Kirwan made an interesting point today - it started with him breaking down Cover 2 Man, particularly in a 4 wide personnel group from the offense, and what it did on 3rd and long. He segued into why the Patriots have struggled on 3rd down this year, which was largely related to the loss of Woodhead/Vereen. He considers the 3rd down back to be the x-factor of Cover 2 Man because the 4 wide essentially ties up 6 men, 4 men covering the receivers, and 2 deep safeties. This leaves 5 linemen blocking 5 defenders, with the running back free, particularly on draw plays where the receivers have time to draw their 6 men further down field, with the safeties deeper and the cb's playing man and not seeing the running side of the play develop immediately.
Now, why we're ending up in 3rd/long as often as we are is a different story entirely, dropped balls, inconsistent running on 1st downs, etc, but it was a pretty cool breakdown that he also tied into the resurgence of Philip Rivers (sproles left, Rivers sucks, woodhead comes to town, Rivers is back, etc). Gives me some hope for the return of Vereen, and some better insight as to why Faulk then Woody had so much success with the 3rd down draw play for all those years. Simple math that eluded me strategically.
