Good Morning Stormcloud!

If you are subscribed to the Powderkeg Podcast channel then you may have seen that we published a filmroom special looking at the changes that Jesse Minter has made to the Chargers’ defense over the course of the Bye week. The Bolts dominated the lowly Raiders in Week 13 keeping them to 156 total yards at 3.4 yards an attempt and only 12 first downs. Those results however were not the focus of the video, Vegas’ Geno Smith led offense is not an opponent worthy of a schematic breakdown. No, it was the wholesale changes that the Chargers coaching staff were able to install in they Bye week.

The Chargers switched to a 7-man spacing, or Neutral run fit, principle with a heavy emphasis on playing man or single-high on the backend. The video goes into detail on the way they achieved this and what it can mean for the rest of the season however here are the key stats I utilized to support the evidence seen on tape:

• Man coverage:
  • Weeks 1-11:
    • Rate: 12.5% (32nd)
    • EPA/Dropback: +0.089
  • Week 13
    • Rate: 35.7% (+23.2%)
    • EPA/Dropback: -0.342
• MOFC (Single High):
  • Weeks 1-11: 47.7%
  • Week 13: 71.4%
• Cover 0:
  • Weeks 1-11: 2.4%
  • Week 13: 14.3%
• Derwin James Blitz Usage:
  • Weeks 1-11: 30 (2.7 per game)
  • Week 13: 6 (Over twice his normal rate)

In summary; to install all of the changes they made in under two weeks would not be possible so it is clear the staff had planned to do this for some time. That means I expect it to be a feature of their gameplans going forwards. This gives Minter the tools to be multifaceted enough to cause offensive coordinators to play guessing games, and that is where big time results are found.

Whilst I don’t envision it becoming their primary method of playing teams, the fact it gives Bolts’ defense the tools it needs to attack opposition strengths, gives me hope that the team will be in games in the playoffs should they get there.

Additional Thoughts

Offense

I also looked briefly into some of the changes Greg Roman has made to the ground game. We saw just about every run concept in the book. They ran Inside Zone (9.3%), Outside Zone (7%), Power (27.9%), Counter (9.3%) and Man/Duo (32.6%) but even these figures from FTN don’t begin to describe just how many variations the poor Raiders’ front saw on Sunday.

My favorites were this variation on Crunch:

And this 94 Power concept where Roman brought out Trevor Penning as the 6th Offensive Lineman in what he refers to as his Beast personnel:

Special Teams

I don’t normally review Special Teams snaps as it’s a whole other side to the game that I would need a dedicated off-season to learn. However effort is one thing that you don’t need a mature understanding to appreciate and Deane Leonard, Kendall Williamson and Del’Shawn Phillips have provided that in a solid special teams performance that could be a sign that Ryan Ficken is righting the ship.