NFL1000 Week 2 Scouting Notebook: Giants Spent Wisely on Defensive Line
Welcome to Bleacher Report’s NFL1000 Scouting Notebook, a weekly series where we’ll use the power of the 16-man NFL1000 scouting department to bring you fresh insights into the game and explain some of the more interesting (and potentially controversial) grades we give players every week.
Let’s start this week with a little film study on the New York Giants’ rejuvenated (and expensive) defense and a Washington passing game that should save one particular concept for later.
The All-22: Giants Defense Is Dominant Again
In 2015, the Giants defense finished 28th in Football Outsiders’ opponent-adjusted efficiency metrics. Their defense finished 27th in efficiency in short-yardage rushing situations, 22nd in percentage of run plays in which the running back was tackled at or behind the line of scrimmage and 30th in sack percentage adjusted for opponent.
So in the 2016 offseason, the Giants spent money hand over fist to improve things. They gave former New York Jets defensive tackle Damon “Snacks” Harrison a five-year, $46.25 million contract with $24 million guaranteed and then doubled down with ex-Dolphins end Olivier Vernon, giving him a five-year, $85 million contract with $52.5 million guaranteed.
Through two games of the new season, the money on Vernon and Harrison seems to be well-spent. Vernon has seven total pressures and ranks among the top five in run-stopping rate for 4-3 defensive ends in Pro Football Focus’ charting metrics.
And Harrison, who was a monster of a run-stopper in the Jets’ hybrid fronts, is doing the same for Big Blue. With Harrison and fellow defensive tackle Johnathan Hankins in the middle, the Giants are proving to be a far more difficult force to contend with in the run game.
Harrison has created the ability for defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo to run some interesting formations to maximize the effectiveness of all that talent. Harrison isn't a sack monster, but that's not what you pay Snacks to do. You pay him to blow up the run, and that's going on now.
This particular gap concept was effective against both the Dallas Cowboys and New Orleans Saints. In base defense, Harrison would usually play the one-gap nose tackle, aligned between the guard and center, and Hankins would play the 3-technique tackle, aligned between the guard and offensive tackle.
Flipping that concept a bit, Spagnuolo lined up Harrison to one side of the center-guard combo and Harrison to the other side of the guard-tackle team, with linebackers ready to fill the openings left by the offensive linemen who would be struggling to block both of them.
Buddy Ryan’s great 46 defenses with the Chicago Bears of the 1980s used a similar principle—Buddy would put his nose tackle right over the center and his two ends on the outside shoulders of the guards, forcing the guards to block to the outside and guaranteeing openings for linebackers to flow through. Mike Singletary appreciated this, to be sure.
This is the third play from scrimmage against the Cowboys in Week 1 with 13:56 left in the first quarter:
Watch how Harrison (98) and Hankins (95) line up on the outside shoulders of center Travis Frederick (72) and left guard La'el Collins (71). At the snap, that gap scheme causes a separation along Dallas' offensive line, and the linebackers flow in to stack the box. Frederick and right guard Zack Martin (70) double Harrison, because if they don't, he's going to blow up that gap. Left end Jason Pierre-Paul makes the tackle, but the scheme wins this down.
Ezekiel Elliott has nowhere to go.
OK, you may be thinking to yourself, "This is a standard over front to the strong side with a linebacker at the point of attack and a safety playing force run-defender on the edge. Why not just throw the ball?"
It's a fair question, and you would think that New Orleans' Drew Brees would have checked to a pass against this concept more readily than Dak Prescott, a rookie quarterback who was playing in his first NFL game.
But this is what you see if you dial up the Giants-Saints game with 13:19 left in the first quarter:
Harrison and Hankins are to the outside shoulder of their guards, with a two-linebacker blitz look up the middle. Now, the idea with the defensive tackle alignment is to get the guards to block to their outside shoulders and create inevitable openings, and that's what happens.
Left guard Andrus Peat (75) makes an adjustment to block back inside, as left tackle Terron Armstead (72) blocks down on Hankins, but the X-factor here (and you see this more and more in New York's run defense) is the run blitz to the offensive right side by safety Landon Collins (21). Saints running back Mark Ingram runs for no gain, and again, the scheme wins the down.
Why didn't Brees read run and audible to the pass? This we don't know (he may have assumed the linebackers would drop into coverage), but it's interesting to note that after this Giants win, Collins told reporters he and his fellow defenders knew what the pass situation was based on Brees' shotgun set. That's something for the Saints to note for the future.
NFL history is full of high-priced free-agent busts, but Harrison in particular has proved his value in how he allows Spagnuolo to scheme with confidence and his teammates to play with convection. Snacks will help Vernon pad his own pressure numbers over time.
The All-22: Why Kirk Cousins Is Fading Away
Washington quarterback Kirk Cousins was the lowest-rated passer in the Week 2 version of NFL1000.
That should come as little surprise to those who saw him overthrow open receivers, telegraph his passes and make some hideous reads. It includes one into triple coverage in the end zone with 10:43 left that led to a Barry Church interception and the Dallas drive that eventually won the game.
Cousins finished the 27-23 loss with 28 completions in 46 attempts for 364 yards, one touchdown and that really bad pick. The yardage total is high, but given his overall performance, that has to be characterized as statistical noise.
People have a lot of issues with Cousins’ abilities right now, and it would take an entire article to get into all of them. So let’s get specific.
The primary issue among the Washington, D.C., football media (many of whom used to play for the Redskins) is the number of fade routes called when their former team was in the red zone. Sonny Jurgensen, who may be the greatest pure passer in franchise history (don’t laugh; Vince Lombardi used to marvel openly at Jurgensen’s arm back in the day), asked head coach Jay Gruden after the Dallas game about the high number of fade throws and their relatively low hit rate.
“Coach, why do people fall in love with the short fade down at the goal line?” Jurgensen asked Gruden on the Redskins Radio Network postgame show (via Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post). “We tried it three times!”
“Yeah, we tried it three times, and we’ll try it again three times next week if we have to,” Gruden answered. “Just, we have very good matchups there, and if you have a running play called and they’ve got nine or 10 people in the box, it’s tough to get a yard sometimes. So we’ll figure out ways to get a yard running the ball down there, but we will continue to work our matchups one-on-one if need be.”
In short, a fade pass is one in which the receiver will run a vertical route with enough cushion between him and the defender, and between him and the boundary, to reach up and catch the ball at its highest point. It requires timing between the quarterback and receiver, excellent technique overall from the receiver and a combination of throw timing, touch and arc from the quarterback.
Most of all, the quarterback must be calm in the pocket when throwing a proper fade. Tom Brady, who throws the fade route as well as any quarterback I’ve ever seen, does so in part for two specific reasons: his calm in the pocket and his innate understanding of his own mechanics.
Brady knows better than most how to integrate his body into any throw and that his footwork must be precise. A quarterback with imprecise or inconsistent footwork will always have strange results, because his body is not normalized for consistent production, and he’s always going to be guessing to a point.
Cousins has always had issues with mechanical consistency, and it starts with his lower body. He throws flat-footed; he throws from his back foot; and he doesn’t throw nearly often enough in a way that transitions from his back foot to his front foot and presents the right amount of velocity and accuracy. So he’s generally guessing to a point.
Plus, he tends to play frenetically at times, which affects his trajectory. And on the two straight fades before the interception to Church, he was in a suboptimal position to be throwing them.
Let’s start with the incomplete fade to Josh Doctson (18) with 10:53 left in the game. Doctson is on the right side of the field and takes outside position at the snap, with Cowboys cornerback Morris Claiborne (24) doing his best to eliminate anything but a boundary throw from Cousins.
There are two issues here, and one is on Doctson. He needs to be more aggressive with his body to avoid Claiborne's blocking him out, or he needs to start his route stem more vertically and kick to the sideline away from Claiborne.
If you want to know why Richard Sherman gets so many picks from fade routes, it’s because he feeds on receivers getting all chesty about outside position.
The other problem is that Cousins doesn’t give Doctson any chance to jump and catch—Cousins either underthrew this or didn’t adjust his trajectory. Fade throws are target-shooting to a point, and Cousins isn’t playing the game correctly.
He takes two steps and throws this ball flat-footed. It’s a total arm throw, which is great if you’ve practiced that and understand how that works, but the result didn’t show that. Moreover, it looked like Dallas knew what was coming, and given that its defensive coordinator is the brilliant Rod Marinelli, there’s a good chance of that.
The next play featured a fade to Jordan Reed (86) as he runs an outside route from the right slot. Again, Cousins takes a short drop and throws off his front foot this time. I might question the play design to a point, because while it does present a crossing concept against man coverage, it doesn’t give Reed enough time to match the throw against a short drop. But this is another instance where the fade doesn’t look smooth.
Worse yet, if you look to the left on the overhead angle, Cousins has Pierre Garcon wide-open on an underneath crosser. He doesn't even look there because he's so preoccupied with the fade, and the short-drop play design doesn't accommodate that read.
This is where the frustrations of Jurgensen and others start to make a lot of sense.
So, after those two failed fade throws, what does Cousins do on third down? He makes up for missing Garcon on the previous play by zeroing in on him this time around and telegraphing a throw into the heart of the Dallas defense in what has to be called one of the worst throws of his NFL career.
Not much advanced analysis need here—this is just bad.
Right now, Washington's fade problems can be thrown into three categories: play design, receivers who aren't positioning themselves for the throw and a quarterback who's not consistent enough in his mechanics to make as many of those throws as Gruden seems to want.
Until any of that changes, Gruden may want to consider leaving the fades for practice.
Scouting with Schofield: Stefon Diggs' Big Game Against the Packers
Each week, NFL1000 receivers and tight ends scout Mark Schofield will break down a particular aspect of the previous week's NFL action with in-depth play review on video. Here, he takes a deep dive on Vikings receiver Stefon Diggs, who won NFC Offensive Player of the Week after torching the Packers for nine catches, 182 yards and a touchdown Sunday night.
As part of the effort here with the NFL1000 project, we want to try to bring readers (and now viewers) behind the scenes to see the methodology involved in the grading process. In this short video, I break down three plays from Diggs' big game Sunday night against the Green Bay Packers.
On these three plays, you get to see some of the core traits that we are scouting in action. For example, you see crafty route running from the receiver, both in terms of selling his defender on a deep route before breaking back to the QB on a curl pattern and setting up a defender for a post pattern by threatening the sideline where there is no safety help.
You also get to see some hand strength at the catch point, both in terms of high-pointing the football in the end zone and making a diving catch on a deep ball down the field. Finally, Diggs demonstrates his ability after the catch, in terms of short-area quickness, play strength and change of direction. These three plays are just a snapshot of Diggs' night against Green Bay, but they illustrate his high level of ability and execution.
As he shows these traits at a high level on these three plays, you can understand why Diggs graded out as the top receiver in this week's NFL1000.
Ask the Scouts: Why Did You Grade [Player X] This Way?
Each week, our scouts post some interesting grades in their comprehensive film study. While most are easy to explain, some deserve a closer look. So we've posed questions on the following grades from Week 2 to give you a more detailed look into our process.
Question: Chargers cornerback Jason Verrett received a 93 grade, the highest overall for any player this week. What made his performance against the Jaguars so special? And was he really the best player overall?
Ian Wharton, AFC Cornerbacks Scout: It took a special performance for Verrett to claim the top overall grade. Shadowing one of the best receivers in the NFL, Verrett showed off his elite athleticism and versatility, limiting Allen Robinson to one reception through three quarters.
By the time Robinson became more involved in the offense, the Chargers were up four touchdowns. Verrett shut down Robinson in 15 press-man plays and gave up one reception on three targets in 15 off-man snaps.
Doug Farrar: NFL Lead Scout: I concur on Ian's grade, and the process. Verrett covered seamlessly against the Jaguars. As far as the question, "Was he the best player overall," that's subjective based on position and opponent, but when a player does that much to max out all the attributes we grade, we want to reward him accordingly.
Question: Allen Robinson was your 63rd-graded receiver this week. Was Verrett that good, or was Robinson that bad?
Alex Kirby, AFC Receivers and Tight Ends Scout: Robinson didn't have a "bad" game, but by his standards he was well below expectations. He faced excellent coverage by Verrett for much of the game, but he didn't help himself with average route running and the inability to create separation, either with the ball in his hands or without it.
Jacksonville moved him around to multiple spots in the formation and even tried to use stacked receiver alignments to get him a free release against press coverage, but he still wasn't able to create much space for himself. When he did, it was often as the "clear-out" receiver running routes to open up space for others.
For these reasons, it was just not his day.
Question: Cam Newton had a great game against a solid 49ers defense: 24-of-40 for 353 yards, four touchdowns and one interception. In addition, he had several outstanding deep throws. Why was he your 10th-ranked quarterback overall?
Cian Fahey, NFL1000 Quarterbacks Scout: Newton had a good game in Week 2. He just wasn't at his spectacular best like he was in Week 1 against the Broncos.
Newton opened the game with an awful decision that led to an interception deep in Panthers territory. He was late throwing the ball over the middle from a clean pocket. He was fortunate not to throw his second interception at the end of the second quarter when he badly underthrew a pass straight to a defensive back.
Those two plays had a big impact on Newton's grades. His ball placement also wasn't where it had been the previous week despite some spectacular throws.
Speaking of spectacular throws, Newton was the first player in NFL1000 history to receive full marks in a single category. He earned his 25 rating for his arm talent because he made a handful of throws that few quarterbacks in the league can make.
He had one strike to Greg Olsen for a touchdown and two perfect deep throws to Ted Ginn Jr.—one Ginn caught and the other he couldn't stay in bounds with. The one he couldn't stay in bounds with was an outrageous example of velocity, trajectory control and ball placement.
Newton didn't just hit deep throws. He also used his velocity to make passes catch up to shorter routes and manipulated the trajectory to fit the ball into tight windows over the middle of the field too. It was the type of exhibition that will linger in your mind for a long time.
Question: This doesn't make any sense. Buccaneers linebacker Lavonte David had no tackles—zero!—against the Cardinals in a 40-7 loss. How can he be your third-best 4-3 linebacker this week by grade?
Derrik Klassen, 4-3 Linebackers Scout: Lavonte David didn't make a name for himself in the box score, but he had an excellent game regardless. In the run game, David was flying downhill to fill gaps and disrupt plays, forcing them back to teammates such as Kwon Alexander. He had a small handful of plays where a blocker outmuscled him, but David is good for a few of those in any game.
David was surprisingly sticky in coverage and did his part to keep Arizona's passing attack at bay. Where he really flashed was as a blitzer. He never got all the way to Carson Palmer, but that was more a product of Palmer's getting the ball out quickly than David not doing his job. David, as a blitzer, was too fast and shifty for the Arizona offensive line to get a handle on, flying through gaps and pressuring Palmer into throwing the ball earlier than he may have wanted to.
He also had two quarterback hits, per Pro Football Focus.
Question: Why did Baltimore's Timmy Jernigan grade higher than J.J. Watt this week? Isn't Watt better than Jernigan? Doesn't he do more at a higher level?
Joe Goodberry, Defensive Ends Scout: We grade week to week, and this week, Jernigan graded out higher than Watt mostly due to run defense. It's not that Watt isn't good against the run; it's that most offenses won't allow Watt to disrupt their run game.
They'd rather run away from him, double him and try to trap-block him. There will be stretches of the game where Watt doesn't affect the opposing team's running game.
Jernigan, on the other hand, was disruptive against the Browns as both a run defender and pass-rusher. He made a few nice diving wrap-up tackles that placed him as one of the highest-graded tackling ends this week.
Both players sacked the QB, but Watt was his usual self and recorded two sacks and a couple more pressures. He scored higher as an athlete and pass-rusher. This week, Jernigan just edged him out in overall grade as he becomes one of the better defensive linemen in football.
Question: Arizona receiver John Brown went from 18th to 111th overall? In one week? How does that happen?
Mark Schofield, NFC Receivers and Tight Ends Scout: We try not to focus too much on production, but it is worth mentioning that he was targeted only three times on the afternoon, with one reception for 14 yards. He did get good separation on an out and up route early in the game (Q1 10:28), but the pass was thrown out of bounds.
On his one reception, he takes advantage of the cornerback playing off in zone coverage and giving him a big cushion, as he runs a comeback route and makes a good catch along the sideline (Q2 0:40), but this is dictated by situation. Tampa Bay is trying to prevent anything deep and is willing to give up this route.
On his third target, he rounds off an out route, and it allows the defensive back to break under the pattern (Q4 8:59). Another example of his failing to get separation comes on a touchdown throw to Jaron Brown (Q2 0:26) where he runs a dig pattern but is re-routed by the underneath coverage and cannot get free.
Other examples include at the 2:32 mark in the first quarter and 1:44 mark in the second quarter on a goal-line fade route. Finally, he saw only 28 snaps, lowest among the Cardinals' big four receivers.
Question: Last week, Amari Cooper was your 99th-ranked receiver, and this week, he's 19th. How does that work, and why is he still so low? I thought he was one of the best receivers in the game?
Kirby: There was a lot of fuss last week because of Cooper's low overall ranking. This week he climbs back up into the top 20 because of his improved effort, especially when it comes to route running and plays where the ball isn't coming his way.
His grade for route running would have been even higher if not for the play in the middle of the fourth quarter where he and Derek Carr connected on what would have been a game-tying improvised touchdown pass. Unfortunately for Oakland, Cooper lost track of where he was on the field and didn't realize he was standing out of bounds for a moment, before coming back on the field and hauling in the pass.
He put his incredible pass-catching ability on display once again with a couple of leaping grabs, but it's plays like the illegal touching penalty in the fourth quarter that will keep him from becoming a truly great receiver in this league until he finds a way to clean them up.
Question: Rams cornerback Lamarcus Joyner moved from 51st to sixth in your grades this week. What happened there?
A. Kyle Posey, NFC Cornerbacks Scout: Joyner had an incredible week. He was targeted five times against Seattle, surrendering one catch for two yards. He showed off great acceleration and closing speed to break up two passes and assist with three stops in the run game. Not bad for a guy playing through a broken toe.
I keep track of "shutdown coverages" where the only way you get credit for that is if the receiver makes a spectacular catch. Only Darius Slay of the Lions had more "shutdown coverages" than Joyner this week. The difference is Slay was beaten four times last week and Joyner wasn't beaten at all.
In this day and age, for a corner to play as much as Joyner and not to get beaten in coverage, while getting his hands on three passes and being that aggressive in the run game, it almost seems like sixth is too low for him.
Question: There's been so much talk about Jeremy Langford as the Bears' bell-cow running back after Matt Forte left in free agency. He ranked 47th in your running back grades this week. Do you think the Bears are mistaken?
John Middlekauff, Running Backs Scout: Langford wasn't the only reason for Chicago's anemic offensive performance against the Eagles, but he didn't help out enough.
While he did have a goal-line touchdown, you or I could have walked into the end zone on that play. While the offensive line struggled, any sort of daylight for Langford was immediately exposed against the Eagles’ fast and explosive linebacker corps. He lacked the burst to get on the edges and doesn't have the wiggle or playmaking ability to make something out of nothing.
Late in the second quarter, when the game was still close, he caught a ball in space and ran right into two defenders. While it would have been a tough play, a more dynamic runner might have been able to make a guy miss and pick up the first down.
Late in the fourth quarter, while attempting to go out for a route, he was decleated before he could ever find daylight. While Langford is a solid player, his limitations were on full display Monday night. With the Bears’ current quarterback quandary, Langford is not good enough yet to make things happen when the defense knows he is getting the football.
Question: You have Washington's Trent Murphy, not exactly a household name, ranked as your second-best 3-4 outside linebacker this week. He was 47th after Week 1. Why was he better than everyone at that position except Von Miller?
Zach Kruse, 3-4 Outside Linebackers Scout: Murphy was nothing short of spectacular against the Cowboys' dominant offensive line, including left tackle Tyron Smith.
In the third quarter, he won with hand usage and bend to get around right tackle Doug Free for a sack of Dak Prescott. Murphy then got the best of Smith on the first play of the fourth quarter, when he disengaged from the powerful left tackle and won around the edge with quickness to once again take down Prescott.
He wasn't done with Smith. Just a play later, Murphy used a quick swim move to beat Smith to the inside and help finish a tackle for loss. On the next series, he bench-pressed Smith at the line of scrimmage and took down Ezekiel Elliott on an outside stretch run for a four-yard loss.
Later, Murphy nearly saved the game for Washington when he fired off the snap, sliced past an attempted block by the tight end and walloped Elliott, who fumbled. Our grading is based not only on an individual's play but also on who that individual was going up against.
Murphy manhandled the best offensive line in the game during a dominant second half, which powered his impressive rise up the Week 2 rankings.
Stats courtesy of Pro Football Focus unless otherwise noted.
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