Week 4’s Thursday Night game wasn’t much of a game, with the Giants blowing out Washington 45-14. Washington made countless coverage and game management mistakes throughout the contest. One especially egregious example occurred at the end of the first half with the Giants leading 21-7. The Giants had 0 timeouts, there were 7 seconds remaining in the half, and the ball was on the +40 yard line. Any pass completed in the field of play would result in the end of the half, and the Giants were slightly out of Field Goal range.

The Giants called a Flood concept in a closed trips formation, with 1 TE, 1 RB, and 3 WR. The outside WR runs a post route at 10 yards, hoping to attack the deep part of Washington’s secondary and “take the top off” the defense. Larry Donnell, (Giants Tight End, #84) runs a 10-yard out, hoping to get a catch and get out of bounds before time runs out. Victor Cruz (Giants WR #80) runs a deep flag route with a high break toward the sideline at 12 yards. The underlying goal for the Giants is to stretch the defense, get a completion toward the sideline, and if this does not happen, throw the ball away to attempt a long Field Goal. Here is the play from a Giants perspective:

Cruz is the middle WR in the trips set running a deep flag route

Washington responds to the trips set by rushing 4 Defensive Lineman and playing Cover 3 Buzz from a 2 high Safeties look. In the first of many poor decisions, the Washington coaching staff has assigned Brandon Meriweather (#31) to play the deep middle 1/3 of the field. This wouldn’t normally be an issue, except Meriweather starts the snap heavily toward the single WR side. As you can see from both the picture below and above, Meriweather is almost 5 yards outside the hash away from the 3 Wide Receiver side, while only being 15 yards from the line of scrimmage.

Meriweather must cover the Deep Middle 1/3 from his current position

The poor alignment leads to a host of other issues. Throughout this breakdown, keep in mind Washington can allow any completion in the field of play, as time will run out if this occurs. Nearly every relevant (for this play) member of the Washington secondary makes an error. Starting with the least egregious, the Cornerback on the trips side that is responsible for Deep 1/3 chases the post route instead of covering his deep 1/3 responsibility. While this leaves an opening for Cruz to eventually make the catch, the Cornerback probably needed to do this because of Meriweather’s misalignment. If the Cornerback does not chase the Post, Eli Manning would be able to throw the ball over everyone’s head for a touchdown to end the half.

Next, the Safety closest to the Trips side is over aggressive to Donnell’s out route to the sideline. This Safety has buzz responsibility, but attacks Donnell’s out route when there is already another Washington defender with flat responsibility. Because two defenders are now doing the same job, Cruz is left wide open behind them.

Finally, the flat defender fails to sink or diagnose the route combination. With 7 seconds to go, the flat defender should have his back to the sideline with his head on a swivel and “funnel” or force any route to be caught in the field of play. Instead, the flat defender plays as if it is a regular down, not the end of the half. Because he is not guarding the sideline, he is unable to see the Safety’s over aggressive mistake. If he did, the flat defender could have kept “sinking” to Cruz’s flag route. Below is the picture of the multitude of Washington coverage errors:

Flat Defender should have back to sideline, Buzz Safety should not do the same job as the flat defender.

As the play progresses, you can see how these mistakes create a huge window for Cruz to make a 29 yard catch, leave one second on the clock, get out of bounds, and set up a chip shot field goal:

Below is a video of the play, first in slow motion, then standard speed, with a rewind to highlight just how poorly this route combination was played:

This is an example of poor situational football costing Washington. Everyone has some blame: the coaching staff may have dictated Meriweather’s alignment. Meriweather lines up too far from the trips and too close to the line of scrimmage; because he doesn’t get over to the Trips set fast enough, the Cornerback is forced to leave his zone. This could be made up for by the buzz Safety OR the flat defender, but neither uses good technique or has awareness of the situation and route combination. In the end, Cruz is wide open and Washington gives up 3 points instead of 0. More credit would go to the Giants play calling, but this type of play routinely occurs in end of half/end of game scenarios and is defended better most of the time.