FILM ROOM: Tyler's Play of the Week - NFL Week 3, 2024

By Tyler Arthur

Welcome to the latest instalment of my Play of the Week series. I am going to deep dive one snap from every week of the NFL season, to try and bring you an inside look at what happened on my favourite play of that weekend’s games.

There is no set formula for what would make a play the best; it could be fascinating from an X’s and O’s perspective, it could be an exceptional piece of play design or just amazing execution from an individual player.

The one thing that every play will have in common, however – it will be awesome.

Let’s take a look at my Play of the Week for Week 3 of the 2024 NFL season.

Aaron Jones, 8-yard Touchdown Reception - Vikings vs Texans

This quick-hitting play is a stroke of genius play design from Kevin O’Connell. The key to this play was the combination of things that don’t show up on paper: the speed at which they broke the huddle, as well as the personnel and where said personnel lined up. This is why the broadcast view barely even captured the touchdown… That’s how fast they snapped the ball.

I feel that teams don’t take full advantage of these type of things. I’m a huge fan of the chess match that is the X’s and O’s on a whiteboard, but sometimes you have to switch up the pace and make your move fast to put your opponent back foot. Speaking of which, let’s talk about how the Vikings not only drew up a nice play design, but also elevated it massively by intentionally making the Houston defense panic.

Causing Panic

This is the first time ever where my All-22 breakdown of a play has started from the huddle.

Minnesota broke the huddle for this play incredibly quickly, which forced the defense to get set up quickly, too, completely ruining their ability to communicate and organise themselves. This is more effective than ever when it takes place in the redzone, like this play did, due to the tendency to opt for man coverage in the shorter area of the field. Establishing who your man is when he’s sprinting out from the huddle and lining up to instantly snap the ball is much more difficult than when everyone takes a light jog to their alignment.

Plus, there’s one more thing that made this play so interesting (and terrifying), and caused utter panic from Houston’s defensive unit. Why don’t you see if you can identify it. You’ve only got three seconds to do it, just like the Texans did…

The thing that puts the cherry on top of this play, beyond a nice design and very quick setup and execution, is the way that they have arranged their personnel.

When Minnesota break the huddle and run quickly to their formation and line up, Justin Jefferson is in the backfield.

By moving him here, you cause confusion and (very understandable) panic.

Normally you would be considering double teaming the best wide receiver on the other team, either by assigning two people to guard him (usually one inside and one outside), or by having one person play him off the line and then a second defender help over the top. In both of these scenarios, you’re asking an extremely athletic cornerback to do the heavy lifting. However, with this central alignment, he becomes the responsibility of a linebacker.

Top tip for any of my readers who aspire to become an NFL defensive coordinator. Do not attempt to guard Justin Jefferson with a linebacker.

Azeez Al-Shaair is a 6’2, 228lbs linebacker, being asked to follow the best wide receiver in the league one on one with limited or no help, that’s not ideal. What’s even worse is the fact that nobody else knows who they should be covering.

The period of time prior to the snap on this play is about the most unorganised you can see a defense look in the NFL – but it’s not their fault, it’s all part of the play design.

The X's & O's

As I said, the reason for the tempo exit from the huddle was to hurry up defensive decision making, and hide the fact that the best player on the offense was at running back instead of lined up outside.

Jefferson is tasked with running a rail route, so that he can get up to top speed and attack the end zone in a footrace against a linebacker. He’s the first read on the play and Darnold has a pretty high chance of finding him open for an easy score. However, the second read is even more difficult to defend, due to the mesh concept and the rub as these two drag routes cross eachother.

We spoke about a similar play last week and how they used ‘Mesh Traffic’ to create a very difficult situation for scraping linebackers. However, this play is different because it isn’t tricky, to force the ball to one player you’re scheming open. Kevin O’Connell won’t settle for a one-read play. Azeez Al-Shaair actaully does a fantastic job of stopping the quick throw to Jefferson – taking away the primary read. But, that’s when Aaron Jones springs open underneath the Mesh Spot concept over the middle of the field, taking advantage of the mass confusion and panic they induced with their extremely fast set up.

The defense is, as many teams are often doing in the redzone, playing man coverage. This particular look is Cover 5 – or ‘2-man’ – where the five receiving threats are assigned a man each to stop, and the two safeties sit over the top to try and take away anyone who gets away. The reason that this is so common in short yardage situations is that man coverage is (generally) very effective for the first two seconds of a play, taking away quick routes and putting pressure on the receivers to make a good move, instead of simply being schemed open.

If you recall, earlier I said that a likely way to try and stop Justin Jefferson (or any superstar wideout) is to play this type of look, with a man underneath to take away his initial move, and then safety help over the top – naturally, this doesn’t work when he’s lined up as a halfback!

The weakness of this coverage, though, is when they run a concept specifically designed to beat man. Mesh, if you were wondering, is the most common concept used to do just that. As all of the linebackers scramble around to work out what they’re doing, the two outside linebackers in Houston’s 4-3 end up swapping sides at the last minute, which sends second-year LB Henry To’oTo’o running over towards Aaron Jones when the ball is snapped.

Jones takes one step and then instantly plants and turns inside, meaning that To’oTo’o is suddenly moving in the wrong direction, and has to turn back and chase him through all the traffic in the middle of the field.

He has absolutely no chance, and the safety isn’t able to react in time, giving Sam Darnold an easy touchdown pass.

Execution

As I said, this play was all-but destined for some level of success from the moment they called it in the huddle. The use of deception, speed and controlled chaos made executing the play easy enough. Watching the three linebackers arguing over who guards who, and then seeing the combination of Jefferson’s rail route and Jones’ drag attacking the same area of the field is immensely satisfying to me.

I’ll also give some credit to Darnold, because it’d be all-too easy to get the ball out quick to Jettas and just assume there’s no way a linebacker could get out to him, but he didn’t. He stood firm for an extra half-second, and found Jones just before pressure off the right side could bother him.

Excellent play design is nothing without execution. And the Vikings have been excellent on both counts so far this season, making them very worthy winners of my Play of the Week for Week 3.

Tyler discovered American Football when he went to university and became obsessed with it. Since then he has played, watched and written about it, while on a mission to attain as much knowledge (and win as many fantasy football championships) as possible.

He currently plays Wide Receiver for the Northants Knights.

Tyler loves nothing more than watching the All-22 to break down the film and teach people about the sport he loves.