The Red Zone
The Falcon’s struggles in the red zone have been well documented, and generally this is where elite offensive weapons are meant to earn their money. So why isn’t Julio Jones making a bigger impact in the red zone?
Early in the game, the Eagles actually left Jones on an island and very nearly got punished for it. On this first play, the Falcons have Jones isolated on the near side against man coverage, and the corner does an excellent job of not biting on the inside move knowing he has inside help, and so is able to then take away the outside route when Jones breaks back inside:
Given the isolated coverage, this could well be an option route by Jones and there is a chance that he simply chose the wrong option. Whatever the case, leaving Jones isolated in this way is something of a risk, and the Eagles were even luckier on the following play:
Here, Jones and Sanu are on the far side of the field, each matched up against a corner. The Falcons run Sanu on a curl with Jones running a slant over the top, and the outside linebacker does a good job of diving under the curl to take it away and Ryan passes on to the near side of the field. However, if Ryan had stayed on the Jones slant for half a second longer, he would have seen Jones running free in the back of the end zone. As the game got close towards the end, the Eagles decided it wasn’t worth the risk of getting beaten by Jones, and gave up any pretense, simply doubling him on every play. On each of the following plays, the Eagles do very little to hide what they’re doing, and the Falcons are then essentially playing ten-on-nine:
The only slip up the Eagles did make was on the final play of the game, where they end up doubling Sanu rather than Jones out of the stacked set and, with a better throw, Jones could well have come down with the game-winning touchdown:
There’s a lot the Panthers can do to limit Jones, and some of the ways in which they can direct coverages in order to take away the routes that Jones is able to use to great success should be part of Sunday’s game-plan, but their best hope for limiting Jones, and the rest of the Falcons’ offense for that matter. is a double-headed attack of pressure and good coverage; that is the key to stopping any elite passing offense. If they can pair pressure up front with the kind of quality coverage the Eagles get on the following play, the Panthers have every chance of keeping the Falcons’ vaunted passing attack in check:
