FILM ROOM: Tyler's Play of the Week - NFL Week 8, 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 8 of the 2024 NFL season.
Adam Trautman, 19-yard TD Reception. Denver Broncos vs Carolina Panthers
I hope that everybody enjoyed National Tight Ends Day this weekend.
Naturally, I made it my mission to select my Play of the Week to come from a TE, and that was made much easier when Adam Trautman did this…
What a grab!
Even if I wasn’t participating the NTED celebrations, this catch would still have been up there with one of the best plays of the week, as Trautman’s one-handed snag helped elevate the Bo Nix-led Broncos over Carolina in a 28-14 victory.
Now, while I am a busy man and I would love to show you a couple of replays and call it a day, everyone reading this knows full well that I can’t watch a play without having the urge to write a thousand words breaking it down. So, let’s start from the top and get into the X’s and O’s behind the play that resulted in this fantastic catch.
Pre-Snap Look
The Broncos came out for this long redzone play on 2nd and 5 in a very run-heavy look, in 12 personnel. The TE pairing is lined up to the boundary (short) side of the field and the two split out wide receivers have the field side. Adam Trautman is lined up as the inside TE and Nate Adkins is on the outside, offset.
When the Broncos lined up in this, the Carolina defense keyed on the increased number of bodies in the box and matched it, by tucking in their short side cornerback and walking down an outside linebacker onto the line of scrimmage on both sides.
The math here checks out. 5 offensive linemen plus 2 TE’s means 7 blockers and a running back. Carolina has 3 down linemen, 2 walked down LB’s and 2 off-ball LB’s, with the cornerback ready to serve outside contain. That’s 7 first-instance defenders in the box and one extra reinforcement to contain the outside run to the right.
The rest of the defense set up in a man-alignment with a DB lined up over each of the two receivers and then there is a single middle-field safety over the top. This is a pretty strong sign that it’s probably Cover 1.
But then, Carolina tried to get a bit cheeky.
Defensive Aggression
As you can see here, prior to the snap, the safety lined up over the slot receiver comes down to the line of scrimmage and prepares to blitz. This is a simple trade of coverage for pressure – one less man to cover a passing pattern, in return for an extra man to either rush the passer or chase down a run.
The safety in question, Demani Richardson, shows his hand right at the last second, which does put pressure on Bo Nix to make his decision quickly, but unfortunately for the Panthers, he did just that.
By blitzing off the left side, they gave Nix all of the information he needed.
The X's & O's
I told you they were being cheeky, I didn’t say it was a good idea!
In sending the safety off the edge on the slot blitz, the Panthers may have got more pressure on Bo Nix, but they also put themselves under pressure. As you can see above, when the strong safety comes out of the pass coverage, it leaves just one defender on that entire side of the field. With two receivers in front of him, and a 10-yard cushion, that’s not an ideal situation, to say the least.
At the snap, that corner comes downhill and takes on the flat zone, while the other two poor gentlemen expected to help him – veteran Linebacker Josey Jewell and FS Xavier Woods – have to break their neck to get over to that side of the field. When the corner comes down into the flat, there is literally nothing stopping the outside receiver from getting to the pylon on a simple go route. That responsibility falls on Woods to sprint (and trust me, when the ball is snapped he literally does have to sprint) full tilt to the sideline.
Jewell has a slightly less ridiculous role, as he has to play a Curl Match zone. In simpler terms, he is going to head out to the hook-to-curl zone (an intermediate zone outside the hash – dark purple on Madden), but with a man-matching principle. This principle basically boils down to taking any inside vertical threat up the seam and carrying it, abandoning his zone to do so.
If the slot receiver runs a seam route or a post route, it’s his job to stay on it and prevent a touchdown. There’s no safety help over the top, because Woods’ primary focus is on preventing a throw to the front pylon.
On the other side of the defense, it’s a very similar look but from a significantly less crazy alignment. The cornerback is playing the deep zone – but directly behind him, meaning no need to sprint to his spot. The walked-down OLB will drop into the flat, and the linebacker is dropping a much shorter distance into his match zone, to take away the seam.
The Seam that Trautman eventually scored a touchdown in.
As you can see, this play call – despite coming out of a very heavy set – is an aggressive vertical passing look, attacking three deep areas of the field. There’s a route attacking both sidelines and then a seam route. A wheel down the right sideline with the seam inside, and then to the left there’s a quick bubble underneath a sluggo from the X receiver.
Translation: There is no safety in the middle of the field. Three different vertical areas of the field are being attacked and there’s only (assuming one of them sprints full-tilt) two deep defenders to cover all three. This leaves a match linebacker to cover the seam on his own.
Any quarterback worth their salt knows that a linebacker’s worst nightmare in the passing game is covering a vertical route in man coverage. When they have their back turned, it allows the QB to throw their receiver open, and there’s nothing they can do about it.
And that’s exactly what Bo Nix did.
Execution
Once the safety made it clear that he was blitzing, it would have been a pretty smart idea to instantly throw the bubble to the slot receiver and put a lot of pressure on a CB on an island to make a tackle. However, the Broncos’ rookie QB instead recognised that the blitz signalled a major rotation over to that side of the field. A rotation which he could exploit.
Now, while it’s easy to give all the credit to that absolutely incredible catch from Adam Trautman, I really do applaud the composure from Nix.
If I was at QB in this situation, I would have thrown the ball as quickly as I physically could to the bubble from the slot. This would have been a guaranteed completion with a high chance of a first down, but it wouldn’t have had the same chance to claim all six points right there and then. The Broncos’s signal-caller wanted to be a bit more aggressive.
Nix’s aggression was well-placed, though, as he threw the ball into the area that the free safety had vacated, and fitted it just beyond the linebacker into Adam Trautman’s right hand. When the trailing LB turns to make a play, he simply can’t react to this beautifully placed ball, and it’s too late.
At the end of the day, though, X’s and O’s aside, the end result boils down to an absolutely awesome catch.
Of course, I already knew coming into this week that I had to show some love to the tight end position, but, I don’t think that this was a reach. When you make a play like that, you’d be in the conversation anytime for a shot at my Play of the Week.
Happy National Tight Ends Day, everyone.
Tyler Arthur
NFL Film and Prospect Analyst
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.