Retain The Deep Middle
Defensive football is in no small part a matter of compromise – defenses are simply not able to do all the things they want to do on any given snap and the thing they should, and often do, look to compromise last is the deep middle of the field. It is no secret that it’s easier to throw the ball over the middle than to the outside – the margin of error is larger and the ball doesn’t have to travel as far, so teams generally want to prevent offenses from hanging the ball over the middle of the field and getting their receivers to simply run under it. In turn, the Buccaneers, like any smart offense, look to move the deep safety away from the deep middle in order to set up easier long completions. This generally is done by either running receivers underneath them:
Or by forcing them to chose between two deep routes:
In the first instance, the deep zone defender has to trust the underneath zone defenders to take this route away knowing there is a receiver on the back side of the play; in the second instance, the safety has to compromise and take the route over the middle and look to force Ftizpatrick into a difficult throw to the deep outside corner. It is almost impossible to prevent any receiver from getting even slightly open on a play, but good defenses look to make this as hard as possible, making those open receivers as hard to complete passes to as they can – ideally, deep outside throws against tight man coverage.
Of course, the Buccaneers have sometimes gotten help from the defense in ways other than scheme manipulation, and it would certainly be helpful if the Panthers’ safeties don’t dive underneath on the slightest hint of an in-breaking route:
This also applies in zone coverage:
As does the idea of not leaving a single high safety to cover DeSean Jackson with help outside of him:
How the Panthers use their help defenders – their safeties in particular – will be key to stopping this passing attack, and that starts with taking away the very easiest of deep throws where Fitzpatrick can simply loft the ball up for a receiver to run underneath.
Turn The Difficulty Up
Of course, even when you factor in the plays where the defense ran a play which put too much pressure on their corners or where a safety decided to lose their mind, the Buccaneers are still left with quite a lot of deep completions – but when you look at these on tape they are either contested catches or on throws which require a near-perfect throw to complete. These plays can be demoralizing for a defense as they are almost impossible to stop, but they are also very hard to pull off with any consistency. This throw against the Bears cover-3 was about as perfect as it could possibly be, and even then, it was only just completed:
And this one required a pass between two linebackers twenty yards down the field:
While this one needed to be dropped into a gap between four defenders:
This wasn’t only true against zone, however, as the Buccaneers remaining long plays against man coverage all required either tough catches that are hard to make consistently – almost all of which also required near-perfect throws to even make these catches possible:
Or throws which would make any quarterback in NFL history proud:
You might then think that the Panthers are actually facing the greatest quarterback on earth and that they might as well give up now – the truth is that this is who Fitzpatrick has always been, somebody who attempts high difficulty throws with consistency and looks like a God when they work a few times in a row and a complete lunatic when they don’t. The key to defending this is not to give him those easy throws which push the numbers in his favor; if the only deep balls he throws are one like the above, the Panthers should be content to take the chance that he’s not having one of the two games a year where he makes them.
After all, while all these throws into tight windows look impressive, he does also miss a lot of these, and the team that did the best against Fitzpatrick, the Bears, made him make these throws to move the ball rather than giving him the easy bombs. And while they did get away with some interesting coverage choices:
They also called his bluff on these high difficulty throws:
And while the Bears didn’t manage to get any interceptions out of these plays, if Fitzpatrick keeps trying to force the ball over the middle, they will start coming:
Always Bring Some Pressure
Of course, a little bit of a pass rush always helps:
In fact, as with most quarterbacks, the pass rush is going to play a huge part in stopping Fitzpatrick – with so many good weapons, if he is given enough time, somebody will get open. Make him hurry, however, and he may just do this:
In short, Fitzpatrick is the epitome of an old-school gunslinger – he looks to push the ball downfield a lot of the time, regardless of whether there is somebody open to throw to – when he is able to pull off these throws, it looks spectacular and is almost unstoppable, but the key is to make this as hard for him as possible. Make him make these throws under pressure or into tight windows over the middle and eventually he will make mistakes.
The curse can be broken.
Clips via NFL Game Pass.
