Rams vs Eagles: Using the Andy Reid Tree Against Itself

by Ryan Van Bibber on Sep 14, 2011 9:30 AM CDT in 2011 NFL regular season

St. Louis Rams head coach Steve Spagnuolo learned the defensive trade from the late great Jim Johnson, the long-time Eagles defensive coordinator known for his aggressive style of attacking the quarterback. Spagnuolo and Johnson both worked for Andy Reid, the Eagles head coach. Got that. Reid's Eagles used their knowledge of the Rams defensive system to exploit some key weaknesses this week, getting the mismatches they wanted for DeSean Jackson and the Rams secondary. How you ask, Jimmy K from Blogging the BEast shows us how.

I will not post the entire thing here, because you really must go read it and see the video. The Eagles split TE Brent Celek and WR Jason Avant out wide, and because the Rams' defensive scheme usually plays left and right corners, rather than assigned receivers, Ron Bartell and Bradley Fletcher end up covering those two. Yes, Bartell and Fletcher covering a tight end and Jason Avant; you do the math. That leaves Justin King, Quintin Mikell and Craig Dahl to cover the Eagles' three best receivers, Steve Smith, Jeremy Maclin and DeSean Jackson, lined up in a bunch formation on the right side of the offense.

As if the mismatch wasn't bad enough, Smith gets doubled up and DeSean Jackson get left UNCOVERED to make an easy 26-yard catch. That puts the Eagles on the 9-yard line, and two plays later, they score a touchdown to make it 24-10.

Plenty of things went wrong in this game, and clearly some fundamentals were lacking. Don't excuse the coaching decisions either. There was a breakdown on this play, but the notion of leaving DeSean Jackson covered by defenders other than the Rams two best corners defies logic. Maybe they could have doubled up coverage with King and Mikell or some combination, but that play, that series, proved to be a real back-breaker in a game full of back-breakers.

We've seen the Rams get beat with this kind of play before too.

Read the whole post and check out the video for more.

Be sure to check out Coach Conners' review of Fred Robbins and Chris Long from the game too.

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Just Wow.

Football players, like prostitutes, are in the business of ruining their bodies for the pleasure of strangers. ~Merle Kessler

by mlkgandhiv2k on Sep 14, 2011 9:45 AM CDT reply actions

you watching spags?

hopefully you adjust things so this does not happen again.

by hbwb on Sep 14, 2011 10:28 AM CDT reply actions

Just to be the devil's advocate a little bit...I agree that the Rams need to have a contingency

plan for these things, but also note that the pressure is designed to get to the quarterback on a blitz…so the QB is looking for his hot read…meaning regardless of who is covering who, bradley fletcher and ron bartell our two best corners are the guys covering the hot read…so its not as terrible as it looks.

Secondly, the defense still played well enough to win until it realized the offense was so far over its head that the game was beyond reach then they let McCoy run all over the place.

- And here's the Rams' 2010 season in a series. Incomplete pass, 18-yard run, incomplete pass, 7-yard run, 5-yard pass, 3-yard run, sack, incomplete pass, punt. Shoot me. - 3K

by leadhead on Sep 14, 2011 10:43 AM CDT reply actions

lets move forward! we can beat the giants lets talk abt that

by kevio3000 on Sep 14, 2011 10:56 AM CDT via mobile reply actions

It's not really as bad as it looks

I’m sure spags at least expected his nickel (Justin king) tocover the right man aka their best receiver. If we have to have our two best corners always on the outside to disguise coverage then so be it, but for someone to not even be covered I can only assume that’s the fundamental shit spags was talking about in his press conference

by Hibachi40 on Sep 14, 2011 11:04 AM CDT via mobile reply actions

Who was covering Maclin all game?

Because they sure kept him very quiet hes just as explosive as Desean Jackson

by ItsSuperRam on Sep 14, 2011 11:50 AM CDT reply actions

Now we

Have the samething goin on with the giants. They are a good team that went 10-6 last year. So there not going to give us the game like the eagles did.

(Love by many hated by most) St. Louis Rams

by J-RAD2 on Sep 14, 2011 7:11 PM CDT via mobile reply actions