Analyzing Los Angeles Chargers’ defensive success vs. Eagles | Pro Football Talk | NFL on NBC

Analyzing Los Angeles Chargers’ defensive success vs. Eagles | Pro Football Talk | NFL on NBC

I’ve got a couple of things that I I want to talk about based upon what you just said. Let me start with the Tarte play because and I’m always fascinated by the concept of film study and I think I would love to do that to watch film and look for tendencies in alignment in down in distance formation things they’ve done in the past. I’d love to know if there would have been any way to spot on the Chargers defensive film that when you’re at the line of scrimmage and you’re diagnosing the play ahead of time, is there something about that play, how the players were aligned, the down and distance, all the relevant factors. Do I see Tart doing something? Do I see someone else doing something that makes me think Tart’s going to drop out? Or is it the first time they ever did it right? Is it something they were just holding from Monday night, December 8th, and Tart’s going to pop out for the first time? Like, did like who won that game within the game? Was it was it they successfully fooled the Eagles and defied their own tendencies or was it something that maybe Jaylen Herz could have seen? I don’t know the answer to the question. And I’m not I’m not criticizing Herz, but I thought of that when you said like he well he you know he’s looking in different windows and he he you know doesn’t necessarily expect it. Well, if there was anything in the film study that may have given you a clue that’s the value of and you know why they spend all the time watching film. That’s why because if he had seen that, if he had known that was coming, he wouldn’t have pulled the trigger on that throw. Yeah, no doubt about it. And I think and I know when you talk about these plays and you talk about, you know, one of the popular things we see in football all the time is, hey, they have everybody up on the line of scrimmage. And when you see that, everyone’s like, man, here comes the blitz. But one thing that’s a part of the blitz for a lot of teams is, hey, they have five guys on the offensive line and they have a running back that’s back there. If we send more than they can block, it doesn’t really make sense for everyone to continue to rush. And that was the thing that I always was blown away by when we was sitting these meetings. You would know, hey, depending on where we put certain guys. Do we have a guy that rushes more than another guy at the linebacker position? So when you look at the Chargers, maybe Henley rushes more than Perryman. So, when you put all these guys on the line of scrimmage, you already know, hey, the offensive line is going to slide towards Henley. They’re gonna want there’s four defensive linemen and there’s there’s five offensive linemen. They’re going to want the extra offensive linemen to pick up Henley. So, therefore, Perryman would know, hey, I’m going to be free to the running back. So, the extra DB who’s rushing when he comes in, he should be clean. He should be free to the quarterback. So when you have those type of plays, you tell one of the defensive linemen, hey, if you’re a part of the slide and you get touched by an offensive lineman to be blocked, pop out. Hey, and some games you come in, you say, hey, we know they’re going to do this. Hey, hand, we know you’re going to be the guy that pops out. Tart, we know you’re going to be the guy that pops out. So that’s the unique, like you said, game within the game of some of the best quarterbacks we’ve ever seen. They know that it’s going to be weird to say this, but they know that you know what they’re doing. So then they have the counter of the counter of the ultimate counter to what the how they should attack you. It was the hardest thing playing against Payton Manning or when I got to play against Tom Brady and you sit there and you can see right there there’s two guys on the Chargers popping out because both those guys saw the slide of the offensive lineman. They knew, hey, we’re already going to have a guy free. It makes no sense for me to keep rushing. I’m going to pop out and see if I can get in the window because quarterbacks are taught if they’re blitzing and they’re all coming up the middle of the pocket, the easiest throw is right over the middle. The problem with throwing over the middle is you don’t see who’s popping out. And I think that ultimately was hand who popped out and made that interception. But that’s a play that when Jaylen Hurst goes back and watches the film, right, he’s gonna be angry at himself because he knows I he knows that he has to know that there’s always a possibility of somebody popping out when they blitz. And you can see Henley was coming free. They knew they got their free guy through. Now we need to pop and get out. And it it was a good play because the the thing about when the guys pop is, is the big defensive tackle going to make the catch? and he made it right there and just an unfortunate play. Oh, it was part of that was Jaylen Hurst. Yeah, Jaylen Hurst. Once the ball gets fumbled, you you can’t get the ball and turn around and not tuck the ball away or just fall with the ball. That to me was the play that you’re like, man, we like we can’t have that. He’s too good of a football player to do that. You know, it’s funny as you were explaining that dynamic of a guy being able to pop out because you’ve got numbers on your side and you know that the offensive lineman’s already committed to block you and someone else is going to run right by him. This just gives you an idea how long the season is and that feeling of deja vu that can swing back around. And I had a chance to think about when you had provided that same analysis in the same circumstance and it’s excellent analysis and it takes us all the way back to week five. Jaguars Chiefs Devin Lloyd did the same thing. You remember that he knew that and I think it was the center. It may have been the center. It was an interior offensive lineman that had committed to him. So he said screw it and he popped out and he made the interception. and he went 99 yards the other way with it because he had neutralized his guy. There’s all different ways to neutralize your guy and one way is to get him to think you’re coming so he chooses to come to block you and you don’t go and then that just gives you an extra defender. it it’s and I remember when I got to New England, we we weren’t we weren’t doing that when I first got there and we had our blitzes. We called when we called some type of blitz that had a weather rain, snow, sleet, hail, that means we were sending more guys than they could pick up. So, you had to know, hey, if they bring the tight end in and he blocks, I need to now add in to the rush. And the key to that as a defender was I needed to add in right away. So when you added in, the guy who got blocked could pop because he knew you were running in and blitzing so fast that that lineman couldn’t block him and then turn around and also block you because you hesitated. It it’s it’s what I love about football. There’s there’s two elements to football. There’s the the maniacs that are running around and they’re going to instill fear by hitting guys by being big, strong, fast, and just be these kind of animals out there on the field that no matter what game plan you devis, they’re going to they’re going to be the people that Mike Tyson used to say. Everybody has a plan to get punched in the mouth. There’s that aspect of the game, but then there’s this other aspect of the game of when people talk about, hey, they never played the game. they shouldn’t be able to be involved, but it’s that other aspect. It’s the X’s and O’s. It’s how you can think of the game, how you can draw things up that you don’t necessarily have to play the game. Bill Bich never played the game at a high level, but you sit in meetings with him and he would be able to watch film and come away with things that you would be like, are we watching the same thing? Like, how did your mind come up with those kind of things? And I I just think that’s such a unique part of the game because if you can study film and you can learn it in a way that you can move fast off of it, it allows guys that might not have the athletic ability uh to play in the NFL to play a long time because they know what’s going to happen from seeing one guy’s foot, another guy’s hand. like some of the smallest details can tell so much about a play. Um that I I love breaking down film and watching it and seeing that because when you can do that at a high level as a player, it makes you so much better. It turns you into this phenomenal player that it’s hard to compete against. years ago before he went to work for the Lions, Chris Spielman was on this program as a guest and he was doing a deep dive on the nuances of film study and it was like for me edge of the seat like because it’s a puzzle. You’re looking for a needle in a hay stack. You’re not even sure a needle’s there. like you just and and it’s got parallels to my former life because one of the things you do a lot when you practice law is you review documents and what they do is they dump tens of thousands of pages on you and there’s a needle in there somewhere maybe. You don’t know. You know how you find out? You look at all 10,000 pages. You look at the whole document up and down, left and right, backward and forward, looking for anything that can be the one thing that changes everything. And that’s what film study is. And it requires discipline. It requires focus. It requires determination. It is so freaking gratifying when you find that one thing. And you got to understand the subject matter. You got to know what you’re looking for. But you build this base of knowledge and you’re able to pluck, you know, boom, right there. that I’ve seen that, you know, ah oh wait, wait a minute, roll it back. See that? See that? Watch for that. So that would be that would make all those hours worth it. And that’s why I think so many coaches sleep in their offices and sleep three or four hours a night during the season because, you know, the the clock is ticking and every second you spend doing something else is time that could be spent studying film and looking for that one thing that’s going to make all the difference. Hi, it’s Mike Florio. Thanks for watching PFT on YouTube. Hit subscribe for the latest news and analysis from Pro Football

Mike Florio and Devin McCourty discuss the film study that resulted in the Chargers’ strong defensive showing against the Eagles, evaluating how Jessie Minter and Co. were so successful against Jalen Hurts. #NBCSports #NFLonNBC #ProFootballTalk #NFL
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Analyzing Los Angeles Chargers’ defensive success vs. Eagles | Pro Football Talk | NFL on NBC
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