

What was really impressive about the Redskins offensive line is that all of the cohesion problems of last season appear to be in the past. The offensive line only had one or two hits on Campbell that could have been picked up, which is roughly 500% better than it was last year.

Agree, overall pass pro was very good. Run game not so much, but part of this was due to playcalling. Note to Zorn, there are other run plays than the Stretch and not every play needs to be Zone blocked. A trap or counter never hurt anyone, especially out of a spread set.

Passing Game
......They come out in a power formation, with Fred Davis and Chris Cooley to the right and Santana Moss split to the left with Portis and Sellers in an I-Formation. Campbell takes the snap, play actions a lead play to Portis (the Redskins never actually run a lead play though), and sets up deep, about 9 yards behind the Center.

Here are the routes: Moss is running a skinny post, and is double covered. Fred Davis is running a drag and is not open. Chris Cooley made an outside release and is running the over (the middle) route at about 12 yards. Campbell wants to go to Cooley with the football, and sets up waiting for him to come open. Except, as Cooley heads across the middle of the field, he never does come free. With only 3 receivers in downfield patterns, the Giants have the play defended.

Campbell has room to step up and run with the football for at least three or four yards, but never steps up. At the last second, his eyes go to Mike Sellers to check the ball down in the middle of the field, but as soon as his hands break, Osi gets to the ball and strips him. Normally, the Redskins have a back in the backfield to make the recovery or at very least, the tackle, but on this particular play, both backs were in check down routes.......

Just to add a little to this, the drag by Davis and Over by Cooley are a very common route combo used in a basic play called Waggle. It is designed to put the LB in no-man's-land. If JC remembered his fundamentals and kept the ball at mid-chest or shoulder level and stepped up in the pocket he would've had the extra half second for Davis to clear the LB, and with Moss' clearout, Davis or Cooley would've come open.

I thought the playcalling left a lot to be desired in the second half initially, but a closer look shows that Jim Zorn did make a half time adjustment to try to force the the Giants defense out of having it's best players on the field: he moved to a series of 3 WR sets. 23 out of 28 offensive plays were run with 3 WRs on the field. What this did was it forced the Giants to take a linebacker off the field on those 23 plays, and put an extra defensive back (rookie CB Bruce Johnson) on the field.

Zorn's personnel selection was good. I saw a few mentioning the lack of 2TE sets. Zorn actually ran a decent amount of 2TE sets.

However on the negative side
- The ARE reverse couldn't have been in the script, very bad call. Even after the big run....stay on script. A good OC has his script designed to probe the D and set up plays later in the game, exploit weaknesses seen on film early, and see how the D reacts to certain plays/sets.
- No need for JC to be under C with an empty backfield. It's just unnecessary. JC has good speed, but not real quick feet or excellent footwork. Zorn has to see this and must make that change to help JC. Gun allows him to see the field better.
- On consecutive series in the 2nd half, Zorn calls a 3WR, I-form set, Sellers motions to a TE and they run a Stretch. Next play is a 3WR, I-form A-gap lead. First series the two plays work, on the second series of course they're unsuccessful.
- WR screen on the +6 ?????
- When the run isn't consistently successful and the OL isn't moving people off the ball, you've got to go to the air. The passing game was pretty solid outside of the big mistakes (fumble/INT).

Overall I'd give the playcalling a C-

A couple of other thoughts:
Moss: Bad game.
- Awful effort on deep comeback (JC INT). The route he was running on this play was a deep comeback and is part of a different variant of the Waggle play mentioned earlier. Moss isn't a primary on this play but a 3rd read. He is supposed to sell the Go and break it off into a 18 yd Comeback. His effort was embarassing.
- Late Post break 25 yds downfield after a weak sell of the Go route. Then he looks back at JC like it's JC's fault????
- Penalty with Webster (on which he got the worst of the exchange). Moss is a veteran and should be able to bait defenders into penalties and mistakes, not the other way around.

JC - must eliminate mistakes and improve play.
- It's OK to run and take 7-8 yds. Don't force the ball (INT targeting Moss).
- It's also OK to tell Moss to stop whining and looking frustrated for not getting the ball. Tell him to STFU, run his routes hard and correctly, and he'll get the ball. If he's going to give half-ass effort, make sure he knows you'll make even less effort to get him the ball.
- Still the damn tendency to drop the ball to his waist and double pump before releasing. It's not even a "pat", it's a full pump and completely wasted motion (time).
- Throw behind Moss on drag behind ARE's clearout on key 3rd down. Got to make that play if you're "The Man".
We'll see how JC performs over the next 5 games, hopefully well. I'm optimistic. If he can get his confidence up and be more consistent he can be a top QB and will earn himself a big payday.