How the Seahawks covered Jimmy Graham

[Scottemojo]

Graham is New Orleans best offensive weapon, and New Orleans only touchdown last time we met was to Jimmy Graham. Other than that drive, Seattle kept him under control. New England shut him down with Talib, Seattle took a far different approach.

1QTR
14:20, 2nd and 14. Maxwell lines up press, Brees never even looks his way, swing pass to Sproles right side.
13:47, 3rd and 7. Graham 2nd in a 2 WR stack left, so Seattle can't press. Graham lets the other WR absorb the corner and Earl, then takes runs a deep middle slant. Wright picks him up at the end. Brees gave up on Graham quickly, and challenged Sherman deep. Crazy gesture from Sherman.

7:47, 1st and 10. Graham wide left. Press man from Maxwell, good coverage.
6:37, 3rd and 5. Graham wide right, primary in a 2 wr stack. Wright and Sherman look like press, but Sherman actually has deep third. Kam has the middle zone where Graham runs his curl covered well at first, but Graham slides left to give Brees a look. Brees looks for Graham for to long, fumble, touchdown Hawks.

5:48 2nd and 9. Tackle eligible, jumbo look. one WR left, graham left slot. this whole formation is to set of a flood left, with the WR running the CB and S out of the play and Graham taking advantage with a deep out. Irvin has the underneath zone, Brees floats the out just a bit, and Irvin delivers a big blow to Graham's back as he fails to secure the catch. The play worked just as designed for the Saints, but I have to guess that the last thing Graham expects is a 260 pound linebacker being on him that fast that far down field.

(this is the TD drive, and features a shift in NO philosophy trailing 17-0. They mostly abandon the run, and instead go to a quick tempo short pass game. THis is the way I expect them to open the game Saturday, it is the only thing that really worked.)
1:55 1st and 10. Graham wide left. Maxwell in press man. Graham runs a short out, play design was never to Graham anyway, but designed for Graham to open space for the RB pass.

2nd QTR
15:00 1st and 10. 2 WR, 2 TE, Graham off tackle left side. Graham runs a deep seam route, and considering Brees short drop, I don't think he was a primary target. Kam has him well covered anyway in the deep zone.

12:24 3rd and 4, Graham wide right with Sherman in press. 3 WR bunch on the left was the primary anyway, designed to give Colston a short curl. Works perfectly, first down.
11:46 1st and 10. Graham right slot, Wright with short zone in front of him. Seattle is in a quarters zone, Graham runs into coverage, Brees goes to his secondary target in Stills for a short gain.
10:12 3rd and 6. Empty set with Graham wide left. Maxwell has man coverage with Earl over the top. Earl recognizes the post route, tries to jump it, and guesses wrong. Maxwell stays over the top, Brees hits Graham down the seam for gain of 20. Thomas is pretty pissed he bit, I have to guess this play was one they had scouted and he just guessed wrong going for an interception.
9:27 1st and 10, Graham wide left. Maxwell and Wright bracket Graham on the short post route, Brees nearly pulls the trigger but pulls it back and ends up throwing it away. Good zone look, but ruined by Sherman's personal foul on Stills.
8:48 2nd and goal. Graham is the lead in a 3 WR bunch Left, he immediately breaks right on a slant, splits the small zone between Kam and Wagner, easy touchdown. Down 17-6, Graham showboats, dunking on the goalpost and ending up with a host of Hawks in his face about the antics.

3:36 1st and 10. Irvin over Graham, slot left. Irvin blitzes, Brees hits his hot in Colston, so the post by Graham doesn't matter and is covered anyway.
2:59 2nd and 5, Graham lined up off right tackle. Kam in man cover on Graham. Brees never even looks his way because a blitz makes him hit the hot route to the FB for a gain of three.
2:14 3rd and 2. Graham off right tackle, NO in a 1 back 3 TE run set. Play action, flood left, with Brees just missing the open upback over the top. Brees never looks graham's way, I think he was meant to absorb the safety on this play.

3QTR
12:54 Graham motions to wide right, ends up with Sherman in press. Brees audibles, hits Colston short middle. There ends up being a penalty on this play on NO, but I include this because after testing Sherman once early, Brees doesn't even look that way with single coverage this time. Also, this play is once again NO using the quick tempo short pass game successfully, if not for the penalty.
12:28 1st and 18. Graham slot left. Seattle blitzes, and because NO is inside their own 15, they counter with max protect. Graham is bracketed by Kam and Wright. Brees feels the pressure, throws incomplete near Colston.
11:55 2nd and 23. Graham off left tackle, Irvin across from him. Continuing theme, Irvin blitzes. Brees goes deep to Colston, once again Sherman knocks it down. Graham was open short, but in the end zone Brees never had time to make progressions.
11:47. 3rd and 23 Graham in a trips right set. Doesn't matter, this is a clearout so the Saints can get a few yards for their punter, Seattle is just playing a soft zone. gain ten, punt.

5:34 3rd and 2. Graham has slot in a trips right set. He chips Bennett so Brees can bootleg right, runs a crosser with Wright trailing, and his real job this play was to clear out the right side for the misdirection play. It doesn't work at all, but NO gets bailed out by a roughing the passer when Earl touches Brees helmet. Brees hams up the hit, acting as if he took a massive head shot. Weak.
5:27 1st and 10. Graham motions to the left slot. Play action. Seattle is in a 3 deep zone, Graham runs down the left sideline, Brees throws about 35 yards down the left side, and Maxwell comes back off his deep third for a near pick. Graham actually has the position on him, but fails to really go after the ball. One has to wonder if the Irvin shot to his back is reminding him that a Seahawk player is behind him. Incomplete.
5:20 2nd and 10. Graham off right tackle. Kam in man coverage, Seattle blitzes. Kam bumps Graham, Brees gets hit, pass never has a chance.
5:16 3rd and 10. Screen play, Graham's only job is to drag Maxwell out of the screen area. It doesn't work.


2:32 1st and 10. Trips right, with Graham in a slot stack. NO returns to the quick passing tempo, not one WR or RB is more than 7 yards down field. Graham runs a short curl meant to occupy the MLB zone so Brees can hit a WR on the quick slant, but Kam takes the slant away, and Maxwell takes the RB wheel route away. Credit to Brees, he makes 5 reads and hits Lance moore for 5 yards.
1:57 Graham left slot. Wagner ends up with zone responsibility for where Graham goes, pressure gets to Brees, incomplete.

4th QTR
15:00 1st and 10. After 3 straight runs, NO lines up big again, with Graham off right tackle in a 3 point stance. Graham releases past Wright and takes advantage of a very empty middle for a gain of 20. Has to be a blown assignment by either Wright or Chancellor, but in an awsome display of hustle, McDaniel gets downfield to get a part of the tackle.
14:17 Saints line up big again, Graham in a stance on the right end of a 3 TE set. This play is clearly meant to riff off of the previous play, with NO gambling that Seattle will pay extra attention to Graham. they do, with Sherman and Kam bracketing Graham. The misdirection frees up Ben Watson, but Brees misses him over the top. He had separation on Wright, but good hustle by Wright has him break up the pass.
14:00 3rd and 10. Graham sets up wide left, motions to inside slot position of 3 wr bunch set, and shows Seattle is in zone. His assignment is to chip the pass rusher, then go to the flat so Brees has time to take a deep shot. Maxwell breaks it up.
13:53 4th and 10. Graham wide right, with Wright in press man. Graham on a LB? In space? Brees can't resist, but Wright plays it well, and get late help from Kam. Incomplete.

9:52. 3rd and 1. Graham off right tackle. He runs a short curl, well defended by Wagner in zone, incomplete.
9:37. 4th and 1. Play action, Graham motions to right tackle. This is a real cool play, even though at this point it means nothing. Irvin gestures to Wagner to take Graham off the motion, Irvin is going after Brees. Wagner takes Graham, and provides good coverage to the sideline 10 yards seep, breaking up the pass. THe cool part is that on his way to Brees, Irvin sees the FB leaking out to the right, abandons the pass rush, and picks up coverage on the FB. Shows great athleticism in doing so as well. I have always thought that Irvin probably gets pretty strict assignments because of his lack of LB experience, but here he was making snap coverage decisions, and making them well.

Summation. The Seahawks did not change up they way they play just for Graham. He drew coverage from Wagner, Maxwell, Sherman, Kam, and Wright. THey paid special attention to him in a few specific situations with some bracket coverage, certain downs and distance when Brees likes to go specifically to him, but for the most part Seattle just played their defense. I can see why, NO is just as likely to run misdirection based on Graham getting special attention from defenses. Brees is just too good to try and take away one passing target.

Graham took a big hit early in the game from Irvin, and in a couple of jump ball situations later in the game didn't appear to want to get hit like that again, not really challenging for either pass. Graham isn't much of a pass blocker, his presence on the field put Seattle into nickel most of the time.

I am curious to see if NO simplifies some of their personnel sets for the upcoming game. They move Graham all over the place trying to get him mismatches, but some of the best success they had was running quick tempo passing from stacks and bunch sets. They had limited success when they passed with 3 TE sets and jumbo sets, I think that puts them at too much of a speed disadvantage.

 

[vin.couve12]

Very nice work. There is a notion that the lack of a one KJ Wright is really going to hurt us because he got the majority of the praise for how we played Graham, but that's not necessarily the case. KJ obviously made some great plays, but overall the entire team did a great job on him. Even on the one play where McDonald dropped into a zone with perfect coverage, to my surprise.

 

[sutz]

Many years ago, we shut down Steve Smith after he had been tearing up the NFC Playoffs for two games. We didn't do it by putting our 'best guy' on him. We used scheme, formations, various coverages including up to 4 guys around him in the zone, and putting a LB on him at the line to jam him. This isn't really different.

The way you account for great individual players is to use team discipline to overcome the mismatch. We have enough good players sprinkled around our defensive formation to do these types of things. I'm sure Graham will get some yards and may even score a TD or two, but he won't defeat us single-handedly. We're pretty strong across the board on that side of the ball.

 

[Sarlacc83]

Seems like Seattle treated him as a typical (if very good) receiver. I wonder if Payton will draw up some packages to get him the ball more frequently. I hope that happens, because I think it would be a big mistake.

 

[3Girls'HawkDad]

Great job, mojo!

It is fitting, as Pete himself stated, that we just play OUR game.

Brees and Payton are as smart as it gets and getting cute or showing tendencies to a specific player. (Graham) could make for trouble against lesser defenses.

I agree the Saints will show simple sets, trying to establish some kind of a running game and to keep us out of so much nickel.

But the trade off is lack of space and this defense is a pack of wild dogs at home.

 

[Seahawkfan80]

Dayum Mojo, I felt like I was just now watching the game with your play by play. Good stuff there. Thanks.
Seems like just one of the plans set up for us this weekend. Deception is a great asset. I just think that our disciplined back will not fall for it again this weekend. Go Hawks.

 

[jblaze]

I say just let Smith fall into coverage on Graham like KJ did. Smith is pretty good in coverage and I think he'll do just fine.

I also liked how they dropped a DE or DT back in underneath coverage a time or two to stop the underneath stuff on obvious passing downs in short yardage situations.

Another thing that could work is to keep Kam over the top with a LK (Smith) underneath to sandwich him a bit and make him throw over the top which will require more touch and to complete which will give Kam time to get there with the hit.

I'm more worried the Saints will establish the run this time around and will have more success in play action.

 

[Sgt. Largent]

Very nice work. There is a notion that the lack of a one KJ Wright is really going to hurt us because he got the majority of the praise for how we played Graham, but that's not necessarily the case. KJ obviously made some great plays, but overall the entire team did a great job on him. Even on the one play where McDonald dropped into a zone with perfect coverage, to my surprise.

Smith doesn't have the length of KJ, but he has every bit of speed and quickness.........in fact he's faster than KJ.

If there's one thing Pete doesn't get enough credit for, it's defensive scheming, so I have no doubt that he'll figure out a way to slow down Graham.

 

[Vetamur]

They will have to do it different this time. If you do it the same way, thats a recipe to lose. That is why it is difficult to beat a quality team twice in a season. Im curious how they handle this problem this week, especially in light of the Saints new found commitment to the run.

 

[Laloosh]

Thanks Scotte. Wish I were capable of knowing what they were actually "trying" to do when watching the all-22s. Very good of you to share what you see.

 

[kjreid]

If Graham is outside, then press coverage with Saftey over the top, it Graham is inside then Linebacker coverage with safety over the top. As long as our corners are "locking" down the sides we will get away with this.

 

[Scottemojo]

They will have to do it different this time. If you do it the same way, thats a recipe to lose. That is why it is difficult to beat a quality team twice in a season. Im curious how they handle this problem this week, especially in light of the Saints new found commitment to the run.

While I am sure they will show some slightly different looks, like for instance actually have Irvin cover Graham when lined up over him a time or two, for the most part I would expect Seattle to do the same things they always do. The cover 3 press coverage on the outside won't change, so it would seem unlikely we will dramatically alter anything else. Only one time all year did we really change things up for one player, and that was Boldin. And that was only because the Niners didn't have anyone else that was scary.

New Orleans tried to get the run game going both in the beginning of that game and even when down 20 in the third. There was a stretch where they went big for about 6 plays in a row, but even that was 3 runs meant to set up 3 shots down the field.

I don't think New Orleans has a new committment to the run. After that game with Philly, Brees said they really likes some matchups, I think it wa pretty obvious Philly was keyed on stopping Brees. Brees had QB sneaks that went for 4 yards, it was really pathetic how easy the Eagles were stopping the run. The Saints have never been bad at running, they just aren't that committed to the run game. In fact, I would venture to guess that their committment to the run in the Eagles game was really due to Brees trying to do too much early in that game and throwing interceptions. In our New Orleans game they had both 3rd and 4th and one and passed both times. It's just in their nature.

Personally, I think Brees could be the biggest reason they lose this game. Should Seattle get up even just a few points early, Brees will have at the back of his mind just how hard it was to scrape together points last time, and start taking chances. It's a pattern he has had before. I don't think our secondary is really intimidated by his arm, they dared him to beat them over the top last time and his passes just took a tick too long to get there. Brees did not complete a single deep ball out of 8 tries, and Seattle defenders got a hand on about half those passes. Our secondary has been on a tear with interceptions lately, so if it's wind and rain, that only helps us.

 

[nanomoz]

This is amazing. Thank you.

 

[Vetamur]

I disagree.. I think its very obvious they are trying to run more. Their last three games: 126 yards, 98 yards, 185 yards.. the 3 games previous to that? None over 70. Except a game vs. Cowboys where they could do anything they wanted on offense, they usually had a 4 or 5 to 1 ratio pass yards to rushing yards. Even in relative blowouts like against the Panthers they mostly threw the ball.

In any case, we will see how it shakes out Saturday.

 

[Hawks46]

Very nice work. There is a notion that the lack of a one KJ Wright is really going to hurt us because he got the majority of the praise for how we played Graham, but that's not necessarily the case. KJ obviously made some great plays, but overall the entire team did a great job on him. Even on the one play where McDonald dropped into a zone with perfect coverage, to my surprise.

Smith doesn't have the length of KJ, but he has every bit of speed and quickness.........in fact he's faster than KJ.

If there's one thing Pete doesn't get enough credit for, it's defensive scheming, so I have no doubt that he'll figure out a way to slow down Graham.

Smith ran a 4.4, he's actually faster than Graham is as well. I haven't scouted Smith enough; some posters here say he's terrible in coverage, and some say he's good.

The biggest common denominator of why we blew up their passing game was knowing and jumping the hot routes and getting consistent pressure on Brees. Like Scotte said, there were times when Brees made 4-5 reads on a play.

 

[Scottemojo]

I disagree.. I think its very obvious they are trying to run more. Their last three games: 126 yards, 98 yards, 185 yards.. the 3 games previous to that? None over 70. Except a game vs. Cowboys where they could do anything they wanted on offense, they usually had a 4 or 5 to 1 ratio pass yards to rushing yards. Even in relative blowouts like against the Panthers they mostly threw the ball.

In any case, we will see how it shakes out Saturday.

Oh, I don't disagree they will try to run more. I just think a couple of three and outs when the run is innefective, should Seattle stop them, will go a long way towards them going back to what they do. which is run pretty much just to set up play action.

 

[Vetamur]

This is why I think they are doomed. They have a good offense, but the Seahawk defense is just too damn good right now. They arent going to be able to run.. though they will try. Assuming our staff do their job. Then they will have to throw..and that plays even MORE into our hands. I dont expect our offense to just go off..but I expect theirs to completely sputter save a drive or two.

 

[Timberhawk]

This was an awesome post. It is why i come to .net. You just cannot get information like this anywhere else. Great job and thanks Scottemojo!! Go Hawks!

 

[Scottemojo]

Very nice work. There is a notion that the lack of a one KJ Wright is really going to hurt us because he got the majority of the praise for how we played Graham, but that's not necessarily the case. KJ obviously made some great plays, but overall the entire team did a great job on him. Even on the one play where McDonald dropped into a zone with perfect coverage, to my surprise.

I missed this post.
One thing I haven't seen Malcom Smith do much, break up a deep pass. I saw Wright do it twice in this game. Of course, in two years I haven't seen Wright jump a slant like I saw Smith do in consecutive weeks.

Wright also made a couple of great open field stops on running backs. I have to assume New Orleans is going to be eager to test Malcom and see if he is as assignment sound and good in deep cover as Wright was.

 

[AbsolutNET]

Awesome work as always, Scott.

Did you notice if the Hawks changed up their defense on the TD drive? Was there a difference in the coverage or pressure packages?