Andy Benoit on Friday September 1st posting at the Sports Illustrated/MMQB Website:
Thursday September 6, Kansas City versus New England Patriots, rookie running back Kareem Hunt on a deep downfield route.
Here's the clip again (in case YouTube kills the embed), plus a replay that shows defensive end Cassius Marsh forced by the play design into deep coverage. A defense would want a cornerback or safety, not an end, defending a deep route:
https://youtu.be/lhk1tV3BVVg?t=1m34s
And Sports Illustrated provides X's and 0's here:
http://gamestream.si.com/d436a68a-88d4-44c7-bc9f-86c79c391685
Benoit's postgame analysis:
Andy Benoit is my favorite writer on current football. His MMQB archive is here. And here I am a couple of months ago recommending his and Gary Gramling's 10 Things podcast to Dave:
http://koganbot.tumblr.com/post/162664727279/podcast-update-before-bed
K.C. will occasionally send a back on a deep downfield route out of the backfield. This is so unusual that most defenses don't have a response for it — they've never needed one.
Thursday September 6, Kansas City versus New England Patriots, rookie running back Kareem Hunt on a deep downfield route.
Here's the clip again (in case YouTube kills the embed), plus a replay that shows defensive end Cassius Marsh forced by the play design into deep coverage. A defense would want a cornerback or safety, not an end, defending a deep route:
https://youtu.be/lhk1tV3BVVg?t=1m34s
And Sports Illustrated provides X's and 0's here:
http://gamestream.si.com/d436a68a-88d4-44c7-bc9f-86c79c391685
Benoit's postgame analysis:
The play began with a patented Chiefs misdirection fake to [Tyreek] Hill, which widened the defense. It ended with Hunt finishing a wheel route out of the backfield, where the only man who could defend him was Cassius Marsh, a longtime 4–3 defensive end in Seattle who was acquired by the Patriots just five days earlier. Presumably, Marsh has not practiced downfield man coverage much. Worse yet, it was one-on-one coverage with no deep safety — a consequence of free safety Duron Harmon reacting to Hill and Eric Rowe double-teaming Travis Kelce instead of replacing Harmon in centerfield. As expected, they'd homed in on those two all night, and [K.C. coach] Andy Reid made them pay.
Andy Benoit is my favorite writer on current football. His MMQB archive is here. And here I am a couple of months ago recommending his and Gary Gramling's 10 Things podcast to Dave:
http://koganbot.tumblr.com/post/162664727279/podcast-update-before-bed