Play 10
Situation: 3rd and 10 at WSH 22
Description: Q2 - (5:01) (Shotgun) R.Griffin pass incomplete short right to A.Roberts [D.Moore].
Sideline View
Endzone View
RG3 is shotgun has Garcon and Roberts on the left and Jackson alone on the right. Both Garcon and Roberts are running deep in-routes while Jackson is running a curl route to the outside. RG3 snaps the ball and takes 3-steps back and looks at Garcon and Roberts while TE86 Reed runs to the left flat.
RG3 NEEDS to get rid of the ball. He’s staring down his two deeper receivers looking for a big play but he could have thrown it to Reed on the left side to avoided getting pressured.
As soon as RG3 takes off he is pursued by DE98 Moore who takes him down by the ankles. Luckily, RG3 does the smart thing and throws the ball away before the sack, but it should never have come to this. Quicker decision-making is key and RG3 still is hesitant with the ball.
Play 11
Situation: 1st and 10 at WSH 22
Description: Q2 - (2:00) (Shotgun) R.Griffin pass incomplete short right to D.Jackson (D.Kennard).
Sideline View
Endzone View
RG3 in pistol formation motions Jackson across the formation for a WR screen on the right side. LB53 Kennard bats the ball down before it can reach Jackson. Just a well read play by the Giants defense.
Play 12
Situation: 2nd and 10 at WSH 22
Description: Q2 - (1:54) (Shotgun) R.Griffin pass short right to S.Redd pushed ob at NYG 41 for 37 yards (A.Rolle).
Sideline View
Endzone View
RG3 in shotgun has trips left and Reed on the right by himself. Giants rush five pass rushers. DE98 Moore comes in as the free rusher, so RG3 dumps it immediately to his checkdown RB37 Redd who makes a large gain on the play.
This is a great decision by RG3 not to hold onto the ball and just get rid of it. Reed was the first read on the play running a quick-in route which pulls SS26 Rolle away from the play allowing Redd to be open. FS27 Brown also gets pulled towards the middle of the field abandoning his deeper responsibilities. Rolle or Brown need to communicate better to pick up the checkdown receiver in this situation.
Play 13
Situation: 1st and 10 at NYG 41
Description: Q2 - (1:46) (Shotgun) R.Griffin pass deep left to A.Roberts pushed ob at NYG 21 for 20 yards (S.Brown).
Sideline View
Endzone View
RG3 in shotgun has twin stacks to his left with Garcon and Roberts and Jackson by himself on the outside. RG3 fakes the handoff to Redd and immediately looks down the left side of the field for Garcon and Roberts. Garcon runs a smash route to the middle of the field while Roberts runs a corner route to the sideline. RG3 finds Garcon first who is covered by the underneath zone coverage and finds Roberts wide open between zones on the sideline for the 20 yard gain.
Watch Jackson on the bottom of the screen. He is wide-open because RG3 stares down his receivers on the left side of the field pulling the safety on Jackson’s side into the middle of the field. The offensive line does a great job against the Giants four pass rushers on this play.
Play 14
Situation: 1st and 4 at NYG 4
Description: Q2 - (:17) R.Griffin sacked at NYG 8 for -4 yards (sack split by J.Hankins and D.Moore).
Sideline View
Endzone View
Sack Alert! RG3 in singleback formation has trips bunch right and TE Reed alone on the left. RG3’s first read is Jackson running a quick out route from the left side of the bunch. This is a designed pick play to Jackson. Watch Garcon running a spot route to the outside of the linebacker to pick him.
RG3 needs to make this throw, but his hesitancy is what causes CB37 Harris to abandon his coverage on Roberts and close in on Jackson for what would have been the score. The next option is for RG3 to pump-fake Jackson and then throw over the top to Roberts who is wide open. This would have scored as well, but RG3 abandons the right side the field in order to find TE86 Reed running a slant route who is covered.
The next option would have been a scramble and then a quick checkdown to RB37 Redd who is coming from the backfield. Notice the linebackers all vacate their zone assignments and leave the middle of the field open in response to the bunch formation on the right. This would have also scored, but instead RG3 takes a sack on what would have been a touchdown to end the half.
These are the type of plays that define an NFL quarterback. A good quarterback would have thrown it immediately to Jackson, while an elite quarterback would have thrown the pump-fake to Jackson to pass it to Roberts. A bad quarterback takes a sack here. Very frustrating.
Play 15
Situation: 2nd and 8 at NYG 8
Description: Q2 - (:12) (Shotgun) R.Griffin pass incomplete short left to J.Reed (A.Rolle).
Sideline View
Endzone View
RG3 in shotgun has trips right and Reed by himself on the left. Reed runs a fade route against off-man coverage in the endzone. RG3 was hoping that Reed would be able to out-muscle SS26 Rolle for the touchdown, but RG3 places the ball too low and Rolle has excellent coverage.
I’m not a big fan of this decision. Clearly this was a pre-determined play to run the fade route, but Rolle is in off-man coverage which is perfect for this type of play. If Reed was running a quick slant route I would have loved the pre-snap decision making, but instead it gets blocked. WR12 Roberts running the slant route over the middle would have been a better choice since his defender was deep enough in coverage that this would have been a TD if RG3 could have recognized the coverage.
Play 16
Situation: 3rd and 8 at NYG 8
Description: Q2 - (:08) R.Griffin scrambles right end for 8 yards, TOUCHDOWN. The Replay Official challenged the runner broke the plane ruling, and the play was REVERSED. R.Griffin scrambles right end to NYG 1 for 7 yards (J.Pierre-Paul). FUMBLES (J.Pierre-Paul), ball out of bounds in End Zone, Touchback. PENALTY on WAS-S.Moss, Unsportsmanlike Conduct, 15 yards, enforced between downs. PENALTY on WAS-S.Moss, Disqualification, 15 yards, enforced between downs. Penalties will be assessed on the 2nd half kickoff.
Sideline View
Endzone View
RG3 has trips right with Reed, Roberts and Jackson and Garcon by himself on the left. RG3 snaps the ball and immediately looks left for Garcon running the fade route and realizes he is covered well. RG3 then looks right and finds Reed running a seam-route over the middle who is open. Reed is so open in fact that he raises his hand in the air wanting the quick ball. This is where RG3 should have thrown the ball, but he pulls it down and scrambles right avoiding the incoming pressure.
This is the play that was all over ESPN in the highlights where RG3 bobbles the ball in the air as he crosses the goalline and Santana Moss yells at a referee to get ejected.
In the second half, RG3 made some great plays with his legs in plays 17-19:
Play 17
Play 18
Play 19
RG3 had a few good throws like in play 20.
Play 20 - RG3 went through his reads and found Roberts over underneath the cover 2 zones of the safeties.
But RG3 still struggled with basic concepts and fundamental defensive reading skills like in play 21:
Play 21
Situation: 4th and 2 at NYG 36
Description: Q3 - (9:45) (Shotgun) R.Griffin sacked at NYG 40 for -4 yards (sack split by D.Kennard and J.Pierre-Paul). FUMBLES (D.Kennard), recovered by WAS-K.Lichtensteiger at NYG 39.
Sideline View
Endzone View
Sack alert! RG3 in shotgun has trips right and TE Reed on the left by himself. The Giants are in Cover 1 with man-to-man coverage across the field. The inside linebacker over the middle is responsible for the checkdown receiver from the backfield.
The Giants bring five pass rushers and RG3 instantly looks to take advantage of the man coverage by the secondary with his backfield receiver. The edge rusher is in RG3’s throwing lane and also RG3 sees the LB53 Kennard coming from the middle of the field to pick him up, so RG3 moves on to his next read. Good decision.
RG3 then finds Reed his next read. Great!
Since the linebacker is coming across RG3’s vision cone towards the sideline, RG3 moves on to Roberts instead of sticking with Reed on the slant route. Here is the mistake.
This here shows a fundamental lack of understanding. His pre-snap read is (1) either man-to-man coverage across the board with a zone linebacker over the middle, (2) man-to-man coverage across the board with the zone linebacker covering the checkdown receiver, or (3) five underneath zones.
Based on Kennard leaving the middle of the field to run to the checkdown receiver and the CB in off-man coverage RG3 should have understood that it is Option 2 from the list above. This means that the slant would have been wide-open once the linebacker was out of the way. All RG3 has to do is avoid the pressure and then wait for the slant route to break. RG3 made the correct decision to look for the checkdown initially, but he needs to follow that up by FULLY understanding what is happening with the defensive coverage responsibilities here.
It’s a complicated play, but this is a fundamental concept that NFL quarterbacks have to understand in order to be great and why everyone criticizes RG3 for lack of studying the mental side of the game.
RG3 clearly was better in this game than he was in the previous games versus the Bucs and the 49ers, but he still struggles with hesitancy with the ball and quick decision-making. Also, his fundamental ability to understand defensive coverages is something that desperately needs to be fixed. Hopefully over the next couple of games and during the off-season RG3 works on this to become the top tier quarterback his natural ability will allow him to become.
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