Evaluation: Seattle Seahawks Cowl 3 Protection Bust vs. San Francisco 49ers Defined

The Seahawks defense played a real defense on Sunday. Her performance in the 28-21 win over the 49ers was a welcome reassurance and acted as a tonic for the agony caused by the week 3 defensive horror show. Seattle’s defense in week 4 survived a shaky opening move and a lack of complementary football from a stagnant offense, run to get off the field.

Defensive bankruptcy was therefore an anomaly and not the rule, as had been mistakes the previous week. The current flaw is important, but the reporting flaw points to the challenges a newbie to the defense poses rather than a deeper, more problematic subject. Sidney Jones, acquired by the Jaguars late in the off-season in exchange for a round six pick, got his first start as a left cornerback. Jones screwed it up on the bust.

“Sidney had a challenging day, you know, he had a challenging day,” head coach Pete Carroll told 710 ESPN Seattle during his weekly visit to host Mike Salk. “He had a few games that he missed but overall he did a good job, played the scheme well, with the exception of the one big touchdown.”

The “one big touchdown” scheme was cover-3 pass defense. Jones, for the slot, the multi-receiver look, should have immediately gone into a “zebra” mindset, adjusting his depths 1/3 to play more like a pure zone, targeting the middle of the two incoming threats looked and 60-40 to. the recipient no. 2 played.

Whether or not Jones had those “zebra” intentions before the snap, his expectation in defense of Cover 3 seemed to be that the flat full-back beneath the space defender – what Seattle calls a “buzz” technique – would be responsible for taking the bike route from receiver # 2 up and through its zone and adjust it in the field. This would then release the deep 1/3 cornerback at the back without having to worry about receiver # 2, in order to then push receiver # 1 more aggressively.

Strong Security Jamal Adams was the buzz defender in this game. However, he stopped seeing the # 2 receiver, Deebo Samuel, as soon as he expanded, and instead walked off the bike route with the utmost confidence while maintaining the quarterback view. After the play, Adams was frustrated that Jones didn’t switch to Samuel.

Jones probably defaulted to the general Cover 3 rules and didn’t register the full picture of the game. Meanwhile, Adams likely didn’t check with Jones to make sure he was aware of the task, assuming Jones was tied to the game plan.

“I think just feeling how everything is moving and your teammates, and all the little details and the communication,” said Jones in his post-game press conference about the biggest challenge joining a new team. “It’s one thing to have a playbook, it’s another thing to go with other people, 11 other men – 10 other men – and do everything together.”

After the win, the Free Security Quandre Diggs refused to assign individual blame to the game.

“You must think I’m a snitch,” joked Diggs.

Diggs took individual responsibility for the play, however, as he stood on the sidelines and left Marquise Blair in free safety. “Communication” was mentioned again.

“I feel like if I was there the communication would have been a little better,” said Diggs. “I’m not saying they didn’t, but it’s my job to lead back there and I wasn’t out there so I bet that on myself.”

Repeated communication, to the point of exaggeration, is key to avoiding basic service outages. When asked about working with Jones on defense, Diggs reiterated his emphasis on communication.

“I think for us it’s just further communication with [Jones]So when we get into the heat of the moment, he knows exactly what he’s doing and we can’t get him into the positions he doesn’t, ”read the free post-game safety message. “So, I think over time we’ll get better communication and I think he’ll play a lot better and I’m happy to have him, you know?”

So why shouldn’t Seattle have Adams wear the bike route in this game, an “indicator” they use in their defense to match the route with that defender? In answering this question lies the real evidence of Jones’s mistake.

“That depends on the situation and the reputation,” Carroll replied on Monday when asked if the curl flat defender should run a bike route. “We have different ways of doing that. And you know, some teams may always do it the same way, we don’t. We have a couple of different ways it comes out. Depends on how we manage the zoning approach. There are different things we do. Sometimes we can do it and sometimes we don’t, it depends. “

The situation of the 49ers was remarkable. They lined up in a paired tight-end nub 2×2 look with 21 employees who quickly switched them to a weak gun-offset formation – a two-back look that put full-back Kyle Juszczyk alongside Adams .

“I think the way the defense works, everything works together,” said Jones after the bankruptcy. “We have to go into the movie room and find out, and I have to do a better part of my job to see the formation and the game and to clean that up.”

The cornerback clearly ignored the impact of the 49ers’ formation or staff. That meant he had to play all-zebra 1/3, midpoint technique and received no help with the bike route from Adams.

“You know, we knew what quarterback Lance was and we knew what Jimmy was,” Adams said afterwards. “We were prepared for both.”

Seattle’s game plan and defense adapted well to the varying style of attack of 49ers rookie quarterback Trey Lance, where Lance’s mobility is an important factor in the running game.

“When they made the move, of course, we wanted to feel what they were doing, and obviously they started reading a lot of Zone and playing two-defenders as well,” Adams continued. “So it was obviously another attack.”

Adams’ mention of “Two-Back” applies here. With Juszczyk at his side, there was an additional gap that had to be taken into account.

And while Diggs refused to whistle on a teammate, his response to playing Lance revealed an illuminating detail.

“I mean, we talked about it during the week,” Diggs revealed, revealing the planning for Lance. “Our coaches have prepared us well and it’s up to me, Bobby [Wagner], Jamal, ‘Big Al’ [Woods] and Poona [Ford] Just to pass it on through the rest of the defense and let the guys know we’ll have some other seizures when he comes in and more of a college style offensive when he comes in. “

The “different fits” are also relevant for the bust. Using lance in the running game as a runner creates another additional void that defense must take into account. Meanwhile, the 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan will be adding routes to the running games to create more space. If Adams had voted the bike route against this formation and Lance in a running game, there would have been no player for Lance.

Given Lance’s threat as a scrambler, it makes even more sense that the Seahawks didn’t want their lower layers to look away from the quarterback – especially on the edge of their defense.

You can see pre-snap that Adams, in deep security, checked with Blair to warn him that he would not match a bike route from the # 2 receiver. With the free security role of stopping seam and mail routes, Blair only faced a seam route threat to the 2×1 receiver distribution. Hence, he was able to shift his focus to that side of the field and free Adams and Jones to play purer zone principles.

Adams checked with Diggs against a similar two-backed look. In this piece, you can see Adams gesturing with his hand before snapping to make sure Diggs was aware of the threat of lonely seam and Adams’ technique. With Seattle in their sub-zone X family, Jordyn Brooks stacked the C-gap and Wagner the A-gap – which once again meant that Adams was in high demand as a reliable, present plus-one defender in run-fit.

In contrast to this two-back pistol formation, Adams tried to maintain the inner leverage of the No. 2 receiver and play in running fit.

Finally, here is a situation where Adams stepped in on defense under zone x due to the 22-person pair of offense.

In the past, when in that kind of cover-3 rotation to a slot-two-back formation, Seattle has checked “Mix” (two-read pass coverage with three defensive defenders) to keep the strong security inside Keep your run still in good shape Get three defenders over the two threats while protecting yourself against the No. 2 recipient bubble.

The strong security plays with the internal leverage of the slot receiver. The cornerback probes and mirrors the slot receiver and skips the route if it is outside within two meters. And the free security keys match the slot receiver, match its clearance and move to cover the outer receiver when the slot is outside within the five yard mark.

Back to the coverage bust, Jones’ mistake should be fixed quickly.

“It’s just first time out stuff,” Carroll agreed on Monday.

The Seahawks defense should pay attention to Diggs and Jones’ comments, however. Frequent and effective communication is essential to a solid defense, and this is especially true of a new face on the line-up.