Ok, thought I'd catch up with this by doing a quick look at the first game where we actually committed to play action all season... which was also the last game of the season and didn't matter at all. Not only did we commit to it but it was successful. Not 'we worked around the fact that our play action didn't work by spamming the underneath routes' successful but regular successful.
So, we threw 12 play action passes. We'll ignore the first one. (This would only nominally be considered a PA play and it was really just a screen pass with a little bit of RB motion out of the backfield).
So, here's the second one:

So, the concept here was Fant chipped Jared Verse to buy Geno time. Witherspoon actually buys the run fake (for a second). His responsibility should be to Fant, but because he had his eyes in the backfield he's slow to respond and Noah cranks out 12 yards on 2nd and 10. (If Verse wasn't there, Bobo is running a similar but deeper route, so there is an even deeper shot available if Geno has extra time.)
This is the type of PA you can run when a defense buys your run fake.
The third play, we did our biggest tell all season: Play Action, under center, to the weak side. Our line gets blown up immediately and there is no safety net on this play. We end up lucky to end with an incomplete instead of a sack, so let's move on.
Ok, number 4:

So, this is the beauty of what you can do when a defense gets sucked in on the run fake.
Basically, everyone in the second level got sucked in by the run fake and create this giant opening in the middle. DK's got such a cushion because he's such a deep threat that that the corner is afraid to get beat over the top. JSN's deep route then pulls the safety back, DK cuts into the hole generated, and we get 22 yards.
1 criticism I have here, though, is that--as with the last PA play that got blown up--there is no intermediate level success route on this play. It's 3 roues that go well past the first down marker and a checkdown. This is one of the biggest issues Grubb displayed all season. If the pass rush beats our O-Line here, there is no emergency button for our QB. It's first and 10. Where is the 4-5 yard concept?
Moving on.
This one, the play action is a fake jet sweep which is designed to get DK a one-on-one look and it works. Look how the second level is all following the action of the jet sweep and Geno knows immediately where he's going with it once the defense follows the fake.
Unfortunately, they just miss on the connection here, but the play concept works perfectly. Geno just put the ball a half a step too far in front of DK but otherwise this is a TD.
So, the 6th (and final play action play I'll look at in this post) is a similar concept to the first one we looked at.

So, Barner holds onto block and then leaks out. The guy responsible for Barner gets his head in the backfield because he sees Barner engaging the block then once he realizes it's a fake, he gets hung up on Fant blowing by him and is looking completely the wrong way. By the time he does get his head back to where it should be, it's way too late.
This is the type of PA we've actually had some regular success with this year when we've tried it (which wasn't often enough) and we get 6 yards on 2nd & 3 for a first on this one.
Alright, so that brings us to the halfway point of Play Action plays from this game. This was by far our most PAs in a single game (to put it in perspective, in weeks 1, 2, & 5 we only threw 9 play action passes
combined).
We mixed up the looks here. Play action from pistol, play action from a jet sweep, play action from under center. When we struggled, it's because Grubb fell back to type: Under center, to the weak-side, every route going too far.
But the other things we saw were the type of stuff that makes you go: Where TF was this stuff all year long? Why are we busting it all out on the last game of the year that no longer matters?
If I get the urge, I'll look at the rest of the PA plays from this game in another post.