Cowboys QB Dak Prescott Gets Public Apology for ‘Bum’ Label

Heck yeah Joe Flacco, that was awesome! While the public reading-into of Flacco's production will look foolish when the Bengals run into defenses that can make them work, having a replacement-level ball-deliverer to feed Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins is at least a lot of fun and frolic while the Bengals navigate some terrible defenses. Two weeks ago, they made a living forcing the ball to Chase to the tune of 23 targets as the Steelers stubbornly lived and died (died) by man coverage. Last week, the Jets had a decent plan to cover the two receivers, but exposed their criminally inept run defense to the usual blown assignments. On Sunday, they capitalized on Chicago's predictability in coverage and inability to do much else without screwing up.

Despite all I've preached about the difficulty of Joe Burrow's job on the whole, such consideration is tacitly reserved for when defenses can cover competently and rush the passer at least a little bit. The fact is that Chicago can't, and at that point, it is actually quite easy to put up big numbers with Chase and Higgins. Even if they get into the "right" answers to take things away and force you out of rhythm, they can't execute them properly, and guys are still both wide open and easily findable early in reads or often, just pre-snap. As long as you have a QB with a pulse, the Bengals can put up huge numbers in games like this because of the damage and gravity of their superstars.

You need Burrow to function when teams can effectively mix coverages and heat-up the passer, but the difference is not made as clear in moments like Sunday. It's in there if you watch closely, and it will be exposed, but for now, let's enjoy a very good gameplan by Zac Taylor and Dan Pitcher to attack a coverage unit that truly cannot play.

Bears DC Dennis Allen found his hands tied pretty quickly. While the Bengals' lack of an established, dangerous run game expands your coverage menu beyond any limits, the inability to cover Chase and Higgins 1-on-1 impacts it. It doesn't contract it anywhere near as much as a serious box-count issue does, but it does contract it.

The proposition going into Bengals week in coverage for any DC includes a checklist where your first order of business is to ensure you aren't giving them easy opportunities to take 1v1 shots. If you're going to play coverages with 1v1s outside, which you will have to do, they must be properly mixed into a baseline of coverages that don't, and be disguised so that they can't key in and attack it.

Second, and this is important as well, you cannot be predictable in what you do. You can draw up an answer in the passing game for every coverage and get the ball out quickly for every coverage under the sun. It's not that the answer to "2-high" is running the ball at an elite level because 2-high is hard to draw up answers to, it's the answer because 2-high alignments can end up being any coverage under the sun post-snap, so you can't dial in on anything and must hold the ball and find answers to what unfolds.

Even if you play Cover-2 or something that gets a lid on things, if you do it too often, there are juicy answers you can tailor up. The teams that have had success, even against Burrow, have built around a healthy mix of Cover-2, Cover-6, Cover-3 rotations where the S comes down from depth, and specially-constructed doubles/brackets of varying nature. Third is that the bedrock of your plan cannot be 2-man, it's a total trap, it's not a good coverage to use more than sparingly against the Bengals. Unfortunately for Allen, 2-man was their fastball on Sunday and as always, the Bengals crushed it. Chase crushed it, Higgins crushed it, but more than that, Taylor and Pitcher expected it, sat on it, and crushed it.

That isn't to say that Chicago didn't try to protect their fastball with different things, but their coverage unit is just horrible and doesn't have the skillsets to function in their base stuff, let alone the introduction of specialized changeups to execute a proper gameplan. The idea here from Allen is sound. They're modifying standard fire zone coverage (3 under 3 deep, a Cover-3 type structure minus one underneath) to include a cloud (CB in flat, S over top) to Chase's side. The ILB to that side, supposed to stay on the hash and get depth to squeeze anything in the middle behind him, blows the assignment and works into the flat like he would in a normal fire zone. Not a terrible idea, it's a good thing to mix in when you want to create pressure, but Flacco doesn't get punished for sitting on Chase despite special attention theoretically being paid to him.

I may be wrong on this, but I don't remember seeing quarters a single time after this. With Flacco plainly cheating to his stud weapons, a 1v1 is going to get exposed even if you mix it well with other stuff. As a result, Allen decided to try what the Jets did and sell out to taking them both away.

He failed miserably because he fell into a trap, and he failed because Taylor took a lot of notes after the Jets game, coached by Allen's disciple Aaron Glenn, and what he's also probably seen on film from Chicago (which I have not watched, you can't make me watch it). Allen decided that the way to double both Chase and Higgins was to play 2-man, a lot of it. Take it away, Iron Man!

Why is this such a bad idea? Well, 2-man is a nice way to create a vertical double on someone, but it's still man coverage at the end of the day and has serious vulnerabilities that will get exploited if your guys can't cover their guys.

The idea of "2-man" is to essentially play man coverage that allows you to cheat underneath without worrying about getting beat over the top. The underneath players will play a "trail" technique on their assigned receivers, which means they'll play tight underneath, but if they head past 5 yards (or so, depending on many factors), they'll let them pass and follow them from behind, funnelling them to the 2 deep safeties helping over top.

Beating 2-man is a lot like swimming out of a riptide. You can't swim back against it, and swimming with it will take you out to sea, but if you head side to side, you can break it.

That is exactly how the Bengals beat it, and they have historically shredded the coverage for this reason. You feel like you're capping Chase and Higgins over the top and playing what many view as the best passing-down coverage in the book, but Chase in particular is far too wiggly side to side to not be exposed on in-breakers and out-breakers. The main objective is not achieved, and as we'll find out next, that doesn't even get into the trade-offs and externalities.

When you're predictable, you're attackable, as every coverage has a weakness. In 2-man, aside from what I outlined above, there's a lot of strain placed on your underneath defenders, especially if your RB can run routes. Remember, it's a 1v1 unless a guy heads deep, and since the RB route-tree is so horizontal, the linebackers need to be able to cover them without any help or a zone defender to pass it off to. The Bengals had a great read on it, even being willing to throw short of the sticks on a big 4th and 10 in the first clip because of the matchup. Clear out and isolate it.

A similar dynamic exists with the slot as well, and with no Kyler Gordon (or Jaylon Johnson outside for that matter), the Bears had issues matching up there as well. The Bengals targeted these weaknesses over and over.

The Bears obviously carried a major changeup off of their main fastball, in large part to mitigate those issues if/when the Bengals got a read on things. They still have to broadly make sure Chase and Higgins are capped vertically, so when they weren't playing 2-man, they decided to mostly lean on regular zone Cover-2. The problem is that the Bears are awful at playing it. The tape was filled with easy completions that wouldn't have been available had they just played their zones properly. Take this 3rd and 16 for example. This "chevy" route (6-step glance) tagged to Higgins at the X is a favorite of the Bengals in 3rd and forever situations. It's the primary so Flacco is going to try to go here no matter what if he can, and it'd have been covered if the weak hook 55 just kept getting depth on his drop instead of biting on what the LB coach I used to work with at UConn calls the "idiot" route underneath, because it's bait for idiot defenders to jump. Flacco isn't vulnerable to disguises if they don't get his primary covered because he's just hitting the top of his drop and staring at that guy instead of truly trying to sort through what he sees. Disguises are a waste of time for cheating QBs if you don't actually get the thing they're cheating to covered.

It doesn't have to be as easy as the Bears made it as you can see here. Flacco wasn't faced with a collapsing window and he wasn't forced to move off his primary. The LB could maybe have had a pick if he just picked it up and kept drifting.

The idea for two was to play off of 2-man and try to bait Flacco into mistakes. Here they play a "5-trap" which means that the CBs, who are just playing the flat as a zone, are going to turn to run with the receivers to present 2-man before twirling back to play their zones. It's called a 5-trap because 2-man is also known as "Cover-5" and it's a trap technique off of that presentation. Since the Bengals were using out-breakers underneath as a 2-man answer, this should have worked into forcing a PBU or INT but the CB is incredibly unathletic and inefficient in his technique, and Chase can still catch the ball despite the scheme answer being perfect and fooling Flacco.

The Bengals keyed in on the soft 2 fairly swiftly, realizing that because of the answers they had to 2-man, the Bears would be much less comfortable in the coverage and start to lean on their changeup. Again though, this would have been covered if the WLB just got proper depth instead of patting and flattening his feet. With the pole runner opening to the passing strength (slot side) as you teach, he is responsible for squeezing the other seam from underneath.

The way to know that a zone team lacks ability, especially because zone coverages are considered incorrectly by the public to be "talent-proof," is that the tape makes you wonder how pure zone coverages ever work. Watching this, don't you wonder how anyone ever covers all that space by simply relating to zones? It can be done! You just have to have guys with precision, positioning, technique, quick minds, and range. The Bears do not, and while it wasn't a *bad* idea, they couldn't pull it off.

Flacco has been fine throwing in rhythm, and as long as Chase, Higgins, Taylor, Pitcher, and the defenses they play can keep him there, they can put up numbers. If he's forced out of rhythm, forced to move his eyes, and/or forced to navigate pressure, it's been a disaster. His primary concept is the curl-flat-corner (snag) to the field. The idea is to create a 3-level stretch with a horizontal stretch on any hook or curl defender and a vertical stretch on any flat defender. The corner is not usually part of the read and is only thrown on alert, so Flacco is looking initially to the curl-flat combo which is covered because they're playing Cover-2 and have a CB cutting off the flat to alleviate any conflict on the hook. With that not there, he has to work backside, takes too long to see that the dig is not open either, and is late getting to his checkdown, which was open had he been on time.

The pick 6 that should have killed the Bengals is a similar deal. Because he doesn't have the creativity and arm talent to float this over the MLB and drop this right inside the back-line between the "F and U" in "it takes all of us," he has to check this down, and he panics for a couple beats before doing that, which allows the LB to make a play on the ball. He's not pressured here but is plainly uncomfortable.

Managing dirty pockets and breakthrough rushers will always be a challenge for a guy who is both a statue and an okay but not necessarily *good* processor/spatial navigator, but Flacco is a bit less aware than you'd hope from someone of his experience.

He is what he is. He's a guy who'll stand in the pocket and deliver the ball competently in rhythm. Against the defenses the Bengals have played recently, and with the receivers they send against them, that's gonna be enough to put up big numbers for now, as we saw in Cleveland a couple years ago. The rubber hits the road when the opposition forces him off his spot and impacts the pocket. When they make it difficult. The difference between Jake Browning and Joe Burrow was everything; Browning became a huge negative, but the difference between Joe Flacco and Joe Burrow is what happens when things get real.