Film Breakdown - The Blocked Punt

[jnhay]

Good write up Dan.
It looked to me like Riley and Doughty were much more interested in a fast release then paying attention to the play.
Riley's olé move is ridiculous, Doughty, who the hell knows what he's looking at, hell knows he can't hear the guy coming. (I don't care if it sounds mean,, the dude can't play football, and he can't hear. Put him in place where he can do minimal damage.. let him be the damn gunner if he's so gung ho.
He pays no attention to the play.. the personal protector as it is.



Sloppy. Undisciplined..

to call it a pattern would be the understatement of the year.

~Bang

I respect your position on Danny Smith, but the only thing I don't get is don't you think Shanahan would know who's a good coach and who isn't? He hasn't been afraid to get rid of anyone, it seems. So I'm sure Danny will be gone soon if he truly is the problem.

[Redskins Ruckus]

I respect your position on Danny Smith, but the only thing I don't get is don't you think Shanahan would know who's a good coach and who isn't? He hasn't been afraid to get rid of anyone, it seems. So I'm sure Danny will be gone soon if he truly is the problem.

Correct. People call for heads to roll when the team is playing poorly.

[redskindan07]

Nice write up! Enjoyed the read

[rdsknfan]

Agreed. Completely. They are obviously not spending enough time practicing this. Any issues should be solved by repetition and coaching. How this could have possibly happened in Week 2 after what happened in Week 1 is inexcusable and should cost Danny Smith his job.

I have not been a Danny Smith fan for the last couple of years. There have been too many breakdowns in special teams in the last couple of years to understand why we are not looking for somebody else to get these phase of our game under control. All of the gum chewing and jawing on the sideline does not a coach make.

[pjfootballer]

The left side all had one on one blocks. This was a very blockable formation. Riley and Reed left too early. I don't blame Gomes for not getting a chip on him, because his assignment was to block his man and he had him contained. Even if he gets a hand on him, is it enough to keep Mulligan's forward momentum from blocking the kick? if he chips him, he may shove him right into the kick.

Riley should have held him is what he should have done. Take the penalty and rekick.

---------- Post added September-18th-2012 at 10:16 AM ----------

However, IMHO Doughty is playing his position way too close up to the LOS, and if he was playing it further back both last week and Sunday, I believe that he would have picked those guys up. I mean, isn't the up-back position a type of last line of defense type of position?

Anyway, it all boils down to bad ST's coaching anyway you look at it.

I agree. Maybe we need to go the college route and put a 2nd wall up in front of Rocca.

[Bang]

I respect your position on Danny Smith, but the only thing I don't get is don't you think Shanahan would know who's a good coach and who isn't? He hasn't been afraid to get rid of anyone, it seems. So I'm sure Danny will be gone soon if he truly is the problem.

I do know this... this is why its so frustrating.

if they could explain it somehow, it would further add to my understanding of the game.

because apparently I'm missing quite a bit.

~Bang

[5ohhh]

I've never understood some of the theories on specials but at what point do you realize that maybe a MLB, and a pair of Safety's may not be very good at blocking? I understand that tackling the return man is the prime objective on a punt thus it determines who you put on the field....but considering it seems like the same hole getting blown up all the time...at what point do you insert someone like Paulsen, Young or Lorenzo...a guy who blocking is a second nature to?

[Bang]

Correct. People call for heads to roll when the team is playing poorly.

No, not me. I call for heads to roll after years and years of consistently bad performance out of the same unit under the same coach.
this is by no means isolated to this game, this year or even this decade.

Check the merged all-things-Danny-Smith thread and see how far back those posts go.

You know who's not a bit surprised we're still having this conversation about Smith?

Me. And a hell of a lot of others.
We knew we'd be having it as soon as it was clear they'd re-signed him. I keep wishing he's going to show why he's a 'good coach".. but he has not, and he never has.
He can't coach his players to stop making rookie mistakes. Veterans of his squad make ridiculous mistakes week after week after week. Game-killing loser mistakes.
He cannot develop players into anything. He has yet to develop a single specialist in 8 seasons. No kicker. No punter. No returner. (Please don't start with Fumbleboy Banks and his awesome lateral runs that end (or begin) with the ball on the ground.)


~Bang

[Master Blaster]

This site can be so frustrating.


This was 100% Riley's fault. This was a man blocking scheme, which does not protect the kicker as well as zone, but allows for guys to get down field quicker as they are allowed to release once they determine their man is not rushing.

Pre-snap, Gomes has the end man on the line of scrimmage unless they do some sort of twist. Being as there was no twist, and Gomes man does not rush, he is free to release down field.

Doughty's assignment is unclear pre-snap, but becomes obvious at the snap. They had what we called a "White" call, which means Doughty is going right ("White is Right" no racist). This is even more obvious when Snow slides to the left. Had they made a "Black" call, Snow would have went right and Doughty left, which would have prevented this blocked kick but based on the call that was made, Doughty did his job.

Which gets us back to Riley. As I said, the purpose of a man scheme is to allow better coverage down field. Riley GUESSES that his man is not going to rush and attempts to side step him. We all know the result of that decision.

I am not a fan of Danny Smith, but I also don't feel like he is to blame here. The call was fine for what the Rams did and it should have been picked up easily. I still feel the Redskins suffer from having some of the stupidest players in the NFL (see Josh Morgan). Riley is an NFL player and should know these basic concepts and play hard within them, not guess.

BTW I don't want to toot my own horn but I learned what I know about football from Bob Babich (DC of Chicago Bears), Gus Bradley (DC of Seattle Seahaws), Tim Tibesar (DC of Purdue and 2x CFL Champion), and Craig Bohl (HC of DI-FCS champions). I'm not just making stuff up for the fun of it here.

[mboyd784]

This is really just unbearable.

[rk3025]

Gibbs put a higher priority on special teams than Shannahan does

[pjfootballer]

Thanks for the insight Masterblaster, but if this were an isolated incident I would not have "Fire Danny Smith" in my sig. 8 blocked kicks of some sort in 18 games is unexcusable.

[Jumbo]

Your comments make sense, MB. So without trying to pry into anything you don't want to disclose, but since you cited them as your sources, did you play with/for those people, or know them through some other exposure to learn football from them?

[Bang]

these aren't periodic problems,, they aren't isolated mistakes.
they happen week in and week out..and they have been for years.

if we want to blame it all on Riley, fine. He's a veteran, he's making another monumental game-changing mistake.
It happens all too often, and way too frequently to continually say "well, it can't be HIS fault,, his players are the ones blowing assignments or missing reads".
WHY do his veterans keep making such huge mistakes, week in and week out, year after year?

~Bang

[Master Blaster]

Thanks for the insight Masterblaster, but if this were an isolated incident I would not have "Fire Danny Smith" in my sig. 8 blocked kicks of some sort in 18 games is unexcusable.

I agree.

Your comments make sense, MB. So without trying to pry into anything you don't want to disclose, but since you cited them as your sources, did you play with/for those people, or know them through some other exposure to learn football from them?

I played for each one of them. Babich/Bohl as HC's, Bradley/Tibesar as position coach/DC. Between them I learned the Tampa 2 and the 3-4 (Pitt-style).