THERE’S AN AWFUL lot of damage the New England Patriots can do when they get close to the opposition endzone. Indeed, against the Colts last time out, the AFC champions made seven visits to the redzone and came away with six touchdowns and a field goal for their efforts.
This is nothing new, of course, as the Pats averaged a league best 2.7 redzone touchdowns a game this season, scoring six points on more than 62% of their visits inside the 20-yard line.
And the scores can come from anywhere. Against the Colts alone, LeGarrette Blount, James Develin, Nate Solder (!) and Rob Gronkowski all recorded touchdowns and it’s the latter we want to focus on today.
Tradition
Before we get into specifics of what the Patriots can do with Gronk, I think it’s important to take a look at how teams – both on offence and defence – identify offensive players when drawing up plays.
- QB – Quarterback
- R – Running back
- F – Full back
- Y – Tight end #1
- U – Tight end #2
- X – Weak side wide receiver
- Z – Strong side wide receiver
- W – Slot receiver
- H – Either a fourth wide receiver or third running back/tight end
Because of his considerable size, the Patriots are very happy to use Gronkowski in a traditional tight end role of blocking in the running and passing game.
Here you can see Gronkowski (#87) helping out Blount in the run game.
That said, as his 14 receiving touchdowns this year prove, Gronkowski is just as happy when handling the football as he is creating space for his team-mates. Again, here he is lined up as a traditional tight end to the bottom of the line of scrimmage against the Colts:
Patriot gains
Where defences really have to start worrying though, is when Gronkowski lines up like a wide receiver rather than a tight end.
We saw an almost perfect example of this in the AFC Divisional game as the Patriots attempted an improbable second 14-point comeback against the Ravens.
Lining up at the 5-yard line with their Posse/11 personnel of three wide receivers (red), a tight end (yellow) and a running back (blue), the Patriots are in a 3×1 formation. The 3×1 – as you can see below – simply means have three receivers on one side of the field and one on the other.
Here, the Patriots have moved Gronkowski from the traditional tight end spot beside the line of scrimmage and are using him as an X receiver which tells the Ravens defence exactly what is about to happen..
However, knowing what’s coming and being able to defend it are two totally different things and Gronkowski scores the easy touchdown:
Damned if you do…
While the Patriots’ formation instantly alerted the Ravens to the slant pass, they only really had two choices to defend it and neither was likely to be successful.
Baltimore are in zero pressure, which means that there is no safety help in the middle of the field leaving vast expanses of the endzone unprotected as they focus on man-coverage of the Patriots receivers. We looked at the ins and out of man-coverage here.
However, as we’ll see below, even if the Ravens had played a safety in the middle of the field, the pass was too quick and the distance to cover too great to make any difference.
Could Will Hill (#33) have done better in coverage? It’s hard to put too much blame on his shoulders. Defensive backs in the NFL are trained to line up to the inside – closer to the middle of the field – of receivers to take away the slant route.
However, look at the move by Gronk to make Hill think he is running to the outside of the field before breaking inside on the pre-planned slant. It’s a move he has to react to and while it only causes Hill to stutter for a split second, that’s all Tom Brady and his star tight end need.
Different defensive look, same result
Against the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC Championship game, the Patriots ran an almost identical play, albeit flipped with Gronk now lining up to Brady’s right and the three other receivers to his left.
Here the Colts leave safety help for Mike Adams (#29) but the result is still a New England touchdown.
Once more, the speed of the throw and movement of Gronkowski makes the play virtually indefensible.
Unstoppable?
It’s likely the Seahawks will assign Kam Chancellor with the role of stopping Gronkowski come Sunday’s Super Bowl and to do so he’ll have to take the risk that the Patriots are playing the slant and nothing but the slant when they line up in this formation close to the endzone.
If he does, it allows him to keep control of the inside of the field which will make the throwing window for Brady much smaller.
However, the risk is that the Patriots simply change the route and that Gronk runs to the outside – a fade route – instead, leaving Chancellor and the Seahawks looking very stupid indeed.
