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WR Speed Releases
Outside of lateral moves, a committed speed release is another tactic for receivers to try and get around press coverage. Once a receiver breaks the lateral plane of the cornerbacks drop, the cornerback will turn his hips and play trail technique to cover the receiver from behind. This is used in this play by Amerson. Here he shows his natural recovery speed to sit on the hip of the receiver and to keep him covered. Another good sign for next season.
Amerson CB#39 is on the bottom of your screen in this GIF.
Route Anticipation
Sometimes Amerson’s route anticipation isn’t the best. Here TE84 Donnell runs an angle route starting to the sideline cutting back across the middle. Amerson should have stayed inside Donnell here and predicted that he would either have ran a “sluggo” route or an angled-slant back across the field. Either way, inside technique would have worked for Amerson to prevent the reception as Amerson overcommits to one side leaving Donnell a clean separation. Amerson CB#39 is on the top of your screen in this GIF.
In the following play, Amerson loses Hilton on a whip route in the endzone for a touchdown. Amerson CB#39 is on the top of your screen in this GIF.
Cover 3 Struggles
One of the most common obversations I made while going through Amerson’s game tape was that he just struggled in understanding Cover 3 responsibilities. In deep Cover 3 roles, his main responsibility is to play his role and not abandon it to make a play underneath. This was a common issue for Amerson and it was due to this that he let in multiple touchdowns.
In the first play, Amerson follows TY Hilton, but completely abandons his outside zone responsibility allowing tight end Coby Fleener’s out-and-up route to be wide-open for a touchdown. Amerson CB#39 is on the bottom of your screen in this GIF.
In another play versus the Colts, Amerson watches TY Hilton in his hitch, but doesn’t watch Donte Moncrief escape past him into his deep zone responsibility. Amerson CB#39 is on the bottom of your screen in this GIF.
Finally in the last play, Cordarelle Patterson burns Amerson off of the line of scrimmage and Amerson abandons his coverage on a miscommunication between himself and FS Ryan Clark. These plays were way too common in 2014 and makes me believe that Amerson needs to just stick with pure man-to-man coverage as his only role going forward, until he can prove he can be relied on in zone coverage. Amerson CB#39 is on the top of your screen in this GIF.
What Happened?
Why did Amerson fail in his second season? First, Amerson struggles with understanding zone responsibilities. It takes a certain type of cornerback to play zone and if you ask any Eagles’ fan while Nnamdi Asomugha failed in Philadelphia after being a great press-man corner in Oakland the previous season it’s because he just doesn’t do well in zone. It’s a surprisingly common problem, so playing to Amerson’s strength as a man-cover cornerback would do him well. Second, injuries to ROLB Brian Orakpo, NT Barry Cofield, DE Stephen Bowen, and occassionally DE Jason Hatcher, forced Haslett to create exotic blitz packages by bringing in more than the standard four to five pass rushers into the backfield. This stressed the already tenous secondary even further as the Redskins couldn’t put more men in coverage. Third, Amerson is best when covering larger receivers like Terrance Williams or Reggie Wayne off of the line of scrimmage due to his underrated press abilities and their lack of lateral line movements. Due to the lack of talent surrouding Amerson, he had to cover speedier receivers that typically would have been covered by DeAngelo Hall.
Can Amerson’s career be salvaged? I honestly think so. He has potential in Joe Barry’s new defense where the cornerbacks are going to be relied on to play more press-man coverage. This is great for Amerson as he struggled in Cover 3 roles mentioned previously. The one major criticism of the new 3-4 Under defense is that it lacks overall complexity and becomes predictable. While this may sound like a major negative - it is against elite offenses - the simplicity removes the errors due to miscommunication that ran rampant in the 2014 defense. Going back to the basics is a net positive for this secondary in the long run even though it becomes easier to attack.
How Amerson can improve for next season? (1) He needs to stop overcommitting on lateral moves and watch the receivers hips to not get beaten off of the line of scrimmage. (2) He needs to be more cognizant of the other secondary roles and where he actually has safety help and when he doesn’t. (3) He needs to learn to anticipate routes better, which hopefully will come from studying more game tape and experience playing the game at NFL speed.
