Play 5
Rams 23, Bengals 20. 0:43 left in the fourth quarter. Fourth-and-1, ball at Rams 49.
Here’s where Morris put the pressure on all his cover guys—“everybody’s got a man now.” And this would become a player’s play more than even Morris anticipated. The call was a four-man rush with all that man coverage, while giving the cover guys help to the inside.
At the snap, Burrow immediately looked to Higgins. David Long saw where the play was going—he was on tight end C.J. Uzomah, but felt how fast Uzomah was trying to get to the flat, and stopped for a second, gambling that they were clearing him out to run Higgins across the middle. So when Burrow looked, not only was Darious Williams covering Higgins, but Long was sitting in the passing window. Burrow hesitated, and that was all L.A. needed.
“By the time that happens it’s too late,” Morris says. “And they did double Aaron Donald. They did exactly what you’re supposed to do as a coach, and he wins on the edge of the left guard so fast that the help can’t even get there before he gets his arms around [Burrow]. Because the man was that determined and knows that much—he’s seen double teams, he knows what they look like, he’s not gonna quit. And when he felt that, he was gonna win that thing.
“That’s what I mean by this thing is done by the players. That wasn’t any genius call that I made. That was the players going out there and executing their job at the highest level.”
When Morris said the double was there, I was confused, because all any of us saw was Donald roasting Adeniji one-on-one. But Morris was right. If you look at the play, Hopkins was peeling off to help on Donald at the snap. As Morris says, Donald simply anticipated where that help was coming from, rushed away from it to give Hopkins a longer path to get him, and won so fast that Hopkins couldn’t make it there in time.
