How Indianapolis Adjusted the Power Run Game Against the Philadelphia 3–4 Defense
Whenever the Colts are brought up in conversation, Andrew Luck’s name probably comes to mind first for a lot of people, and rightly so.
However, defensive coaches around the league know that in order to have any hope of slowing down this offense, they first have to find a way to deal with the ground and pound style of run game that Indianapolis brings to the table.
As we talked about on Monday, a big part of a team’s offensive success is their ability to build off of their base offensive schemes just enough to take advantage of whatever their opponent is throwing at them in any given week.
Thus the cat and mouse game continues, with defenses knowing they’ve got to stop the power, and Colts offensive coordinator Pep Hamilton fully aware that he has to have enough answers built into his scheme to be able to keep defenses honest.
Speaking of finding answers, Eagles Head Coach Chip Kelly may get all the attention from the national media, but his defensive coordinator Bill Davis is a fantastic coach in his own right. Davis came into last season’s Monday Night Football matchup against the Colts with a talented and fundamentally sound 3–4 defense that was an absolute nightmare for just about everyone they faced.
We’re all well aware that when defenses start loading up the box to stop the run, that’s when it’s time to threaten them deep with the pass, but sometimes a way to keep the defense off-balance and open up room for the power play is to keep the ball in the hands of your tailback and run a play that looks almost exactly like it.
This article will try to approach the situation from both an offensive and defensive perspective. What both sides are looking at, and why they make the adjustments they do.
The Defense
Before we consider the play in question, it’s important to look at it in context.
As was mentioned earlier, the core of the Colts run game is the power play, and much of Philadelphia’s answers on defense center around trying to shut it down. Their strategy is part X’s and O’s, and part technique.
The linebacker in yellow is the weak side inside linebacker, and he’s going to be very important in this article.
It may be hard to tell from this angle, but he’s actually aligned about a half yard deeper, maybe more, than the other inside backer. This is because of the scheme Philadelphia uses to try to shutdown the run. With the Colts showing such a heavy tendency to run towards the strength of the formation, that guy will usually be the man chasing down the play from behind.
As a result, the Eagles have coached up whichever of their two inside linebackers happens to align away from the strength to line themselves up to a yard deeper than their counterpart, in order to help avoid the mess of tangled bodies that ensues whenever the offense tries running the football off-tackle away from them.
It’s similar to the style of defense used by New England in the Super Bowl, when Belichick schemed to keep an inside linebacker free at all times, and set up the defense to funnel everything back to him.
In short, the Eagles want to keep the backside linebacker in space and away from blockers, and they think the best way to do that is to line him up a yard deeper than the other linebacker lined up next to him
Before we get to the main play we’re analyzing, check out an example of this principle in action.
The Standard Power Play
In the diagram below, we’ve got a great example of a standard power play drawn up out of the Jumbo formation that the Colts love to use in the middle of the field just to get the run play going. Notice that once the Sam recognizes the play developing, his job is to cut off the path of the guard and keep his outside arm free, forcing the play back to the Mike, whose extra deep alignment allows him to stay free of blockers and make the tackle.
It’s also worth noting that once the nose senses the double team developing, instead of splitting the two offensive linemen in front of him, his job is to do what he can to occupy both of them and keep one of them from climbing to the Mike and sealing him off.
The fewer offensive players get close to the Mike on this play, the easier it is for him to do his job and make the tackle on the ball carrier.
Now that we know what’s supposed to happen, let’s see what actually happens.
The Colts are lined up in their trademark Jumbo package in the middle of the field, a concept Pep Hamilton brought with him from his days working with Jim Harbaugh at Stanford. The weak side inside linebacker is lined up deeper than the backer to the strong side, for all the reasons we talked about above.
The offense puts the pieces in place to run the power play to their left side.
Once he sees the right guard start to pull to the offense’s left, he starts to move laterally to chase the play while still remaining mostly parallel to the line of scrimmage until the ball is handed off and the play is fully developed.
As we discussed earlier, the nose senses the double team start to develop, and it’s because he occupies both linemen that the Mike is able to come after the play at this angle and still remain untouched by any offensive linemen
The angle of the pursuit may seem like a small detail, but it has everything to do with why he’s lined up a yard deeper than his counterpart.
As with a lot of other concepts in football, it’s all about spacing, and that extra yard that he starts out with gives him just enough room to roam free and chase down the power play from the backside.
In this instance, the weak side inside linebacker, #95 Mychal Kendricks, would be in perfect position to make the tackle, but the strong side inside linebacker, #59 DeMeco Ryans, fits up wrong on the pulling guard, spilling the play to the outside, instead of forcing it back into the teeth of the defense where Kendricks would be waiting.
To be clear, the safety doesn’t do a great job on this play either, since he doesn’t get deep enough to take away the angle to bounce the play to the outside, but it would’ve been a moot point if Ryans had attacked the guard with the proper shoulder.
Bradshaw bounces the play to the outside, and the Colts pick up a huge gain.
As I wrote about recently, these kinds of compressed formations can be very good at creating space for your skill players out on the perimeter.
Still, by the middle of the second quarter, the Colts have recognized this technique from Philadelphia, and the depth and aggressiveness from the backside linebacker is why they installed the next play on our list.
The Power Play Adjustment (Switch)
The Colts line up on the Philadelphia five yard line, coming out of the 2 minute warning and trying to punch the ball into the end zone before halftime. After a quick pass out to Ahmad Bradshaw on first down on the play before picked up nine yards, the Colts find themselves in a great position, 2nd & 1 on the five.
The play is designed as an exchange of blocking responsibilities between the wing (#84 Doyle) and the pulling guard.
On a standard power play, the guard would pull around and up to the second level to get a body on a linebacker, while the fullback/wing/tight end would kick out the end man on the line of scrimmage. In this scheme, it’s completely different, for a couple of reasons.
First of all, as we just spent a whole lot of time talking about, Philadelphia has designed their defense to keep the Mike linebacker free to roam around and make tackles, and it starts by lining him up a half a yard to a yard deeper.
In a normal power play, the pair of tight ends to the left would combo back to the Mike, but as we saw on the previous play, this gives the Sam linebacker an opportunity to fly downhill into the open gap and (assuming he takes on the guard with the proper shoulder) force it back to the Mike for the tackle.
So with this scheme, instead of giving the Sam and the Mike time to recognize the play, come downhill and shut it down, Indianapolis will aim to get bodies on them right away with a much more north and south approach.
By getting a body on the Sam and Mike linebackers right away, it reduces the amount of time they have to read and react to the play in front of them.
Even better, in the case of the center-left guard combo, if the Mike vacates his position in the middle of the defense, all they have to do is create a tiny seam in the A-gap for the runner to slip through, and there won’t be anyone else between Richardson and the end zone.
Not only that, but because of the timing of the kick out block coming from the right guard, if the picture is cloudy in the A-gaps, the offense will create a lane anywhere from the A to the D gap off-tackle, depending on how things shake out.
Richardson should try to hit the play tight up the middle unless he can’t, then read it inside-out until he finds the first open gap and a running lane. The priority should be on picking up enough for a new set of downs first before he starts thinking about a score.
Indianapolis brings on 13 personnel just like they have many times in this game already, and align #83 Dwayne Allen and #84 Jack Doyle in a wing alignment to the left with #80 Coby Fleener the lone tight end to the right side. Reggie Wayne is the only receiver on the field, split out wide to the left.
As predicted in earlier, the defense is over-shifted to the strength of the formation. Not only is the Mike stacked over the top of the nose, the Sam and strong safety are both perched to the wing side of the formation, ready to fill the alley and force any run to that side back into the teeth of the defense. Even the free safety is noticeably focused on the strength of the formation.
By pulling a guard and running Richardson tight in the A-gap, the Colts hope to use Philadelphia’s aggressiveness at the linebacker position against them.
The play is designed to look exactly like the standard power play, and the hope is that the Mike linebacker will play as aggressive as he’s been doing all game long, especially on run downs. In theory, all the Colts have to do is get some movement on the nose to pick up the first down, but if things work out how they hope, Richardson may have a chance to stroll into the end zone practically untouched.
At the snap, Luck reverses out just like on the standard power play, and the right guard starts to pull to the left. However instead of following the standard path for a guard pulling around to the second level, he stays almost parallel to the line of scrimmage, aiming to kick out any defender on the edge, especially the strong safety.
Note the reaction of the Mike, as well as the combo block between Allen and Doyle at the wing. With the Sam flying downhill so quickly, Doyle comes off the combo block and opens up to seal him off from the play.
(This actually puts him directly in the path of the pulling guard)
Now that Richardson has the football, he should be pressing the A-gap hard, especially given the opening that’s appearing right in front of him.
In theory, the center and left guard are supposed to combo up to the Mike linebacker who was stacked on top of the nose, but given his aggressiveness, and the extra depth he’s playing with, if they create enough movement in the A-gap, Indy will pick up a first down, and hopefully the Mike will vacate his spot in the middle of the defense and go chasing after that guard to the outside.
Unfortunately for Indy, that doesn’t happen. The Mike #59 DeMeco Ryans does a great job on this play of understanding what’s happening, and sticks with the play, and #91 Fletcher Cox beats the left tackle Anthony Costanzo to help bring Richardson down.
Still, because of the misdirection used by pulling the guard as well as the extra deep alignment Ryans was playing with, he can’t get to the ball in time to keep Indy from picking up the first down. The Colts will now have four downs to score from the four yard line.
Conclusion
To the casual fan watching on television, the topic of linebacker depth and alignment probably doesn’t enter into their minds. After all, I can’t think of a single time when an announcer or color commentator brought it up.
Still, details like these are what make football such an intriguing and engrossing game to study and understand. They’re also the reasons many coaches can’t sleep at night, because when an extra half-yard difference in linebacker depth is a big part of your opponent’s game plan, you can sometimes run yourself ragged searching the tape for what other hidden keys you can find.
As this article shows, defensive coordinators are just as interested in creating as space as the offensive guys are, and at the end of the day, these little wrinkles are just creative ways to get the best most talented athletes in space and allow them to do what comes naturally.
As much as we X’s and O’s guys may hate to admit it sometimes, it really is that simple.
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