Gase’s Offense: Tannehill/Osweiler Held Him Back (Part 5)
Welcome to part 5 of the series about the faults with Ryan Tannehill and Brock Osweiler, with regards to how it limited the effectiveness of Adam Gase’s offense. We will discuss the issues with the offense itself in a later series, while also discussing the bright spots within the same offense. Please don’t take this article as an excuse for Adam Gase, since he’s far from perfect, but this is just about how his quarterbacks held him back. Please check back with us for the rest of this series.
Progression reads, progression reads. This is a good example of what I was talking about earlier and how Osweiler doesn’t read his progressions correctly. His first receiver is Devante Parker on the slant route, which is a fine option because he has a one on one match. However, notice the first read on this play is actually the middle linebacker. If the linebacker bites on the play action, then Parker will be open for the pass. The problem is that the linebacker doesn’t bite for the play action, as he drifts back slightly, which puts him directly in the passing lane. The moment the linebacker stayed back, Osweiler’s first read is over. Notice the timing of the play, because right after the play action, Osweiler turns around to look at the linebacker. A millisecond after that, both Parker to the bottom of the screen, and Amendola to the top of the screen make their breaks. This tells you the timing is based on the linebacker read. If the linebacker pulls up, then Parker is the first read across the middle. If the linebacker stays back, then Amendola is the read to the outside. The problem occurs when Osweiler sees the linebacker, but still looks towards Parker while taking his hop, which throws off the timing for a throw to Amendola. The second aspect, Amendola is so wide open that Osweiler has a clear throwing lane even when he’s late with the read. However, Osweiler doesn’t step up in the pocket, rather runs sideways into a pass rusher and throws a terrible pass while being hit. This is once again, going back to the difference of philosophies in the pocket. He’s showing off the reset and react idea of first avoiding the immediate danger of pass rushers and then looking down the field. If he steps up in the pocket, this is an easy completion. To recap, he made the wrong read, delayed his second read, didn’t step up in the pocket, ran into trouble, and made a terrible off-balance throw.
How does this impact the Jets? Miami was ranked 27th in passing offense by Football Outsiders, right ahead of the Jets at 28th. I’ve seen similar stats brought up about how the numbers don’t say Adam Gase’s offense is special at all, but those numbers are skewed by terrible QB play throughout the season.
I don’t understand this decision making from Osweiler at all, because he gets the exact defense this play is intended to beat on 3rd and short. The first read is to the right side of the formation, where they have two players running tiered out routes. Essentially, the idea is to get the cornerback to commit to one receiver, and pick the other one. In this case, the cornerback freezes in the middle, which makes both of them options. The safety is too far back, so a deeper pass towards the sidelines would fit in between either defenders. Since the cornerback hesitates, the short throw is fine as well with ample space to get the first down. Osweiler stares down these two options, and decides to move on, when he gets a defense that would give up relatively easy passes to both of his options. To make matters worse, he has Parker open in the middle for an easy pass as well, but he waits too long to release the ball. If he releases this ball one step earlier, it’s a perfect pass to Parker, but he decided to make one more hop, and it falls incomplete.
How does this impact the Jets? You can see why the Texans spent a 2nd round pick to get rid of Osweiler. Osweiler looks like a rookie QB adjusting from a spread offense at times with his lack of discipline. I don’t think there are many situations where any offense would succeed with players that can’t handle easy reads.
Remember this concept from earlier? Remember how the read were the linebackers? In this case, the linebackers follow the out-route, yet Osweiler makes a Ryan Fitzpatrick like first read and throw pass. If he read the linebackers, he would have seen that the second slot receiver would be open because two defenders vacated the area, while the QB had a clean pocket. Osweiler threw to the one guy that is well covered on the play.
How does this impact the Jets? This concept comes up time and time again, so expect a high amount of these types of passes near the red zone.
Ryan Tannehill returns to show off some faults, and here is one where he misses an easy throw. This is a fairly easy pass, but Tannehill just overthrows this pass.
How does this impact the Jets? Forget watching the QB on the play, I actually like the hip manipulation for the wide receiver routes. Towards the top of the screen, the defender is taking outside leverage, with his hips turned towards the line of scrimmage. Ideally, they want to feed the receivers towards the middle, since the linebackers are dropping back into coverage. Notice how the receiver attacks the hips of the defender to turn him the other way, before cutting to the inside. Now the cut isn’t great because for some reason Devante Parker has issues with cutting to the right side. However, I love how the receivers are attempting to counter the hips of the defenders. Towards the bottom of the screen, you have Kenny Stills doing hip manipulation as well. In this case, the defender is in perfect position to guard against this exact route. He has his hips turned to the inside to jump on any inside routes. Notice how Stills runs towards the inside to gain inside leverage, but then turns up-field and changes the hip rotation for the cornerback. Once the hips turn up-field, this is an easy cut for Stills and he’s wide open. This doesn’t happen on every play, but it’s still encouraging to see from the receivers, because there is some semblance of coaching. Personally, I felt the Jets were one of the worst teams in the league at teaching fundamentals of route running, which made their routes predictable. At least there is some hope the Dolphins practiced it better with examples like this. Although I have to admit, Jermaine Kearse was very good at routes the first year he was here, but tailed off last year.
This isn’t a QB play, but I just wanted to highlight a big issue with the offensive line. For some reason, they just did not know how to deal with spin moves. The guard on this play, assumes he has help from the center, and completely abandons his defender, who has a free shot at Tannehill. There isn’t even an attempt at recovery.
This isn’t a disastrous throw that missed wide open receivers, or one that blatantly ignored wide open options. I picked this play to showcase the lack of progressions. The first read on this play should be the wheel route to the running back from the backfield. Notice the outside receiver essentially setting a pick play for the wheel route, and especially take note of the intended receiver on the other side of the field at that moment. The receiver at the bottom of the screen hasn’t even set up his double move yet, whereas the running back wheel route is at the decision point. Tannehill should be looking at the running back first, who is briefly open for this pass, and then move on to the other read because the intended receiver still hasn’t made his final move. Instead, Tannehill stares down the receiver from the start. The intended receiver doesn’t become open, nor does the running back run free into the end zone. However, I wanted to point out how a QB like Tannehill didn’t take advantage of the timing reads within the play.
How does this impact the Jets? You can see why they wanted Leveon Bell, because Gase loves to run the wheel route from the backfield.
This is a 3rd and 6 play, and it doesn’t count because there are offsetting penalties on the play. There is a wide open running back as Tannehill rolls out to his right for the easy first down conversion. Instead, the QB throws slightly against his body and the ball sails right to the safety, who barely misses an interception. I don’t understand the logic here when he has a perfectly good window to throw this pass, but instead waits until the last second to get hit and throw across his body.
How does this impact the Jets? You should probably draft Bell in your PPR fantasy leagues.
Thanks for reading Part 5 of our Gase’s Offense: Tannehill/Osweiler Held Him Back series. Please check back with us soon for Part 6,
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