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.