NFL: Analysis of Eli Manning vs WAS Defense Week 4 2014

Box Score and Play-by-PlayIn continuing with my weekly Redskins series, I was going to take a look at Kirk Cousins' four interceptions and what we learned from them. However, inside the film room beat me to this post and already did an analysis that I felt was good enough to cover the topic, so I didn't want to duplicate it. SO instead, I wanted to focus on the other side of the ball: The defense.BasicsThe Redskins secondary as of Week 4 is comprised of Ryan Clark, Brandon Merriweather, David Amerson and rookie 4th round Bashaud Breeland. DeAngelo Hall suffered a torn achilles last week vs. PHI and is done for the season.Redskins base defense is a 3-4, but we actually run a surprising number of plays from the 4-3 utilizing Hatcher's strength in pass rush from the 3-tech position. Our primary defensive strength is our pass rush. We knew coming into this year that our secondary wasn't great, but our front seven strength would assist and help create potential turnovers for our secondary to feast on.Well, that worked perfectly well against JAX where we created 10 sacks and dominated the line of scrimmage, but against PHI and NYG it didn't work as well.Compared to the league average of 15 QB pressures/game, the Redskins were only able to create 7 QB pressures all evening with 1 resulting in a sack (Kerrigan!).Let's take a look at some plays highlighting how the Giants offense played against our defense.Eli and his WR's torching our defensePlay 1 - Eli throws TD1 to Donnell - GIF1, GIF2.During the first TD drive by Eli, the Giants started on the Redskins 24 yard line due to the sack/strip/fumble on Kirk Cousins by Kiwanuka. The Giants utilized a few short passes: one to Randle and two to Donnell for the TD.Slowing down the replay, here is what Eli saw before he released the ball to target his TE in the endzone. - This is pretty good coverage by Riley, but he just couldn't get turned in time to jump for the ball to break it up seen here.. I find it interesting that we used Riley to cover Donnell when our other ILB Robinson is 3" taller and is faster too.Play 2 - EJ Biggers gets torched on this play. There really isn't much more to say about this play. Maybe he read it as a slant route and was hoping to jump the route? Who knows? Whatever happened this is 100% on him. Honestly, for his sake, I was really hoping that there was a play-action element to it... but there wasn't.Play 3 - Safeties are in a cover 2 and the CBs are playing man on the outsides. Robinson's assignment is the RB and he follows him outside into the flat, while Riley is on a delayed blitz. This creates a MONSTER-sized hole for Eli to plop a quick pass to Donnell over the middle. I would like to have seen Riley bump Donnell and disrupt his timing, but if he's trying to blitz he wants to get there quickly. Really just a fortunate play design by the Giants.Play 4 - Eli throws a TD to Donnell. Merriweather is covering Donnell. Donnell quickly breaks on a skinny post and Merriweather is playing too far to the outside and can't recover in time. Riley looks to be on an island in zone coverage over the middle. If the design was to bracket Donnell over the middle... they didn't exactly do that well and we even had good pass rush on the play.Play 5 and Play5b - Eli completes a long bomb to Randle. Amerson is playing man coverage on the outside. Randle fakes inside, but runs a vertical route instead. Amerson quickly recovers, but Eli places a perfectly thrown ball that Amerson didn't turn in time to break up. Also, watch Biggers covering Cruz over the middle... he gets torched too.Play 6 - Eli TD pass to Donnell over Breeland. Breeland is playing man-coverage against the TE Donnell. Breeland bites HARD on a fake slant route, while Donnell cuts back to a fade. Eli throws a well placed ball over Breeland's head before he can completely recover and scores the TD.Play 7 - Eli long sideline pass to Cruz right before the half setting up the close FG for Brown to make the game 24-7. The defense is a 4-2-5 (nickel) Cover 2 arrangement. The Giants offensive line keeps a completely clean pocket, while 2 WRs and a TE are on the right side of the line exposing the hole between the safety and the CB. This play there is a clear miscommunication or breakdown. Biggers gets sucked up by the TE running the out route while I think his responsibility should have been going deep to cover. Clark comes up to occupy the space. Maybe Biggers saw that it was an out and he wanted to protect it since Clark wasn't near the play? Whatever happened it was a breakdown between these two.Play 8 - Eli passes short to Donnell who fakes to the outside and cuts back inside on a slant. Amerson gets turned again following the first move off of the line allowing Donnell to pick up an easy 14 yds. Where is the jam? Amerson is 6'1" and has the length to jam off the LOS. Also, watch Robinson run towards the flat. There is nobody there!Play 9 - Eli almost throws a deep TD to Cruz. This play was purely lucky by the Redskins as it should have been completed for an easy 6. Cruz torches Porter on a vertical route. Why we are playing Porter (who just returned from injury) on an island against Victor Cruz really bothers me. That's a clear mismatch and Eli is so close to taking advantage of it. I don't like the play-call on 2nd and 7 where our entire defense is facing towards the center of the field.Play 10 and Play 10b - Eli throws a pass into the endzone caught by Randle but Merriweather jars it lose with a perfectly placed hit on the ball causing it to be intercepted by Robinson. This play was challenged. A lot of people, including myself thought it should have been a TD, but the ruling on the field was that Randle didn't "make a football" move to secure the reception..... Don't worry though... The karma ship corrected itself and KC1 threw an interception 2 plays later.Play 11 and Play 11b - Eli places a perfectly thrown ball over Breeland to Randle on the sideline. Breeland didn't turn around to play the ball allowing the reception.Play 12 - Eli completes an easy pass to Adrian Robinson after Kerrigan gets pushed to the inside by the TE lining up on the outside. This is an illegal play and should have been called. You can't set a pick on a passing play. That was the clear intention of the TE and the refs should have called it back.As you can see from the plays above, it wasn't that difficult for Eli to torch our team. The WRs made quick moves and Eli released the ball early enough that 4 men wasn't enough to bring pressure soon enough to impact him. Eli did have some great throws, but the Redskins secondary beat themselves by not playing fundamental coverage.Dominated at the LOS and Missed Tackles...Not only were the WRs on point, but the running game exposed our defensive front seven. Redskins DE Jenkins, mainly a run stopping DE, went out early in the game ue to a rib injury.Play 13 and Play 13b were like watching a flashback of the Week 1 2013 game against the Eagles where Shady juked our entire team.Play 14, Play 15, Play 16 and Play 17 show how the Giants offensive line simply dominated ours in the run game. This is what bothers me is that we were able to completely shutdown elite RB LeSean McCoy last week (19 carries - 22 yds), but couldn't stop average running backs on the Giants team.Play 18 - One last easy catch and a some great jukes by Cruz to create more yardage.Continued below in comments. via /r/nfl http://www.reddit.com/r/nfl/comments/2hzt7p/analysis_of_eli_manning_vs_was_defense_week_4_2014/