What’s the Best Play for 2nd & 23? It Depends
There’s an old phrase familiar to poker players, a piece of advice given whenever a new or inexperienced player just learning the game asks a question like, “should I raise with a pair of jacks in this spot?”
Want to know what you’ll hear over and over again?
“It depends.”
Thing is, there are so many different variables that play into a good decision at the poker table, that it’s very difficult to give any real concrete strategic advice without knowing a lot about what else is going on with the other players at the table, their own tendencies, strengths, and weaknesses, what they’re expecting out of you, as well as your own tendencies in the recent past.
The thing about poker that makes it such an intriguing game is that there is no standard flowchart for making the right decisions, and in fact, even if you make the “correct” decision, there’s a chance it may not work out for you.
In this way, Football is a lot like Poker
I was reminded of this last night, while browsing social media and watching some preseason football.
We’re all familiar with the cliches thrown around by NFL analysts during the game, and another one of them reared its ugly head last night during the Patriots-Packers game.
He’s right, there are lots of plays, but what play do you call on 3rd and 12? What play do you call in any long-yardage situation?
It Depends
Where are you at on the field? What’s the score? How much time is left? What tendencies has your opponent shown in this situation in the past? What about your own tendencies? Are there any matchups you should be especially aware of?
Ideally, these are questions the coaching staff should have already thought about before game day, which is why these guys spend so much time putting together their call sheet during the week. They need to be prepared for every possible situation, and it’s during these seemingly “impossible” situations where games can be won or lost, depending on how well the coaches manage the game and how well the players execute.
Of course, if your team is consistently finding itself in long yardage situations, you’ve got bigger problems, but that’s a totally different discussion.
So let’s take a random long-yardage play and talk about the thought process that goes into why that play was called.
You could find examples in just about any football game of long-yardage situations and how to manage them, but since I’ve been watching a lot of Seattle film lately for another story I’m writing, I decided to take one from the Seahawks and Panthers regular season game from 2013.
Here’s the Situation:
After a three yard loss on first down, and a holding call on 2nd down, Seattle is no longer in chip shot field goal range, and now finds themselves in 2nd and 23 from the 24 yard line.
At this point, Seattle decides to go with the low-risk/ high-reward approach.
Offensive coordinator Darrell Bevel’s first priority is getting closer to the goal posts in order to be able to salvage something from the drive. With no score, and two physical defenses on the field in this game, points are at a premium, and almost halfway through the second quarter, Seattle has a chance to take at least a 3–0 lead if they can manage the situation correctly.
So what do you do here? Are you the kind of guy who will take a couple of shots into the end zone and rely on your kicker to hit a 41 yard field goal on the road? Or would you rather try to make his job a little bit easier?
The Play
Here we see Seattle lining up in a 3×1 set, with #89 Doug Baldwin lined up at the #3 receiver position, in a close split off the left tackle, and #22 Robert Turbin lined up next to Russell Wilson in the backfield.
As the Seahawks offense is prone to do, they’re going to be packaging their run scheme with a bubble route, and Baldwin is the guy running it.
Based on the alignment of the defense, not only does the offense have a favorable matchup on the outside, with the nickelback #41 Captain Munnerlyn outflanked by the middle receiver #15 Jermaine Kearse, but Carolina still has six men in the box to play the run, and the nearest linebacker to Baldwin is #59 Luke Kuechly.
As you can see from the end zone, Kuechly is lined up inside of the defensive end to his side, meaning that once Baldwin takes off on his bubble route, he’s already got a head start on him.
The Old Bait ‘n Switch
So the decision is obvious, right? Not so fast.
It’s important to point out that Carolina has already shown a lot of defensive line movements so far in this game, moving the big guys around up front after the snap, stunting and slanting them so often that the pre-snap look is a poor indicator of what to expect.
It’s similar to what we talked about on Wednesday. The stunts and games aren’t there necessarily so that the defensive linemen can shoot into the backfield and make the play (though that can happen too), it’s more about keeping the offensive line off of the linebackers so they can roam free and get to the football.
That’s exactly what happens here, with the defensive end to the offense’s left slanting hard to the inside, exchanging gap responsibilities with Keuchly and freeing him up to chase the bubble route by Baldwin. It’s a classic bait-and-switch technique used by a lot of defenses to entice the quarterback into throwing the bubble route underneath and then giving them a different picture once the ball is snapped.
Here’s the wide angle on the play. Even though Baldwin has a head start on Kuechly, the two other defenders in the area are in position to slow down the play, either forcing him to the sideline or forcing him back to the inside where the rest of the defense is waiting.
With the ball thrown to the bubble, now it’s time for the guys on the edge to do their job.
Jermaine Kearse cuts Munnerlyn out on the edge, but what Baldwin is really trying to do is get out past the numbers and turn the corner down the sideline, cutting off of Ricardo Lockette’s block of the cornerback across from him.
The safety, #30 Charles Godfrey, comes screaming downhill from his spot deep in the secondary once he sees the bubble develop, and along with Munnerlyn, who recovers from Kearse’s cut block out on the edge to foce the play out of bounds.
Conclusion
So what’s the point? Why did I just spend five minutes describing a bubble screen, something you’ve seen a million times?
Because the difference between winning and losing is often about managing risk, and having a clear objective in mind in each situation.
In this case, Seattle was first concerned with getting points on the board, and the easiest way to do that was to get closer to the goal posts.
In some ways, it actually made play calling easier, because since that Seattle was no longer taking shots at the end zone, and was more concerned with picking up an extra 10–15 yards in the next two plays, it gave Darrell Bevell the ability to call just about any run, or in this case, a high-percentage pass against a soft defense.
Maybe they’ll get lucky and the receiver will break a tackle and pick up a big gain, but at the very least, they should be able to pick up a few extra yards and get in even better field goal range.
Instead of taking a couple of low-percentage shots at the end zone against a defense who was already prepared for that, they decided to take what the defense gave them, and it was their ability to make the best out of setbacks like this one that made the difference in a 12–7 win over Carolina that day.
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