The Best And Worst Defensive Back Plays Of The NFL's Week 3 With Darius Butler

Let's move on to the final thing of this beautiful Tuesday. I think it's going to make us better, make us smarter. We thought it was going to be a lot of good D. You know what I mean? We thought it was going to be a lot of that good D. Instead, it's become kind of bad D with a little bit of good D. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for Everything DB with Darius J Baldo. Let's go. Some good D, some bad D. We'll start off with a play that is bad D, but a play that we've seen a thousand times now. I'm going to break it down real quick. Tyreek Hill, out of the hill, you get wide open a minute and a half into the game. Right now, pre-snap, it'll be half field coverage up top, so cover two up top. Kareem Jackson, one of the highlighted safeties, so he's responsible for his deep half of the field. That's Tyreek Hill up top, that receiver lined up to the left of the offense. And down bottom, quarters coverage, so when you have a split safety coverage, you deal with your issues as a safety. We got our issues over here. You have your issues over there. Once the ball is snapped, Tyreek Hill's going to run kind of like a post route. Down here, Chosen Anderson, he's going to run a dig right across her. Actually, rewind that real quick. Quick point. We talked about the motions and shifts and all this. What the Dolphins did, every play I broke down, I went and watched, that was a 15-plus yard play. They had a quick motion like right before the snap, and right here, it's the, right here. Tyreek Hill's going to extend that flat defender out in quarters down here, and that just makes the picture clearer for Tua. But then you'll see, it's not one of those timing rhythms. So right here, Tua wants to throw the ball. That's where he's usually throwing the ball in this offense. It's not open right now, but because of the great protection up front, Tyreek Hill's just going to keep running to the open space because these two safeties, that safety in that corner at the bottom, took Chosen on the cross, which they're supposed to do. So nobody was technically wrong on here. You know, this deep half safety, he's not even on the screen because he's like, this is Tyreek Hill. I don't want this dude running fucking past me, so let me get as deep as possible. But then once you get that deep, you'll never get back to Tyreek Hill catching the ball. So that's how it ended up happening. He ends up wide open. Not really how the Dolphins drew it up, but you just try to find space. That's what good players do. So you'll see it here with this protection. It gives Tua the opportunity to say, OK, I'm back to this fifth step. Not nobody's open, but I can step up and wait until Tyreek runs to the open space. When Tyreek catches the ball, there's no pursuit angle, you just run straight to the pylon? Yeah. At that point, once he catches it, that's your only hope. And he kind of got close. Hey, he's kind of squatting here. He's done. No, that's underneath the fender. He's kind of where he's supposed to be. No, no, I'm talking about Tyreek. Oh, yeah. He's expecting the ball. He's kind of squatting right there. He's expecting the ball in that window, and then he just kind of, oh, shit. Oh, shit. Wait a minute. There's there. Boom. So that's good players just being on the same page. It's almost like a scramble drill, but not. Good protection with that O-line, because if he wasn't protected, he wouldn't be able to step up, read the field, make that throw. Second play. Unbelievable play here. We've seen this with Shanahan in the past. We've seen this with other coordinators. So right now, it's nickel. Pause it real quick. So it's nickel. So at the bottom, that was St. Brown in the motion, and he motioned across in the nickel. Since we have three DBs on the field, I don't have to run with that receiver as this corner down here. So instead, I bump over, and now I'm guarding a tight end. Now, this is kind of foreign territory for corners. You're never one yard from the line of scrimmage guarding a tight end, because when you are in that position, typically linebackers down safeties, they're used to dealing with play action and having good eyes and reading their keys. Cornerback's not so much. So now he's responsible for Laporta, but he gets the play action. Bad eyes. So now Laporta's by him. Sucked him up. Bad D. You're getting sucked up. Bad D, for sure. Getting sucked up, AJ. And now right here, now you've got a deep field safety, right? You've got a deep post safety. So he's your only hope, but with golf rolling to the left, he's anticipating a corner route. Laporta gives him a hint to the corner, and then goes to the post, and it's literally just how you drew it up. And where is the ball? You'll see it from the back copy. Where is the ball on the field? Right around the logo, in the alumni section, first and 10, tight formation, play action, rolling away. You see this free throw. He's rolling away. You'll see this free safety. You'll see the bind that this free safety's in once golf gets to his roll. Right now, you're anticipating seven route. He gives it to him. Boom. Foot in the ground. Going the other way. And now you've got Calais Campbell in your face, bearing down, and you still got to make a good throw if you're golf. He sets his feet, flips his hips, and lets it fly. Bang! Big time. That's a tough throw, man. Yep. I understand he's wide open, but that's a tough play to make as a quarterback. Rolling out to your left, stopping, having Calais Campbell in your face, that's a heck of a play by golf. Yeah. You've got to have a quarterback with a hose. Yeah. I've seen Aaron Rodgers throw a touchdown in this play. I can't think of the other quarterback I've seen. Mac Jones, I think. Probably not that guy. He might punch a guy in the balls. That's a tough play, though. Tough play. Hell of a route. Yep. Great route. Cornerback's putting a tough position off that motion. Laporta has the most receptions by a rookie tight end through three games in NFL history. Wow. They love him. Yep. And, D-Bud, you always talk about the alumni section. This is an alumni section touchdown. Two weeks ago, they ran a flea flicker in the alumni section touchdown there as well. Yep. So, expect it. That's a shot area, baby. Great play. Great execution. One more. One more bad D. One more. Jeez. Oh, jeez. One more. Actually, you know what? As I was watching that, you're kind of giving an excuse to the safety. You're kind of, like, explaining how this happens. Yeah. Because sometimes the offense, shit. Sometimes you just dial up a great play. Same with defense. Sometimes you dial up the perfect blitz. You beat the protection. You know what your offense is going to be in. Same thing with offense. Sometimes you go back. You've got to get beat by some shit to learn from it. So, we're going to be having the same conversations in the meeting room. This is one of them right here. Right now, you've got a great pre-snap disguise because they're showing a post safety, a middle field safety, a single high defense. You've got Stephon Diggs on offense. He's going to be motioning over. You've got big personnel on the field. Actually, this is 12 personnel, but it's one running back, two tight ends. The extra tight end up top is actually an extra O-lineman. And right now, you're just beyond, kind of beyond the alumni section, but it's still kind of like a shot area. Deep play action, and now down here in cover two, which they rotated to, you've got two deep seven routes, and you put, once again, that safety in the bottom. If you run it back one more time from the wide copy, this middle field safety, that's his disguise, right? But as a half field safety, you've got to get over there. You've got to get depth. So, he's going flat right now and not getting depth, and when you don't get depth, that affects your, obviously, you've got to be deepest to deepest on defense, and you're not great. You've got to have a quarterback, once again, with a hose that can put this ball on the line. Josh Allen obviously has that. You've got to get protection up front, and we've got two seven routes, two post balls. That's always tough for one of the defenders, and that's, once again, great execution from the offense. Shane Gillis called this, didn't you? Yes, he did. Shane Gillis said this was going to happen. He knew it. Shane was locked in. He was. He was locked in. It was unbelievable. I'm not a football analyst, dude. Playing possum. And then he goes 11 and whatever. Unbelievable. Picking Notre Dame guys, huh? Hey, how about this, though? You're just picking on a team that stinks? Jeez, D-Bud. You know? This is mean D. This is more about the good D right here. Okay, it's good D. It's mean. This is more about the good D right here. This is something. This is Justin Reed right here, and I talked about the Kansas City Chiefs defense this year. They've been playing great. It's something we've seen here on Everything D.B. a lot. Sometimes this guy up here, he bites that cheese. That's what the offense wants you to do. This is a high-low concept, so that slot defender, that tight end, he's going to run like a little stick. You're going to run that dig right behind him. I'm sure A.J. has covered a thousand of these, and usually you want to play this from the top down. You want to play it high to low as an underneath zone defender. Justin Reed does a great job reading the quarterback's eyes. He sees the first one, but then once Justin Fields tries to move him, you'll see it even better from here. You'll see exactly. You'll see him kind of calling out the route, so he's anticipating whatever it's going to be. Great eyes. As a zone underneath defender, you want your eyes on the quarterback, right? He's looking here to the left, and then as soon as he goes back to this dig, you'll see him put his foot in the ground, go back the other way, and make a play on the ball. Right now, boom. Foot in the ground. It's almost like one of those combine drills when you see a DB coach moving a DB or a linebacker left or right, and now this is it being illustrated on an actual football field game rep. Watching the film, what would you say is the Bears' biggest problem? Tips and overthrows. Bears' biggest... I mean, it's a lot. Dan came in here and talked about it. You don't have that confidence. Playing quarterback, playing any position in pro sports, you've got to have confidence and conviction in what you're doing, and then what the guys around you are doing. With Justin Fields, and it's definitely not all on Justin Fields. Yeah, it's definitely not all on him, because this is kind of what you want as a quarterback. Honestly, you take... Great plays are going to be made as well. I actually think this is just a great D right here from Justin Reed. Good D. It's a good D. Not necessarily a bad Reed, or a terrible throw. Sling around that good D, Justin, right? Justin Fields, but he's got to put it together. I don't see the confidence. I don't see the continuity here in that offense. Still staring down guys, too. Kind of, yeah. And that's when you don't have confidence, because now you don't just trust that I go from left and then I go to right, I can complete that dig ball, you know, two yards outside the hash. Here. Now, I'm not going... This was a pick, a great pick from Reed Blankenship, but I'm not going to necessarily put this all on Baker. Baker, I felt like he was good with his eyes, but this route concept is bad. For some reason, you've got Mike Evans down here, and he's going to run this crossing route. Pause it. He's going to run that crossing route as this deep field safety. So this is a quarters coverage down here, cover two up top. So once again, a quarter, quarter, quarter over here, half coverage up top. So once again, you split the field in half. So if Mike Evans was to run vertical, Blankenship's eyes and body would have to be positioned to stop him. But once he goes in and kind of dies, now he just has to look to the other side of the field and find work. And that's exactly where Baker's eyes... Yep, exactly. So that's exactly where Baker's eyes goes. Boom. If you run it back, they did a great job with this motion, kind of taking those underneath the fenders up top. So the motion... Yeah, so these two guys right here. So they go with that motion that came over. So that window's kind of open, but Blankenship did a great job finding work as that backside safety right there and reading Baker's eyes, but I don't think that concept did him any favors at all. Kind of set the safety up for the pick. Exactly. So right here, boom. So Baker's... If you go back again, Baker has good eyes, right? He does a plaque to fake. He looks left, but then once Mike Evans comes into where Bradbury's coverage is, now that deep field safety, he has no more threat over there. He's looking back. Makes an excellent play on the ball. This is something Breeders kind of made. This is kind of what he's going to be known for, I think, making plays on the ball in that deep part of the field. Got one on Aaron, I think. Yeah, first game. Yeah, he did. When he first got in there. Because he played, what, college for like 10 years or something? Yes. I forget what. Small college. 60-some games or something like that. Unbelievable for him. Yeah, I forget what it was. And then we asked Aaron, remember? Oh yeah. Hey, guy made a great play on you for a pick. Yeah, no he didn't. There wasn't anything he did. It was kind of more... I remember that. That was amazing. As was everything DB. Thank you. Thank you, bud. Great work there, pal. We appreciate the hell out of it.