Week 5 film breakdown: the Wright personnel
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| Tim Wright made a big impact in limited snaps. Jared Wickerham/Getty Images North America |
What a difference a week makes.
It was only a few days ago that this column was detailing the multitude of things that went wrong in the Kansas City game. Talk of Tom Brady's decline and questions of whether or not the offense had enough talent dominated sports talk for an entire week.
How then did Brady and his supposedly weapon-less offense drop a forty-burger on what had statistically been the best defense in football?
The players made it clear that it was just a matter of executing better, as you'd expect, but the coaching staff brought it's "A" game this week as well. After some questionable play-calling marred the season's first month, Josh McDaniels called a great game on Sunday night. They established the run and stuck with it, with their 46 attempts easily standing out as a season high, and that commitment to the ground game helped to open things up for the passing attack.
The raw numbers (46 carries, 220 yards, 4.8 yards per carry) suggests that the Pats simply lined up and overpowered Cincinnati at the line of scrimmage. However, a closer look reveals the opposite; in their 25 designed rushing attempts against the Bengals base defense, they only gained 58 yards, averaging a paltry 2.32 yards a pop. Granted, quite a few of those attempts where either in short yardage situations or meaningless clock killing drives late in the blowout, but 2.32 ypc is still an ugly number.
However, the Patriots were able to run all over the Bengals nickel defense. In 16 attempts against the nickel, they gained a whopping 160 yards, including runs of 11, 10, 14, 19 and 43 yards. With one less linebacker on the field, the Pats offensive line was regularly able to execute it's assignments, which often included sealing off the linebackers at the second level, creating massive gaps in the defense for Stevan Ridley and Shane Vereen to exploit.
The offensive approach was reminiscent of 2011-2012, when an Pats offense built around their dynamic duo at tight end terrorized the league. With Tim Wright now in the fold, the Pats finally have a second tight end to complement Rob Gronkowski as a threat in the passing game again. Matching up with Gronk is difficult enough as it is, but adding another tough cover in Wright can put defensive coordinators in quite a conundrum.
For example, take a look at Stevan Ridley's 43 yard run down the left sideline. The Patriots line up in "12" personnel (2 receivers, 2 tight ends, 1 running back), with Wright and Gronkowski flanking each side of the offensive line.
The defense already faces some tough decisions against this formation. With eight men at the line of scrimmage and hard running Stevan Ridley lined up behind Brady, the Pats are in good shape if they choose to run. However, Brady is free to audible to a passing play if the defense isn't playing proper respect to Wright and Gronk's ability in the passing game.
The Bengals clearly feared Wright as a pass catcher. Whenever he was in the game, the Bengals went to the nickel, with corner Leon Hall (29) moving inside to match up with him. Naturally, this compromises the Bengals size up front, as the 5'11", 195 pound Hall is essentially replacing the 6'2", 255 pound Rey Maualuga in the front seven.
The Pats quickly recognize the weakness and run right at Hall. Nate Solder takes advantage of an inside move by defensive end Wallace Gilberry to easily seal him off, setting a hard edge for Ridley to exploit. Meanwhile, Wright is tasked with blocking Hall. At 6'4", 220, Wright is very undersized for a tight end's normal blocking assignments, which often include defensive ends and linebackers, but he's plenty big enough to hold a stalk block on Hall.
Linebacker Vincent Rey (57) is unblocked on the play, but is half second slow in diagnosing the play. That becomes a fatal mistake, as Ridley is quick enough to avoid him in cutting to the outside, around Wright's block and into the second level. The play is already a victory for New England at this point, but turns into a home run play when Ridley makes an impressive juke to make Adam "Pacman" Jones miss. Aaron Dobson also deserves credit for a nice block on safety George Iloka, which frees Ridley up for the last 20 yards of the carry.
The scariest thing about that personnel group for opposing defenses? Even after making those dangerous concessions against the run, the Patriots have the ability to throw successfully if they choose too.
The Pats took little time establish that. Take a look at their fourth play from scrimmage: just as before, they line up with 12 personnel and the Bengals go nickel in response, with Hall once again responsible for Wright.
This time, the Pats opt to throw it, and Wright shows why he can be so difficult to match up with. His speed and athleticism forces opponents to cover him with defensive backs, as he's far too quick for any linebacker to handle, but Wright's size and ball skills make him a tough cover for corners as well. In this case, Hall is giving up 5 inches and 25 pounds.
That size difference doesn't even wind up playing a factor on this play, as Wright gets big separation thanks to a perfectly-run route. Once Hall bites on Wright's initial outside move, the play is over, as the safety Iloka is playing a deep centerfield shaded to the left (where Gronk and Edelman are running routes) and too far to make a play on the ball. The result is an easy 30 yard completion and a pumped up Gillette Stadium crowd.
Wright's obvious impact on the game becomes even more impressive when you consider he was only on the field for 19 of the offense's 87 snaps. 13 of those snaps were pass attempts, with Brady going 5-5 for 85 yards and a touchdown (17 yards per attempt) when targeting Wright. While he only saw six snaps as a run blocker, Wright was fine in that regard, and his presence as a tough matchup played an obvious schematic factor in the team's longest run of the night.
Veterans Dan Connolly and Ryan Wendell solidifying the interior of the offensive line certainly helped matters, but much of the offensive improvement simply stemmed from the coaching staff doing a much better job of putting players in a position to succeed. Be it the return of the hurry up offense, dedication to the run (especially against the nickel), or the usage of Wright to create mismatches, the game plan was full of adjustments that gave useful tactical advantages to the players on the field.
Adding a weapon and, perhaps more importantly, a matchup problem like Wright to this offense could be just the piece they needed to complement a core of Julian Edelman, Gronkowski, Shane Vereen and Stevan Ridley. Wright will make plays himself, but his bigger impact comes from how his presence on the field forces defensive coordinators to compromise their scheme. Ridley's 43 yard run is just one example of how having a player like Wright can help the playmakers around him, just as Aaron Hernandez did in the heyday of the two tight end offense.
Wright figures to be worked more and more into the mix as he gets more familiar with the Patriots thick playbook. If the offensive line continues to improve, Wright's impact on the offense could be great enough to make a lot of people rethink their judgement of that controversial Logan Mankins trade.
