Week two offensive metrics are here, it was a game that looked ugly for most of the game outside of the third quarter and one or two other plays the Cardinals offense really struggled. This week I have added a couple of new items to what I will be recording. These include;
Play design Blitz - Basically when the defense has drawn up a play that has allowed a free rusher to come unblocked to create pressure. The Back has picked up the right guy or there was no back in, the OL is all picking up their assignments, just good defensive calls and plays. I saw this a few times on Sunday.
Kevin Kolb - If Kolb is the reason he is under pressure, taking a hit or being sacked he will get the blame. Holding onto the ball, rolling into pressure et al, Kolb is going to get the blame. It is a little bit subjective on the timing, but I will try to keep it consistent.
Thrown Away - If Kolb throws the ball away, not really targeting anyone, but it is still a pass attempt. I am trying to capture all the pass attempts here so I have added this.
If I get the chance to go back to week 1 and look through to see if any of the plays fall into these categories and update the cumulative totals for my quarterly updates.
- - Levi Brown had a much improved game, though he was not providing a huge positive influence, he was not a big negative either, he was getting pushed back in pass protection a bit, but he was not the weakest link on the line this week, that falls to Brandon Keith..
- - Fitz was having a monster game, maybe it would have been smart to try and get him open downfield a little bit earlier than the fourth quarter. It was hard because we did not have much of the ball.
- - Early Doucet and Andre Roberts were thrown at a lot, but were not very productive, only one of these was a drop. Kolb had a couple of accuracy issues on Sunday, let's hope he cleans those up.
- - I am absolutely amazed that Heap only had one target for the entire game. We went to a lot of four wide shotgun sets in this game to try and take advantage of a weakened secondary, but surely Heap could be in on those packages, he is arguably our second most reliable pass catcher, have to get him in the game and more involved in the passing game.
- - Beanie Wells needs to work a bit on his concentration. He dropped two screen passes, one he was under pressure and it likely would have ended in a loss of yards, but the other he had clear running room and blockers. He needed to catch that ball, it was a first down shot on 3rd and long early in the game.
- - Again the interior OL did a stellar job, their impact in the running game was clear, and most pressure was either coming from the outsides or on well designed blitzes where Kolb need to get the ball out quickly.
- - Brandon Keith steps into the role of horrible pass protector of the week. Two sacks allowed, both times he allowed Kerrigan to beat him, once on a bull rush, and the other around the edge. The sack credited to Rocky McIntosh was really Kerrigan's pressure, Kolb went down without a touch then McIntosh got the touch while he was on the ground.
- - Give credit where credit is due. Jim Haslett had a few very nice blitzes called that really hurt the Cardinals. Most of them involved London Fletcher. Fletcher came free twice early on the first drive on well designed blitzes to generate pressure. He was also the man hitting Kolb as he threw the long TD to Fitz, and the blitzer coming inside on the Orakpo sack, which by design had Orakpo in 1 v 1 blocking with Jeff King, a matchup you are never going to expect your TE to win.
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