New England Patriots WR DeMario Douglas Film Breakdown

New England Patriots WR DeMario Douglas Film Breakdown

[Music] when people say anything negative about the Patriots wide receivers we need to start adding an except for Demario Douglas qualifier because he can absolutely play and he’s probably the NFL receiver that I’m highest on relative to consensus pop Douglas was a sixth round pick in 2023 and he wasn’t super productive as a rookie just 561 yards didn’t have a touchdown but I think he’s the best wide receiver Bill bich drafted since Julian Edelman watching him throughout the season he was clearly the Patriots most dynamic weapon on the outside but when I got into his tape and actually watched every snap I was blown away at how good he is compared to his statline he separates consistently against man coverage rarely has any drops he’s tough to bring down after the catch and I haven’t watched a single receiver that had more production left on the field due to bad quarterback or offensive line play I was planning on going through every missed opportunity one by one and doing a tally of what his production should have been when you account for inaccurate passes bad protection or misread from the quarterback but it got too long and repetitive so you’ll just see these plays throughout the video and at the end I’ll give you a brief rundown of the results of my charting and what his production should have been but he had the fifth lowest catchable Target rate in the NFL and you’ll see going through the tape all of the missed opportunities that should be converted with Drake May or jacobe breta quarterback these are his stats from 2023 you can see he ranked fourth in Yak per reception and for Miss tackle rate he did get a lot of screen targets so that’s slightly inflated but he’s extremely Dynamic with the ball in his hands he was in the top 25 in drop rate and on target catch rate dating back to college he’s always had extremely reliable hands so despite some size and catch radius limitations at 5’8 you can trust him to catch the football consistently and then he ranked very low in stats like success rate passer rating and EPA per Target but that’s easily explained by the three interceptions on plays where he was targeted but had no chance of making a play these are huge negative EPA swings that reflect poorly on him for some stats but aren’t his fault at all so getting into the tape for me the number one litmus test for whether or not someone’s a good receiver is can they win on a quick slant against man coverage and I think that’s probably pop Douglas’s best route it was his third most frequent route run at 8.7% the key with a quick slam especially if you’re getting inside leverage press man is to sell the outside release to create space so that you can break inside and separate you see this play against Washington he’s going to start out with some foot fire to close the space between himself and the corner at the top of his release he gives a quick jab step with the outside which causes the corner to step outside and use an outside hand punch and then he explodes off of that plant foot crosses the Corner’s face St juice does a decent job recovering but it’s a really nice catch in traffic by pop Douglas with the corner draped over him a little bit later in the game you see a more fast-paced release on a quick slant but it’s all the same strategy the first step is that you’ve got to close the space between yourself and the corner second thing you got to do is threaten a release in the opposite direction of where you’re running your route and then you got to accelerate out of your brake and use your hands to defeat the recovery punch once Douglas breaks inside St juice is going to throw up that inside recovery hand to try to catch the release but Douglas does a great job of wiping it down to release cont attack and extend that separation this play there on the goal line he’s running a quick slant against Taran Johnson in man coverage he takes a much wider initial path with his release really sells that fake to the outside but he has the ability to abruptly change Pace you can see the beginning of the route he’s kind of slow playing the release but he’s able to instantly change gears plant his foot and separate over the middle one of many plays where the quarterback is late Andor inaccurate getting him the ball a few years ago I was in school studying engineering and I just just wasn’t excited about doing that every day for the rest of my life and I decided to start this YouTube channel and make the jump to covering Sports full-time and it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made and today’s video is sponsored by Southern New Hampshire University’s online sports management program which lets you turn your passion for sports into a degree their programs are led by faculty with real world experience giving you the unique chance to learn from professionals and graduates all while building Connections in the industry so if you’re wanting to get your foot in the door in the sports world go to snhu.edu toz Sports also linked in the description to see if you qualify for snhu sports management program another one here against Trent McDuffy there’s no slow playing this release he’s urgent closing that space quick transition when he crosses the Corner’s face but bayy zappy puts this in the dirt and it’s uncatchable I love this route against Taran Johnson from week 17 he’s going to use more of a power skip release when he’s closing this space he isn’t wasting any time by moving horizontally is just a single step he covers a lot of vertical ground to really put the corner on his heels and then he lands on that outside foot which influences Taran Johnson to flip his hips to the outside and he’s so fluid out of his break the corner doesn’t have a point of contact and he’s wide open for what should have been a big gain so he’s a very nuanced route Runner and we’ll get into some other routes obviously but even just looking at quick Slants you can see the diversity of his release package and the different strategies that he has to manipulate Corners this is a really nice two-play sequence against Denver uh first play is just a simple quick slant against catch coverage not a whole lot to break down here but then just a few plays later again he slow plays his release starts to break inside like he’s running a slant but then he’s able to sink his hips separate on this whip route and get some yards after the catch when it comes to more deep to intermediate routes I think he does a great job of using his body language to manipulate the corner but then he’s also really good about accelerating in and out of his brakes right here he has good burst into the stem at about five to six yards into the route he’s already stacked the corner he’s breaking inside and he’s got the corner on his outside hip so he just has to sell that outbreak enough to really maximize his separation so he fully turns his head to the sideline gives a hard plant with the outside foot and then explodes out of the break and makes a really difficult adjustment to the catch nice play here against the Saints he’s running an outbreaking route but the corner has outside leverage so he’s trying to take away that break but you can see how Douglas creates outside Leverage by initially releasing inside that gets the corner to follow him and fully commit to covering a deep over or crossing route but then he crosses back to the outside covers a lot of lateral ground with really efficient steps and then it’s the same strategy at the break point that we just discussed he’s going to look in the opposite direction of his break give a plant with that inside foot and he’s quick out of the break but M Jones decides to throw it into double coverage another good example here against the Eagles of using head fakes to manipulate Corners with poor eye disci he’s got heavy outside leverage so he’s at an advantage running a dig route but he just maximizes that Separation by looking in the opposite direction of his break he’s able to get open cleanly over the middle he had some outstanding reps against Pat certan and off coverage it resulted in zero receptions but still really good teach tape this first one’s just a good example of staying Square throughout the stem so he isn’t giving certan any clues as to which direction he’s breaking because certan can’t get a read on the route he just can’t match Douglas’s quick out of his break next play he’s facing more extreme outside leverage so he’s got to do more to sell the in break with his inside foot you can see that plant steps just a little bit more exaggerated and he’s able to create separation and then this play he’s running a dig route so at the break point he’s going to plant step with the outside foot attacks or Tan’s leverage he crosses his face back to the inside uses his hands to avoid the contact zappy wants to throw up the double coverage prayer to Devonte Parker but he ends up getting hit and can’t really release the ball the coaching point for from the quarterback standpoint on pretty much every Patriots passing play last year is just you should have been looking in pop Douglas’s Direction so he’s a really good intermediate route Runner incredibly difficult to mirror on horizontal breaks but he can also create vertical separation and be a really good deep threat right here he just outruns Jain McMillan on this deep over makes an insane adjustment to the ball he’s not a player that’s going to like consistently box out corners and win these difficult contact jump balls but he has outstanding body control and ball tracking deep down the field there were a lot of plays where he’d run a slot fade or something and just easily separate down the field from the corner but the quarterback wasn’t looking in his Direction he isn’t a 43 caliber athlete he doesn’t have Sprinter speed or anything but he has no problem winning deep down the field this is a good example here of running a slot fade against off catch coverage he closes the space eats up that cushion the corner taking away the outside release so he just releases inside wipes down the arm to release contact and then sprays this route outside away from the safety coverage it’s a really nice throw for ma Jones and an even better adjustment to this pass by pop Douglas and then basically the exact same route here against the Jets again it’s single High coverage outside leverage from the corner so he releases inside wipes down the arm he takes the inside release just so he can stack the corner but then once he gets downfield he’s attacking this open space away from the center field safety this could have been a touchdown if M Jones led him to the end zone I think with Drake throwing him the football this is a touchdown but it ends up being way under thrown and it hits the corner in the back and then a major aspect of what pop Douglas brings to the table is what he can do after the catch looking at his route tree from 2023 8.4% of his routes and 24% of his targets were screens the rank column on this table is their route percentage rank out of the top 100 qualifying receivers so he had the highest screen route percentage of any receiver in the league and he just has Tom and Jerry level elusiveness after the catch he’s almost a guarantee to make the first Defender Miss he has sudden stop start ability he can weave through traffic and stack multiple Cuts together without losing momentum there’s no gear down or lag when he’s changing directions he’s kind of like a budget version of Z flowers but you only have to spend a sixth round pick on him he isn’t necessarily a powerful Runner you’re not going to see him truck through tackles that often but he’s just extremely difficult to even make contact with in open space so since I did the work of charting all these plays and coming coming up with what his production should have been I’m going to at least share the results I came up with seven receptions for 82 yards and a touchdown that he lost due to inaccurate or uncatchable passes like I said he had a 65% catchable Target rate on non-screen passes which was fifth lowest in the NFL he lost five catches for 48 yards and a touchdown on plays where he was wide open should have been the primary read but the quarterback didn’t throw it to him there were six receptions for 104 yards and one or two touchdowns lost because the protection didn’t hold up and the quarterback didn’t get rid of the ball or thre an uncatchable pass three receptions for 46 yards and one or two touchdowns lost on plays where he should have gotten the ball but the quarterback didn’t Target him and ended up making another good play regardless so it’s hard to criticize too much and three for 89 on plays that were debatable whether or not the quarterback should have been looking in his direction that comes out to 73 receptions for 930 yards and five touch Downs as a conservative estimate for what de Mario Douglas’s production should have been because we’re not even factoring in yards after the catch and I’m not just looking at every time he was open on like the back side of the play now you could do this for every receiver but I guarantee you the results would not be anywhere near this extreme and the only reason I charted all of this out is because I realized after I finished his tape that half of all of his good reps he didn’t even have a chance to make a play the last thing I want to briefly mention is his run blocking at 581 180 you wouldn’t expect him to be a very good run blocker and I think there might be some limitations there but I was actually impressed with what I saw on tape this play does a great job of getting in front of this linebacker in Pursuit so you can clear the way for bayy zappy to convert the first down right here he does enough to drive the safety back you can see the knock back on initial contact and he clears the way for ra Andre Stevenson to get a touchdown and then a good job here blocking in the alley passes off the first Defender drives the second one to the sideline and puts him on his back this is my scouting report for pop Douglas I think he could be more efficient on stop routes sinking his hips getting out of his break cleanly and at his size there are just some catch radius limitations but overall I was not expecting to like his tape this much and I just think he’s a really complete player I would expect him to be this team’s number one option and definitely the player that I’m targeting in the last round of my fantasy drafts [Music] [Music]

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In this video, I break down the 2023 film for New England Patriots WR DeMario Douglas, one of the guys that I see breaking out big time in 2024. His tape is phenomenal, but Douglas’ rookie stat line wasn’t the flashiest, as he was a victim of horrible QB play in New England. With Drake Maye or Jacoby Brissett at QB in 2024, Douglas should explode.

*New England Patriots WR DeMario Douglas Film Breakdown*

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