Bucs Todd Bowles 5 man and exotic fire zone and man pressures

Todd Bowles is great at bringing pressure and confusing qbs, both young and old!

He's done it to Aaron Rodgers, who usually is the best against the blitz and to other qb throughout the league. He is well known around the league as Dr Blitz for his creativity in bringing pressure.

Lets look at some pressure concepts:

3 Under 3 Deep

In the playoffs vs the Eagles

3rd and 8

Front Load

Double edge pressure, NG and DT drop and play hook. 2 300 LB DT playing the hook. Gotta love Todd Bowles.

They drop dt into coverage 

 Vea is playing the hook 

Bring 2 off the edge 

Causes hurts to scramble 

Film 

In the Super Bowl Vs the Chiefs  3rd and 8, Bowles runs a 3 under 3 deep from a 3 safety high look.

They go cover 3 with a 5 man rush.

Davis recovers to make a nice play.

On 1st and 10, the Packers come out in 12. Bowles dials up a nice 5 man 3 under 3 deep pressure. The crossing route gets open late but the pressure gets home.

A nice 5 man pressure from the Bucs

Great pressure from the Bucs.

They get 2 on 1 on the tackle on the nice pressure.

Nice design by Bowles as the 5 man ,  3 under 3 deep and the pressure gets home

VS The Broncos 

The Bucs brought pressure at an enormous rate this past season . They brought pressure on 60% of their pass plays vs the Broncos and Qb Lock. That doesn't mean Todd Bowles is an all out blitz every other down coordinator. He does what it takes to win. The week before against Carolina he brought pressure only 25% of the time. But in the Broncos game they had great success and kept the heat on all game only holding the Broncos to 10 points..

Bowles wasn't content to just bring one extra rusher on each blitz, either. Of their 27 blitzes, the Buccaneers brought five on 17 of them, but also mixed in nine plays in which six defenders tried to invade the backfield. He mixed in some man free coverage and some what looked like 3 deep on 1-2 of the snaps. Bowles even mixed in a seven-man blitz on one play.  

The one pressure package i wanted to take a look at was their cover 2 pressures.

Lets look at a couple of the different fronts and ways Coach Bowles and  the Bucs got after the Broncos and play cover 2

Here is a write up of the first 2 blitzes on the clips below:

In the first blitz above and on the first video clip they play cover 4. 

In the 2nd video clip they play cover 2 to the weak side (hback side) and play cover 4 to the field(passing strength. 

Below are 4 clips which you will see the various cover 2/cover 4 pressures Todd Bowles brings.

As stated the diagrams are shown in the first 2 blitzes.

 vs Packers

3rd and 10 Packers up 10-0 Green Bay 22 yard line

The Packers go 2x2 and the Bucs are in a c4 dime with  pressure bringing the sam/nickel

It looks like cover 4 at the bottom of the screen and playing 2 at the top.

The Bucs read and undercut the route and get the interception for a PICK 6!

 

The 2nd interception is on a 3rd and 3 on the  33 yard line.

Green Bay is up 10-7 at this point. The Bucs go cover 1 and  bring 6 out of the bear look.

They are spying the back with the mike and right olb. They get good pressure and the pick.

The very next series down 21-10 the Packers have a 3rd and 3. Watch what Todd Bowles does on this one. The packers are in bunch. he brings the same pressure but vs bunch decides to run the safety down to jump the crosser, thus leaving the deep 1/3 open. Really very similar if not the same as the snap before.

He takes away the crossing route and shuts down the route and they get the sack with the lb beating the back. The packers offensive line looked very confused on the protection.

The last clip is an exotic blitz where they actually line Suh up as a linebacker, send 6 and play man free.

It didn't appear the Bucs had any fear of the running back in these passing downs. Im sure someone was spying him but once he stepped inside to block the lb went.

VS The Raiders

2 and 10 249 to go in the 2nd quarter

Raiders in bunch set and the Bucs bring 5

The Raiders full slide and the rb is on the olb. The bucs get home as the raiders rb gets stepped on by the tackle.

Man free

Bowles sends the weak linebacker and puts the Mike on the #1 WR who is a tight end. They put the CB on the rb to the boundary.

They play traditional man free to the trips side. The will comes clean on the pressure. 

CB on the RB

See the Mike bail and pickup the tight end

Will comes clean on the pressure. Wondering if the RB saw the cb and thought that he was coming on the pressure?

LB is clean and gets the pressure.

How the Bucs defended the packers week 6 and playoff recap.

Playoffs 

The Bucs beat the Packers in the playoffs and are going to the Super Bowl. One of the reasons was the play of their defense. They sacked Rodgers 5 times  and had 8 qb hits on the day and more importantly held them to 2 field goals when the Packers had 1st and goal inside the 10. One was a mysterious 4th and goal late.  

 Rodgers went 33 of 48 for 346 yards with three touchdowns and one interception on the day.  They were also 16 for 67 in the run game but got away from the run game and threw the ball 75% of the time. Also, the biggest stat was the turnover the Bucs caused on Aaron Jones which led to a score. Their physical style helped get them the win and a trip to the super bowl.

Let's look at some plays on the goal line which really cost them. . 

They had an easy touchdown down 14-7 but the packers bring edge pressure and forces a bad throw. Devonte Adams is wide open and they should have tied the game up. The center slides left but the tackle doesn't take the blitzing lb so he's right in the qb face. He's forced to throw hot and they pass up an easy touchdown.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On 3rd and goal, Adams runs a great route against double bracket coverage, but Rodgers double pumps and that 1 second delay forces Adams out of the endzone. Should have been another touchdown. Poor execution by Rodgers as you can see when Adams is on the goalline he's open. That 1 second delay causes Adams to run out of room, field goal.

 

 

On 1st and goal with 2 minutes to go, They run an rpo but the wr runs the wrong route. Looks like the Bucs go cover 4 to the strong side. If the wr goes vertical instead of running the slant, it may be a touchdown. 

Rodgers thinks seem, wr runs slant, big miss with 2 minutes to go.

The Packers miss a big opportunity as their was a window open but the miscommunication on the route.

Week 6 recap

  The Bucs did something most teams stuggle with  when they play the packers

The Bucs got home with 5 man pressures. Although, Rodgers  usually excels in this department, the Bucs got home most of the day and flustered Rodgers quite a bit. 

The Bucs did a great job of that vs the pack.  In the Bucs game, packers went up 10-0, and early the Bucs didn’t send 5 at all. After that they brought 5 or more 8 times , and the Packers were  1 of 8 for 4 yards, 2 sacks , 2 int, 1 hurry and the ball was out quick! The Bucs won 38-10. They shut the Packers down. They mixed it up nicely with some sim pressures and some other unique blitzes.  

The key matchup will be Carlton Davis vs. Devonte Adams. Last game Davis travelled with Adams and covered him on the outside but didn't cover him when he was in the slot. Also, last week against the Saints he was matched up against Michael Thomas quite a bit. 

Here on a big 3rd and 5 they put Davis on Michael Thomas and he makes a great play on the goal line in man to man defense. They try a back shoulder fade to Michael Thomas and Davis plays it real well. Pass incomplete and they settle for the field goal. Davis is a very underrated player.

Bucs Defense

The Packers will probably put Adams in the slot because the like the matchup of Adams vs Bunting more. Expect that to happen.  Last week Bunting played well against an 80% Michael Thomas. Here he breaks under the route and makes a nice play. Again Davis travels but doesn't necessarily matchup with Thomas.  

They send 5 get pressure and great man coverage and they get the pick!

Interception and return to the 1 yard line

 

Again, in the first meeting the pressure on Rodgers was immense after the first quarter

Here's some clips from the Bucs bringing 6,technically 5 with the add in. and putting their best db on Adams. The Bucs ran a large amount of 5 man games but have much better pass rush than the Bucs. Here below they send 5 and ad in with the 6th rusher. 

 The Bucs did a great job on this blitz below.    Here they send the sam and nickel  on the bottom of he screen go cover 2 and Rodgers throws the pick 6. Rodgers rushes as he feels pressure and the cb jumps the route. Nice blitz concept vs condensed set. 

The Endzone view:

You see the nickel and the sam coming off the edge and one rusher comes free. 

Rodgers rushes the throw and throws an interception

Bucs version of the 2 under 3 deep from double A gap mug look. Love Bowles and how he dials up pressure. The good thing about this one is its 3rd and 10. Great call and down and distance to run it against. Some teams will play it safe on 3rd and 10 but the Bucs show and bring pressure. 

(they just drop JPP too but it is really a nice exotic pressure)

Other things Bowles did is he doubled Adams at times .

Below you see the Defensive back playing trail technique because he knows he has safety help over the top on 3rd and 10 .

Rodgers  scrambles and dumps it off but the downfield coverage was excellent.

Another thing Bowles did was matchup with his cb to the side Adams went to. 

Bowles also put #24 Carlton Davis to Adams side most of the game.  Here it is 3rd and 3 and they try to hit Adams on the slant. The 6 man pressure gets home and they get the interception. Nice Coverage by Davis 

The pressure forces the quick throw and the Bucs get the deflection and interception. 

3rd and 3 1st half Bucs up 14-10

The Bucs run a 6 man cover 0 concept with the free safety dropping to be a rat defender. The back stays in so the rush is 6 man. Big sack on Rodgers. Great cover 0 design which leads to the sack. 

The pressure 

The Bucs cause pressure by going odd with Barrett as the mike. That causes the slide as the Bucs try to get the guard and tackle on Barrett rather than leave a rb on him. The rb has to take David off the edge and he gets home as does Barrett up the middle.

Later up 31-10 the Bucs bring more pressure. On 1st and 10, the Packers come out in 12. Bowles dials up a nice 5 man 3 under 3 deep pressure. The crossing route gets open late but the pressure gets home.

Here was the last sack of the night and the end to Rodgers in the 38-10 game. The Bucs send 6 and play man and the pressure gets home.

But that being said,

The Packers had some opportunities and had some good plays built in.

Clip #1 they run the wheel off Jet motion (ball is late) 

Clip #2 they run 4 verts and the tight end is wide open vs 5 man pressure. Rodgers just missed the 2nd throw.

These are just some of the things to expect when they play this weekend.

How do the Packers counter. 

#1 free release the back more at times and motion him out of the backfield. Force the Bucs to adjust with a lb and take some of the heat off. 

#2 Rodgers has to hit a few 4 verts , wheel routes and zone beaters.

#3 Match Adams up inside, the Bucs inside slot is not as good as Davis on the outside

#4 Establish the run game and go more play action out of 12 personnel. Think they have to take some shots in 12 and hit the deep crossing dover routes against the Packers 5 man 3 under 3 deep.

#5 Do a better job with their screen game. Get some screens involved and hit some quick screens. The packers were so aggressive last game on screens they may be open to fake wr screen and hit #2 vertical.

Don't be surprised if you see that.

Curious to see the adjustments the Packers make with Adams and in the passing game. 

Will they run more screens and free release the back? Will you see Adams in the slot more.

Time will tell.

Hope you enjoyed the article.