Fahey breaks down Maxwell

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2071880-byron-maxwell-seattle-seahawks-enter-crucial-2014-season

Interesting breakdown. I thought Maxwell played a lot better than this.

I thought that was a very fair and accurate breakdown.
I have not seen any more inconsistency out of Maxwell than I did out of Browner. He is a cover 3 press bail corner with ball skills. When he bails he leaves an open zone for outs and back shoulder throws that only an accurate and fairly strong arm can take advantage of. He funnels inside WR leverage to Earl.

I thought it was an accurate breakdown of one fifth of his game. Whether or not that is fair is questionable at best to me. If you look at what they called qualifying plays they are basically simplifying their task w/ their tunnel vision microscope. I do not really consider it "fair" eliminating all zone plays (whether he made a play or not), all screen plays (even though he slipped the blocks and made tackles for loss), all plays where he had LB'r or S help (even though they resulted in INT's for him), and all run support plays. Talk about your small sample size, lol.

Now, I would not say he is a shutdown corner like Sherm I do think he did a great job for a second CB in his first games starting. He seemed to improve his game to my eye test as the season progressed and he gained confidence/experience. I think he will benefit from an offseason of focus/competition and be even better next year. I do, however fully believe he is replaceable even by draftees we already developing on the roster. PC and staff seem to specialize in the ability to find/develop the secondary so I have absolutely no worries about continued great play there.

Obviously, a corner's primary duty is pass coverage, but Maxwell doesn't get nearly enough credit for his run support. He seals the edge against the run game very effectively which allows the LEO to play less inhibited. Much more often than not, he is in the midst of the bubble screen as well.

Maxwell is very, very good at run support. With respect to "pure" corners, one of the best in the league in my opinion.

Scottemojo":3s81h1ld said:

I thought that was a very fair and accurate breakdown.
I have not seen any more inconsistency out of Maxwell than I did out of Browner. He is a cover 3 press bail corner with ball skills. When he bails he leaves an open zone for outs and back shoulder throws that only an accurate and fairly strong arm can take advantage of. He funnels inside WR leverage to Earl.

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I thought it was a slanted a bit unfairly myself. How can you say in one breath (Arizona game at Clink), that Maxwell had absolutely perfect coverage and then in the next ding him for "failed coverage". There were several cases of that sort of inconsistancy in the article.

I want to see analysis about Maxwell's head. It's seemingly always tilted back in photos and his facemask rides way up his face when he's wearing a helmet.

Maxwell is a monster and I think he will play himself into a huge contract elsewhere

BlueBlood":1a1v2w5q said:

Maxwell is a monster and I think he will play himself into a huge contract elsewhere

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I don't know about "huge" contract elsewhere, but definitely a very nice starting CB contract. A lot will depend on how BB and Thurmond do over the next couple of years on other teams. If they do well, then that bodes well for the next group of DB's leaving Seattle. IF they don't? Then any corner leaving Seattle will be tagged with the dreaded "system CB."

I think the LOB plan of attack is pretty clear............keep Kam, Sherm and Earle together and continue to develop/rotate the 2nd CB positions (as well as the nickel corners).

If you want to know how well a corner does in mostly man-coverage looks, Fahey is your guy. I agree that this is a fair look at Maxwell in man coverage mostly, but also that it neglects some of the other things that Maxwell is tasked to do on the field.

As Fahey does note, Maxwell is very good in zone coverage in particular. I just take this article as a solid article that gives us part of the picture on Maxwell and that should be taken with other evidence to get a fuller picture of who Maxwell is as a player.

Maxwell like Sherman is just a product of the scheme we run. People can't pass against the Seahawks because of the scheme not due to the quality of player. Peterson said so

Maxwell is a top-notch NFL CB, particulary when taking into account that OC's are obviously focusing a healthy part of their game plan around attacking him in the passing game, as they sure aren't doing that to Sherm.

Unfortunately this will almost surely be his last year as a Hawk, and Tharold Simon can battle with Pinkins and possibly others to take over the starting spot. Worst-case too we could draft a CB next year if they don't like how Pinkins and Simon turn out

I think Maxwell did very well for himself last year and had a knack for big plays, but I think Fahey's analysis is fair. To say his coverage was more inconsistent than a few $10 million CB1s isn't a completely damning knock on a CB2 with a small sample size. Fahey also wrote a very in-depth and glowing analysis of Sherman's play from last year.

Everyone is seemingly writing off Maxwell, believing there is no way the team will re-sign him. I'm sure there is a model in the FO plans to re-up Maxwell if they can convince him it's in his best interests to stay here. For sure he's been moulded to fit the Seahawks scheme and thus may perform worse in another. I'm sure he would want to stay here on a winning team as a starter rather than to go elsewhere.

I'm not so sure that they'd let him go w/o any attempt to keep him. We all could find ourselves quite surprised to see him back for 2015 and beyond.

12thManNorth":25trg97d said:

Maxwell is a top-notch NFL CB, particulary when taking into account that OC's are obviously focusing a healthy part of their game plan around attacking him in the passing game, as they sure aren't doing that to Sherm.

Unfortunately this will almost surely be his last year as a Hawk, and Tharold Simon can battle with Pinkins and possibly others to take over the starting spot. Worst-case too we could draft a CB next year if they don't like how Pinkins and Simon turn out

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If Maxwell does leave, it will be an intriguing competition in 2015 between Simon and Jeremy Lane, who played very well in the nickel last year and already has starting experience at Maxwell's spot.

I have a feeling Pinkins will be better suited as a backup at one of the safety positions; if you watch his film from SDSU, he's decent dropping in zone coverage and breaking on the ball, but he doesn't seem to have the hips to play CB on an every down basis. We'll see . . . NFL.com knocked Pinkins for his short shuttle time, but it was a better time than Maxwell, Simon, or Lane's.

Great piece. Thanks for sharing. I would have liked to see more gifs of example of him "failing" in coverage, but overall I thought the writer did a great job explaining the strengths of Maxwell and where he needs to improve.

I love the play of Maxwell punching the ball out of Boldin's hands after the catch. It always reminded me of one of the Pete Carroll: Sound FX's. Pete made the exact teaching point to a DB in training camp about when to swipe hard at the ball and when to punch the ball. I'm guessing all DB coaches teach that, but it shows it's getting through to players like Maxwell.

jammerhawk":2up8uq3z said:

Everyone is seemingly writing off Maxwell, believing there is no way the team will re-sign him. I'm sure there is a model in the FO plans to re-up Maxwell if they can convince him it's in his best interests to stay here. For sure he's been moulded to fit the Seahawks scheme and thus may perform worse in another. I'm sure he would want to stay here on a winning team as a starter rather than to go elsewhere.

I'm not so sure that they'd let him go w/o any attempt to keep him. We all could find ourselves quite surprised to see him back for 2015 and beyond.

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Even if he did choose to take a hometown discount, there still will be a massive difference between his contract and that of a 5th, 6th or 7th-round CB that Seattle is so fond of picking, which will be less than a million dollars.

yea Lane could definitely win the outside spot if and when Maxwell leaves (assuming he keeps improving like he's been doing), but the only issue is that leaves us with a hole at Nickel CB, though of course they could draft for it if they had to. Lane has gotta be by far the most polished and NFL-ready for the outside spot due to starting experience

For Pinkins, I'd have to think that our scouts and JS have seen enough from him to give him a real try at CB, unlike many .netters who gave up on the idea after day 1 of rookie camp lol. Absolutely though he could end up as a backup at safety but that doesn't seem to be option 1 for now

Polaris":3k3vs6jd said:

Scottemojo":3k3vs6jd said:

I thought that was a very fair and accurate breakdown.
I have not seen any more inconsistency out of Maxwell than I did out of Browner. He is a cover 3 press bail corner with ball skills. When he bails he leaves an open zone for outs and back shoulder throws that only an accurate and fairly strong arm can take advantage of. He funnels inside WR leverage to Earl.

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I thought it was a slanted a bit unfairly myself. How can you say in one breath (Arizona game at Clink), that Maxwell had absolutely perfect coverage and then in the next ding him for "failed coverage". There were several cases of that sort of inconsistancy in the article.

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First, take a look at the number of plays actually being considered for this article. It isn't very many, 29! plays counted as qualifying for this study, and Maxwell failed in man coverage on 14 of those 29 plays, and his failure rate in man cover got worse as teams got more footage of him. In the study Fahey did of Sherman, Sherm had a man cover fail rate of just 21%. The point to remember, Maxwell had a blown man coverage twice as often as Sherman, and then some, but on only 29 snaps of the many snaps he took. THis article isn't evaluating his overall corner talent, it is weighing his man coverage skill, which lacks. Lucky for Maxwell, plenty of teams will be looking for him to play press bail come free agent time, I would expect him to get a deal bigger than Thurmond or Browner for sure.

Maxwell failed on 6 out of nine mancover snaps in the Arizona game. The touchdown wasn't one of those 6 fails.

It's great to see a guy like Maxwell get his opportunity and make the most of them. The Seahawk secondary is much better because having Earl Thomas back there let's them play loose. Having that security really helps and now you see how effective it is. It's almost plug and play. These guys have excellent chemistry together too. Even when Lane filled in for Browner, he did well too. Glad to see Seahawk draftees do well.

12thManNorth":2116o85r said:

For Pinkins, I'd have to think that our scouts and JS have seen enough from him to give him a real try at CB, unlike many .netters who gave up on the idea after day 1 of rookie camp lol. Absolutely though he could end up as a backup at safety but that doesn't seem to be option 1 for now

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They did move Pinkins to safety on Day Three. Just my opinion, but I personally see safety as his more natural position.