Did the Hawks figure out how to defend bunch formations

billio155":e12v0kp7 said:

I've rewatched the Super Bowl a few times now and one thing that stood out during my last viewing was the odd way we defended the Broncos bunch formations. When Denver lined up three Wr's to one side in a bunch, one of our corners would play ten yards deep another would play up on the line and then very late into the snap, a linebacker would trot over and line up directly in the WR's face. If you rewatch the game you can see this visibly unnerved the WR's. When the ball was snapped two of the WR's in the bunch were forced to double up on the linebacker because his sheer size demanded the double team, at that point that point both Cb's had a free shot on the WR with the ball. The use of a linebacker to front a bunch set is pretty damn smart, because if the WR's want to break out into a down field route tree you have this 240 pound freak busting you in the chops and taking out at least one WR.
The downside to this approach is it takes a linebacker out of the box and opens a whole for the run game. But what we did to cover that option was drop Cam into the box.
And I don't see other teams being able to utilize linebackers as bunch breakers, because they don't have a free safety who can cover the deep end of the field all by his lonesome, like Earl can.
Go Hawks!

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jblaze":32w66qt8 said:

Exactly. Their whole plan is to give up the dink and dunk underneath and put a hat on em. Worked perfectly vs. Denver. The pass rush was getting there so they didn't have time to wait on any of those longer routes so they took what they could get and that was exactly what we wanted.

I noticed Kam was playing a bit more of a "spinner" role in that game. He was playing some zone and would hand off guys on the back end or edges so he could stay free to roam on underneath stuff.

That and our guys are always watching the QB's eye. More so than any team I've ever seen. They "feel" the WR and watch the QB and break on routes before WR's do sometimes.

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Mick063":rypwjdb9 said:

One corner plays deeper and allows for a switch to allow him to take whomever goes deep. Communication "on the fly". Sometimes that corner will break off his deep man and go after the underneath guy. He is baiting the QB using knowledge from past tendencies. Sometimes the saftey plays "robber" and disrupts by getting in the middle of the underneath routes. The common theme to all those positions is to play the first down marker, keeping the receivers in front, and making sure tackles to deny the first down. Often those tackles are punishing.

TY Hilton made them pay on a couple of occasions for using this style. Unlike Manning, Luck can buy an extra second in the pocket. It is also how Arizona beat Seattle. They got a guy deep on us. On another note, Maxwell was closer to breaking up that Arizona ball than Crabtree was in making the game winning catch in the NFCCG. The infamous "one foot further" cry from Forty Niner fans wasn't nearly as close relative to Maxwell breaking up that Palmer pass that lead to the Cardinal win. Maxwell actually had his fingertips on the ball. As for the NFCCG, Sherman had Crabtree covered like a blanket.

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BleedGreenNblue":h504xri0 said:

Honestly I was a little intimidated about this whole bunch formation hype about manning and his recievers. the LOB made a mockery of it.

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Mick063":3ft4ft68 said:

Sherman had Crabtree covered like a blanket.

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Mick063":2mkvjmnd said:

The infamous "one foot further" cry from Forty Niner fans wasn't nearly as close relative to Maxwell breaking up that Palmer pass that lead to the Cardinal win. Maxwell actually had his fingertips on the ball. As for the NFCCG, Sherman had Crabtree covered like a blanket.

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