“PUT THE FILM ON, BRO” - TEXANS ‘D’ BREAKS DOWN

IN THE FILM ROOM WITH LANCE ZIERLEIN

Last week, the Texans defense allowed another 50+ yard run, watching J’Ville’s Maurice Jones Drew to run unabated to
the house for a key touchdown in the first half of the Jag 31-24 win last weekend. What happened? Glad you asked.

1 The picture on the left is the side

view and the picture on the right 2
is the endzone view.  We want
you to pay attention to Fred
Bennett (arr0w), Tim Bulman
(yellow circle) Brian Cushing
(black circle) and John Busing
(square) as we move to the next
diagram as several elements lead
to the long touchdown run.

You can see in diagram 3 that the

3 Jags are bringing a WR in motion 4
to make the Texans respect the
possibility of a reverse.  In
diagram 4, Cushing sees the play
starting left and commits
aggressively into that gap. 
Busing also starts to aggressively
pursue rather than maintain his
backside responsibility.

In diagram 5, Bennett comes way

5 up the field to contain the reverse
which is a no-no.  He should 6
have stayed there on the line of
scrimmage or at least a yard deep. 
In diagram 6, you can see the play
counter to the right side and
Bulman is getting washed down
while Cushing can't flow with the
play because he has over-
committed.  As Busing leaves
the backside, look how large the
hole is.

As you can see, the huge hole is

7 created because the reverse action
hopes to keep the farthest backside
defender (Bennett) at bay to help
widen the backside hole.  The
play starts left before countering
right, but Cushing is too aggressive
and takes himself out of the play
while Busing's failure to maintain
his responsibility on the backside is
the final piece to the long TD
puzzle.