Film School: Patriots at Bears


Classic case of a class you think you can nail in your sleep so you go out the night before an exam. I'm just gonna have one beer. Hang with the boys for a bit then tuck in early. When the next pitcher shows up you think, who cares? I don't really need to study, I know this shit cold. It's an elective for crying out loud. Then you show up hung over and reeking of bad decisions while the professor drops this non multiple choice dagger into your heart. Did we pass? Yea we did. But barely. And a C on this bad boy means there goes the one free dropped score for the year. Oh well. Class is officially in session.

A couple fun tuddies in this one. On both sides of the ball if we're being real with it. Do you want to see breakdown of those awesome Special Teams plays we made that resulted in 6? Too bad. You've come to the wrong place. That wasn't scheme or game plan. That was HIGH cuckolding another man on national TV, and that was Patterson making the 'pull back on the joy stick' Madden move to get sprung. Cool beans for sure, but beans don't pay the bills.

Why don't we look at another tuddy by, who else, James Wiggle White. I wanted to start with this play because it was a perfect combo of good scheme from Josh, combined with bad D from the Bears. Hey, all your plays don't have be perfectly designed to beat all defenses. Sometimes you play the Mew Dragon Tail + Solar Beam attack but they happen to be using the Confusion + Dazzling Gleam defense. Shit happens. All you can do in this life is call plays that puts your opposition in the position to potentially make a bad play, and then execute when they do. On this third and goal we lined up in shotgun with 4 WR and Wiggle in the backfield. The Bears counter with a dime package that leaves a LB on Wiggle if he releases. But it's third and goal, so DUH, he's releasing. Hoags comes in motion a few steps from the right and allows Brady to identify this man coverage the DBs are showing by moving with Hoags.


So you lose Flash from the frame but Josh calls a route where literally everyone takes it to Tom's left. Flash runs an out from the bottom of the screen. I've highlighted Jules running an option route that he takes outside at the goal line. Flip is running a deep cross to his left in the back of the endzone. And Hoags runs an in cut across the goal line, also to his left. This leaves White 1v1 with a LB with everyone on earth sprinting away from the right side of the field like it's NYC in an Avengers movie. HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM I wonder where Wiggle is gonna go??


Obviously he sticks his left foot in the ground and Carmelo Anthony jab steps this dude to death. Look at this throwing lane! Looks like me and my boys during Thanksgiving when we're running routes while the turkey cooks, but we don't want to go too hard since we're in sweaters we plan on wearing next Thanksgiving.


Watch the video in all it's glory. Now that my friends, is the shimmy shimmy shake.
I may have ignored our Special Teams prowess but you didn't think I could go a whole lesson without addressing the Tits Trubisky scrambles did you?? Anything that vomit inducing and you know you're going to have to put it up on the white board. Third and 6 and we put Clayborn, Butler, and MY BOY Trey Flowers as the big dudes with their hands in the ground in this dime package. HIGH and Van Noy are the LBs standing. up.


We send four rushers, with HIGH going, and Van Noy releasing with the running back. Initially it's all good. High and Butler run a nice stunt in the middle, and Clayborn is swim moving his way around the edge. Bravo. That's how you get pressure without extra blitzers.


Now it all goes to hell and two people are the main culprits. First Clayborn runs too far inside. Listen to me loud and clear buddy. A-B-S-T-E. ALWAYS BE SETTING THE EDGE! Flowers is right there. Are you blind? Force Tits that way instead of blasting into the same lane and allowing him to circle back. Granted, Tits ran SO far backwards there wasn't much help up the middle right away, but still the general rule of thumb is force the opposition to where you know help will be.


Once Tits broke contain from Clayborn, we were in trouble already. But there was one last line of defense. Adam Butler. He's looking ar one OLineman in his way, and a tired quarterback trying to make a play on third down. He can either a) make sure he gets outside leverage on the lineman, forcing Tits back into the middle of the field where the ENTIRE Patriots team is, or he can b) jump inside the lineman like a sick twisted psychopath and allow Tits to waltz into the end zone for a third down tuddy run that counts for 8 yards but spanned 70 yards and humiliates Patriots wall defenders for life. He went with B...


This Jules tuddy to open the game capped off a great drive that had me thinking blowout. The reason I'm bringing it up here is because this is a play I've seen us run multiple times this year. I made a note of it last week but didn't blog it. When I saw it go for 6 against Chicago I knew it had to make the lesson plan. We've used it on third and shorts already, and this was another third and 1, but this one was close to the goal line which added another wrinkle. You've got Jules, Hoags, and Dwayne Allen in trips to the left. Dwayne is doing a cameo in the Gronk role in this formation. Then you've got Flash iso'd at the bottom of the screen. The Bears are in one single high safety, almost daring Tom to throw it that way.


The key to the play is this small motion from Jules here before the snap. He runs in only 2 strides, but this does something so important. It completely takes away the defense's ability to jam him at the line. Now at the time the ball is snapped, he's essentially behind Hoags and Dwayne, and even if the Bears did sniff out this screen and wanted to get in Jules face they can't.


When he catches the ball he is basically already running forward. Hoags and Dwayne are free to block their DBs because the ball comes out so fast. And the DB covering Jules is stuck in the sunken place.


Jules does the rest on his own, breaking tackles to take this thing all the way to tuddy room, but I'm highlighting this screenshot to show you that this is the first contact he faces on the play based on the design. That's 5 yards from the line of scrimmage! We did get a screen blown up later in the game, so I don't want to get ahead of myself, but this is starting to feel like a slam dunk on short yardage.


For your viewing pleasure:

Finally, if we learn anything together this entire year, here is it. The single most important topic of study.

DON'T YOU EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER LEAD WITH YOUR THROWING SHOULDER AGAIN.