- 8 hours ago
"Nobody is holding anyone accountable." Warren Sharp doesn't hold back as he dismantles the team's defensive tape and reveals the exact moment a locker room starts to fracture.
Share, Thumbs Up & Subscribe to 106.7 The Fan for New Content Daily!
Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/1067TheFan
Like on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/1067thefan
Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/1067theFan
Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/1067thefan/
Share, Thumbs Up & Subscribe to 106.7 The Fan for New Content Daily!
Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/1067TheFan
Like on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/1067thefan
Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/1067theFan
Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/1067thefan/
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00It is Warren Sharp, NFL stats and analytics industry pioneer.
00:04You can visit sharpfootballanalysis.com to get all the info.
00:10So, Warren, I was just saying I saw your tweet yesterday about Matt Nagy outcoaching Dan Quinn.
00:15We're mentioning that Durante Jones, of course, is a defensive coordinator.
00:17What did you see when you were looking at the film of that game?
00:22I was very shocked with how the defense changed.
00:25And more than anything, I was shocked at the fact that Matt Nagy coaching circles around the commander's staff.
00:34That's not something that you want to hear about your team's defense.
00:38That's not something very typical.
00:41But he basically set out bait and we fell right for it.
00:45All right. Explain that for us that aren't X's and O's geniuses.
00:48Like, explain that.
00:49Well, so the Giants basically tried to get us to load the box more and play differently in the second
01:00half because we weren't the Giants weren't having success against us in the first half.
01:05And that Jameis Winston was averaging 4.5 yards per attempt, 44% completions, negative 0.58 EPA per attempt
01:15in the first half against a defense that we primarily were playing too high coverage.
01:2150% of snaps were too high coverage.
01:24So we had multiple safeties, dropping back, split field, very little man coverage.
01:29And it was working very successfully.
01:32And we were leading 12 to 3 at halftime.
01:35And so in the second half, the New York Giants, instead of using three wide receivers, which is 11 personnel,
01:42instead of using three wide receivers at the same rate they were in the first half, they decided to drop
01:47the rate of three wide receivers down all the way to 25%.
01:50So only one out of every four plays did they have three wide receivers.
01:54Instead, they massively jacked up their rate of 12 personnel with two tight ends all the way from 20%
02:02to 56%.
02:04And what that kind of lured us or convinced us to do is defensively, we responded by loading the box
02:12with seven plus defenders at a higher rate in the second half than we were doing in the first half,
02:19which is not a tactic that you should try to do when you're leading 12 to 3.
02:25The defense, that other team, the Giants, is not suddenly going to come out here and just run the ball
02:30more in the second half.
02:31They're down by nine points.
02:34They're down 19 to 6 midway through the third quarter.
02:37They're losing this entire game.
02:39They're not going to come out running the football more often.
02:41And yet that's what we did.
02:43We responded by loading the box with more defenders.
02:46What that forced us, therefore, to do on the back end from a coverage perspective is we cut our rate
02:52of zone coverage from 79% down to 50%.
02:55We jacked up our rate of man coverage significantly higher.
03:00We dropped the rate of the too high shell defense that was working very well for us in the first
03:06half all the way down to 17%.
03:09Doubled the rate of man coverage, I think I mentioned.
03:11And then we played 71% cover zero, man-to-man with no deep defenders in the second half when
03:19we were facing three wide receiver sets instead of just using it on 20%, that coverage in the first half.
03:26So I just don't understand.
03:28There's a lot of things, obviously, that I'm sharing from a numbers perspective.
03:31But at the bottom line is this.
03:34In the first half, Jameis Winston struggled against too high coverage.
03:38We played a lot of zone.
03:39In the second half, when we rolled out that same too high coverage, we did it so much less frequently.
03:45But when we were rolling it out, Jameis was only averaging 5.8 yards per attempt and barely over positive
03:52EPA per attempt.
03:53But we didn't do it very often.
03:55Instead, we played single high or cover zero, man-to-man.
04:00And against that specific coverage, Jameis Winston was 8.5 yards per attempt, two touchdowns, no interceptions, plus .78 EPA
04:08per attempt.
04:09And at the end of the day, his final statistics in the second half because of adjustments we made defensively,
04:16he was plus .67 EPA, 68% success rate, which was the number one in the NFL of any quarterback
04:23in the second half of any game last week.
04:26Three touchdowns and no interceptions.
04:28Warren, Neighbors was targeted 20 times.
04:3311 catches for a buck, I don't know, 20 or so, obviously scored that touchdown.
04:40Likely, and I've been talking about this for a few weeks, tight ends in general have killed the Commanders this
04:46year.
04:46They have destroyed them.
04:47Tight ends in five games, Warren, and I guarantee you know this, have 32 catches for 372 yards and seven
04:54touchdowns.
04:55Seven in five games, tight ends, and likely had a couple this past week.
05:00Now they've got to face George Kittle.
05:02What are your thoughts on that?
05:04What can Durante Jones do differently where they can stop a tight end?
05:10Well, there's a couple of different things.
05:12There's personnel.
05:13Do you have the personnel to stop in their scheme?
05:15What can you do to adjust your scheme?
05:17One of the things that has worked pretty well for the Commanders, surprisingly well until we saw a big run,
05:25obviously, in the second half from Camp Scadaboo.
05:28But prior to that, they had basically bottled up the run game.
05:32And they've been very good at bottling up run games so far this season.
05:36But it has caused problems in other areas of the field.
05:40And I'm not sure the right move or the right pivot for him to do to try to figure out
05:46ways to cover tight ends better.
05:48But when you are giving up that type of performance to opponents' tight ends, you guarantee that the other team
05:56staff is looking at it.
05:57And the one thing that Kyle Shanahan, who we're going up against here on Monday Night Football and obviously has
06:04familiarity with the franchise from the past, Kyle Shanahan knows how to pick at your wounds, how to dig at
06:11those scabs and figure out what's wrong with your team.
06:13And so if it's something I guarantee you, if we're noticing it, you know, and talking about it on a
06:18Wednesday morning on talk radio in D.C., Kyle Shanahan knew about this on Sunday night as he's studying the
06:26tape and knows exactly how he's going to try to take advantage of it.
06:30So the Commanders didn't solve it in last week's game and is probably going to get exposed even further against
06:38George Kittle, particularly because the San Francisco 49ers are down receivers.
06:42They've had injuries there. And, you know, Mike Evans obviously is a stud and is carrying that team.
06:48Maybe he gets targeted 20 times like the league neighbors did.
06:52But you're definitely going to get that performance from the interior with George Kittle as well here.
06:57What about their struggles offensively, specifically with what appeared to be like zero blitzes?
07:02They just really, really struggled till maybe till the very end.
07:05I mean, they were getting away with it because Jaden is so talented.
07:08He was just taking off and creating stuff.
07:10But what were they exposing there?
07:12What was David Blau not doing?
07:15What did he need to do more of?
07:18Well, on that side of the football, I haven't dug into the offensive performance.
07:23The fact is that when you're leading 19-6 and the third quarter is about to conclude,
07:30and then you're back up 27-13, and you've played most of the first half in the rain,
07:36and a lot of your production on the ground, let's face it, I don't know how you guys felt.
07:41We obviously saw that large 33-yard run by Bill, but I didn't know how much Jaden Daniels was going
07:48to come back and run the football, right?
07:49And he got himself confident and saw those open running lanes.
07:54And so I'll just say this, a quarterback who is mobile erases a lot of issues with an offense.
08:02Just get out and go.
08:03We saw that on Monday Night Football with Josh Allen.
08:06And obviously, James Cook was having success running the football, but that game isn't won by the Buffalo Bills.
08:12If Josh Allen isn't taking off like he was able to do so frequently and pile up over 100 yards
08:18himself,
08:18just like Jaden Daniels did on the ground against the Giants.
08:22So there were underlying issues throughout the first half.
08:25The commander's offense wasn't kind of functioning quite as well.
08:28But Jaden Daniels can just erase some of those things with his legs and his mobility,
08:32which is definitely one of the reasons that you'd like a quarterback who has that mobility.
08:37Obviously, there are other issues that come with it, as we know from Jaden's injury history.
08:41But in the second half, when you're not dropping back to pass quite as often,
08:46you don't have the upside for Jaden to run the football as frequently.
08:50You're playing with a two-touchdown lead.
08:53Most every team is going to, specifically from the offensive coordinator perspective,
08:58turtle up to a degree, play a little bit more conservative, try to run the clock and things of that
09:02nature.
09:03And it just plays right into the hands of an aggressive defense that's anticipating that.
09:08Talking to Warren Sharp, you can check out sharpfootballanalysis.com.
09:13A couple statistics that I saw as we're talking about the offense that you had posted were
09:17percentage of rushes met at or behind the line this season.
09:24I believe the commanders were second worst in the league.
09:27And then you also have runs against light boxes, which I believe is six defenders or less on the line.
09:35And they were second worst.
09:36So they may be pass blocking okay, but the offensive line is getting dominated in the running game.
09:41Is that correct?
09:42That is 100% correct.
09:44That is a significant issue for the commanders.
09:47And, in fact, it's, I don't want to say ironic, but it is interesting.
09:53When you look at the rate of runs that gain 12-plus yards from the offense,
09:59the commanders rank second worst in that.
10:02And they're actually, like, fourth best in the same exact statistic for the other side of the ball
10:07in terms of preventing explosive runs.
10:10So they're really good at stopping them, but they're also really bad at gaining explosive runs.
10:15And it is because of that offensive line.
10:17The biggest predictor of whether or not a run is going to be explosive
10:23is whether you can gain at least three yards before contact.
10:28So one metric that I like to look at is rate of gaining three-plus yards before contact.
10:33How frequently are your offensive linemen opening up holes so that your running back
10:38can get a little bit of space before he can start going downhill?
10:43And, you know, the commanders obviously are struggling to generate that explosive run lanes.
10:50They're one of the worst teams in the NFL at creating those three, second worst in the NFL
10:55at creating three-plus yards before contact at a frequent rate.
10:59And their overall yards before contact per rush is low as a result.
11:05And it causes them problems with trying to get those explosive runs,
11:09as well as consistency in the run game.
11:12And that's not really going to change.
11:14It's not like suddenly Austin Eckler or Rashad White or Bill,
11:19like whichever guy you're going to stick there, is all of a sudden going to solve a problem like that.
11:24Those types of running backs, obviously some of them have a better nose for a hole in the defensive line.
11:31Some of them have a better ability to have some burst at the second level, right?
11:37But in terms of generally speaking, that offensive line is the biggest factor in whether or not your run game
11:43is going to have success,
11:44not just the actual running back who is back there.
11:47You know, getting back to defense for a little bit, and you may have already touched on this essentially,
11:51but I'm watching the game with my daughter, younger, and she's starting to really fall in love with football,
11:55and she's asking a million questions, and, you know, I can answer half of them maybe.
12:00We're up, as you mentioned, 27-13, and then obviously we're playing softer.
12:03You know, back in the day, we should just call it prevent defense.
12:06I didn't know what to call it.
12:07I was like, I don't know.
12:08We're keeping guys in front of us, that kind of thing.
12:10It never seems to really work out.
12:11You give up these quick touchdowns, you know, which is exactly what happened, that kind of thing.
12:14What should they be doing in those situations?
12:19Well, you know, look, in the commander situation, they were – there's a lot for this specific game that they
12:27did wrong
12:27that I mentioned at the top of the discussion about the way that we were trying to match defense,
12:33thinking that, oh, well, they've got heavier personnel out there, so that must mean they're going to run.
12:38That is something that a lot of teams have started to do this year, and they pass out of it.
12:44They started doing it more because Sean McVay with the L.A. Rams was doing it last year.
12:49He used three tight ends out on the field frequently, and then they would pass out of that.
12:53And so more teams are pivoting into, let's use heavier personnel, get more defenders into the box,
12:58but we're actually using heavier personnel just so that we can either run play action
13:02or just play from shotgun and pass out of it, knowing that the defense is trying to match our personnel.
13:08The defenses should not be matching personnel.
13:11They should be matching situation down and distance.
13:14When you're up two touchdowns, what do you do?
13:16When you're up two touchdowns late in the game, what kind of defense should you be playing?
13:21Well, you definitely should not be stacking the box at a higher rate, which is what the commanders were doing.
13:26They were also playing 10 yards off the receivers.
13:28Yeah, even more.
13:29They were playing even more depth from the receivers, giving them more space to catch the ball underneath
13:35and march the ball down the field.
13:37And it's one thing when you're dealing with a team that's down like three scores,
13:42but when the margin gets to two scores, then just one score,
13:45you have to adjust your defense to play what you were doing in the first half
13:49that allowed you to limit the receivers tremendously.
13:52And they made too many adjustments.
13:54Do you give them a chance to beat the Niners?
13:58What chance do you give them?
14:01One to ten.
14:02One to ten.
14:04Ten is they win for sure.
14:06Yes, yes.
14:06Zero.
14:06One is they lose for sure.
14:08I would say it's probably about a four to five.
14:11Wow.
14:12That's higher than I would have thought.
14:13Okay.
14:14Okay.
14:15That seems like it.
14:16All right.
14:16The mobility of Jaden Daniels can erase a lot of things.
14:20Am I going to expect that they're going to win outright?
14:23No, I don't.
14:24I think the Commanders are in trouble in this game.
14:27But Jaden Daniels is that massive X factor here.
14:31And if the receivers are healthy enough, they definitely could pull out an upset.
14:37But I don't think it's likely.
14:39All right, Warren Sharp.
14:41He keeps saying we.
14:42I like that.
14:42Yeah.
14:43He aligned himself with the Commanders.
14:44Huge.
14:45Impressive.
14:45Kind of like it.
14:46I know where I'm talking.
14:49Yeah, but do you blame Jaden for the tie or do you blame DQ more?
14:55Man, I don't know where you guys fall on that.
14:57I think it's a collective decision, honestly.
15:00The funny thing about Jaden is that he did so much of this VR testing.
15:06You remember before the team drafted him and right early, he's like, I know where the play
15:10clocks are at every single stadium.
15:12I study that with my VR.
15:14I know everything going on around me.
15:16And so situationally, you would have expected him to perform a lot better there.
15:20But it's clearly like there's so much going on when you're out on the field, especially
15:25for a guy who hasn't played a lot of football, taking those live bullets as frequently as
15:29Jaden does.
15:29That coaching staff should have been far better prepared for that situation, top to bottom,
15:35everybody.
15:35They're not practicing enough, obviously, and they're not executing it well enough in the
15:40game.
15:41Good stuff.
15:41That's Warren Sharp, NFL statistics and analytics industry pioneer.
15:45You can visit sharpfootballanalysis.com.
15:49Thanks, man.
15:50Appreciate it.
15:50All right.
15:51Thanks, guys.