Greg Cosell’s NFC championship preview: Pass rush is the key
For each of the conference championship games this weekend, we’ll take a look at what the film tells us about the key matchups on each side of the ball.
Here are a few things to look for in the NFC championship game between the Arizona Cardinals and Carolina Panthers:
Cardinals offense vs. Panthers defense
The Panthers are going to want to get Cardinals quarterback Carson Palmer under pressure and playing fast. That happened to an extent to Palmer against the Packers last week.
I think the Panthers might increase their normal blitz frequency in this game. They are usually a “safe” blitzing team, often bringing an extra rusher with some zone blitz concepts, because their foundation is as a zone coverage defense.
Here’s an example of how pressure got to Palmer against Green Bay. Early in the fourth quarter, the Cardinals had Larry Fitzgerald and John Brown both running crossing routes, and Palmer wanted to throw to Fitzgerald. But single-high safety Ha Ha Clinton-Dix jumped Fitzgerald’s crossing route, and safety Morgan Burnett green-dog blitzed (Burnett had tight end Jermaine Gresham in coverage, and the “green dog” is an automatic blitz when your man stays in to block). Burnett hurried Palmer and he made an off balance and undefined throw to Brown that was picked off by Damarious Randall. It was a terrible throw by Palmer on first down in the red zone.
That’s what the Panthers want to do to Palmer. The Cardinals can find some deep passes against the Panthers’ zone coverage if the protection is there. Against any zone coverage, there are always voids, and Bruce Arians is masterful at concepts to beat any coverage. But you need time for the receivers to get in those voids. And the Seahawks showed a lot of voids in the Panthers zone coverage concepts in the second half last week; it was very evident on film.
The Panthers did a great job pressuring the Seahawks last week. They featured a lot of secondary blitzes, with corners blitzing from the short side of the field or safeties blitzing from a distance as part of their zone blitz concepts. That might have been game planned or perhaps it was a function of having a big lead. But the Panthers face a couple of interesting questions this week: Can they generate consistent pressure on Palmer with their four-man defensive line rush? Or will they go with a high percentage of blitzes? One way or another, if the Panthers want to win this game they’ll need to generate some pressure.
Panthers offense vs. Cardinals defense
This matchup is interesting because both sides will have a lot of moving parts.
Before the snap, the Cardinals are different than the Seattle Seahawks, for example. They’re different than Carolina’s defense, too. Those defenses mostly line up and play. Arizona likes to move people around, change gaps on blitzes and basically create confusion before the snap. The Cardinals will blitz a lot. The Panthers really want to stay out of third-and-long situations because that’s when the Cardinals’ blitz packages are most effective.
The one thing about the Cardinals blitzes to keep in mind is they’ll have to keep Cam Newton from escaping the pocket. Newton isn’t a runner, really. Russell Wilson will look at times to leave the pocket and make a play, and Newton is a different style quarterback. He’ll stay in the pocket as long as he can unless he sees something open up right away. But he’s always a threat to make a big play if he can break contain.
The Panthers also like to create confusion, but do so in the running game. The Panthers have the most diverse running game in the NFL, and a lot of it is based off backfield action to confuse a defense. Carolina’s multiple backfield actions with Newton in the shotgun put a lot of stress on the run keys of second level defenders. It’s very hard to trust what you see.
The Seahawks at times took a basic approach to defending the read option. The unblocked defender crashed in to force Newton to keep the ball. The stacked linebacker scraped to play Newton. Here’s a good example from the first quarter.
Backfield action like that should make a defense cautious and maybe slow it down. But no matter how much backfield action the Panthers have in the running game, it won’t back the Cardinals off at all. Arizona will be aggressive no matter what, that’s their style.
The Panthers have a good run-pass mix, with excellent pass game concepts that attack all levels of the defense. It all stems back to the Don Coryell passing attack from back in the late 1970s.
The Panthers had a beautifully designed concept that resulted in a 27-yard gain by Greg Olsen, which set up their second offensive touchdown. Against the Seahawks’ “Cover 3” zone, the Panthers ran three verticals from the three-receiver side, with Ted Ginn running a deep over that looked like it would attack Sherman’s deep third on the other side of the field. Sherman had to retreat to defend Ginn on that route. When Sherman was lifted by Ginn, and underneath defender K.J. Wright took the flat route by fullback Mike Tolbert, it essentially became a three-level stretch concept. That left Olsen wide open at the intermediate sideline with room to run. Newton did an excellent job staying calm with his head focused down the middle of the field.
That’s a great concept. The Panthers, a protection-first offense, can do these kinds of things if they protect Newton well enough. And there’s no question the aggressive Cardinals will force the issue by blitzing.
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NFL analyst and NFL Films senior producer Greg Cosell watches as much NFL game film as anyone. Throughout the season, Cosell will join Shutdown Corner to share his observations on the teams, schemes and personnel from around the league.
