Remember the Music City Miracle? The play that sent to Titans to Super Bowl 34? They were in need of another miracle in that game, but it was the Rams who came up on the receiving end.
Most Super Bowls don’t come down to a final play in the red zone. This one did. The Titans were on the Rams 10-yard line. The score was 23-16. The time on the clock was 00:06.
In the waning seconds of the miraculous game before, it was Frank Wycheck to Kevin Dyson to Super Bowl. This time around it was the same cast of characters, but a much different outcome.
The plan was for Frank Wycheck to run straight up the field to draw attention away from Dyson, who would be running into the end zone for the touchdown. It didn’t quite go according to plan. Rams linebacker Mike Jones stayed with Wycheck…until he saw Dyson catch the ball. He then turned and made The Tackle that will live in infamy for St. Louis, and caused the One Yard that Tennessee will never forget.
A play has probably never been quite so accurately described as, “so close, and yet so far.”
Ok, I’m going to make you guys work for today’s film room post. You’re going to have to follow links to get to the actual “film” part. And there’s to be no complaining because a) it’s not hard to do and b) I’m not enough of a rebel to knowingly post illegal footage on my website, so you’re supporting a good cause.
Today we’re going to learn how to find the single high safety through the excellent work of Seattle free safety Earl Thomas. He’s all kinds of crazy back there – due largely to the fact that Pete Carroll is all kinds of crazy when it comes to developing defenses. The Seahawks were hanging out near the bottom of the pile of the league’s best defenses before his arrival; now they live at the top of the list.
Earl Thomas is their resident single high safety when they use that coverage (and most of the time, they do). Take a look at two of the great interceptions he made last season: Here, a Pick 6 against the Bills, and here, in a comeback attempt against the Falcons in the playoffs.
He comes out of nowhere to pick those passes, right? Exactly. Let’s figure out how to find him using his interception against the Redskins in the Wildcard round. Watch the pick here, and then watch it again and again and again.
So where did he come from?! Let’s take a look from an overhead perspective. Here’s the first look the Redskins see as they approach the line of scrimmage:
The Seahawks are so good with this they aren’t even trying to disguise it. They’re going to run the single high and they’re going to beat you with it…and you’re going to know it’s coming the whole time.
Taking a look at that screen shot might give you a bit of sympathy for quarterbacks trying to read the defense when contrasting it with this screen shot:
Oh yeah, people are moving and shaking. Except for Earl. He’s still back there taunting you as the single high.
Let’s see if anything changes once the ball is snapped:
There’s a bit of movement, but mostly everyone is set. And it’s blindingly clear who’s hanging out up top as the single high. Earl!
Here’s a question: just from what you see on the field, is this Cover 1 or Cover 3?
One high safety playing zone with three defensive backs playing man up front = Cover 1! (If that’s clear as mud – have no fear. We’ll go over how to figure out who’s on the field and what they’re doing with one simple trick in next Monday’s Fundamentals post.)
Let’s take a look at the actual interception:
See how Thomas is closing in from the inside? We can tell he’s coming at the ball from the middle of the field as the single high safety. And see how Brandon Browner, 39, is defending from the outside? He was the defensive back on the line playing man against the wide receiver.
Once you have the foundation of Cover 1/2/3 and man vs. zone, finding the single high safety isn’t hard at all. Can I get an amen?!
Charlie Batch earned one of our favorite moments of 2012 with his tenacious Week 13 win over the Ravens. He is currently a free agent, and while he hasn’t officially been cut or resigned to the Steelers roster, after they drafted QB Landry Jones it became fairly apparent that Batch won’t be returning next season after spending over a decade with the team.
Batch certainly won’t be bored should he find himself out of a job this season in Pittsburgh. His foundation, the Best of the Batch Foundation, will keep him plenty busy, with multiple initiatives that serve Southwestern Pennsylvania.
Aside from loving what they do to empower the community, I really love how they’re phrased their mission statement: “Best of the Batch Foundation provides financially challenged youth and their families with the purpose, desire, and resources to give their best efforts in all they do throughout their lives.” It’s getting to the core issue, giving hope and help to families who would otherwise need to give their best effort to simply making it through each day.
My favorite outreach (and there are a LOT) might be the Best of the Batch club, which rewards students who demonstrate excellence in academics and extra-curriculars with a trip to the Pro Football Hall of Fame with Charlie Batch. How cool is that?!
The foundation also has a really creative holiday campaign. Charlie and other Steelers teammates sign autographs for fans during the Batch-A-Toys drive in exchange for new, unwrapped toys. Over 25,000 have been given away so far!
Here’s a peek into this past year’s giveaway:
Thousands of kids have been impacted by the work of the Best of the Batch Foundation (included a few you might know!). If Charlie isn’t on a field this fall, he’s sure to be found furthering that impact even more.
(Also – two thumbs way up to the Best of the Batch Foundation for having one of the most beautiful, functional athlete charity websites I’ve come across so far. Job well done!)
I have to tell you, I’m pretty excited about the next two weeks on the blog. There is a lot of great information coming your way! Today we’ll wrap up our defensive fundamentals (for now). Next week, since we’ve been talking about so many different formations, we’ll talk about how to identify who is on the field and what they are doing when a) the player’s position is unclear and/or b) the funky formation is unclear. It should help a TON.
For now, let’s finish up on defense and talk about an increasingly popular defensive look: deploying the single high safety.
Let’s turn to our new friend Coach Billick for a basic introduction to the single high safety concept:
Not too bad, right? The single high safety is usually the free safety. He plays zone up high, hence the name, “single high safety.” There are just a few nuances from last week’s lesson on zone coverage, so let’s go over them.
Here’s the formation that Coach Billick drew up:
There are a few interesting things to note in this formation. Take a look at the defensive line and the second level. From a numbers standpoint only, it looks like a fairly traditional 4-3 formation, right? Four guys on D-line, 3 backers behind. But when we look at the letters, we see that Coach Billick has actually drawn up something that looks like a variation of a 3-4 offense, in which there are 3 defensive linemen on the field and 4 linebackers.
So is this a 4-3 or a 3-4? Great question! I didn’t know the answer, so I started doing some research and Greg Cosell came to my rescue with this article. I would have originally been inclined to say that it depends on the lineman’s stance: if he’s in a 2-point stance as a rusher, it’s a 3-4; if he’s in a 3-point stance as a blocker, it’s a 4-3. But luckily Greg is smarter than me and called me out: stance has nothing to do with formation. It’s all about gaps. If it’s a 2-gap concept in which defensive linemen are responsible for 2 gaps each, therefore lining up over the tackles (ends) and center (nose), it’s a 3-4. If it’s a 1-gap concept in which defensive linemen are responsible for 1 gap each, it’s a 4-3. (The whole article is well worth a read if you have a few spare minutes!)
So what do we have above? According to Greg, it’s a 4-3. (I think.)
(What do you guys think?)
Ok: moving on. We didn’t talk about Cover 1 last week because it’s not strictly a zone coverage. Let’s take another look at the illustration to flesh it out:
Cover 1 is a mixed coverage: the deep safety is playing zone, and all of the other defensive backs are playing man-to-man. We can see that the corners are covering the receivers and the strong safety is covering the tight end. It’s a single high safety concept because – you guessed it! – there’s a single safety up high in the formation.
Boom.
But a single high safety doesn’t automatically equate Cover 1, as Coach explained next:
There can be a single high safety look in a Cover 3, too. The corners can cover the outside zones while the deep safety covers the middle third up high. It’s a little bit challenging to see on the screen shot, so here’s another example:
In this look, we see one single high safety in the middle and two defensive backs deep outside. That makes this Cover 3 – 3 defensive backs playing zone deep – with a single high safety.
BOOM.
Isn’t this fun?
On Wednesday we’ll have even more fun in our Film Room post looking at how Seattle is effectively utilizing the single high safety look with the wonder that is Earl Thomas. Can’t wait!
Five on Friday has arrived once again! Here are a few notes from this week’s NFL news:
1. David Garrard is the latest QB to leave the Jets roster. The move was a little different than most because it was of Garrard’s own volition; he hasn’t been able to recover from the knee injury that has kept him sidelined for the past few seasons and is ready to call it a career. He’s a good guy, and I’m glad he’ll be retiring as a Jaguar.
2. Even when things seem to be looking up for Sanchez – no Tebow, no Garrard – he still can’t seem to catch a break. Panthers WR Steve Smith reportedly “dissed” Sanchez by saying he wouldn’t want to be thrown “a paper bag sandwich” by the Jets QB. I’m not entirely sure what that means. Sanchez, who has never lacked for class, responded by wishing, “him and his team a healthy, successful season.” But one can only hope that internally he made a few quality retorts about non-sandwich items to throw at Smith, if only for the sub-par insult.
3. The veterans mentioned in last week’s post – Urlacher, Woodson, and Freeney – are started to garner more interest. Freeney might land with the Chargers now that they’ve lost defensive starter Melvin Ingram for the season with an ACL tear. Woodson is being considered by both the Broncos and the Giants (the Panthers and Raiders have reportedly had interest as well). There are Urlacher-to-Vikings rumors milling around, but that’s probably only because Minnesota is where all NFC North players go to retire.
4. The Raiders added two notable names to their roster this week: wide receiver Josh Cribbs (Cleveland) and punter Chris Kluwe (Minnesota). Also on the Raiders radar: longtime Raiders executive Amy Trask resigned after 25 years with the team.
5. The NFL Network is airing their yearly countdown of the Top 100 Players in the league. The first 30 have been revealed so far (in true NFL fashion, they are released 10 at a time each week with an hour-long discussion panel following the announcement), and it’s always fun to see where your favorite players land.
And really, we’re back to a fairly barren time in the offseason, so it’s a well-timed hype fest. I’m all for it.
The first part of this history lesson should probably focus on reframing your perspective: there was a time in the not-so-distant past when it wasn’t at all abnormal for the Buffalo Bills to be perennial playoff hopefuls. Really. The 80’s and 90’s were the Bills’ golden years. They made the playoffs 10 out of 12 years in those decades, and even went to four Super Bowls back to back to back to back in the 90’s. They didn’t win any of them, but still, that’s a huge feat.
Then, in the ’99 season wildcard round in an away game against the Titans, something happened. And the Bills haven’t made a post-season appearance since.
That something, as you might surmise, was the Music City Miracle.
It was the 4th quarter. The Bills had just taken a 1-point lead by kicking a 41-yard field goal and were kicking it off to the Titans with 16 seconds remaining. The Bills objective was clear: do anything to run out the next 16 seconds and prevent the Titans from getting into field goal range.
Bills kicker Steve Christie kicked the ball off, and the Titans’ Lorenzo Neal made a standard catch. He then pitched it back to tight end Frank Wycheck, who threw it across the field to Kevin Dyson. Dyson proceeded to run, untouched, 75-yards for the touchdown, and the victory.
But it would be a few minutes before that victory was confirmed. Throwing a forward pass during a kickoff return is illegal, and if Wycheck’s pass had landed further ahead than where it was thrown, the touchdown would be revoked. It had to have been a lateral pass – a pass that goes either perfectly sideways or behind (and is legal at any point in the game).
The ref goes in. The ref comes out.
It was a lateral. Titans win a Music City Miracle, and eventually advance to the Super Bowl.
(That “1 Yard”? That’s another significant history lesson you can be looking forward to next week!)
