Texans Jags Film

“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.

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The picture on the left is the side view and the picture on the right 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.

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You can see in diagram 3 that the Jags are bringing a WR in motion 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.

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In diagram 5, Bennett comes way up the field to contain the reverse which is a no-no.  He should 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 overcommitted.  As Busing leaves the backside, look how large the hole is.

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As you can see, the huge hole is 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.