Introduction

When Demeco Ryans stepped in to take over the mess that Lovie Smith, or more accurately, Bill O'Brien left of the Houston Texans, I don't think anyone expected the revival of their defense to be so quick. Under his leadership they have gone from the 3rd worst overall defense and the worst rushing defense to the 6th best overall defense with the 9th best ground game defense in two short years.

Ryans came through the 49ers’ coaching ranks under Robert Saleh then Steve Wilkes. Whilst Saleh had a fairly complex two high quarter scheme, both his mentors focused on coaching techniques and being player-orientated coaches who maxed out their rosters’ talents. After Saleh's departure Demeco pushed for even more star players being the foundations that they built a defense around. His focus since then has therefore been on creating a structurally sound, if stubborn, system that allowed his players to play hard and fast without having to rely on complexity to win the day.

Early in the season their simplistic defense held up well against teams who want to be complex like the Lions, Packers and Bills. However further down the stretch, as teams got the keys to beating them and injuries started to take their toll, even the miserable Titans' offense were able to put up 32 points on them and between the Ravens and Chiefs sent them for 58 points in back-to-back weeks without having to get into third gear.

Demeco has stuck true to his more simple system without their star players even if it has been to his detriment. The results have been plain to see as before, their elite defense was able to keep their offense in games until very late on but since then it's been exposed earlier in the day leaving no path for Stroud to claw his way back. Their reliance on the Jimmies and Joes over the X's and O’s has been a bit exposed by offenses who were willing to attack their weak links such as Pitre’s replacement, Myles Bryant, and Jimmie Ward's replacement, Eric Murray.

Results

The Texans are a very successful defense who actually rank 1st outside of garbage time in EPA/play with a massive advantage in EPA/play against the pass where they own an outstanding -0.18 mark. Although this EPA mark is impressive on the face of it, they've given up the 3rd most passing touchdowns in the league with 30 and they could have been 1st had the Panthers and Falcons, the only two teams above them, not gotten into a Week 18 OT shootout.

They also allow the lowest completion rate of any team in the league with 58.7% however how much of this is because of the quarterbacks in their division. The quarterbacks they have played in their division rank as the 43rd (twice), 39th, 32nd (twice) and 23rd quarterbacks in terms of completion percentage. I think this goes a long way to explaining why they lead the league in this metric.

One explanation for this disparity between points allowed and EPA/play could be that the Texans rank 4th in the league with 29 takeaways including 19 interceptions (2nd). So this means that whilst they’ll let you score they’ll also get the ball off of you which, when your offense is failing to rise to the defenses' levels, appears like Ryans trying to win the game on one side of the ball.

“The concern for me is we need to play complementary football, right? We play complementary football, we win games. We don't, we're not relying on one side to carry the entire time."

Demeco Ryans after their Week 12 loss to the Tennesse Titans

This seems to play well into the Chargers’ hands as Herbert is a very risk averse quarterback who had a historically low interception rate of 0.59% despite having his highest yards per attempt of his career.

Scheme Summary

Demeco Ryans runs a 4-2-5 defense with his base nickel personnel being on the field 82.3% of the time which is the 2nd highest use of any single grouping in the league. From this the Texans' want to do two things; play as an aggressive single high run stuffing unit on early downs to catch you behind the sticks. Then on later downs they play two high with either Quarters and Palms coverages and attack your pass protection rules with overload fronts.

The aggressive description refers to how Ryans likes to play his secondary on early downs where the corners are the strength so they play tight zone coverage from their outside alignments. This plays into their strengths as they have an incredibly talented, young secondary that have been able to keep passing offenses at bay.

What's clear though is that structure of their defense is actually built to stop the run; it seems like Demeco believes in fortifying where your weaknesses are. They lean on middle field closed (MOFC) coverages for the most part, they use an aggressive set of Cover 3 principles with the Strong safety already rolled down to the apex and the corners playing at linebacker depth. They also use run stunts at the 7th highest rate in the league which, when you compare that to their low blitz and stunt rates, is an outlier that tells a story.

Run Fits

The Texans' main weakness is up the spine of their defense and that is core reason for their preference for MOFC coverages. Between their interior defensive line and off-ball linebackers they lack the elite talent to align with their strengths on the flanks. From their nickel base their likely starters for the Wildcard game will be Tim Settle and Folorunso Fatukasi at Defensive Tackle with Christian Harris and the controversial Azeez Al-Shaair who is back after his suspension has been lifted. He will bring some much needed experience and physicality to their linebacker group but even then this leaves the middle of the field as a much easier area to attack.

Ryans really doesn't like being moved off of his Nickel base perch so how they fir the run is by bringing down the strong safety and slot defender pre-snap and having them sat at linebacker depth. Demeco and his defensive staff don't like to rotate mid-drive too often so he addresses heavier looks by being gap sound and bringing those extra secondary players into the box and gives them a gap assignment. This is an old school Cover 3 philosophy that has since been passed by in favor of schemes that allow for flexibility towards the pass.

This is where established running teams like the Ravens have caused them problems. They used heavy formations and just bullied them all up the middle of the field, the A gaps were wide open all day long especially on trap concepts. The Texans were caught in a bind as if they stayed in two high looks then their linebackers were asked two gap and this allowed offensive lineman to be free to clear to climb off the double team as the defensive tackles were too keen to get into the backfield.

It meant they had to go to single high look against Lamar Jackson which was a massive problem as it allowed Todd Monken to use motion to throw off their gap reads and then employ play action off the back of this to get draw all eight box defenders down towards the line of scrimmage. The game was over before it even begun and Greg Roman's offense has the tools to follow their lead in this area of the game.

"On play-action snaps, the Texans have allowed an explosive play rate of 17.7 percent, which ranks 19th."

Daniel popper from his wildcard preview

Coverage

Overall they run a pretty varied coverage system with only Cover 0 (23rd most) and Cover 2 (26th most) being discarded from the playbook. They rank no higher than 7th for any other single coverage usage so Ryans likes to keep game planners guessing but the tendencies are there to see once the game has begun. They use coverage disguise at 19.1% which is 29th in league so a cerebral quarterback like Justin Herbert may not know what the coverage is when taking the field, but he'll have it figured out once he has looked up at their pre-snap alignments and used his motion keys.

On early downs they tend to show single high and play Cover 3 with their strong safety and corners staying down at linebacker depths to stay aggressive against the run. As a change up they play man from the same pre-snap look and they make this slightly harder on quarterbacks to read as their corners playing outside leverage against receivers who are anywhere close to the hash marks.

The Texans are not the only team the Chargers will have faced this season that will use MOFC in fact they saw it at the 8th highest rate in the league to combat their use of heavier personnel. One way Greg Roman has beaten it is to attack the seams from formations you wouldn't normally expect to do that from. The play above was a 4-verts call from 13 personnel and I'd expect to see some lean into this with the emergence of Stone Smartt adding another dynamic to it.

For clear passing downs the Texans show a two high look and play Quarters or Palms from it however they are not scared of playing man coverage on third down at all, sometimes it is the focus of their game plan. This emphasizes that the strength areas of their team are their corners and pass rushers however by playing man coverage on passing downs you leave yourself exposed as all it takes to lose a close game is one mistake.

Talented Young Secondary

Houston is famous for being home to NASA's flight control and that is exactly what Nick Caserio has tried to honor with the dynamic young secondary he has built over the past few years. That vision has become reality this season as despite key injuries to their leaders, their 3.1% interception rate ranks 2nd in the league with Calen Bullock and Derek Stingley finishing the season with 5 interceptions each.

Derek Stingley Jr.

Stingley was draft favorite for every man and his dog due to his ability to be a true lockdown shadow cornerback who could stay tied to anything that came his way. This is especially impressive considering that was when the SEC at the peak of its heights before the NIL era. He got to sharpen his skills vs the one true WRU every day in practice so much so that not even senior year injuries could stop the Texan’s taking him at 3rd overall. It took him a while to get the hang of the professional game but he is now firmly established as one of the league’s best corners. His coverage rating is 2nd in the league and his catch rate allowed is 3rd despite covering the 5th most routes in the entire league.

Quinten Johnston's break out game couldn't have come at a better time to give him confidence to take on the newly crowned first team All-Pro corner however I think this could be a quiet day for QJ as Stingley is a few levels beyond his current talents.

Kamari Lassiter

The former Georgia bulldog was someone who has surprised many with how well he has played in his rookie season given his 6.24 RAS score including a 4.64 40 yard time. I was always a fan of his tape as someone who plays far bigger than his size, he's able to take on big receivers despite lacking elite height or the arm length to do so. He is however, the outside matchup I'd be trying to get Ladd McConkey into because he has had issues with twitchy speed receivers and had a tendency to false step in man coverage because of his eagerness to trigger downhill early in run support.

Calen Bullock

The rookie out of USC was a draft favorite of mine as I projected him to be the best single high free safety in the class. His smooth fluid style of movement and rapid downhill trigger has merged brilliantly with Ryans’ system and his 5 interceptions have all been misthrows but as a former free safety that’s not just luck, you have to match the quarterbacks’ eyes, have the speed to get there and the ball skills to earn that pick. His snag against Jordan Love was the best of the bunch as he saw it early, drove on it and high pointed the ball over Christian Watson’s very tall head.

As much as I have been a fan of what he can do patrolling the intermediate middle of the field, between Eric Murray and the rookie, that back line should not deter Herbert from testing deep throws whenever the opportunity presents itself. The Texans have allowed the 13th highest explosive play rate and the 2nd most throws of 40+ yards per game so I think this is one area Roman should attempt to exploit.

Jalen Pitre (on Injured Reserve)

When I realized Pitre was done for the season I was more than relieved. That dude is a mismatch destroyer, he can flatten offensive lineman with 100 lbs on him and he can beat any back to the edge. He's like a smaller version of Derwin when he gets into the box and as a true slot, he is in the box more often which wrecks run concepts all too often.

Before Pitre got injured in Week 12 the Texans' boasted a 0.096 EPA/play on MOFC coverage calls. Since then they have dropped to 0.076, whilst that is still excellent it is clear that the effect has been felt. The MOFC usage percentages are almost identical too so it shows Ryans' has not adapted to his absence.

Pass Rush

The Texans' blitz rate from this season was 22.4% which ranks 27th in the league, with no blitz category higher than bottom 10. On top of that they also rarely ever run sim pressures, 4.4% is the lowest rate in the league by a large distance. This means that when they do send pressure it is almost always with an extra off ball player and the four lineman. They rarely put anyone on the line of scrimmage who isn’t being sent to attack the QB.

This is a generally a conservative pass defense which relies on the talents of their players to win out. The results, however, have been as prolific as the 49ers’ peaks; they rank 3rd in the NFL with 48 sacks. Their sack rate of 7.7% is good for 3rd in the league. This is mostly thanks to the dynamic pairing of Hunter and Anderson Jr. 

This style of pass rush can be seen as unsustainable though especially against teams with better offensive tackles (like Rashawn Slater and Joe Alt) and the stats prove this. Between the pair of them they have a total of 3 sacks against winning teams and they have padded their way through an easy schedule, especially when playing in a very weak AFC South division.

The team as a whole have earned 25 sacks against their division opponents, over half of their total, across those six games. Another metric that proves this is that whilst they are second in total sacks, their Pass Rush Productivity (this is pressures, hits, hurries and sacks combined) is only 18th in the league and their

Danielle Hunter

It was a very clever addition to bring Danielle Hunter from the Vikings to fill the vacated Edge position as he was built for a defense like this who send 4 and look for iso matchups on the outside. He is a masterful technician who will provide a lot of tough reps for Rashawn Slater. This style alignment has been working too as he finished the season with a seriously impressive resume featuring 12 sacks and ranks 1st in Pass Rush Win Rate (ESPN) 4th in True Pressure Rate (Trench Warfare) and 1st in Pass Rush Wins (PFF).

Stopping Hunter is the absolutely vital to winning this game. Roman's favoring of heavier personnel can help here as Demeco Ryans likes to set his defensive ends' alignments inside tight ends so he can get double teams and chip help.

Will Anderson Jr

His comrade on the opposite edge of the front, Will Anderson, is another perfect fit for this defense, he has another 11 sacks. However when you look at Brandon Thorn's True Pressure Rate, Anderson is 44th yet he ranks 4th in the league for pressure to sack conversion rate with 9 of his 12 sacks coming from 'low quality' reps or through other influences like coverage and clean up sacks.

If I was Greg Roman and Mike Devlin I'd be sliding to the left more often in pass protection as Hunter is just too dangerous to leave alone for long stints no matter how elite Slater has been. The Bolts' rookie tackle has been incredibly impressive in pass protection with a 94% which is 4th in the entire league according to ESPN so I think he can be trusted to take on Anderson Jr himself given his overinflated numbers.

Ryans' prefers to run man pressures on 3rd down too which is pretty old school. They blitz on 41% of their man snaps. Coaches who have been around will remember the move away from this when Bill Walsh and the West Coast offense started to throw 'hot' which nullified the concept. Yet once again the results contrast with the league wide trends, despite being predictable their sack percentage on late downs is 11.6%, good for 4th in the league.

An example of Demeco Ryans has been getting success despite sending basic 4+1 pressures with man coverage behind, is his use of Boss overload fronts this season and it has been getting good results.

One factor to consider is what Denico Autry can bring to their line on these concepts on his return from injury, with fresh legs the 34 year old can provide some impact in rotation. He hasn’t been at his peak this season registering only 3 sacks and 17 pressures across 10 games however he is a talented veteran who can dominate weaker lineman especially when shooting inside.

Schematic Weaknesses

One thing that the Kansas City Chiefs did really well against Ryans' man heavy plan of attack was to use short motion to get a speed release so that the cross formation man beating routes were able to break out to the other side of the field before the dynamic pass rush duo of Hunter and Anderson Jr were able to even get close to Patrick Mahomes. Greg Roman's motion rate of 51.8% is below league average but I have been a fan of how he uses it to get Ladd McConkey free releases into the slot and this could be a key way to get him the ball to open up the running game.

Both Mahomes and Lamar Jackson have had success running the ball in recent weeks and the Texans have been exposed to it all year long. They have allowed a league worst 6.67 yards per attempt and with Justin Herbert fully healthy, as he showed on the play below, I think it's time for Roman to roll out the designed quarterback run section of the playbook that I am sure he has been waving in Harbaugh's face all season.

Final Matchup Analysis

Where the Chargers match up well with the Texans:

• The Chargers' use of heavier personnel will matchup well with the Texans' stiff Nickel base in the run game. If J.K. Dobbins gets off to a hot start I think Roman will be able to base everything else off of these looks. Gap runs like Trap can be copied from the Ravens' game plan to establish the ground game early.
• Play action has become Herbert's second language after struggling with it early in his career, Roman has an advantage if he draw the Texans' less experienced box players into the run to gain vertical spacing in behind.
• Ryans' old school defense is the kind of scheme Greg Roman earned his stripes against and I believe his drop back pass concepts are battle tested now and can look to stretch the field keep this Texans' secondary from flying downhill.
• The use of short motion behind stacks can get Ladd free releases, which against man can spell disaster.

Where the Texans have mismatch advantages:

• Derek Stingley Jr is a problem all on his own. I expect him to shut down one side of the field and he is actually someone who can threaten the quick tunnel screens that we have been seeing to QJ too.
• The Chargers' lack of a convincing third receiver option means that the Texans can play two man with brackets over both Ladd and Johnston. This is the one coverage I think Roman has struggled to find answers to and if Ryans sees this on tape it will force the Chargers to run the ball a lot more than they'd want to.
• I think the pass rush versus pass protection is a wash on the outside but what it does allow for is Ryans to send pressure up the middle especially out of their dangerous Boss front, the Chargers' weaknesses here may crack which would be a major advantage for the Texans.
• The return of Azeez Al-Shaair will provide a lift to their ability to fit the run especially on the zone run concept that the Bolts have lacked success with all season long.

Conclusion

This side of the ball is a much tougher match-up for Jim Harbaugh's men. I am confident that there are areas that Roman can attack but if the run game falls apart against the Texans' physical defense then how the rest of the game plan pivots away from there is a bit worrying. That said, I still see the Chargers outscoring the 17 point cap I put on the Texans' offense in my earlier article mainly because I think Justin Herbert is playing the best ball of his career and the offense is as healthy as you can expect.

My final result prediction is 24-16 to our Chargers and I will see you all on the other side of the next incredibly exciting 24 hours! Bolt Up!

Introduction

Well we made it ladies and gentlemen. Our Chargers are in the postseason in Jim Harbaugh's first season at the helm. Enough columns inches have been spent on just how impressive the turnaround from Harbaugh and his staff has been and maybe we'll have more time to reflect on that in the off-season but for now, we have a playoff game to preview.

After Joe Burrow and the Cincinnati Bengals did the Chargers a favor by beating their division rival Pittsburgh Steelers, all the Chargers had to do was take care of business against the miserable Las Vegas Raiders to earn the 5th seed. They did just that and earned a trip to the NRG stadium in Houston to take on the Texans who finished as the 4th seed having won the AFC South with weeks to spare.

Many people picked the Texans to represent the AFC in the Super Bowl after a very impressive rookie season from their head coach and the sensational C.J. Stroud where they won a playoff game however progress is rarely ever linear and they have come back down to earth this season with some underwhelming performances, limping their way to a back-to-back division title. They are, however, in the dance and that made them an intriguing opponent to study.

So let's get to understanding just who Demeco Ryans' team are and how they will match up to Harbaugh's men. I'll start with the Offense before doing a separate article on their defense.

Summary

Bobby Slowik, the offensive coordinator, was high on interview lists for head coaching jobs this time last year after his explosive passing game torched NFL defenses for (insert 2023 stats here). Since then however it has been a difficult slog to get his offense to even get to an average mark.

Having lost their star trade addition in Stefon Diggs to injury it was even more upsetting to see Tank Dell go down with a terrible injury in the endzone. The explosive trio of Nico, Tank and Stefon was meant to own the skies of south Texas and beyond but the football gods denied them that opportunity. The issues of this offense stretch much further than the lack of passing uber-talented weapons.

Their run game faltered after a very impressive start, their offensive line has regressed dramatically and their lack of ability to score in the redzone have all culminated in a very disappointing season. They finished the season ranked 19th in scoring, 22nd in total offense, 24th in EPA per play and none of their star offensive players were able to break into the top 14 spots in any major metric.

My biggest criticisms of their offense can best be summed up by the Texans' opening sequence from their Week 17 blowout loss to the Ravens shown in the video above.

• 1 & 10: Bobby Slowik went against tendency by running a Pin & Pull concept to the right against the Ravens' an even front. Despite the fact the linebackers didn't attack the pullers, this play still resulted in less than a single yard gained. The offensive linemen who were tasked with pulling were very slow off the mark and collectively had no punch to move Travis Jones out of the B gap then former Charger Kyle Van Noy collapsed the edge with ease for the stop. That's a 4 on 2 advantage that went for no gain.
• 2nd & 9: Slowik went back to their beloved Outside Zone run concept to the same right side B gap with little success as Jones and Van Noy did the exact same thing for the exact same result.
• 3rd & 7: Slowik's best answer to an early third and long was a backside isolated in breaker to Nico Collins that C.J . Stroud has to thread over the back shoulder of the dropping linebacker with some insane ball speed to put it in front of Nico's hands so he can carry his momentum over the 1st down marker to beating the corner who is firing downhill. A successful result but not a play call you can or should rely upon.

This is just not a sustainable way of running an offense and relies on high percentile throws and careful route tempo control from their only elite receiver. This opening drive ended after on the next set of downs:

• 1st & 10 - An outside zone run to the left where Mixon reads all the gaps are shut and exits out of the backside C gap which is 6th in his read progression by then the second level has been able to surround the box. It's a good read by the veteran back but Van Noy and others are waiting to stop him for a short gain.
• 2nd & 6 - Stroud turned down an early open window on his second level route that Slowik was hoping he's find on the PA Boot. He held onto the ball in favor of the open low route which went nowhere as the guy running the route isn't the kind of explosive athlete they built this offense around. A sign of a quarterback who is second guessing himself as he had the chance to get a first down if he acted quickly but instead only found a yard.
• 3rd & 5 - A very simple twist fooled the right guard and it ended up in a sack. C.J. froze with pressure right in his face. He did everything right but get a pass off, he stayed square and kept his chin up with his base solid underneath him but ultimately he didn't have the confidence to take a shot.  The issue here is that the man beaters they were relying upon crossing the middle of the field took longer than the coverage could hold up, that's not smart play design on 3rd down.

Oof.

3rd down performance

That opening sequence from the loss to John Harbaugh's men wasn't an isolated incident. The Texans have averaged an insanely long distance to gain on 3rd down with 7.93 yards to go. Robert Mays of The Athletic has talked about this all season long and points out that they can’t hope to sustain any kind of success whilst Slowik struggles to find ways of avoiding this unwinnable situations. One additional factor that puts them into these situations is that the Texans are tied for 5th in penalties which includes 35 offensive pre-snap violations. This has only made the early down woes harder to stomach for Texans' fans.

Overall the Texans are a pass-happy team. They rank 9th in passing percentage with a PROE (Pass Rate Over Expected) of +0.8% meaning they pass more than the situation determines. This shows that they clearly don’t trust their run game and the lack of running has caused them to be below league average at moving the chains as they have a third down conversion rate of 37.7% which ranks 20th in the league.

The stark outlier in the data is that on 3rd or 4th and short they have a baffling 5.4% PROE which ranks 3rd in the league. This plays into Jesse Minter's hands as he prefers to stay in light to avoid selling out for the stop with heavy personnel in short yardage late down situations. They've been successful in these situations too with a total of -0.11 EPA/passing attempt on late downs.

Offensive Style & Tendencies

Bobby Slowik prefers to spread things out with 2x2, 1x3 and 3x1 formations making up just under 70%. One interesting thing is that their only positive EPA/play formation on early down is 3x1 which would play into the Chargers’ hands as their Dime personnel has one of their most successful, they use it 23.6%, the 3rd highest rate in the league. The Texans, as a trips heavy team, will likely want to beat the Chargers’ zone defense by overloading number count to one side.

One way to ensure this works is by using the increasingly popular 4x1 concept. This is not achieved by running empty but instead you run trips to one side but create the additional overload by having the back over to the trips side which is the opposite to conventional offensive structure. Joe Brady, the offensive coordinator of the Buffalo Bills, has been excellent at using this concept to get James Cook and Ty Johnson open against the popular Quarters coverage to the wide side of the field. 

12 out of the 14 playoff teams use this concept at a heavy rate including Houston who were doing this earlier in the year but have gone away from it since. I think they might go back to it to try to force the Chargers into more man coverage using overloads like this which would also benefit Nico Collins being in isolation without safety help on the backside.

This would also suits Stroud’s style as he has ranks 2nd in completion % vs man with 64.7% but he is 39th(!) in completion % vs zone with only 56.3%. His passing rating reflects the same thing with 15th vs man and 33rd vs zone. It is clear to me that this is one of the reasons why C.J. looks like a completely different player this year as last year it was the opposite, he was composed against zone and struggled with man coverage. This is why Nick Caserio went and got Stefon Diggs but now without him Ryans, Slowik and Stroud are finding it hard to adapt.

Like the defense, the offense is stubborn to stick to their ways. They run 11 or 12 personnel 93.9% of the time but they are only the 19th ranked EPA per play across those groupings. They don't run heavy looks with fullbacks or other running backs, they instead motion tight ends into the backfield in 12 personnel to be their early down bully grouping. They also do this from 11 personnel with Metchie in the backfield, they like to do this for defenses to show their hand with split back looks without taking weapons off of the field.

Whilst this may work to open up passes to the backfield, they haven't really threatened by running out of it enough and it has therefore become predictable much like their pistol based run game. I think we'll see this formation at least once in the first quarter to see how the defense respond to it. With the ball in his hands, in this much space Mixon is a big threat especially if Slowik is able to get blockers in front of him like in this example above back in Week 11.

One metric I have seen in other game previews is that the Texans rank as 5th in terms of Time of Possession however unlike the Chargers, I don’t think this is by design. Their problems with early down play calling means they average 13.6 third downs per game which ties for 3rd in the league. With the added context of having such a high yards to gain mark, this goes a long way to explaining why their offensive output has been so low as they have to drive the entire field three downs at a time to get to the redzone where they a whole other set of issues.

They struggle to generate explosive plays too with the 6th lowest SUPLEX rating (success and explosive plays on early downs) in the league which is the worst of any playoff team. Their issues on offense stretch to every corner of the field and if it wasn't for Ka'imi Fairbairn's league leading 13 field goals from over 50 yards, I think they might have missed the playoffs altogether even in such a weak division.

Redzone Offense

The Texans’ redzone offense is not good at all. They rank 28th in EPA/play in this area of the field and that’s over the whole season when they had Stefon Diggs and Tank Dell available. This form follows over to their success rate where they are 28th with 40% once you take away garbage time.

The biggest weakness they have is that they are too one dimensional; they rank 28th in the redzone rushing so defensive coordinators only have to look at one side of the call sheet. This matches up perfectly with the fact that the Chargers are the 2nd ranked redzone rush defense so they can spend their entire redzone practice section on pass concepts they are likely to see. Stroud isn't the issue here, he has made some exceptional redzone plays like the one below but it's not enough on its own.

Passing Attack

That brings us neatly onto C.J. Stroud and the passing game. Whilst I still see the immense talent that gave us one of the best rookie quarterback seasons of all time, his 2024 season has been close to a disaster. The statistics speak for themselves but it's his own words that give the best insight into how he is feeling less than a few months after being one of the most confident young players in the league.

“I’m just not making enough plays, there are times where the plays are there to be made and there are guys open and I got to find a way to make the play work"... “I just wasn’t making throws. At the same time, I got to find a way to stand in there stronger and make those throws. There was some miscommunication with me and some of the receivers, but ultimately up to me to make the throw when guys are open.”

C.J. Stroud to Aaron Wilson, KPRC 2 Houston Texans Reporter, after the Week 17 loss to Baltimore

I think Stroud is really not seeing the field with confidence which is the polar opposite to his rookie year. He makes the correct reads but as the season has gone on he has become hesitant to pull the trigger and lacks the anticipation he showcased last year. There is a good argument to be made that this is most likely due to losing Stefon Diggs and Tank Dell to season ending injuries. His demeanor has completely changed without them by his side, he’s not the free going easy leader who felt sure enough in himself to give some midfield advice to the rookie Caleb Williams all the way back in Week 3. 

I think a lot of his confidence came from the fact he was secure in knowing his guys would be there when the pressure came in his face, he could throw with anticipation based on practiced tempo and now that’s just not happening anymore due to the absences of his two security blankets.

There are some throws the C.J. Stroud is just plain missing, the above play call on 2nd and 9 was a Smash route combination which is a brilliant call against the disguised Tampa 2 coverage the Ravens were running. The corner route was the right read and Stroud held the safety well with his, he has his feet set with a clean pocket but his footwork falls apart and this ball sails on him to miss his wide open receiver by a long long way.

He doesn't miss these easy throws at all last year, in fact he was elite in this area as he was able to use his outstanding footwork and smooth throwing action to get the ball out last minute after drawing defenses in. I think that he has tried to rely upon that ability to make plays at the last second way too often this season and it has not been a smart decision based on what has been going on around him.

CJ Stroud’s Time to Throw is the 4th highest amongst starters (2.98 seconds) despite their offensive line struggling. They rank in the bottom tier for almost all metrics but the most relevant here is that they have allowed the 3rd most pressured throws at 143. C.J. is certainly inviting more pressure by holding onto the ball this long but with their predictable and ineffective early down play calling, he might not have a choice in this as he has to force the issue all too often.

"C.J. Stroud’s propensity to hold the ball for a long time hasn’t helped, but an 11.3% sack rate in the face of the blitz (28th) is not simply down to him not getting the ball out fast enough. Houston also allows a 35.6% pressure rate (28th) against four or fewer pass rushers."

Minter is normally structured in his three down compositions and early in this game I'd expect him to stay with that process to mirror the Texans who will likely be making it easy for him to do so. Jesse will look to play regimented and secure on early downs to keep the opposition behind the sticks then make it complex and aggressive on late downs to get off the field.

Nico Collins

One thing I am definitely worried about is how good the connection has been between Nico Collins and his quarterback. Jim Harbaugh knows Nico's talents all too having recruited him and coached him for his three years at Michigan before he was drafted in 2021. His unique blend of size and speed is unmatched in the league in my opinion and to stop him breaking the game open will take special attention from Jesse Minter and his defense.

Minter's dependency on using Quarters or Cover 6 to answer spread looks looks means he will be relying upon Kristian Fulton, Tarheeb Still or Cam Hart to play the strong side outside deep zones on their own. They will be playing from an outside leverage which just will not work against Nico if he breaks his route inside as he is so tall that he frames defenders out. Collins is so smooth out of his speed breaks too so it's not as if they can recover once he drops his weight either.

Against the Chargers' early down coverage choices dig routes have been a problem all season, especially earlier in games. Liam Coen and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers offense repeatedly used the Dagger concept to get the dig open for a lot of success. My hope is that Minter will use the same adjustment he did later in the game against Tampa where in his Cover 6, the weak side safety's read was changed to look at the boundary X receiver first before checking for crosser routes. In the playbook I know and love this is called a Condor adjustment to the standard Cover 6 Buzz.

This has to be combined with getting his linebackers to climb as well in order to free up the corner to undercut this route to make this a risky throw. After being taken apart on the same route again and again by Mike Evans and Jalen McMillan for most of the first half, Minter's made this adjustment to put Tarheeb Still in a position to play this route in a way that will give Slowik and Stroud pause if they see the same adjustment early. Still is the best out of the group at undercutting in-breaking routes as he illustrated in the example above so if Jesse can get him in this position again he can bait Stroud into a game changing mistake.

However the rookie can't realistically hope to take on Nico in man coverage with consistent success like Hart or Fulton could, so how Minter matches their formations is going to be very interesting. Outside Collins they have a very real drop problem with Stroud’s receivers putting down 20 catchable balls which ranks 4th in the league. Against the Ravens in particular John Metchie III, Robert Woods and Xavier Hutchinson all struggled to get open so we might see some quirky adaptations in order to shut down their offensive focal point. The introduction of Diontae Johnson might add some needed juice but he is not worth game planning for considering he has only had two catches in a Texans' jersey.

Pass Protection

If this was 2023 then Laremy Tunsil Vs Khalil Mack would have been a fantastic match up that analyst's across the league would have been excited about but whilst Mack has admittedly taken a small step back, Tunsil has suddenly become a yellow-flag magnet as he is the second most penalized offensive lineman in the league with league leading 9 false start calls against his name.

The rest of the line has been a changing picture with multiple players missing time with injuries and others being benched for poor play. Tytus Howard moved from Right Tackle to Left Guard in Week 15 and the results have been better with only 4 sacks given up in 3 games since compared to 42 sacks surrendered in the previous 14. The sample size is too small to know if this improvement is for real as they got obliterated by the Ravens and the Titans game was a reserve-ridden wash so this new grouping hasn’t had much of a test. The lineup might change again as Shaq Mason is carrying an injury designation as their starting right guard as he logs two DNPs to start the week.

Pro Football Nework publish an analysis of Offensive Line performances at the end of each gameweek using something they refer to as the 'OL+' metric. On the season they had the Texan's graded as the 31st unit across the league with Grade of 52.4 (F).

"It hasn’t been a great season for the Houston Texans’ offense, and the OL’s play is a big part of the reason. There haven’t been any truly disastrous games, but they’ve had six games graded as a D+ or worse and 10 games with a C- or worse. It’s hard to perform well consistently on offense with that level of line play. They have played better since the bye, ranking 17th over the last four weeks."

PFN's Offensive Line Ranking

This was evident on tape too as the Ravens ruined their pass protection on 3rd down with creative blitz calls from their Jet front which was paired with a 'Diner 2' pressure path on at least two occasions. This is a call where both edges line up in the B gaps and the interior defensive lineman go to 5 techniques outside the offensive tackles. Baltimore paired this with coverage disguises to end up in a Tampa 2 coverage look but from two completely different pre-snap alignments.

The Chargers’ won’t emulate this exactly as they don't have the athletes at Outside Linebacker to drop into coverage but this could more be ran out of Minter’s Turbo personnel that we have seen later in this season where Tuli Tuipulotu and Daiyan Henley fill the roles of the outside linebackers with Joey Bosa and Khalil Mack staying at the edge spot but attacking inside with power to clear out the guards. This would make a lot less clear to Jarrett Patterson, their current center, who might fail to adjust to it which would leave the apex pressure paths from Derwin James and Tarheeb Still left wide open.

I have been saying all season long that I am waiting to see MInter's 5+ man pressure concepts and in Week 17 I believe we saw a glimpse of the post season plan of attack for Minter's men. Given the struggles of the Texans' pass protection outside of Laremy Tunsil, I think Minter will send off-ball blitz elsewhere in search of the double advantage of putting pressure on his less talented team mates and see if Mack is able to tempt Tunsil into a false start.

Ground Game

The biggest and most consistent problem for the Texans has been their run game which is ranked as 29th overall in EPA/play. The run game is zone heavy with them running it 64.6% of the time as Slowik is a Shanahan disciple from his time in Washington and San Francisco. That said, he has not been able to emulate the success of his mentor at all. One of the issues they face is that they are predictable as they run out of the same Pistol formation at the highest rate in the league. Not only do teams expect a zone run from this same look but they also have a strong tendency to run in one direction, they run left on 62% of their snaps which is the highest one sided rate in the entire league.

It makes it even easier to defend against as the tape shows that their offensive line has struggled to dig out and drive gaps open as we saw in the opening drive against the Ravens. Therefore they can't even rely on these simple concepts to get ahead of the chains. Their line has failed to give Joe Mixon any kind of daylight and it has led to him being 2nd in the league in stuffed runs with 57.

"This line has also struggled with the run game. They rank 31st in RBYBC/rush (0.61) and 30th in RBWR. That makes some of Joe Mixon’s performances this season even more impressive than they first looked."

Pro Football Network's Offensive Line Analysis

They also run out of trips at a much higher rate than most teams which means they think they can take advantage of light boxes which is something the Chargers have been great at with their 6+1 run fits from nickel and dime. My guy Stefan Rabicano at Thinking Football has brilliantly illustrated how Minter has been so good at stopping the run without committing bodies to it.

Final Matchup Analysis

Where the Chargers match up well with the Texans:

• The Chargers' light box run fit defenders can tee off on their predictable run game to put them into 3rd and long where the Texans have been forced into high percentage throws.
• Creative pressure paths from off-ball players like Derwin James can further erode C.J. Stroud's confidence.
• The Texans' propensity for 11 personnel allows Minter to stay in his preferred Nickel and Dime groupings which can shut down all receivers not named Nico Collins.
• C.J. Stroud's struggles against zone coverage make a date with the Chargers high reliance on it, a very poor matchup for Houston.
• Slowik's recent use of 12 personnel fits well with the Chargers' recent ability to erase talented tight ends with Daiyan Henley and Derwin patrolling the hash marks.
• Against the Patriots, Minter went back to blitzing at-the-snap cross formation motion which, if continued, would match up well with the Texans use of it to get a head start on jet sweeps.

Where the Texans have mismatch advantages:

• Nico Collins has no equal in the Chargers' secondary and if he left in isolation, particularly on in-breaking routes, he will go close to meeting Mike Evans' numbers from Week 15.
• At times the Chargers have shown a weakness in tackling, this has not been consistent but if that problem rears its head then Collins, Mixon and the tight end Cade Stover can earn extra yardage as all three have all shown the ability to run through weak tackle attempts.

Conclusion

From the very beginning of my tape review of the Texans' offense I was excited by just how well Jesse Minter's defense matches up with Bobby Slowik's scheme. As you can see from the match up analysis above, the Texans' path to victory will likely rely upon one, albeit elite, receiver and a very talented yet out-of-form quarterback finding him. That is a narrow window for success against any defense however Minter's unit has repeatedly shown that it takes a lot more than one dimension to beat them even when they are not playing at their best.

Therefore I see the Chargers holding the Texans' offense to less than 17 points. The other side of the ball is a whole other story, look out for that dropping in the next few days.

After sitting through Saturday's trouncing of the woeful New England Patriots, I thought I would waltz through the coaches film without much to take away from it. Boy was I wrong! During the first half Greg Roman was in his element, calling well designed plays that not only delivered a dominant performance but they also hinted as to what we can expect to see in the playoffs in a few weeks time.

It's always important to caveat any praise for stellar performances in this game as it was a complete mismatch. Jerod Mayo's players were unprepared, mistake-ridden and just flat out not on the same level as Jim Harbaugh's men. The graphic above goes some way to explaining how far apart these two teams were. Out of all games since 2018, the Patriots' offensive performance ranked below the 2nd percentile, losing 0.45 expected points per play. Compare that to the Chargers' offense who added 0.30 expected points per play which ranked above the 93rd percentile.

So whilst this was an easy day out for the Bolts, there were plenty of points of improvement in terms of play calling, individual performances and overall cohesion. I took a look at a few key areas on the offense that told me a lot more than the bare result.

Pass protection

To start with something that has been spotted by almost everyone; the pass protection was much improved even if it was against a bottom tier pass rush unit. There are a few contributing factors here however the first is that after 16 weeks Jim Harbaugh, Greg Roman and Mike Devlin finally saw what an actual guard looks like on the right side of Bradley Bozeman. I have had a note in my weekly reviews that it was time to start Jamaree Salyer since Week 6 so for his performance to be as solid as it was came as a welcome contrast from the standard we have grown used to from Trey Pipkins.

We can all admit that the Patriots' pass rush was awful but then again so was the Atlanta Falcons' heading into the Week 13 game where they ended up sacking Justin Herbert down 5 times. Therefore that game is a valid comparison to make to this one in order to show how much the pass protection improved. Herbert was given all the time in the world to deliver a clean performance and his jersey was kept as clean as a whistle.

Jamaree Salyer's big day

Whilst I enjoyed Salyer's isolated pass rush reps, it his ability to drive gaps open in the run game and his awareness to pick up stunts that colored me impressed. In the example below Salyer read that Joe Alt and J.K. Dobbins could pick up the 2 rushers to his side within a flash, so he quickly works back across to the line slide direction to get hands on one rusher sending him into Bozeman for a lovely slab. This is the type of read speed, adjustment confidence and footwork that Pipkins has just not got within him and it is so refreshing to see after a whole season of watching the protection lose on simple stunts to the right side of the line.

From practice reports it seems like Salyer has kept the starting Right Guard spot even though Pipkins was a full participant, this should be welcome news to everyone.

The return of Will Dissly

The run game was much improved as well. A lot of the praise has rightly gone Dobbins' way however there was another component that has gone under appreciated: the return of Will Dissly. Roman places a heap of trust on his broad shoulders and he delivered with some outstanding blocks including the first clip in the video below where he stonewalls Keoin White who is one of the best young defensive lineman in the league, all on his own. This is a very important role in Roman's offense as it means he can run the ball out of 11 personnel which he has be unwilling to do without Dissly because of who his other options are.

The other way he improved the offense was what he can add as a pass catcher especially in the screen game and the second clip in the video above shows what he can do with the ball in his hands. This is not only a play calling gem to come back to each week but even the threat of him being able to do this allows Roman to give defenses pause to sending the kind of ever present run pressures that the team has seen whenever Fisk and Matlock are on the field together.

Greg Roman's run game is slowly opening up

Going back into the run game again and it was great to see Roman being more creative whilst still committing to the simple run concepts in order to establish the ground game. The zone runs are improving but the gap concepts are becoming more detailed with layered in motion and deception to start to look like what Roman was doing in his Baltimore days. The play below was so close to working and I'd really want to see it run again. GT Counter spinner is a favorite of football film twitter circles and here Roman's offense was so close to pulling it off.

Keoin White smartly cut blocks Zion who was pulling to clog up the lane then Fisk gets rocked back by a strong set of hands from Christian Elliss. At the same time Sam Mustipher is walked back to close the second gap in Dobbins' progression meaning he has to do very well to get the yards he does. If Salyer is on the field this is at least going inside the 10 and if it wasn't for a heads up play from White, this could have gone for six as everyone else other than the free safety is blocked up.

What's to come next

There are genuinely too many plays to talk through but the key takeaway for me is that over the last few weeks Greg Roman has addressed almost all of the concerns that I laid out in this article. He has developed a quick game to reduce the opportunity for defensive coordinators to blitz with confidence, he has broken tendencies in the passing game to have multi-directional route combinations and his heavy ground game is starting to round into form with the return of Will Dissly and J.K. Dobbins.

It is my hope that this trend continues when the Bolts face an actual NFL defense in a couple of weeks time. It will take strength of character but the one thing Roman has to continue doing is the complementary play calling. Right now he is passing to set up the run and those runs are setting up the play action shot plays.

One development I expect to see off the back of this performance is the lean into 12 personnel without the Bash Brothers (my new nickname for Tucker Fisk and Scott Matlock). The pairing of Will Dissly and Stone Smartt is one fans should be excited about because it makes up for the lack of receivers who can play physically through contact which is an absolute must in play off football. Smartt is becoming a sharp route runner who has a strong set of reliable hands which compliments Dissly's ability to block and play down low with the ball in his hands.

Summary

Overall the offense is clearly in a great place entering into the postseason especially when you consider where they were a month ago. Two games is too small of a sample size to call a trend but for those who have studying the tape all season they can assure you everything looks cleaner and seems to have a purpose in a macro sense rather than just trying to earn 4 yards. This is the sign of an offense that is rounding into form and credit needs to be given to Jim Harbaugh and Greg Roman for exercising patience to get to this point at the right time of year.

Next stop: The playoffs (via a minor detour to Vegas)

A message from the Stormcloud team

I also wanted to say a Happy New Year to the whole Stormcloud community on behalf of myself and Kyle! We are ecstatic to be entering into 2025 with you all on board AND with the Chargers' having secured a place in the playoffs with a week to spare! We have so much planned for this year and we can't wait to get going with it all however in the meantime we really want to hear what you all have got in mind as the regular season comes to a close.

So jump into the comments and let's start to talk about your predictions for the rest of the season!

The Chargers' defense got absolutely manhandled by Tampa Bay's offense in every which way. There was nothing Jesse Minter could do to stop Baker Mayfield, Mike Evans and their dynamic running backs from marching up and down the field. Liam Coen has gone under appreciated as one of the better offensive coordinators this season and he proved his mettle once again by finding ways to pull apart what has been a consistent defense all season.

The Bengals and Ravens managed to put up 57 points in back to back games but last week's 40 points surrendered was an entirely different story. The two AFC North teams played the game of talent by exposing where the Chargers lack the athleticism with a roster bolstered by bargain contracts. The Buccaneers were the first team to slice straight through the scheme and if Jim Harbaugh and his staff don't do something differently over the last three games of the season, Coen may have just given the Broncos, Patriots and Raiders the blueprint to how to put up big numbers to make the path to the playoffs more challenging.

How Liam Coen broke Minter's system

To summarise just what went wrong on Sunday, there were three key areas that the Buccaneers attacked with great success:

1. Minter's favorite Cover 6 on early downs
2. Lack of run stopping linebackers
3. The mismatch pass rush

On early downs, Jesse Minter's overreliance on Cover 6 was exposed by way of the Dagger concept. Coen is not the first coordinator to use it with success against the Bolts this season but he managed to make it work to an even better degree by playing with the Chargers' coverage rules with clever underneath routes and motions. Both of these tools were successful in forcing the linebackers to stay closer to the line of scrimmage than they'd need to be to stop the dig route going over their heads. Baker managed to hit this same concept three times on their opening two drives for 46 yards. It would have worked again to open the third drive if it wasn't for a fantastic read and drive by Tarheeb Still to snag the ball on a slightly late throw by Baker to get the defense's first takeaway of the game.

Next up, Tampa went after the Chargers' lack of run stopping linebackers and Minter's approach to solve this with defensive backs. The physical Buccaneers offense just bullied their way to 223 rushing yards and one of the ways they did this was out of 22 personnel. Jesse Minter put out the right personnel to oppose this but it was just a mauling. Otito Ogbonnia's time as a starter should be coming to an end after he has been exposed as the weak spot on the line, the Bucs continually sent double teams his was on the example play below you can see just how poorly he deals with them.

It was not just in terms of physicality either as Coen and his staff particularly went after Derwin James' lack of detailed run fit knowledge whenever he was lined up in the box as if he was a linebacker. I remember last season when the Arizona Cardinals did this against Dan Quinn's dime defense and gave the league the answers for dissolving what had been a stout unit before that game. If Minter doesn't adjust against a similarly built Broncos team on Thursday night, they could look to dominate in the same way.

I have been worried about the pass rushers ability to generate pressure on base rush calls since the Panthers game in Week 2 however this was their worst performance of the season by far. The Buccaneers walked into SoFi stadium with the second lowest pressure rate allowed of any unit in the league and it only got better for them. They only gave up a pressure rate of 16.9% with 1 sack and 2 total QB hits allowed. The tape was even worse for the Chargers' pass rush because the Bucs' offensive line did this mostly on their own, there was no need for tight ends or running backs to stay in when the Chargers' star names failing to generate any kind of pressure. It was frankly hard to rewatch Khalil Mack get stonewalled by Tristan Wirfs, Joey Bosa failing to get anything going against the underrated Luke Goedeke and the interior three keeping Baker's pocket clear of trouble after anyone not named Poona Ford.

I could break down the coverage mistakes on the example above however no coverage can realistically hold up for over 6 seconds without some gaps appearing. It's absoultely untenable to play football this way, Baker isn't even close to being hit when he finally throws the ball to Evans who has jogged his way across the entire width of the field to find the space he needed for 57 yard touchdown. As much as I have criticisms of the pass rushers, the failure of this trench battle was on Jesse Minter, he has been a reluctant blitzer all season long ranking 17th but for this game he took a further gamble that did not pay off. To only send four rushers for the majority of the game (before it got out of hand) when they were generating absolutely nothing was a big mistake that he should have countered earlier than he did.

Third down failures

The lack of pass rush was especially evident on third down. Entering into the game the Chargers' were 7th in the league for defending third downs yet Tampa Bay went 9 for 15 with Baker Mayfield looking like he had all the answers for whatever he was facing because he had all day to sit there and pick the coverage apart.

I broke down all 15 third down plays and both Minter's initial plan and in-game adjustment were plain to see. On four of the first five obvious passing third downs Minter's approach was to play Cover 2-man and rush four with the two high safeties bracketing the slot receivers. I would understand this if the pass rushers had been playing well (which they hadn't been) but to choose this method of attack against one of the best pass protection units in the league was very confusing. To play man coverage on third down is a risky prospect and it relies on getting to the quarterback, this didn't happen and it allowed Baker to survey the whole field before making his decision. On these five plays Baker went for 4/4 for 54 yards, 3 first downs and touchdown with the Chargers' only stoppage coming on a 4 yard scramble.

Minter's counter to this, once he finally gave up on sending four, was to drop 8 and send three and initially this worked much better to close off the pass lanes as they forced Baker to miss the first three concepts he wanted to hit however after this the Bucs adjusted to it and came back with a savage 3/3 for 63 yards resulting in a pair of first downs and a score. After this they just resorted to running the ball to close out the game which they did to a good deal of success considering the Chargers were expecting the ball to be in the running back's hands.

The third down performance was awful to say the least and it was a good representation for just how easily Liam Coen was able to attack the Chargers' weaknesses. I have been full of praise all season long for how Jesse Minter took a failing defense, bolstered it with cheap free agents, Day 3 draft picks and a late pick trade addition, to turn into a system that far outperformed the sum of its parts so it is only right that we provide criticism when someone has been able to outclass him. The question is now whether Harbaugh and his DC will make adjustments or carry on with their base structure in the hope that better player performances can bridge the gap.

The 2-man third down decision was a poor one and I am sure Minter already regrets the path he took away from his usual tendencies however the two high coverage beaters Coen that displayed are more of a concern because he bases so much of his scheme off of this early down coverage shell. I think Jesse was leaning into playing more single high coverages anyway as his rate has started to creep up for the first time so hopefully he has the capacity for change at a critical time of the season. Stubbornness has an expiration date and 40 points and over 500 yards of offense is enough evidence that we have reached that saturation point.

Crackpot theory time

I have been holding onto a theory I have had since the Falcons' game that I wouldn't usually share something I can no evidence of (hence the crackpot title) but the state of this week's defensive gameplan has pushed me to do so. It is my opinion that Jim Harbaugh could be putting the brakes on both Roman and Minter to ensure they do not outpace the long term trajectory of this team.

I have always found coaches like Mike McDaniel to be wasteful by showing off their most complex plays early in the season leaving them with no room to grow when they are playing meaningful football against playoff teams later in the year. I believe that Jim is being the opposite of that right now, he has told his coordinators not to show too much in the hope that in 2025, with an improved roster, they can make a proper run at a championship with a team who already know the scheme on both sides of the ball.

The evidence for me is that at both Michigan and in the Chargers' preseason, Minter was switching up coverages with disguises and sending creative pressure concepts at a higher rate than most coaches would dare to do. I was preparing to see this as the season went on because whilst there was no need when they were handily beating easy offenses however in games like this, it would have been time to turn the dial up and it just didn't happen until the game was already out of hand.

The data below, from MatchQuarters and the ever reliant Cody Alexander, provides some numbers to illustrate the differences. In preseason the Chargers were blitzing 38.4% of the time which is 13.2% higher than Minter has ran in the regular season, pass stunts are also down to 23.7% from 31.9%, a difference of 8.2%.

I can appreciate that you don't always run your base scheme in preseason because you can rely on the natural talent of your players a bit more however it is frustrating to know your coordinator has called a championship winning defense that was built on exotic pressures and he has shown a willingness to do so in preseason, only for it to be shelved even in games where you have given up scores on 6 possessions in a row.

Let me know what you think Stormcloud community? Will Harbaugh and Minter ring the changes or will the shackles remain on with next season in mind?

Coming off the back of conceding 64 points over the last two weeks , it appears that the hype around Jesse Minter's defense has started to fade away. The tape shows a different story, Minter has called good games and it has been more of a lack of talent and depth in certain positions that has meant his unit have lost fine margin battles against two of the best offenses in the league.

By no means has it been all on the players and entering into a game against the Atlanta Falcons, Minter has a chance to show how he can overcome what seems like a bad matchup. At a high level, a betting man would look at the form of the both teams and question why the spread is set at a single point in favor of the Bolts. Atlanta just got smacked 38-6 by the Denver Broncos, the same team that the Chargers handed a 23-16 loss to a few weeks earlier. Both affairs were not close contests from the first snap to the last and on paper, it seems like a mistake from the bookmakers to have the line at a virtual coin flip.

That is not how the NFL works though, it is a week-by-week league where any team can win on any given Sunday. Just look at the pathetic 2-9 Las Vegas Raiders taking the 10-1 Kansas City Chiefs all the way to the last play before Patrick Mahomes' deal with the devil kicked in again to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

So, why is the line in this week's game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium so narrow especially given that the Falcons have a bottom five defense? The answer is that the failings of the Chargers' defense over the past two weeks are exactly where the Falcons can hurt you. Zac Robinson, Atlanta's offensive coordinator, has a system that wants to do one thing: stretch you out across to defend the whole field. This applies to both how they run the ball and how they pass the ball.

Ground Game

On the ground they run a heavy dose of zone concepts as they want to get their offensive line blocking in one direction which is something the Chargers have not dealt with well over the past two games.

The Chargers' front has earned decent penetration on the front side of these looks with Poona Ford and Teair Tart finding ways to slice through the angled blocks but the backside is where the problems start as Otito Ogbonnia, Scott Matlock and Justin Eboigbe have struggled with how to pursue the runners whilst still maintaining their gap integrity. On this example against the Ravens on Monday night Matlock failed to read the line shift and it cost him the chance to penetrate the backfield or cut off the backside lane so Henry couldn't press inside.

This play illustrates why linebackers matter despite what the media groupthink has been trying to pedal in recent years. Derwin forces the fullback block which means that Henley has to hit the outside shoulder of the tight end as he has a backside fill coming his way in Niemann. Instead he tries to shoot the gap which would have been fine if the tight end didn't have a free release due to Derwin forcing the issue from a wide alignment. Which player was wrong here I can't say as I don't know the exact run fit principles but needless to say if the front is not in cohesion, this stuff will happen again.

Injuries have forced Jesse Minter into playing Troy Dye and Nick Niemann in base looks as Denzel Perryman is out again to add to Junior Colson being on IR and even the only remaining starter, Daiyan Henley, is carrying an injury which could limit his snaps. Together these absences and limitations have put the Bolts in spots they don't want to be in against a Falcons' interior line group which has become the lifeblood of their offense.

"The Falcons were on a bye this week, but Chris Lindstrom retained his lead atop the run-blocking grades for guards. His 93.4 is made up of 90.0-plus grades in zone and man blocking." - PFF

Chris Lindstrom, their All-pro right guard, is playing at an elite level but the two lesser known names of Drew Dalman and Matthew Bergeron have flashed as young players to watch in the future as they grow into their scheme. All of this meshes will with who they have in the backfield with Bijan Robinson and Tyler Allgeier being put in a position to expose the creases their line create for them in very different ways. In the example below you can see Bijan path to the second level by some great reach block from the center and a solid climb from the left guard. To give a back that talented , that much space is a killer.

After this play the Broncos contained Robinson in check for 13 carries and only 44 yards, they adjusted quickly to have their outside linebackers play hard off the edge and they had Zach Allen causing chaos on the backside every single play. Both these moves allowed their off ball front players like Justin Strnad and Cody Barton to fire through gaps early. Jesse Minter's defense is likely not going to be able to do the same thing as the linebackers haven't shown they can do this and if they play overly aggressive, the other part of the Falcons' attack will come into effect.

Pass attack

Atlanta's running concepts are to stretch you out sideline to sideline and this pairs well with how they want to pass the ball. The Falcons lead the league in 11 personnel usage with 88.8% which is effective enough with Kirk Cousins' ability to dissect zone coverages in a hurry. I have been surprised with their lack of play action given Kirk's vast experience on these concepts however when you turn on the tape you can see where Zac Robinson has been going instead.

The Falcons have not utilized play action very often when compared to other units across the league. According to TruMedia, Atlanta ranks last in the league with play-action passes amounting to 8% of its total plays. - From the Falcons' website

He has utilized quick passes to his running backs at a high rate, they motion the back across the formation as if they're going to run but as the ball is never faked to them so it doesn't count as a play action snap. This gives the offense an advantage because the line still has to respect the back and it gives the back a speedy release into the flats which works very effectively against teams that play two high shells because the defense has to defend all 53 yards across the field.

Cousins' time to throw is very quick so pressure won't solve these problems either, it will be about who is left in the shallow spaces to make plays when left with taking down the Falcons' talented offensive weapons.

Injuries will mean that Minter's defense may struggle to fill these concepts as Cam Hart, who is brilliant at open field tackles, is out again and Tarheeb Still, for all his positives, has not been a consistent tackler when out in space. Ja'sir Taylor is even weaker in contact situations so Minter should do whatever it takes to avoid him being left with the running backs. Another factor to consider is that Alohi Gillman will not be on the field. He not only directs traffic in the secondary but he also reads shallow passes earlier than everyone else, his absence will be felt just as much as Perryman's.

Minter will therefore have to find a way to get his defense to read these looks in an efficient and accurate manner because with three key players missing in the areas of the field, Bijan and the underrated Allgeier can cause some problems with the ball in their hands.

The last of my observations is that the Chargers' linebacker grouping of Daiyan, Dye and Derwin showed their lack of time together. The play above is 2-man and traditionally linebackers are taught not to chase crossing routes over the midfield line as they are protecting the hashes. This means that as Mark Andrews crosses over Henley's face, Daiyan is meant to communicate that with a call like “in” but both Troy and James had already stepped upfield to deal with the scrambling threat from Lamar. This means that neither of them followed the big tight end and it led to a big play at a key moment of the game. I really like how Derwin is shaping up as the Will linebacker in Nickel and Dime looks but he needs to be more in tune with the details of linebacker play like this as this mistake is on him.

Overall whilst this Falcons' offense is not on the levels of the Bengals or Ravens that have both surpassed 30 points on Minter's unit but they do provide matchup problems for the Bolts this week. I'm really hoping to see some adjustments and coverage switchups to protect the flats in the pass game and I expect to see some alignment alternatives from the front to counteract the threat of a backside cut.

After an unexpected loss it's always important to understand what went wrong so whilst it's usually pragmatic to do a film review that balances the negatives with the positives, this will be an autopsy on Week 7's surprise defeat to the Cardinals on Monday Night Football. There are several contributing factors from both sides of the ball so let's break them down:

Defense

I'm a defensive coach and whilst I can appreciate the game plan to reduce downfield passing opportunities, the ground game defense was left exposed and with no margins left for error, it cost the team dearly that they were not able to execute anywhere close to the level required to slow down the Cardinals.

The first thing that was obvious from watching the live broadcast which even more egregious on the coaches film; the tackling was the worst its been all season.

"James Conner forced eleven missed tackles, according to Pro Football Focus’ initial charting of Monday night’s game. It felt like the veteran running back took it to the Chargers defense, refusing to go down at first contact and powering through arm tackles en route to 152 yards from scrimmage. PFF credited Conner with 4.84 yards (per attempt) after contact on his 19 rushing attempts."

Alex Katson for Chargers Wire

James Connor being a perennially underrated running back was one factor but the collective effort, choice of angles and technique from the whole unit left a lot to be desired. The missed tackle count totaled out at 16 which is reminiscent of the eras Chargers' fans had hoped to be clear of. When you compile this with the inability to contain Kyler Murray and a physicality loss in the trenches, it didn't really matter that the passing attack was kept in check.

Another issue from this game was that the players were late in getting set and their communication looked confused throughout the game. There are instances all over the tape of these problems costing yards which you could forgive if the Cardinals were running a scheme against their tendencies or if the Chargers were running exotic looks but neither of those scenarios played out so this is down to a lack of clear leadership on the field to get his unit in position and mentally ready.

The play below was a culmination of the above problems, it came on the play after a huge screen gain where James Connor forced three missed tackles but the ball was punched out by Cam Hart so it was fairly likely they would run a hurry-up play to avoid a review and to catch the Bolts in the same personnel yet the Chargers were not ready.

The Cardinals ran QB power to the weak side with Connor as the wildcat QB. The bolts are in a 3-4 eagle wide front with the NT aligned to the side of the back. This is the correct front to play this so it wasn't a scheme problem but the players do everything wrong here;

1. Matlock turns his shoulders to slip off the double team but it means he gets twisted and washed completely off the ball. He should be anchoring down here to give his second level players the time to get over the climbing guard's seal.
2. Tart follows the center’s slant and takes himself away from the play when he should be flowing with the line slide. 
3. Eboigbe reads this well but he can't get across because of Matlock's loss of position
4. Perryman hesitates, then flows laterally instead of attacking the gap and then plays with the wrong leverage as he thinks Connor is heading outside (force) instead of protecting the crease (spill).
5. Henley reads this too slowly, then bounces his feet for too long, that combined is a killer whilst playing inside linebacker. He then gets caught up in the Matlock wash as he didn’t read and adjust his angle. Then he gets blown off the mark by a TE before whiffing on the tackle, just a really bad rep.
6. Gillman also read the angle incorrectly but he was covering the outside lane so Perryman didn’t need to, so he can be forgiven slightly for that but his weak tackle attempt can't get the same favor as it was poor.

It was just a mess of a play all around and summed up how they failed to stop the Cardinals from doing what they wanted.

Drew Petzing has been amongst my favorite offensive coordinators to follow since Arizona hired him from Cleveland at the beginning of last season. He has found ways to dismantle some impressive defenses but the talent gap of his men have been the undoing of the Cardinals, I expect him to get some interviews in this next cycle. Jesse Minter had a bit of a 'welcome to the big leagues' game facing Petzing's team, he managed to find ways to target the weakest points of his system and force him into looks that didn't match what he wanted to do.

Petzing attacked Minter's two high defense in two key ways; he used 13 personnel and he targeted the flats. The Cardinals use of 13 personnel has been successful this season, they use it at the 3rd highest rate in the league at 10.6% which is four times more than the league average and they have the 4th highest success in terms of EPA/play.

This worked for both the run and the pass, on passing downs they knew that if they went into their heavier looks then the Chargers would respond by using their base personnel (3-4-4) in an odd front. This meant that our outside linebackers (Mack, Tuipulotu and Dupree) would be exposed in the wide spaces left by Minter's tendency to pair this with Cover 6 to the wide side of the field. This leaves a huge vacated space in the flats that is clear when you look at Murray's passing chart above.

On run downs, like on the example below, the Cardinals used the two high look they faced to leave Mack facing an overload after the Cardinals run a wrap concept to the field side against the Bolts' under front. I can't say why Minter opted into this front (which leaves the 3t away from the strong side) but it wasn't optimal as it left the Cardinals with a numbers advantage and a gap deficit which they welcomed with open arms. This allowed two of their offensive lineman with a free release to climb up to seal the linebacker and strong safety, leaving Connor with the room for a decent gain on 1st down.

Offense

It's been said a lot by now but Greg Roman went into this game determined to run the ball but got schemed out of it by Jonathan Gannon, the Cardinals' head coach and defensive play caller.

The Cardinals played with their fronts to stop gap runs. They had a 2i and 4 over the strong side guard in a 3-4 Slide front which is very hard to run at with even with pullers. Gannon had the two interior defensive lineman occupying the Center and Guard, stopping them from releasing vertically at all, leaving his inside linebackers free to meet the pullers. Then his backside guys who were following the motion were able to squeeze the play when J.K. Dobbins got to the second level. They wanted this run game to be messy even if they got through the targeted gap.

Even though this was a tough front to run on, this example wasn’t away from being successful. If Matlock sustains his block for a half second longer then Slater would have been clean through to seal the edge of the D gap for a big crease with nobody else in the area leaving Dobbins in a foot race to the corner against the free safety. Small margins once again turning a good call and play design into a bad result.

Overall although it was not a successful day on the ground, I have less issues with the run designs. I do however have issues with how the players executed it. This isn't limited to the interior of the offensive line either, I was disappointed with Rashawn Slater's efforts and the tight ends were beaten too often considering the lack of talent the Cardinals' edge players offer. The play below shows just how far away this unit is from being the physical running offense they are trying to become.

A fundamental part of gap schemes is that you need lineman drive to creep the creases open right as the back hits them. The Cardinals defensive line might not be talented but they know how to resist weak attempts to beat them off the ball. Slater, Zion and Bozeman all get a piece of the 3T and he never even has to put a foot backwards. It's just never going to result in good offense if this concept is the centerpiece of your game plan.

My gripe remains with the passing game despite Justin Herbert going into Laser-armed god mode to give this team any kind of chance of winning this matchup. Route spacing has been, and continues to be, an issue on this offense and I'd like to see a bit of self scouting regarding it. The two plays to follow are indicative of the problems Roman's scheme causes for itself.

The key issue here for me is that the Bolts ended up with two players aligned vertically without enough space horizontally to stretch the zones. When running routes underneath clear out concepts, the reciever has got to know that he should be widening out for a huge RAC opportunity but that's got to be built in, if those options are't there for the receivers then it's very limiting. Herbert's a good enough quarterback to know to find these adjustments so . To run two of your precious routes to sit below the sticks is a frustrating 3rd down call. You’re essentially running a two man game on a variation of the Ohio concept and if that fails then Will Dissly beating the entire Arizona over 7 yards is your best hope? 

There are very few things I hate in offensive play design (because I see the good in most of them) but the vanilla version of sticks is one of the ones I can’t stand for. That's probably due to scars left over from the Lombardi era which I am sure we all feel. Roman ran a version of the concept where he ran four comeback routes out of tight spread formation facing a two high off coverage shell. The two guys on the line ran and sat on the hashes in front of the safeties and the two off men ran their sticks into the hook-curl zones.

This is abysmally bad design. I don't believe in making mountains of molehills but what exactly was he trying to achieve with this? If he was hoping to catch them in split coverage then motion into this look or play unbalanced, if he was expecting soft zone and wanted an 8+ yard gain to take the pressure off then cross something underneath to take the second level out of the throwing lane. It's just not good enough for the modern game and it got the disdain treatment it deserved from the Cardinal's defense.

Conclusion

Both Jesse Minter and Greg Roman made mistakes both before the game started and during the game itself, Jim Harbaugh will have surely told them the same thing. Minter's defense still only allowed 17 points and there are no questions on whether Minter's tenure is in any trouble at all.

Roman however, has the media's attention once again for the wrong reasons and whilst I see the validity in the criticism, I think this is more about how he and his staff coach the players rather than the scheme. The skill deficit on this offense is real, we all knew that going into the season, so why is it now that the instant gratification syndrome has rekindled to seek immediate change?

I feel that with a long term view, I would like to see some stability in this offense. Roman has shown me enough on his ground game design and play calling that he deserves at least another season but I would like to see some more input from Marcus Brady, Sanjay Lal and Marc Trestman who have all been involved in more appropriately balanced offenses.

The only thing we as fans can do is look forward to the next game and hope for improvements. I never like to join the everlasting misery party that so many Bolt fans insist on being the status quo however I feel it's imperative that we honestly assess the flaws so that we can look for how this coaching staff will address them going into the Week 8 game against a flailing New Orleans Saints' team that has five straight since starting off hot.

The Los Angeles Chargers faced an all-too-familiar foe by the time the Week 6 win over Denver was all but sealed up in the 4th quarter last Sunday afternoon; the injury bug. Between the end of the Bolts' Week 4 game against another AFC West rival and the end of this game, one position had suffered more than any other. The cornerback group had been all but wiped out. Asante Samuel Jr., Kristian Fulton, Ja'sir Taylor and Deane Leonard were all unable to help their team mates get off that Mile High Stadium field with a win. That is CB1, CB2, CB3 and the starting Nickel all out with no guarantees of their return for MNF against the Arizona Cardinals.

But wait, this is not the Chargers' teams of old that were paper thin and made of wet cardboard. This is the new reality for Jim Harbaugh's powder blue clad men; the next man actually steps up when it matters. Two rookies, both selected in the 5th round of the 2024 draft, took up the mantle and delivered very good performances to help earn the win. So in lieu of a full game analysis I have decided to look at how Cam Hart and Tarheeb Still did against Bo Nix and the fighting orange ponies.

Cam Hart

The big corner (6' 2" / 204 lbs) got his first start of the season after ASJ and Leonard were ruled out through injury. In fact it was his first defensive snaps since the preseason after being a special teamer only for the first four games of the season. I couldn't have been more impressed by how he looked from the first snap.

On the first play of the games Hart played the edge contain role well as he swooped down with his long wingspan looking a daunting presence. He showed patient footwork to keep his balance and leverage to give the running back nothing to work with whilst running away from Daiyan Henley who made the eventual tackle.

That very good start was followed up by an even better end to the drive. Molden may have got the pick but Cam did his job admirably to reduce Bo Nix's options. I think it speaks volumes about this team that they sent Cam Hart out there on his third snap in the NFL to be locked up in isolated press man coverage against Cortland Sutton who was lined up as the boundary X. That's a tough assignment for anyone but Hart was fearless in getting into his soft press stance opposite that $60 million receiver and he went toe-to-toe with him.

The breakdown below goes one step further to explain just how much Cam has improved in his one off-season in Jesse Minter's defense.

Minter's belief in Hart wasn't an early drive gimmick either, up until Kristian Fulton's injury in the 3rd quarter Cam followed Sutton whenever the chance arose. He held him to zero catches on zero targets on those plays.

It wasn't just in the pass game that he took it to Sutton. On the run play below Cam took on one of the toughest blocking receivers in the game and managed to to get around him, which smartly maintained his contain gap integrity, before flattening his angle of pursuit inside towards the ball carrier. He leapt at full extension to force the back inside towards Denzel Perryman who stopped Javonte Williams getting an inch more ground.

His hustle has been noticed on special teams in recent weeks and it showed up on Sunday too as he consistently motored all across the field, playing until the whistle. The play below shows you an example where he fills in after the Chargers made some uncharacteristic missed tackles.

Now it wasn't all sunshine and roses, if any rookie looks flawless on debut it likely means the other team messed up. Cam got beaten badly by Sutton on a dig route against a Cam's outside quarter of Cover 6. This is a coverage breaker if the underneath defenders don't gain the depth but Hart was well out of position so it wouldn't have mattered if they were. He experienced a veteran receiver's favorite "lean" when breaking inside, which is more like a one arm shove, and it threw his balance off leading to a lot of separation. Luckily for Cam a flag back at the offensive line's feet scrubbed this off of his stat sheet.

Tarheeb Still

Now for those of you who have read my draft analysis pieces on both of these corners you'd know that I preferred the Still pick over Hart's selection a few spots later. I think he's got all the tools of a smart Nickel corner and that is where he started his first game against the reigning Super Bowl champions in Week 4. He performed admirably and continued that display when he was in his preferred role inside the hashes, he had some trouble in this game when he was asked to play outside after Fulton went down early in the third quarter but we will get to that.

First up we have the obvious play; his highlight deep breakup of Nix's deep attempt to the speedster Marvin Mims Jr. Tarheeb does a really nice job playing catch technique, bumping his man up the seam before staying underneath the deep ball and playing the receiver's hands instead of looking for the ball. Chargers’ fans are used to seeing yellow laundry as undisciplined players tried to look for the ball and ended up taking their eyes off the player leading to an easy flag.

This is never an easy rep playing from a leverage disadvantage with no over the top help and he had to scrape under Derwin James position as well. Just a fantastic slot rep that deserved the credit it is getting.

Now I want you to watch that play again but this time look at the top of your screen because Cam Hart showed some incredibly corner skills that went unnoticed because of what happened downfield. The hip-flip that Cam deployed on this play was masterful! He played this whole pivot route like a vet:

• Gave a convincing two hand shove under the outside shoulder to throw the route stem off balance
• His downfield hand is maintaining contact the whole way through
• Sinks his hip in perfect timing with the receiver which is incredibly hard to do
• Then the cherry on top: he reverses his downfield foot into a hip flip to stay over the top of the lateral cut from Sutton

This is the type of stuff that gets coaches excited!

Okay now back to Tarheeb. This next play might seem like a negative one because it allowed a critical catch in a big moment of the game but let's look at it to see what, if anything, Still could have done better:

The answer is: he couldn't have unless he was prime Richard Sherman. In his deep third responsibility he has to squeeze the post route but Still reads the flight of Nix's release at lightening speed, baseball turns to reverse his momentum and gets to the catch point within a flash. That is a genuinely great play from the rookie to do this well against a concept that is traditionally known as a Cover 3 beater.

The touchdown throw to Sutton was another great rep that was just beaten by the smallest margins, and an officiating debacle. He played it 98% correctly with his only error being that he didn’t squeeze Sutton upfield as he turned to look for the ball, that left a tiny window for Sutton to slide in, which he did to perfection. It was clear on replay that this should have been overturned.

As I mentioned earlier though Still went through a rough patch at the start of the 4th quarter where in the space of 9 plays across two drive he allowed 3 explosive plays for 86 yards. He made coverage mistakes in his less familiar outside role where he just did not adjust in time to affect the zones he was trying to defend. The above play was a pure lack of concentration which is something you never want to see. I felt at the time like these were all coachable mistakes and after watching the game back in more detail I'm happy to say he did a good job of picking himself up from a moment that could have knocked his confidence.

The plays in the video above all showcase how readily prepared these two players are for the league. Interestingly most of them came late in the game when Minter had his defense in zone prevent mode which is hard to play tightly with almost no underneath help. The communication between Hart, Still and the other secondary members was outstanding in the context of the game, neither rookie looked panicked and, for me, they have shown that they are ready to start should the injuries mean that is the case.

One additional note: It cannot be overstated how impressive this coaching staff and front office have been. 6 rookies played over 18 snaps in Week 6, that's all but the 4th and 7th round picks getting significant playing time and none of them look lost or over matched in the slightest.

Greg Roman's offense is not far away from being good so it's time for the panic to simmer down

When you look at the numbers there is no escaping the fact that this offense is failing the team. Any metric in existence will point towards a long term trend towards doom however my impression of the tape is that there is plenty of room for optimism.

I may not have published any film reviews over the last few weeks due to work commitments but I have been studying the tape the same way I always do and what I have seen from the Greg Roman's offense isn't nearly as bad as it is being made out to be.

There are three component parts to the on field success during a game;

1. The scheme design
2. The play calling
3. The execution

For me, the crucial component that we should all be paying attention to is the scheme design. Without this none of the rest matters, we have seen Herbert performing miracles on 3rd and long in both Lombardi's and Moore's schemes but that is not conducive to long term success. So to assess how the offensive is going to perform for the rest of this season and beyond, it is vital to have a sound system for the players to grow into.

Sweeping statement time; Greg Roman's scheme is good enough for this offense to win double digit games when executed to a decent degree. Now let's not get carried away here, it's not Ben Johnson's masterpiece of an offense but it is closer to that than Lombardi's laughable offense in Denver. The play design is getting lanes and routes open consistently but the player execution, coaching, discipline and play calling have all been letting it down.

The video analysis and accompanying play-by-play assessment below will attempt to demonstrate how close this offense is to prosperity. I picked this drive in particular because it was one that could (and should) have put the team in position to win the game and it was one of the only drives that wasn't killed by poor starting field position or self inflicted penalties.

There was 6:26 left on the clock in the 3rd Quarter when Justin Herbert and the offense got started from the 30 yard line after a touchback from kick off. What ensued was a 14 play, 67 yard drive that ultimately ended in a turnover on downs after almost 8 minutes of possession.

1st & 10 at LAC 30

Justin Herbert pass to Joshua Palmer to KC 44 for 26 yards

A great start to the drive with a chunk play gained by utilizing a flood concept against Quarters. Herbert made the right read and delivered a perfect ball just outside the numbers. It was important that this pass kept inside and didn't take Palmer to the sideline as it would have fed into the corner's underneath zone. They both corrected the mistake they made against the Raiders on this play call.

Good scheme, call and execution

1st & 10 at KC 44

Gus Edwards to KC 40 for 4 yards

As the video shows, this was a frustrating misstep that could have gone for a lot more yards. Herbert checks into this G-lead power after reading that the Chiefs are calling the strength to the field meaning they'll have a numbers advantage. The problem is that Zion hit the wrong shoulder of Karlaftis meaning the intended D gap hole is half closed and he instead bounces this to the outside where an unblocked corner is able to bring him down. There's reason Roman usually pulls in the opposite direction and that's because Zion isn't good on the move.

Good scheme, great call (by Herbert) but let down by poor execution.

2nd & 6 at KC 40

Gus Edwards KC 35 for 5 yards

Easy open hole for a good gain on a solid play call. This was a really bad spot as it should have picked up the first down.

3rd & 1 at KC 35

Justin Herbert to KC 33 for 2 yards

Simple QB sneak for the first down.

1st & 10 at KC 33

J.K. Dobbins to KC 29 for 4 yards

I don't like the play call or design here as the motion from Palmer mean the Chiefs ended up with 8 men in the box and inside zone just isn't going to do anything. Only a patient press from J.K. means this ended up with some yards gained. Running on first down in field goal range is never my favorite call either.

Average scheme, poor call and average execution

2nd & 6 at KC 29

J.K. Dobbins right guard to KC 29 for no gain

Another frustratingly close moment of the drive where Dobbins could have taken this to the end-zone if he kept his foot on the gas all the way to the edge. This outside zone concept is taught to be read from outside to in so he really should have hit this, it rarely gets clearer than this. I think he had Justin Reid beat to the edge as well.

Good scheme, good call but a bad bit of execution by the ball carrier

3rd & 6 at KC 29

Justin Herbert pass to Joshua Palmer to KC 23 for 6 yards

The motion revealed the man coverage and Herbert didn't have to check to anything as they have the man beater two man game to the wide side of the field. If the defenders switched after the route exchange then he hits Ladd but they don't meaning the safety has to break over the stem of Ladd's route and that gives the space for Palmer to be found towards the sideline.

Good scheme, call and execution on 3rd down

1st & 10 at KC 23

Justin Herbert pass incomplete to Ladd McConkey.

This is a filthy two man route combo to beat almost any coverage as the images below show. The issue was that Zion failed to spot another inside twist and Herbert couldn't launch the throw this play deserved.

Great scheme, great call but poor execution in the protection plan

2nd & 10 at KC 23

Gus Edwards to KC 21 for 2 yards

The play call is a pretty simple outside zone call but Gus reads the wrong gap again as he had a decent crease up the A gap but decided to cut it back.

Average scheme, Vanilla call on 2nd and long to set up a 3rd and medium but poor execution by Gus who could and should be in a battle for RB2 at this point

3rd & 8 at KC 21

Justin Herbert pass to Quinten Johnston to KC 12 for 9 yards

A frequent trips bunch combo against off coverage with the TE and Slot running routes to clear their defenders out of the window and then the Z being tasked with winning the leverage battle off of his one foot cut. I like that they trust Q enough to try this.

Good scheme, great call on 3rd & long and great execution

1st & 10 at KC 12

J.K. Dobbins right tackle to KC 12 for no gain

The gap run game was working on this drive so Roman goes back to it once more. The GH Counter concept looked like to would create a few yards and it was going to but Salyer made a mistake on the backside and it allowed Drue Tranquill to scrape down the line for a run stuff.

Good scheme, good call but poor execution by a single player yet again

2nd & 10 at KC 12

Justin Herbert pass to J.K. Dobbins to KC 7 for 5 yards

Whilst I'm not usually a fan of single route concepts, they were working very well on this drive so why not go back to it. Hurst and Palmer switch out of the stack but post attack the middle of the field. The Chiefs are running Quarters which means Herbert knows he'll have J.K. open after the other routes clear out the four 'box' defenders.

Good scheme, good play call and good execution

3rd & 5 at KC 7

Justin Herbert pass to Joshua Palmer to KC 3 for 4 yards

Really like this play design by going into trips bunch with two big boy tight ends setting up the tunnel screen for Palmer. Sometimes you really are left scratching your head because what the f**k was Palmer seeing that made him go so low? On replay I can see that the pass was a little low and rushed but if Palmer attacks the ball as he's meant to, this is a touchdown. One criticism I have is why is it Palmer running this route when Ladd is faster and QJ excels in these situations?

Good scheme, great call but very poor execution by a single player

4th & 1 at KC 3

Justin Herbert pass incomplete short middle to H.Hurst

I have no problem with this play design as it did what it was intended to: get an open lane into the end zone however I have two issues with this:

• Don't call two plays in a row from the bunch, this gave the Chiefs the chance to correct their coverage into man-match rules instead of their standard Quarters read.
• They did this in up-tempo out of timeout which was a very strange decision but it meant there was no opportunity for a motion to give Herbert a read on the defense.

So it was a good scheme but a terrible call given the situation (plus I would have preferred a run) but once again a small player mistake meant the play failed.

Conclusion

The bare face of the performances so far are inescapably underwhelming. I've spent way too many hours with my head in my hands on Sundays because of this offense's inability to sustain drives or put points on the board. However I genuinely think that Bolt fans have reasons to be optimistic about the potential this unit has. They just need to iron out the details, execute and be disciplined enough to not put themselves in unwinnable situations.

There is plenty of blame to place on the coaching too, this is not a blanket statement of support for Greg Roman as he is ultimately responsible for everything this offense does, the timing of his play calling can justifiably be put under the spotlight too. There are some positions at which I'm starting to think cannot be improved upon until next off-season however the scheme is not the problem in this instance. The interior of the offensive line, tight ends and running backs (other than J.K.) just aren't performing at a level that can win games. Marcus Brady, Mike Devlin, Andy Bischoff, Kiel McDonald and anyone else with a share of the responsibility for these positions have to find ways to improve the execution of the scheme through coaching and installing better discipline.

As I said earlier, nothing can be right without the scheme being the foundation to which to build from and, in my opinion when you turn on the tape, you can see that it's there in principle. This offense is by no means a lost cause for this season and beyond, I think it has the potential to be the balanced unit this team has been crying out for. It's just a matter of details and to borrow a quote from one of the greatest architectural minds of all time, which I am sure Jim Harbaugh would agree with:

For my review of the defensive side of the ball I am going to learn my lesson and avoid grading every player at the same time as breaking down interesting concepts because I don't have the time as DAZN take so long to upload the coaches film that I essentially get done with my film study around the same time the next game week starts. So going forwards I will focus on key player performances only using three categories standouts, rookies and emerging players. This should give me more time to focus on scheme. Today however I will only talk about scheme and using data to prove what our eyes were trying to tell us; Minter looks like one hell of a play caller.

Summary:

I don't think it's being said enough but that was the perfect start to Jesse Minter's tenure as defensive coordinator. He curtailed the Raiders' offense with his schematic dial stuck firmly in 2^nd gear. I cannot overstate how impressive it was for a rookie coordinator to step into the NFL already armed with a bag of wild pressure packages and mad disguised coverages, all of which he controls with an esoteric modular playbook, and not use any of it! He just sent his guys out there in a basic zone scheme and told his players "I believe in you"... and they delivered a fantastic unit-wide performance. That kind of resilience, confidence and patronage is just outstanding to see in a first time play caller.

As you can see from the EPA/play (Expected Points Added) chart above and the success rate chart in the gallery below, Minter's defense were by the best run defense in the whole league winning an incredible 84.2% of the snaps and adding taking away over 0.8 points per play. These numbers will seem alien to Chargers fans after years of mediocre-at-best run defenses stretching back to 2018; the last time they had a Top 10 ranking.

What makes this even more impressive is that they mostly achieved this without the use heavy fronts or aggressive run pressures. The data in the gallery above shows that the Bolts were in lighter personnel groupings on 92.7% of the snap and they called no run stunts or sim pressures, whilst they were 23rd in run blitz calls.

If you compare these to the preseason chart below then you will recognize just how much of a departure this was from what we can assume their normal stylistic choices will look like. Across the board the Chargers were one of the most aggressive teams across the preseason, in run fits they blitzed at 33.7% which is 12.6% higher than their Week 1 performance. They also used run stunts 4.8% of the time and ran simulated pressure looks on 20.7%, both of these are significant increases on their 0.0% numbers against the Raiders.

This also speaks to how Minter and Harbaugh decided to play the pass too, they ran an incredibly simple scheme with some coverage change-ups to counter the success the Raiders found on those deep lateral breaking routes from Jakobi Meyers, Devante Adams and Michael Mayer. However from the data we can see that their game plan was to be "passive" in their playcalling and instead allowed their players to lead the charge with aggressive on field actions.

As you can see from the comparison below the Bolts' ran 8.9% less coverage disguises than they did in preseason and their coverage variation was completely different with Minter deciding to utilize MOFO (Middle of field open) coverages at much higher rate of 71.7% whereas in the preseason his unit had a much more balanced approach at an almost 50/50 split.

Another notable difference was how Minter rushed the passer, they ran pass blitzes at 31.7% in Week 1 which is 10% less than their total preseason number and a long way below their audacious 50% figure from the Seahawks game. For me though the biggest outlier is the 0.0% simulated pressure metric. Minter's playbook is filled with these looks so to not run it was a very confident statement in this star pass rushers and the evidence is now with us that it was a rousing success.

So in summary; the data matches what I thought when watching both the broadcast tape and the coaches film; Minter took his hands off and told his players you have got this; go win the game with your talent. He wanted them to win with their new downhill mentality and he believed in them enough to let it happen even in a tight game.

Minter's Michigan defense had the ability to vary approach and tempo from game to game so I will be curiously watching to see if this manifests itself across the course of the season. Trends are impossible to garner from one game but I love that Minter didn't use all his arsenal when he could have made life much easier for himself in the short term.

I expect to see more passive play calling early on against the Panthers but if Bryce Young gets into a rhythm, the pass rush can be turned up a notch. I do foresee more coverage change ups though as switching up the picture on a QB, particularly one in the kind of form Dave Canales's signal caller is in, is an easy way to get turnovers even if you give up more yardage.

Other notes:

• 'Solve your problems with aggression' doesn't necessarily mean sending pressure on every down, it's more about playing free and fast. Whether that manifests in stepping down to your gap and hit whatever is in it with enough force to cause problems or . Minter’s defense were flying around with this mentality!
• Minter put his guys in position to play free and fast but It's never going to be perfect, he understands that when previous regimes haven't. It's so refreshing to see a staff think comprehensively like this.
• The Raiders quick tempo stuff threw the defense off, the presnap communication needs to be a bit smoother. Having threw green dot players in rotation (all the off ball linebackers) meant this was going to be a shaky start but Minter said in his media availability that between them they didn't miss any parts of the play call so that's positive.
• The Raiders benefited from Minshew's incredible mid yardage accuracy as he hit Meyers, Tucker & Adams on passes that are completed 1 in 10 times. Can't account for those and those margins aren't favorable long term.
• Minter's decision to play safe/simple coverages meant pressure was on his LBs to stay disciplined and gain depth (which his heavy rotation allows for) but if the pass rush can't get home it allows for chunk completions like the ones to Michael Mayer and Jakobi Meyers those on dig/sail routes that Minshew loves to hit. Play action opened these windows up even further, Minter needed his secondary to step down to reduce these windows especially as Gardner can't hit deep shots. 
• The other big Adams reception was just a solid cover 6 beater; Post/Dig from the strong side will mean the QB has a big window to hit the dig but the gamble is the pass rush got home. Tart does a great job of getting interior pressure but he was alone in doing so.
• There’s a reason Hortiz went and got all these Titans’ defensive players; they come downhill! Scheme wise you can only do so much but when you have Dupree, Tart, Fulton and Molden all willing to meet their destiny every time the ball is dumped off; you can really prosper even if everything else isn’t perfect.

• In Minter’s Dime package, Derwin plays Will backer with Molden and Alohi as the deep safeties. This is a much better fit overall and Molden looks great.
• I really liked the simplicity of getting to a Tampa 2 with the Nickel gaining depth and Alohi hunting down into the middle hole/pole spot. They ran it three plays in a row and each time the Raiders were trying to hit Meyers over the middle but had to check down out of it.
  • On the third time Mack jumps inside the path of the predictable swing pass to bat the ball into Poona’s arms for the pick. Simple yet brilliant.

I loved how Minter got all four edge players on the field at the same time, he even threw in Morgan Fox for good measure! He used a Tampa Turbo front (from Don Brown's playbook) as the basis to make sure it was not possible to double anyone. The offense had to leave a sixth man in to protect meaning his secondary only had to cover four routes on 3rd down. So whilst this formation netted no sacks or even any pressures, the respect it carried meant those 3rd downs were mostly successful.

Brett Kollmann, arguably the most informative YouTube analyst the football community has to offer, has just posted his latest collaboration with the Chargers which you can find in the link below titled 'He Dominated College Football, Now He Comes For The NFL'. This goes some of the way to explaining just how Jesse Minter's defensive system works:

https://youtu.be/LldcjWqn4tQ?si=q6oK7g7FjPoCzQ_U

I have had a draft script saved for months where I was going to attempt to explain this very topic however, I am glad someone with considerably more resources took on the task for me. To re-iterate (or to explain for the TL;DR crowd) what Brett described is that defensive play calling has forever been broken down into several components; the front, the pressure path (or blitz) and the coverage. Now this creates a problem in that the amount of play calls you can learn from this menu of options is limited because the human mind can only remember so much. As a defensive coordinator, the total number of play calls at your disposal are are essentially set at a 1:1 ratio of plays your players can absorb and understand. That is, and always has been, a limiting factor in defensive play calling.

The issue has always been that everything needed to be merged together in one play call, that is everything in one chunk with each word defining an element of what the DC is trying to get you to do. Let's use an example based on the playbook sheet above;

Base Odd Wide Tight Rhino 8 Rip Sky Scrape

• Base = Personnel - In Saban's defense that is 3 defensive lineman, 4 linebackers and 4 defensive backs
• Odd Wide = Front - the nose tackle goes heads up in 0-tech and the two defensive ends are in a 5-tech with the two OLBs in a 9-tech in 2-point stances
• Tight = Alignment adjustment - the Sam (Strong side) will be on the tight end side and aligned just outside him
• Rhino = Pressure concept - this is a Buck 'You' stunt
• 8 = Coverage call - Cover 8 (What Saban calls Quarter-Quarter-Half)
• Rip = Direction of the field side - Saban calls his defense by passing strength to the field side
• Sky = Coverage rotation - This means the two-high shell shifts into a single-high coverage by rolling the safeties away from the strength at the snap
• Scrape = Off ball blitz style tag - here this is either 'scrape': go just behind the end to cut off the backside in a run situation

This is all just the actual play call, these 8 component parts add up to one very rigid answer to what the offense is presenting and it will change based on what formation they are facing and any presnap motions to change the passing or run strength. The hardest part for players to grasp is the gap exchanges based on post snap motion like lineman pulling, then words like force and spill are used but it becomes increasingly complex.

The way most modern professional defenses avoid this is to have a base set of calls which are much shorter than the example with tags to adjust to any motions or challenging personnel groupings but these can spiral out of control quickly across the length of a 17 game season. You can be left with your players having to consider way too much both pre and post snap; yes I am looking at you Brandon Staley.

Now we can't go forwards without giving credit to the man who actually created this system; Mike Macdonald. The former Baltimore Ravens' defensive coordinator and current Seattle Seahawks head coach, spent many years curating and fine tuning this defense before finally rolling it out in Ann Arbor back in his lone season as DC in 2021. He came up with a way of separating the three main components of a play call into three co-existing but indepedent 'modules'.

Jesse Minter learnt this system whilst working with MacDonald at the Baltimore Ravens and he has really mastered the language and teaching of it. There are differences between their systems and he has also added another feature which we will get into later. So he is not simply a follower of Macdonald's scheme. The scheme's origins are traced back to Wink Martindale, they both learnt the system under Don Brown who was a strong proponent of not only the scheme but the mentality it cultivated. There are differences in all four systems, Minter's is unique and has added some fun new ways to get the most out of the syste, but to be honest the actual structure of the scheme isn't what makes this defense hard to play against. It is just how incredibly varied it is whilst simultaneously being easy for the defense to master.

Now that we have established the origins of where this system came from we should talk about what is actually is that makes it different. As Brett Kollmann illustrates, the play call is broken down into modules but those modules aren't independent and have a relationship between them that means the call is much simpler to communicate and understand.

Modularity

My full time career is as an architectural designer with a specialism in modular construction techniques so to say I am a fan of a modular approach to anything would be an understatement. People often misidentify the concept of modularity as taking something you want to build and assembling it using smaller components. The real beauty of it is that those smaller parts can be used with any of the other parts to create a different design without having to start from scratch each time. That is the idea that Macdonald and Minter are bringing into the world of football; you can make it so that instead of learning hundreds of plays, you only have to learn (roughly) 8 fronts, 24 pressures and 10 coverages.

For example, the defense could have 10 ways to run a simulated pressure with one player blitzing from the strong side and the weak end dropping into coverage. Each of those pressures is siloed together. Hypothetically, those types of simulated pressures could be named after NBA teams, so if players hear an NBA team name, they know what pressure they are running. The first letter of the name could be where it’s coming from, and from there, they can figure out everyone else’s job. For example, “Suns” can tell the defense that the safety is blitzing from the strong side, while the end from the weak side is dropping. The defense can run “Suns” from multiple fronts without teaching an entirely new blitz.

From Ted Nyugen's article on The Athletic

Nail Nickel Jet Mode

The above play is an example that Mike Macdonald used in a seminar about his philoshopy, it's likely fake from start to finish but it gives good insight into how the full call gets assembled. In the presentation he made to other coaches he described it as a slot machine and once he said that, it immediately made sense to me. Any symbol from module 1 can be paired with any symbol from module 2 and those can be paired with any symbol in module 3. The part that I think is very clever is that each module changes the subsequent one this takes it from a shorter version of a long play call in one dimension into something that is three dimensional in complexity but still compact enough to be digestible.

Now theory is one thing but the real test was always going to be seeing how the players grasped it because at the end of the day that is the base reason for its creation. It has become wildly popular with the players and teams with coaching tree descendents of Macdonald were hired at a rapid rate to be the new wave defensive coordinators of teams in need of change.

“He’s doing a unique job. … I’ve kind of never experienced it,” Ravens cornerback Marlon Humphrey said at minicamp during Macdonald’s first season as defensive coordinator. “He’s really having everybody understand the whole philosophy of mainly just the group of coverages, as opposed to: ‘You got this call. How do you play this call?’ He’s kind of saying, grouping these calls all together, like, ‘What is the whole idea of this call?’ So I think he’s done a really good job of kind of really helping us all be smarter, to where I know what the D-line’s doing. I also know what the linebacker is doing. I also know what the safety’s doing — because ‘The reason why I call this defense is because of this.'”

From Ted Nyugen's article on The Athletic

As a coach the idea that a cornerback would know the role of a defensive lineman sounds like the stuff of fairytales but in Minter's system, where everything is technically a zone that you could end up stepping into, it is reality. The fact that the players seem very comfortable with it with speaks to both the design of the system and the coaching acumen it takes to effectively teach this. It takes years in the same season for players to understand what the coach is actually trying to achieve with a particular play concept, it seems the coaches from the Macdonald tree are able to teach that at the same time as installing the play call.

It's not just words either, the proof is all over the tape. Preseason All-22 film is usually full to the brim with vanilla play calling and shoddy scheme execution but this year's Charger games were a genuine joy to watch for those who study defense. The players were on point for the most part with only a few schematic errors. The communication was clear and effective even when adjusting to late formations changes and motions. In fact most of this communication wasn't needed, you can see them all adjust in synchronization as they all know how the changing offensive look affects their role in the defense.

The example play above shows how the Bolts clearly had a blitz call set up with off ball linebacker (#43) lined up outside the edge defender (#98) but when the motion brings the tight end in-line, they swap their 'pressure zones' and the safety on that side of the field (#22) steps down as he has to replace the 'passing zone' vacated by the personnel swap. This is all without a hand signal or any obvious sign of communication; the result of a ball spiked into the terf is all due to the confusion this quick exchange created.

What makes the clear communication so impressive is that Minter displayed a wide stretching set of play calls at his players across the three games and they executed them very well indeed. I don't have exact metrics to fall back on but when you're in the red category across the board in Cody Alexander's blitz and stunt rates graphics, you are most certainly putting a lot onto your players.

I think my favourite part of this is is that by making the first module, the attacking concept, the dictating factor on every single down, it turns our Bolts into a downhill attacking team. That first word changes everything else after it, whereas in traditional play calling it is usually the last word. The Fangio/Staley system of stopping the offense beating you so badly has been replaced by one that takes the fight to them. Our defense are now the aggressors and it feels so good to finally be supporting a team that will be proudly kicking doors down in the pursuit of greatness.

I will go into how Minter's defense all works on a different day (I still have a lot of learning to do before then) but I think as an overall philosophy and a teaching system it is obvious why the Chargers made Jesse Minter their new defensive coordinator and until the league figures it all out, it is going to cause chaos for opposing teams.