It's pretty hard for an average fan like me to grasp the intricacies of a sophisticated NFL passing scheme. But, I noticed something in the game the other night. Consider 2 Goff completions: to Kupp and to Woods (the fumble/TD).
In the replay of the Kupp throw, the camera was aligned with Goff, looking upfield. The ball zipped toward, but over the head of another guy who was covered. Kupp was directly on that line, but 10 yards deeper and not covered. Easy completion.
Similarly, in the RZ, Goff throws to Woods on a slant that works just underneath some other receivers. Again, a pretty easy completion considering the congestion over the middle near the goal line.
In both cases, the receivers are working in tiers, one underneath the other. In both cases, the coverage handles one tier but not the other: first, the deeper route is open; in the 2nd play, it's the underneath guy.
Now these are only 2 plays. But, I just had a sense of seeing the beginnings of a pattern, a layered, tiered approach to route combinations.
I also seem to remember with my dusty, aging brain that Martz used to do something similar. He'd run guys into a similar zone but in tiers, making it really hard to sustain coverage, especially working against a zone.
Well, my knowledge of passing schemes is extremely limited and out of date by 45 years. Maybe this is routine. Maybe it's just a small sample size. Maybe it's codswallop.
But, I'll be watching for this.
