Attempt Three. -2 Yards, Second Down.

The Panthers ran this play right at the end of the game as well, only this time it went backwards. The slight variation here is that Olsen starts wide and then works inside, rather than working across the formation, but after his motion, the play is exactly the same:

There is, admittedly, one slight difference.

As there is no 3-tech on the weak side of the play, but rather a second 1-tech, it is Van Roten who is tasked with reach blocking, with Daley working into space to cut off the back side of the play. There should be the same effect, with a huge gap between the two defensive linemen, or at worst a failed reach block with the linebacker once again forced to pick between two potential ballcarriers, but that isn’t what happened at all.

You can see it going wrong at the mesh point:

It would appear that the play is working if you look at the right side of the screen. The defensive back is once again left as a spectator and Williams and Moton are both making effective blocks. It is the rest of the play where things are going wrong. Having seen this a couple of times now, the Jaguars seem to have a plan. The edge defender is staying wide, knowing the jet motion is coming, with Jack staying quite narrow, waiting on the cutback. However, the Panthers also made two errors here, with a third beginning to emerge.

First, Van Roten’s reach block has succeeded, in that he has managed to get inside of the defender, but he has completely lost control of the block, with the 3-tech shedding it easily and now looking to work back to the ballcarrier. Second, Daley appears to have made a mistake, as rather than blocking down on the unblocked linebacker to clear out the inside of field, he seems to have decided instead to try and block Jack – and ended up blocking neither. This is a rookie playing a new position for the first time, so his mistake can be rationalized somewhat, but when you don’t end up blocking anybody as an offensive lineman, something has gone wrong.

Finally, Matt Paradis has almost completely lost control of his block and the 1-tech is on the verge of shedding his block. In fact, that is exactly what happens, with the following result:

As mentioned earlier, the right side is all working well, but with both 1-techs free from their blocks, there is no inside gap for Bonnafon to run into – with Daley failing to make his block there are also two linebackers running at him as well. The other interesting note here is how the Jaguars are looking to defend the jet option. The edge defender is making no attempt to take on Olsen, instead looking to funnel Samuel upfield where he has help. Also, the safety is looking to target that outside channel, looking to stop the jet rather than the inside run, knowing that Jack has that covered.

This all leads to a predictable result:

This play could still have worked, even with the Jaguars adjustments, but the Panthers could have executed this play better. The reach block is the key block, but as Daley showed in the second example, it is not crucial that they get inside the defender, but rather that they don’t let the defender shed the block. While failing to make the reach block does give the outside linebacker a chance to make the play from the backside, they are forced to do so at the cost of leaving the weakside of the play completely open to the jet option.

This play probably worked especially well against the Jaguars, as their man-heavy defense made them particularly susceptible for motion across the field – and while they definitely could have defended this play better through the game, they were always going to struggle to adjust with the players having very specific personnel assignments in coverage. This play won’t work this well every week, but as the Panthers have shown repeatedly this season, when you force a defense to react in unison to motion across the field, they will struggle to do so consistently.

And on Sunday, that led to two big touchdown runs – and a win.

Vincent Richardson

Managing Editor at Riot Report

Fan of zone coverage, knee bend and running backs running routes. Twitter: @vrichardson444