The myth of poor protection and the dominant Rams D

[keasley45]

Let's put it like this - whether the pressure he felt was a direct result of pass pro or not (and in some cases it was, not all but some, we can agree to disagree), it was real for Sam Darnold (hence ghosts).

The talk over on the Rams side, was that they knew they sacked him 9 times in that last match up. This is why DBs were sitting on routes like on the JSN pick because they knew he would try to get rid of it quick. Or in other words "force" the ball to a predetermined receiver. He wasn't trying to go through all 1-4 reads to find the open guy, with those 9 sacks in the back of his mind. The pressure was real for Sam.

This was deliberately in Shula's game plan and it worked. Not everything was self-inflicted.

Expectations definitely are lowered until he can get that monkey off his back. I still have faith that he will.

I think i agree with everything you said. He needs to evolve his game or we wont get far.

 

[keasley45]

Man I like everything you say except about Sam not being a backyard scramble guy. I think he throws pretty good on the run and he can extend the play when he rolls out. I almost wish he was on the move more. Maybe being on the move is not quite the same as scrambling under pressure, but I think when he’s on the move he gets even less locked in on one target.

I agree. He has a tendency to stand stationary when he doesnt have to. the first pick doesnt happen if he just moves his spot. There was no risk of him getting sacked. Same on the one to JSN. When he saw the free rusher, he should have just bailed and hit Charbs in the right flat. Mobility is your friend when you are under pressure.

 

[Sperrydogg]

i think it was more a case of Sam being impatient. there was no need to throw the ball to Kupp on his first pick. Just as there was no need to throw it to Arroyo or to JSN on two of the other three. Nor was there anything in the read of those plays that said he should do so... necessarily.

However...

I think what the Rams know about Sam and that other teams will begin to replicate, is that he is VERY reliant on the design of a given play and if he sees something that tells him off the bat that it will work, unless he has 5 seconds to reconsider, he may just lock on and toss one to you. And i understand why - he grew up in failed systms that stunted his maturation as a player and resulted in poor habits. Over the last two years, he has been in superior systems that do a good bit of the work for him (which they should). But he has become a bit too reliant on the play design doing the work for him, on working through the fundamental requirements of his position and not yet fully comprehending how the results of his actions should dictate what he does next.

Take the Arroyo INT. When he starts the play and looks left to diagnose coverage on that side of the field, he should be doing so to legitimately see if thats where he should go with the ball AND if he knows he wants to go to Arroyo, to see if that action moves the LB to the left or if he stays in place. If that LB doesnt move, he SHOULD consider another read, especially if there is pressure. He should ONLY throw to Arroyo if he gets by the LB (or if the LB moves left following his eyes) and has open field in front of him on his seam route. In this case, The LB doesnt move (Tell 1 in the read), he turns and runs with Arroyo in perfect coverage (Tell 2 in the read), and there is a Safety over Arroyo in the pattern (Tell 3 in the read). And despite all of those things telling Sam quite clearly he SHOULDNT throw there, he did anyway. He took the entirety of his time in the pocket to stare down Arroyo and throw the ball despite nothing telling him to do so.

If pressure was too fast, literally the thing to do is go away from that route because it takes too long to develop. Pressure only gets worse the longer you are waiting for a play to develop (i Hope Russ is reading this) and Kubiak gave Sam an out and a faster read.

The exact same thing can be said of the first INT except here, the coverage read on Kupp said throwing there was the correct INITIAL read. IF pressure is getting to him, he shouldnt simply stand static in place and wait for the play to develop. He should either take the outlet or scramble to buy himself time. That isnt a difficult, high level thing to do. It doesnt require 'PERFECT' play response, just fundamental reaction. And on that play, if Sam was REALLY understanding in its entirety what the DBs responses meant, he would have seen that the Safety over JSN abandoned his responsibility in coverage and left JSN open on the deep route. Instead, Sam took 3.5 seconds to do only one thing - stare down Kupp. He didnt consider that the the Safety would have time to come all the way across the field to pick of his ball nor did he see him doing so apparently.

These are just two terrible plays by the QB and have nothing to do with pressure forcing a bad decision. And i think they are indicative of a player trusting his first read too much when his clock gets interrupted and just letting it rip. Its like Sam requires 3.5 seconds on a play to avoid mistakes. Before SUnday, the line has given him an inordinate amount of time to go through his reads and allow plays to develop, hence his league leading YPC. The two things go hand in hand. But the criticism of Sam before he hot here was that he was less adept at the quick pass, quick decision game and i think that is 100% what we saw Sunday - A qb EXPECTING to have the time he needs to do what HE wants and not taking what the play says he should do.

INT to Kupp, he had 3.5 seconds and it still wasnt enough to get the pass he wanted off from where he chose to throw but did it anyway. But the shortened time to throw didnt prompt him to look elsewhere, he did what he wanted.

INT to JSN - he was pressured right away, rushing the throw but that didnt change his process, he wanted to go to JSN and did so regarldess of what was happening.

INT to Arroyo - he had ample time to read the play and make a better decision, but he inexplicably threw to the guy requiring the most protection and was 100% covered from the beginning to end - ie Arroyo shouldnt have been the read after about .5 seconds into his drop.

All this and the pressing is more reason to get him moving and force his athletic ability to override his brain and get him into rhythm I feel like the first pick just delayed his rhythm and then he kept having issues and never really locked in until the very end of the game. But I also think there was some mistakes in the short yardage choices that coulda swung the momentum of the game. If we coulda had a lead in any moment of that game it woulda been over.

The second barnyard push was so overly predictable that we even half way abandoned it to try to draw them away only to make it weak.. the other issue is they ran it on 3rd and 1. I don’t feel like that situation requires that level of desperation. And normal run or play action would have been much better because clearly it was sniffed out

 

[keasley45]

Just saying...

 

[keasley45]

Kurt Warner does a really good job at explaining why the INT's happened AND how the 2ns INT reeally messed with Sam. In short, The INT he threw to JSN on the out made him timid and second guess basically the same route the following drive to Shaheed on the opposite side of the field. Rather than reading the route correctly the second time and seeing that he was good to throw it, his error on the drive before led him to force a throw to Arroyo.

On the last INT, again, he has JSN on a choice route where he has JSN on an out but despite it being open, he passes on it ... again... and pulls the ball down, ends up getting pressure and dumps the ball off for his last INT.

Really good watch to look at an aspect of his game that i hadnt considered - that he was shell shocked and no longer trusted his reads on outs on three plays that ended in INT's anyway. In trying to avoid repeating a mistake, he stepped right into another one.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

Take what the defense gives you. Live for another play. Dink and dunk if you have to.

 

[Ozzy]

Your position seems to be Sam should be perfect despite the pressures. That's a high standard I'm not sure even Mahomes or Allen could meet (although these QBs do use their legs often to evade pressure).

My position is simply that the pressure WAS there, and it negatively impacted him.

Even if the Kupp throw was predetermined, had Olu not been in his lap, he could have stepped up in the pocket and made the throw.

Even if the Arroyo throw was predetermined, maybe he was intent on getting it out quick due to being blasted earlier in the game. Plus Arroyo ran the wrong route?

Pressure lingers. It's not just on a play-by-play basis. When you get blasted, the clock speeds up in your head. That's basically what a "ghost" is.

And sometimes there is not enough time to go through all 3-4 reads while under pressure. You take the first read or second read, or none at all.

Rewind back to the Commanders game where there was no pressure, and Sam was nearly perfect, while being able to go through 1-4 reads. He didn't have that same luxury in this game.

You bring up the Houston game - Will Anderson is pretty good. That was a horrible call by Kubiak to even put him in that situation. There was no room to even throw the ball away. A safety would have been the best result of that play call. I don't really put that on Sam.

Expecting Sam to be better under pressure is reasonable. He's going to have to be better for this team to go far.

You have to also consider that Sam a timing / rhythm type QB and not a backyard / scramble drill type. Pressure does throw him off his game. It's more a question of how to mitigate that pressure.

And if you can't, then he has to trust his defense and live to fight another day.

Good post and it matches multiple film breakdowns I've seen over the internet the past few days.

 

[Fresno Hawk]

Sam had a bad game. It happens, he's gonna learn from it. He already has based on his last drive. This game will only make him better. He still has alot of upside. His next 2 years could be his best years efficiency wise.