Rhodes is killing 2019

We were in a single high safety from the start single shell. Smith was lined up to blitz and or cover but covered his zone because it was his zone to cover the flat. He made his read and it pulled him from blitz.


It's about knowing keys and what you are looking at.

Smith had the back there was no one else there that was his key. He read the back.

Harris was single high and was in coverage with Waynes. Man/Zone


If anything Barr may have been out of position but in no way was he going to be in anything other than quarters along with Kendricks. They had the TE again playing quarters. LBs looked like they where in position

Rhodes and Smith played man all others zone.

If Harris screwed up he sure acted like he was supposed to bracket Wayne's because he moved up then slid back deep right at the snap to cover deep zone.

Mack had the slot with LB help. Man/Zone


Barr wasn't happy with Rhodes after the play and he calls the alignments so I would guess Rhodes was passing blame on others but he was the issue.

If Smith would have dropped back into a double shell then we may have reason to fault him.

I fault Rhodes all the way.

The single high safety is no longer single high safety if he's on one side of the field in double coverage.  It doesn't make sense to have only one safety back and to have him all the way on one side of the field.  If that was the play call, then Rhodes was left totally on his own on that play which is a stupid play call.

But I'm not sure that's the case.  Here's what the play call looked like - the linebackers dropped into middle zones in the 7-8 yard range.  Probably in the hook/curl/slant range.  Smith showed blitz and covered the underneath flats when he saw the leak.  Alexander, Waynes, and Rhodes were in man.  The only sane thing for the safety to be doing on that play is to be playing single high and reacting to the QB.

In the NFL it's unwise to leave 98% of corners with no help deep in a zero coverage and not send a blitz. Unwise isn't the right word....stupid is the right word.  There is no way the call was for a four man rush and nobody in the middle of the field.  That's on Harris.  He looked like he was taking the far half of the field in bracket when he should have been single high.

Harris being all the way over there at the snap tells me he had the coverage screwed up from the start.

So basically, Harris dropped the ball in your opinion.  Only real thing I don't get is that even with a single safety and man coverage, Rhodes has to cover his guy in this situation as the safety's job is to follow the QB and protect if someone gets open. Usually corners hand off a guy to the safety if they have another assignment... I don't think that's the case here with Rhodes. He had to stay with his man and he didn't. 

He lined up showing Cover 1, it might be that he thought that was a bluff and he had a different assignment.  The Vikings do like to show one thing pre-snap and switch.  It looks to me like he missed his assignment to stay Cover 1.

Rhodes could've done better to stay with him, but DBs are coached to use that help in how they leverage and position themselves.  Rhodes being positioned outside the receiver tells me he thought he had help.  If he had help, being a few paces behind isn't going to be a problem.

And I can't imagine any rational reason why Zimmer would design a scheme in which 60% of the deep field has no one assigned.  If you're in that kind of a man coverage...you better be blitzing because you are asking to get burned.

[br

Rhodes has said he needs to do a better job defending all year. It would be a smart move if Zimmer cut him after January.

You seem like a fun person.