A Breakdown of Eric Kendricks’ Performance vs. the Buccaneers

Pass Coverage

Pass coverage is equally as important as run defense as an MLB, which is where Kendricks is playing in the Vikings’ defense. In Mike Zimmer’s defense, a LB has to be incredibly athletic to succeed in pass coverage. I honestly think it might be the most physically demanding job any NFL coach asks his LBs to do. Kendricks showed in college, and in this game, that he has the athleticism to succeed in this defense. He also showed off good pass coverage skills in general. Whether or not he can maintain his success against starters is a different topic entirely.

In pass defense, I counted 4 plays where Kendricks did a good job and was in good position against a defender, 6 plays where there simply was no one for him to cover, and 2 plays where he was out of position (although, as I’ll explain, you’d have to be exceedingly harsh to criticize him for one of the plays where he was out of position).

1-15-TB 13 (Q3, 14:55) 8-M.Glennon pass incomplete deep right to 15-T.King.

Not much to look at here. Kendricks drops into a zone. There’s a TE crossing, but Glennon has already started his throwing motion and it’s a pass deep down the field.

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2-15-TB 13 (Q3, 14:50) (Shotgun) 8-M.Glennon pass short right to 25-M.James to TB 19 for 6 yards (62-C.Anunoby).

Here, Kendricks appears to be in man coverage on (I think) Kenny Bell. It’s an out route, and I think Kendricks put himself in good position. It’s hard for me to tell. Kendricks might be a bit too far away from Bell. It’s hard for me to judge the distance. It doesn’t really matter though because the play ends up being a screen to the RB in the other direction.

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3-5-TB 25 (Q3, 11:55) (Shotgun) 8-M.Glennon pass incomplete deep right to 25-M.James.

Here is an example of why I called Zimmer’s pass defense scheme the most physically demanding of any NFL team for LBs, and we’ll see it multiple times. Zimmer loves sugaring the A gaps with his LBs on obvious passing downs. “Sugaring” means disguising his intentions. He has the LBs walk up to the line of scrimmage on both sides of the center, showing a potential blitz. This play in particular has a 4 WR set, so he doesn’t have a safety threating blitz as well, but he also likes to do that with Harrison Smith. Anyway, back to the LBs. From that position, the Vikings can send one, both, or neither LBs and they can even drop a defensive lineman into coverage. So, it’s a zone blitz concept. The reason it’s physically demanding on LBs is because if they are dropped back into coverage, they have to cover a lot of ground, and it can be really difficult to cover out breaking routes by TEs from this position on the field, as we’ll see on the next play.

On this play, however, nothing interesting happens for Kendricks. The DBs are manned up on WRs to the outside and while he drops into his zone just fine, there’s no one for him to cover. The DL does a good job of getting pressure with just four pass rushers while the secondary does a good job in coverage and Glennon has to throw the ball away.

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2-6-MIN 27 (Q3, 9:35) (No Huddle, Shotgun) 8-M.Glennon pass incomplete short right to 80-K.Bell.

Here we see the danger of sugaring the A gaps. When the receiver who runs a route in the LBs zone runs an out-breaking route, and when that receiver has 4.4 speed like Kenny Bell, it’s pretty much impossible to defend because the LB has to run as far if not further than the receiver, and has to do it while running backwards on top of that. You cannot blame Kendricks for not being in position on this play because that’s not physically possible. What you could critique Kendricks for is if he had let up a lot of yardage after the catch (and even then that criticism may not be realistic, because Eric Kendricks is not the Flash), but that’s not applicable here because Bell drops the pass. It’s hard for me to tell but I think Caesar Rayford tipped the pass at the line of scrimmage, or at least made Glennon throw off the mark.

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3-6-MIN 27 (Q3, 9:34) 8-M.Glennon pass short right to 25-M.James to MIN 17 for 10 yards (33-J.Thomas).

On this play, the Vikings actually send two threatening defenders on the blitz instead of just dropping them back into coverage. Kendricks is the only one tasked with dropping back, and does a great job, because he was totally in position to defend Brate’s route. The problem for the Vikings was that Glennon threw the hot route to the uncovered back, and he took it for the first round. That’s the danger of blitzing like this.

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2-8-MIN 15 (Q3, 8:30) (Shotgun) 8-M.Glennon pass incomplete short left to 80-K.Bell (54-E.Kendricks).

I think this play by Kendricks is awesome. Not just because of the pass breakup, but because I think he intentionally baited Glennon into it. At the snap, you see Kendricks stand still for a little while after everyone else. I don’t think his reaction time was bad, but rather I think he was studying Glennon, and, by not moving, making both Glennon and Bell think that they have enough room for the quick curl. If he were to break on Bell right away, this pass wouldn’t have been thrown. Kendricks then breaks on Bell and ends up in perfect position to make the pass breakup.

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3-8-MIN 15 (Q3, 8:27) (Shotgun) 8-M.Glennon pass short left to 10-R.Herron to MIN 3 for 12 yards (54-E.Kendricks).

On the play the Bucs do a very nice job of play design and get a first down out of it. Marcus Sherels is playing off man coverage on Herron, and leaves too big of a cushion between himself and the defender. The Bucs complement that by running a corner route with Adam Humphries, which puts Humphries directly in Sherels’ path, so he can’t get back to his receiver quickly.

For Kendricks’ part, he does what he’s supposed to do. His primary responsibility on the play is #14 Kaelin Clay. Kendricks appears to have short responsibility, while if Clay goes deep he becomes the safety’s responsibility and Kendricks should drop into a zone, which he does. Kendricks switching to zone coincides with Glennon throwing the ball, and as the nearest defender Kendricks does a good job of turning back around and making the tackle.

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2-9-TB 21 (Q3, 3:25) 8-M.Glennon pass short right to 10-R.Herron to TB 47 for 26 yards (41-A.Harris).

On this play, Kendricks’ responsibility is the RB, who he is in man coverage on. A little later, we will see a play where Kendricks is actually targeted on the same route. On that play, he has enough speed to tackle the RB for no gain. On this play, I think there would be a short gain, but not one reaching the first down marker if the RB had been targeted. As it ends up, Glennon did not choose to go to that option and instead went to Herron, who had a step on Sherels.

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1-10-TB 47 (Q3, 2:40) 8-M.Glennon pass deep middle to 11-A.Humphries to MIN 29 for 24 yards (41-A.Harris).

This is the first play I’ve seen where I thought Kendricks actually did a bad job of play recognition. You can clearly see that he gets sucked up and takes two steps forward because of the play action fake, which wasn’t even a particularly good one. Those two steps don’t look like much, but they could have caused Kendricks to give up an intermediate pass over the middle of the field, had Glennon chosen to go that way. Instead, he goes to Humphries, who found a nice whole in the Vikings’ zone.

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1-10-MIN 29 (Q3, 2:03) 8-M.Glennon pass short left to 25-M.James to MIN 24 for 5 yards (27-S.Prater).

There’s not much here. It’s a flat route and that area of the field is Prater’s responsibility in this coverage. Prater is late getting off of the first man through his zone so James gets the catch for a decent gain. Kendricks does a good job of being in position to help Prater out with the tackle.

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3-5-MIN 24 (Q3, :58) 8-M.Glennon pass short right to 32-D.Brown to MIN 24 for no gain (54-E.Kendricks).

Remember how I was talking about the fact that the Vikings’ need LBs who are very athletic because of the coverage Zimmer demands of them? Well, while this play isn’t showing A gap pressure it does show off Kendricks’ sideline-to-sideline speed. He’s in man coverage on the RB and needs to get to the sideline fast on the flat route. Kendricks is able to do a nifty job to avoid Kenny Bell and get to the RB, stopping him for no gain. This is the kind of speed he’s going to need to show to be effective on those out-breaking routes when he’s threatening the A gap.

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3-2-TB 19 (Q4, 10:26) 4-S.Lobato pass short left to 84-C.Brate to TB 35 for 16 yards (41-A.Harris).

Kendricks isn’t even on the screen for two full seconds with this play. It’s not worth dissecting from his standpoint.

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1-10-TB 35 (Q4, 9:56) 4-S.Lobato pass incomplete deep middle to 11-A.Humphries.

Here Kendricks is in zone again and he doesn’t have to do much before the ball is thrown.

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Pass Rushing

Kendricks is obviously going to primarily be dropping back into coverage for the Vikings. However, Mike Zimmer, with the constant threat of A gap pressure, does blitz his LBs more often than the norm for a 4-3 defense. And, unlike Barr, Kendricks was not a 3-4 Jack LB in college so he doesn’t have extensive experience rushing the passer. As such, he certainly doesn’t have a strong repertoire of pass rushing moves, so he’s probably going to be ineffective if he has to face off against an offensive lineman.

In the game, Kendricks rushed the passer just twice. In those two plays, he recorded a sack on Seth Lobato and was one of a few defenders to close in on Mike Glennon and make his throw errant. He was not touched by a blocker on either play.

3-9-TB 19 (Q3, 14:16) (Shotgun) 8-M.Glennon pass incomplete short left to 10-R.Herron (94-J.Trattou).

On this play, it appears the Vikings are running double stunts. Tom Johnson and Justin Trattou executed one stunt, while Chigbo Anunoby and Kendricks are executing the other. A stunt is when one defender crashes inside (or outside, in Johnson’s case) to try to occupy two blockers and then the other player wraps around him, hopefully getting a free path to the QB. On this play, it works extremely well for the Vikings. Both Johnson and Anunoby do their jobs, and Trattou and Kendricks go unblocked. Because it takes a little while to develop, Glennon is able to get the pass out, but it is hurried and therefore off target. Trattou also records a hit on the play. Kendricks did not end up getting to Glennon, but he was right in Glennon’s throwing lane, which is nice.

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3-7-TB 38 (Q4, 9:14) (Shotgun) 4-S.Lobato sacked at TB 29 for -9 yards (54-E.Kendricks).

You may have been wondering why Zimmer likes to sugar A gap pressure if it makes the LB’s life in coverage so difficult. This play is a perfect example of why Zimmer loves it: it confuses opponents’ pass protection calls. If the offense screws up with its protection call, you get a completely unblocked defender, like Kendricks is here. This is the easiest sack Kendricks will ever have. All he had to do was sprint straight at the QB. Kendricks almost got a little overzealous on this play. I would have liked to see him keep hold of the QB until he was sure the QB was on the ground, but I think he would have gone down even without Anthony Harris hitting him, so it’s not a big deal.

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Eric Kendricks had an excellent game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in week 1 of preseason. By my count, there were only four plays where he was either out of position or got beaten, and I can’t blame him for at least one of those plays. The only play I would really consider bad by Kendricks was on the TD run, the rest are just slight mistakes that didn’t end up having an impact. On the flip side, Kendricks had a number of very impactful plays, including a sack, a pass breakup, a tackle for loss, and a few other stops in the run game.

In the game, I thought Kendricks did an instinctual job in play recognition, only misstepping one time that I noticed. He clearly understood his gap responsibilities and made sure he fills them in run defense. He also did, on the whole, a good job of disengaging from blockers and putting himself in position to make a play on the runner. There were a couple of plays where he got overpowered by a blocker, but it was more because of his lack of size than proper technique. In pass coverage, he showed good sideline to sideline speed in man coverage and also stayed true to his zones, even though there wasn’t much action in them. When rushing the passer, he was unblocked, so there’s not much to evaluate.

Eric Kendricks did an excellent job playing against the Bucs’ second and third stringers. Now it’ll be interesting to see if he can do it against starting caliber players in the future.