Rams Fans United - Los Angeles Rams Fan Discussion Forum

the play was a combination of bad luck, harkey picking up the wrong guy, and a heads up play by db williams, who wasn't fooled.... the rams were in a 22 personnel formation, i.e. 2 tight ends (7 guys on the los), 2 backs, and just 1 wr (tavon) split wide, clearly trying to sell the run, a little trickery if you will, given their intention was to fool seattle into thinking they would run when in fact they planned on taking a deep shot to tavon...

here they are in a 22 set with only tavon split wide (at the top of screen):



in a perfect world williams would have taken himself out of the play by biting on the play action and pursuing the ball carrier from behind, down the los... instead williams sniffed it out immediately, hardly bit at all, and made a b-line to foles:



at this point harkey had a chance at picking up williams but instead went after bennet, who did bite on the play, who had pretty much taken himself out of the play:



in motion:



anyway i loved the aggressive play call, seattle had just rallied to tie the game at 24 with a field goal on their last possession, pead had fumbled it away on the rams' last possession, but the rams came out firing... actually it could be argued that the rams had no biz taking a shot like that, there was 4:46 remaining in the game when they took possession, attempting a long, clock-killing drive that would set them up for a winning field goal was certainly an option, but instead they took a shot, interesting... anyway williams' heroic sack/fumble was short-lived as foles burned him deep to kendricks on the next series for a game tying td, a perfect pass that would have almost certainly been 6 even if williams hadn't fallen down.

edit: it was bailey who got burned on the td to kendricks, not williams!

I saw a few missed blocks and coverage's today where 2 of our defenders or blockers picked up the same guy. This play by Harkey was one of them. I think they'll get that stuff together.

A1 love the photo essays. Always have.

Great stuff A1, as always...

I don't claim to know squat about X's and O's, but in looking at Harkey, at first I thought he wheeled around real quick knowing that he screwed up. But as quick as he hit, spun, and floated into the open area, I'm not so sure -- it sorta looks like, to me, that Harkey was making himself available for a dump off -- and he wouldn't have been open if he engaged Williams.

Yeah, I have no idea what audibles may have been called and no idea about what the blocking assignments were, but, with the strong right formation, with number 1 playmaker Tavon on the right, with play action to the right with the RB running far to the flat on the right, with the weakside tight end running a post from left to right, leaking Harkey out to the left (and intentionally letting Williams go free), by design, for a dumpoff would have been a nice twist to me -- and looking at the clip, it looks like that back door was open for Harkey to run for significant yards.

Sure Foles might have made a pre-snap determination to go deep and audibled to Harkey to pass pro, maybe Foles thought that there was no way Williams was going to get to him based on the 100s of practice snaps last year and that no protection audible was required.

Anyhow, it's just going to be fun to see how this play is run over the next 15 games.

This is fantastic. I really appreciate the images and explanation. I must say, I didn't really understand what went so wrong on that play. And seeing such an aggressive play call in that position is quite suprising as well. Guess we're going to see some interesting things out of Cigs this year. Good stuff.

I would love to see an all-22 or end zone shot of this. I think Cook was WIDE open for the TD had(edit) the blitzer been picked up

Yeah when watching I saw Harkey and he really caused the play to blow up. Granted Foles didn't see Williams pre snap and call out the adjustment either.

ramsman34 wrote:I would love to see an all-22 or end zone shot of this. I think Cook was WIDE open for the TD had(edit) the blitzer been picked up

Having watched the coaches film, Cook got checked pretty well on the LOS then ran across the middle of the field and seemed to be fairly well covered underneath and on top, might've been like a 20 yard completion with Cook running across the field but not a TD.

Tavon was running down the right sideline but had company...

Elvis wrote:Having watched the coaches film

Odd question here: Before the snap, did Nick tap his right knee? Specifically, the outside of his right knee? How much (time-wise) pre-snap do you get on the film?

You don't get a lot of pre-snap time, maybe a few seconds, no knee tapping in what i saw...