***EDIT - Nerd Alert!!!***
Instead of trying to find a place to stick this, I thought I'd resurrect this thread...
On that interception play vs. NW, Stanzi had McNutt and Reisner open very early, but too early to throw them the ball. It looked like a combination of:
1) Bad play design or they had the right coverage called for the offensive play
2) Bad route by Reisner (far too deep, at least so it looked to me)
3) Terrible decision by Stanzi
By the time Rick was ready to throw, the right CB had bailed to a deep third. There was an opportunity to try to go over the top on the sideline to the deep cross (McNutt) but it would have been a low percentage throw into that wind...no more low percentage than the throw Stanzi made though.
Breaking it down further...
.........................................F
....LC...............$
.............................................................RC
.....................................S.....M
.............................E.....T....N.....E..W
.............................Y..T..G..C..G..T..H
.....X..............Z..................Q
.........................................R
This is what the play looked like presnap, after McNutt (Z) had motioned over from the right side. DJK (X) ran the post route, McNutt (Z) ran the deep cross, and Reisner (Y) ran a drag/short cross. Play action went to Robinson (R) and Herman (H) stayed in to pass block.
I've already established that NW was in 3 deep coverage (as most teams are against trips), but because the RC had nothing threatening him to his side, he played up and only had to gain depth late as McNutt crossed. Here's my take on each scenario:
1) Bad route design (or good/lucky coverage call by NW) - Motioning McNutt over left the RC with nothing to threaten his underneath leverage, allowing him to put his back to the sideline and read the play coming to him. This allowed him to watch McNutt on the cross and Reisner on the drag. If you limit McNutt's motion to stop about 3 yards away from Zus at RT and have him run a whip or slant return route and stay flat, you put him directly underneath the CB which would 1) have given Rick an outlet if everyone else was covered because the RC bailed to his deep 1/3rd or 2) opened up the downfield throw if the RC got nosy on the flat route. Keep in mind that in cover 3, the RC isn't responsible for the flat, but since the play action kept the LB's from getting into their pass drops quickly, he may have tried to stay shallow longer to keep the flat protected. But motioning him over gave him carte blanche (sp?) to watch the play unfold in front of him. This brings me to the next issue...
2) Reisner's route was too deep - I'm not sure why it happened this way, maybe it was to sell the zone play to the left, but Reisner took an outside release on the DE, which kicked him way outside where he probably should have been on this route. If he takes an inside release and he's doing in effect what I discussed in the previous point about occupying the flat defender. Maybe he beats the flat defender to his pass drop (which looked like he had a chance of doing on this play), maybe the CB gets nosy...What did happen on the play is that Reisner gets to a depth of about 7 or 8 yards, which allowed the RC to play both McNutt and Reisner from his position, which probably muddied the read considerably for Stanzi.
3) Terrible decision/read by Stanzi - Not much to say here. I'm not sure what the coaching point was here, but it seemed to take Stanzi quite a while after the play fake to get set up to throw. You use the play action to try to allow the receiver to "take the top off" the coverage...but it was clear that NW's safeties didn't bite, as there were two defenders deeper than DJK when Stanzi threw it. This was probably one of those instances where Rick had in his mind that he was going deep, and he wouldn't let coverage or anything else dissuade him.