3rd and 21.. clearly the play of the game.. Fault Haslett?

[GO HAMSKINS]

Since when in mankind have you seen the same defensive play call not once,not twice,but three times! smh JH called the same play 3 straight times.WTF It was very predictable by then.Not saying don't blitz,but if you are going to at least switch up the play call.Hell, we already had Romo sits to pee nervous,we could have sent a basic zone blitz and he probably would have checked down, thrown us a int, or gave us a sack fumble. Dumb Call.It's like playing madden you might can play punt block defense and get it a way with it once due to pressure, but if you try to repeat that same D the next play it will result into 6pts

[darrelgreenie]

You have no basis for disagreement on percentages unless you want to maintain, against common football wisdom, that blitzing entails less risk than not blitzing.

I forgot how funny you are.

You keep finding different ways of avoiding a straight forward football question.

Do you have a football reason for why that particular blitz if executed correctly makes a conversion on 3rd and 23 more likely to succeed?

---------- Post added September-29th-2011 at 11:47 AM ----------

Give up DG...all the head coaches and D coordinators on this board know so much more about football and the right calls that it is obviouse they know so much more than the guys who do it for a living. It is really as simple as if it worked, it was a great call because it forced Dallas to make a bad play. It didn't work so it sucked. If we had 8 guys back and they get the yards, it would be, OMG a prevent D Haslett sucks....we needed to blitz everyone. People refuse to say $hit happens and we need to get over it.

Their's is a fancier version but pretty much the same.

And yeah, I'm done.

For a second there I thought there would actually be an open discussion, it does happen occasionally.

But I forgot this is ES where disagreement=indignation.

I'll leave with this:

Did I like the call? Looking back (which is very easy to do the day after), I don’t have any issues with it. Haslett is a pressure-based coach and he wanted to end the game. The Redskins did a poor job on their contain rush principles on the edge of the defense (which allowed Romo sits to pee and Bryant to buy time), but I want to play for a coach that trusts his secondary when the game is one the line.

http://www.nationalfootballpost.com/Did-Redskins-Haslett-make-the-right-call-in-the-final-minutes.html

[Oldfan]

I forgot how funny you are.

You keep finding different ways of avoiding a straight forward football question.

Do you have a football reason for why that particular blitz if executed correctly makes a conversion on 3rd and 23 more likely to succeed?

I will not answer your question because you are not asking "a straight forward football question." You are asking a dumb question. Your question only shows that you don't understand the problem.

Here's the problem:

A very good football coach instinctively understands Probabilities the way a good Poker player understands them. Example: Ernie Adams tells Bill Belichik that Play A has a 70% chance of success and Play B has a 45% chance of success in a particular situation. Belichik is going to call play A. He is not going to ask Adams "Well, what if Play B is executed correctly?" That would be a dumb, irrelevant question.

[TD_washingtonredskins]

I will not answer your question because you are not asking "a straight forward football question." You are asking a dumb question. Your question only shows that you don't understand the problem.

Here's the problem:

A very good football coach instinctively understands Probabilities the way a good Poker player understands them. Example: Ernie Adams tells Bill Belichik that Play A has a 70% chance of success and Play B has a 45% chance of success in a particular situation. Belichik is going to call play A. He is not going to ask Adams "Well, what if Play B is executed correctly?" That would be a dumb, irrelevant question.

Right...just to state the obvious, the correct execution (and likelihood of it) is factored into the probability of success.

If 2 Kings has a 75% chance of beating 2 Jacks, it is useless to ask "what if the next card is a Jack?".

[KDawg]

I will not answer your question because you are not asking "a straight forward football question." You are asking a dumb question. Your question only shows that you don't understand the problem.

Here's the problem:

A very good football coach instinctively understands Probabilities the way a good Poker player understands them. Example: Ernie Adams tells Bill Belichik that Play A has a 70% chance of success and Play B has a 45% chance of success in a particular situation. Belichik is going to call play A. He is not going to ask Adams "Well, what if Play B is executed correctly?" That would be a dumb, irrelevant question.

This is accurate. Otherwise, plays and playcalling wouldn't be necessary, and you could run the same thing repeatedly over and over again and be successful because it's always executed properly.

I wonder if some people, and I don't know this answer (which is why I wonder) would be a little more upset if we had called that same fullback dive play to Cooley three plays in a row. After all, we got the first down on it once and it was successful.

This is where situational football comes into play. In that situation, there was no need to send that many guys. It's a luxury that leaves you weak in the secondary but is supposed to provide pressure. The Cowboys countered by running a max protect and connecting on the conversion. It's also about going to the well too many times. If we had walked that many guys off and dropped some guys off I think we would have had a much better chance of success. We had run that same blitz a few times, so Romo sits to pee obviously thought it was coming. If we had backed some guys off into coverage at the snap and rushed a few, I think we would have had much better coverage. Going to the well too many times allows offenses to figure out how to beat you. We're in an era of instant photography and whole coaching staffs being on headsets.

[NavyDave]

Whats frustrating to a lot of fans is that this kitchen sink blitz was a failure at crucial point of games when we had Gregg (the 3rd G means genius) Williams as def Coord. It was mirror image of the WR screen back then that after being used several times would result in minimal to no gain..

[Mahons21]

Problem is if you don't get pressure on Romo sits to pee he can run behind the LOS all day until he finds someone open, and had that happened we'd all be sitting here complaining he didn't bring pressure. Because everyone knows you need to bring pressure on 3rd and long to force a short throw.

Tony Romo sits to pee is a hell of a football player and he made a hell of a play, it wasn't easy by any means, and if Hall doesn't get turned around it could have gone for 6 the other way. This stuff just happens, but don't blame Haslett, he made a good call.

[KDawg]

Problem is if you don't get pressure on Romo sits to pee he can run behind the LOS all day until he finds someone open, and had that happened we'd all be sitting here complaining he didn't bring pressure. Because everyone knows you need to bring pressure on 3rd and long to force a short throw.

Problem is, everyone assumes you can't bring pressure with less than 8 guys.

Tony Romo sits to pee is a hell of a football player and he made a hell of a play, it wasn't easy by any means, and if Hall doesn't get turned around it could have gone for 6 the other way. This stuff just happens, but don't blame Haslett, he made a good call.

Haslett has a history of making poor calls, and this was no different. We will not agree on this point.

[Oldfan]

Problem is if you don't get pressure on Romo sits to pee he can run behind the LOS all day until he finds someone open, and had that happened we'd all be sitting here complaining he didn't bring pressure. Because everyone knows you need to bring pressure on 3rd and long to force a short throw.

Tony Romo sits to pee is a hell of a football player and he made a hell of a play, it wasn't easy by any means, and if Hall doesn't get turned around it could have gone for 6 the other way. This stuff just happens, but don't blame Haslett, he made a good call.

Most teams, including the Redskins, try to keep Romo sits to pee in the pocket. He's not as effective throwing from the pocket as he is on the move.

[Mahons21]

Problem is, everyone assumes you can't bring pressure with less than 8 guys.

Well it really depends. Most games, you absolutely do not need to bring 8 guys to get pressure, and doing so on anything other than an obvious rushing down would be IMO silly.

However against the Cowboys this weekend the Skins were facing a lot of max-pro, to get pressure on a QB that's called for max pro more players are needed. Were 8 needed? I don't know, I'm not sure but it looked to me like they were just running a cover-0 blitz which I'm fine with.

Haslett has a history of making poor calls, and this was no different. We will not agree on this point.

Then we shall agree to disagree

---------- Post added September-29th-2011 at 12:23 PM ----------

Most teams, including the Redskins, try to keep Romo sits to pee in the pocket. He's not as effective throwing from the pocket as he is on the move.

I know, in my post you quoted I said he would make time for himself behind the LOS not in the pocket. Romo sits to pee can escape the pocket if 4 men are rushing easier than he can if 7-8 men are if the outside guys play their contain responsibilities correctly.

[TheGreek1973]

So you guys think this play lost it for us? Really? Not to bad hold on the FG? Not the fact that the girls had that ball on the ground 6 times and we recovered only once? Not the fact that at least twice the refs missed critical offside calls against Mr. Ware? The way I look at it this was a typical Skins - boys game that seems almost everything went the boys way.

[KDawg]

So you guys think this play lost it for us? Really? Not to bad hold on the FG? Not the fact that the girls had that ball on the ground 6 times and we recovered only once? Not the fact that at least twice the refs missed critical offside calls against Mr. Ware? The way I look at it this was a typical Skins - boys game that seems almost everything went the boys way.

No single play ever loses a football game. There's four quarters worth of action.

This was a stupid play (my opinion) in a critical moment of the game that hurt us quite a bit.

[master4caster]

This play was not (necessarily) the game. If it worked, Dallas would have gone for it on fourth down, either as 4th and 21 if Romo sits to pee got rid of the ball, or 4th and 30 if the rush got to him. THEN you go into coverage.

Gutsy call. If it worked you'd all be calling Haslett a genius today. It did not work because: the rush did not get to Romo sits to pee, Romo sits to pee made a great play, Hall was out of position on his man. If Haslett knew his guys would have screwed up, he would have call a prevent. I liked the play and do not fault Haslett for going for the dagger.

[KDawg]

Gutsy call. If it worked you'd all be calling Haslett a genius today.

Again, this has been said ad nauseum. No I wouldn't. I'd still think it was a bad call. It wasn't necessary to blitz eight there, in my view, whether it worked or not. The outcome of the play is irrelevent in determining if it was a good call or not.

It did not work because: the rush did not get to Romo sits to pee, Romo sits to pee made a great play, Hall was out of position on his man. If Haslett knew his guys would have screwed up, he would have call a prevent. I liked the play and do not fault Haslett for going for the dagger.

Prevent isn't a good option there, either. Prevent only prevents you from winning. The best option, again, in my opinion, would have been to blitz 5-6 and drop 5-6 in coverage. Don't leave him unpressured and don't leave a zone corner on an island. It covers all of your issues.

[TD_washingtonredskins]

The way I look at it this was a typical Skins - boys game that seems almost everything went the boys way.

You're 100% right that more than one play or factor impacted this game. I disagree with what I quoted above though...we got a lot of breaks as well. A few penalties and non-penalties benefited the Redskins greatly.

[Mahons21]

Prevent isn't a good option there, either. Prevent only prevents you from winning. The best option, again, in my opinion, would have been to blitz 5-6 and drop 5-6 in coverage. Don't leave him unpressured and don't leave a zone corner on an island. It covers all of your issues.

With the max-pro Dallas had been calling all game that very well could have led to a blitz being picked up and Tony Romo sits to pee facing a weaker secondary.

[KDawg]

With the max-pro Dallas had been calling all game that very well could have led to a blitz being picked up and Tony Romo sits to pee facing a weaker secondary.

A weaker secondary than what? The 3 guys he was facing when blitzing 8?

[Mahons21]

A weaker secondary than what? The 3 guys he was facing when blitzing 8?

ryanohalloran Ryan O'Halloran

Quickees from #Redskins locker room. 1. Haslett said he's called Cover 0 total of 10 times in three games (won 9 of plays).

As I said we were running a cover-0, the number of men rushing was dictated by the number of people Dallas was leaving in for max pro. Since they only had 3 guys in coverage, there were 3 routes, meaning we would have been rushing 5 or 6 against 7. Either way the blitz could be picked up, once the blitz was picked up Romo sits to pee would have time to do what he wanted into a weakened secondary because some players blitzed.

A corner being forced to cover for 5-7 seconds with some help, is no different then a corner being forced to cover on an island for roughly 3-4 seconds.

Hind sight is 20-20 and we can call this play a bad one, but had the play you suggested been called and it didn't work we would all still be in here 2nd guessing it. Saying "you have to bring more pressure when they call max-pro" etc.

The fact that Haslett was batting 1000 on the play probably had a lot to do with the reason he was confident he could call it, and I still don't think it's a poor play call.

[TheGreek1973]

You're 100% right that more than one play or factor impacted this game. I disagree with what I quoted above though...we got a lot of breaks as well. A few penalties and non-penalties benefited the Redskins greatly.

yes we did benefit from some ref calls and got some breaks. But man you can't tell me it happens regularly when a team puts the ball on the ground 6 times and recovers 5 of them. Very rare for something like this to happen.

[KDawg]

ryanohalloran Ryan O'Halloran

Quickees from #Redskins locker room. 1. Haslett said he's called Cover 0 total of 10 times in three games (won 9 of plays).

As I said we were running a cover-0, the number of men rushing was dictated by the number of people Dallas was leaving in for max pro. Since they only had 3 guys in coverage, there were 3 routes, meaning we would have been rushing 5 or 6 against 7. Either way the blitz could be picked up, once the blitz was picked up Romo sits to pee would have time to do what he wanted into a weakened secondary because some players blitzed.

I still don't understand what you're trying to say. Cover-0 is strictly a coverage used to tell secondary that they're all in man coverage. It's not necessarily a play in and of itself. The secondary WAS weakened in the play that was called. Leaving a zone corner in a man coverage, alone, is a weakened state. Had we rushed six, Hall could have been joined by another defender in a double man coverage. The blitz could have been picked up, or maybe it wouldn't have been, but we would have had a better opportunity to stop Dez Bryant from converting. Conversely, I don't think that running a cover-0 there was smart in the least, anyways. Cover 3- with the backers going and leaving one or two in the underneath zones and two men over the top would have helped significantly, and been a less frustrating play call.

C3 also allows the DBs to watch the QB and break on the ball.

A corner being forced to cover for 5-7 seconds with some help, is no different then a corner being forced to cover on an island for roughly 3-4 seconds.

It sure is. Help brackets a receiver. No help leaves that receiver open, especially against a poor man corner. Haslett did not consider personnel matchups, or he has an opinion on DHall that's confusing, when going to that blitz.

Hind sight is 20-20 and we can call this play a bad one, but had the play you suggested been called and it didn't work we would all still be in here 2nd guessing it. Saying "you have to bring more pressure when they call max-pro" etc.

I wouldn't be. No.

and I still don't think it's a poor play call.

I still do.

[Mahons21]

I still don't understand what you're trying to say. Cover-0 is strictly a coverage used to tell secondary that they're all in man coverage. It's not necessarily a play in and of itself.

Yes but if your man is staying in to block ie the TE/RB in many cases and this one specifically, the player blitzes. The Redskins wouldn't have rushed 8 had TE's/RB's gone out on routes.

The secondary WAS weakened in the play that was called. Leaving a zone corner in a man coverage, alone, is a weakened state

In many cases yes, but in a 3rd and long situation a DB can play so far off their man, that some of disadvantages they have in man can't be taken advantage of. Had Hall been pressed up on Bryant it would be different in my opinion. Yes I understand it's still very different play man then zone, but the down and distance mitigated the difference in my opinion.

Had we rushed six, Hall could have been joined by another defender in a double man coverage. The blitz could have been picked up, or maybe it wouldn't have been, but we would have had a better opportunity to stop Dez Bryant from converting.

Yes this play you are suggesting does giveDez Bryant who up to that point had been having a rather average game, a smaller chance of converting. But he's only one player.

Conversely, I don't think that running a cover-0 there was smart in the least, anyways. Cover 3- with the backers going and leaving one or two in the underneath zones and two men over the top would have helped significantly, and been a less frustrating play call.

Could have been but if Romo sits to pee has time and hits a skinny post down the seam between the safety/DB of the cover 3, then we're still sitting back here second guessing that play.

C3 also allows the DBs to watch the QB and break on the ball.

Which I agree would put Hall in better position to succeed.

It sure is. Help brackets a receiver. No help leaves that receiver open, especially against a poor man corner. Haslett did not consider personnel matchups, or he has an opinion on DHall that's confusing, when going to that blitz.

Well what type of help are we talking about here? Are we talking about doubling? Or putting Hall in a zone with someone underneath?

EDIT: It's always a great time debating the actual game with you KDawg. Please don't get too frustrated if some of my opinion's aren't as knowledgeable as your own, we can't all be as football savvy as you.

[bigjumbo1971]

haven't read the whole thread but can't see how anyone can say it's the WORST call they have ever seen...if the people assignend to blitz actually blitzed or Hall doesnt try to come up before Tony actually releases the ball, Haslett would be the man right now

[KDawg]

Yes but if your man is staying in to block ie the TE/RB in many cases and this one specifically, the player blitzes. The Redskins wouldn't have rushed 8 had TE's/RB's gone out on routes.

So, regardless, we would have had the same amount of guys in coverage as they did receivers. That's not a more weakened secondary, it's the same thing. Cover 0 was not a good coverage call there.

In many cases yes, but in a 3rd and long situation a DB can play so far off their man, that some of disadvantages they have in man can't be taken advantage of. Had Hall been pressed up on Bryant it would be different in my opinion. Yes I understand it's still very different play man then zone, but the down and distance mitigated the difference in my opinion.

I don't necessarily agree, but wouldn't this be an argument as to why cover 0 was a bad coverage call? If Dez had broken that route off short, he still could have run for YAC. DHall is not a great tackler. He has his moments, but where he shines is when he can read the QB. In man coverage, you cannot. Regardless of how far off he was, he still had to play the receiver, and not key QB. That's taking away his strength as a corner.

Yes this play you are suggesting does giveDez Bryant who up to that point had been having a rather average game, a smaller chance of converting. But he's only one player.

Of three that were on routes and the biggest threat on the field.

Could have been but if Romo sits to pee has time and hits a skinny post down the seam between the safety/DB of the cover 3, then we're still sitting back here second guessing that play.

I actually meant Cover 4, but I kept typing three

We run a 3-front here but we run a 3-3-5... So I was thinking in terms of our playbook for a second there. Sorry. Definitely meant C4. The underneath backers (secondary subs) could have taken away the middle of the field, and in a modified C4, you have the corners dropping into shorter deep zones and the safeties staying over the top. Much harder to thread that needle. Blitz your best pass rushers there. Rak, Kerrigan, the DL (play with 2) and Fletcher and Landry. Take Rocky off.

You could even call it a modified C2. The corners have to pattern read, so if #1 takes off, they do too. That might be preferable, actually.

Well what type of help are we talking about here? Are we talking about doubling? Or putting Hall in a zone with someone underneath?

Either, really. But, I'd prefer having zone coverage on top of the blitz.

[S.T.real,lights,out]

I don't know I could think of a lot of plays that lost it. I was hoping for a fake blitz on 3rd and 21, but I have zero faith in sexy rexy at the end. I wish shanahans would have run it more at the end. sick uf the special team **** ups. And what about Jackson going after the fullback on that run for 40 yards and gave up containment. I didn't see what he could have possibly bit on.

I was thinking this too. At first i thought he was blocked into the FB then seen the replay and was like WTF is he doing. That was a killer play right there!

[die.hard.skins.fan]

I'm coming into this conversation a little late, but I think I have a valid point:

Last year in the playoffs, the Ravens sat back and rushed 3 against the Steelers on 3rd and 18, Big Ben had all the time in the world, and made a great throw, first down (that play cost them the game). I'm not mad that we blitzed, I'm just mad that we blitzed THAT MANY PEOPLE. I understand blitzing 3 or 4, but blitzing 5, leaving no safety over the top, that's just stupid. Dez Bryant is a physical receiver and a great jump ball guy....why leave him 1 on 1 with DHall?