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Simple math- leveraging Play Action
Written by Andy Furman   
Tuesday, 27 October 2009 06:21

The Giants running game is well-respected by the entire NFL.  Having a good OL with a great deal of communication/experience plus good RBs affords the Giants a great deal of respect when they hand off the ball.  Plus the Giants track record of success gives opposing defenses extra motivation to play run.

How many times per game is play action used by the Giants?   3 times?  4 times?  For our purposes, let's say the Giants use play action about 3.5X per game.

The Giants rush the ball 32 times on average per game, 5th in the league.  This means that 32 + 3.5 = 35.5 times per game the Giants take the snap and put that ball out toward the running  back to grab for a run.  90% (32/35.5) of the time it is indeed a run.  10% (3.5/35.5) of the time it is a fake and the Giants are actually passing. 

Now I have to ask all of you a question.. pretend you are the defensive coordinator of the team playing vs the Giants.  Your defense is going against a very good run offense.  What do you tell your players about play action if you know that 90% of the time that Manning goes back to hand off the ball that it is indeed a run?  The answer is simple- the fake decoy is only going to be used in a very small minority of plays the entire night- simply play it as run.  Manning will trick our defense a few times and that will be it.  The other 90% of the time we'll have 8 guys ready to stop to the run, so I'd rather make SURE I am winning 90% of the other (run) snaps and I'll worry about the couple of plays they do the play action later. 

This is why Gilbride does not run play action NEARLY ENOUGH.  The defense is handed a 90% success rate in knowing that a handoff is a handoff.  Defend the run, don't worry about the Giants faking it because we'll be so far ahead of their run game for it to matter.  Lose the play action battle 3-4 times,  win the running game war.

What percentage would YOU USE?  How about trying to keep the defense at a much larger GUESS?  The Saints this year have an effective running game with similar numbers compared to the Giants. They ran play action probably 10 to 12 times against the gmen. (There were 6 play actions on this video highlight reel alone. ALL FOUR OF BREES' TDs were on play action.)  If you run play action 12 times, run it for real 32 times, that is 12/44 or 27%.  Now you are starting to get better numbers for confusion.  You take away the aggressiveness of the defense to poach the run and you raise the number of opportunities for impact plays on offense.  

This is just one of many ways that Gilbride is the predictable puncher.  The scary part is that he actually thinks that because the play action pass works so well in those 3 or 4 times per game that he is benefiting the team.  He gets 3 or 4 plays and the opposing defense completely gets success in the run game.  The moment Eli turns around to handoff the ball the LBers and Safety come all the way in to stop the run with little worry about a pass.  Great odds for the defense.  Bad odds for the Giants.   



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Comments (10)Add Comment
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written by Bob, October 27, 2009
Andy

What would be the downside to the gmen of running more play action ? Is running it ALL upside ?
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written by Capt George, October 27, 2009
I see no down side. If the D respects the play action then your running game improves and you get more 3rd and shorts and bigger runs for 10 or more yards. If the D does not respect the playaction and the LB's and S charge the box you get big pass plays over the top of the LB's and S. The only way playaction does not work is if the D does not respect it and stays back in coverage so the pass play you are trying to hit is harder to do. This only works for them if they can stop your running game with 7 men. With the giants ability to run the ball very effectivly against 7 man fronts it's a win win for us.
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written by woodslight, October 27, 2009
The whole point of putting together a scheme is the realization that any good team is going to try and take away that which you do best. If you are an aerial assault a good defense will collapse the pocket and jam the receivers off the line. If you are a good running team you will see 8+ in the box to try and take that way. What I don't understand is the failure of the Offense to realize this (Its been like three years now) and change up the scheme. The predictability of the Offense is THE reason that the Giants are 5-2 and the absolute reason they can't score touchdowns in the red zone.
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written by xtian, October 27, 2009
yeah, 20% would be a much better percentage. they should especially use it when the defense crowding the box. plus manning is a good faker. no reason not to use it more. not only would it benefit the pass plays, but some of the runs too because they might think they are faking it again and drop back. of course, the linemen must fake too.
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written by jw, October 27, 2009
I agree generally that the Giants should run play action more, but in this particular game it was hard to do because Manning was in shotgun so much, which I assume is because of his foot injury. The only two play actions I remember resulted in an interception on pass to Hixon (Q1) and a sack (Q3), so even its limited use was not successful. A few times late in the game they ran some counter-tendency stuff with some success, like an inside handoff from the shotgun (Bradshaw's fumble play and Jacobs on the next drive).
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written by Mitch K, October 27, 2009
I must confess, I watched the Yankees win the pennant Sunday night. Did a little PIP and switching periodically but I finally got around to watching the Giants game today in its entirety. Maybe because it is two days later, and although I knew the outcome...I took a completely different perspective to what has been said about the Giants on this blog. Not once did I see a comment calling for the Giants to run the ball more. I know there were eight in the box...but I saw Jacobs getting large chunks of yardage at a time. They abandoned the run way too early in my opinion. Even with 3 minutes to go in the game, there was a chance to tie this game up. The drop by Manningham ( showing a propensity to not concentrate enough ) Bradshaw, fumbling was a physical error, trying to fight for yardage, but then compounding his mistake by throwing a punch...real bad job. Eli....well he was the "bad" Eli on Sunday.

Yes, Andy your play action comments leads us right to:

Rule 8 - Do the unpredictable. Once you are predictable you are dead.

That is why Gilbride is terrible. His inability to adjust on the fly.

Hoping that Sheridan learned from the Saints game. He seemed to.


Some notes:

Hixon is a Returner...He is not an elite wideout. Case in point...why was he not fighting for that ball in the end zone? He let the defender wrestle it away.

Why did it take Eli until the 4th QTR to find Steve Smith?

It's obvious to me that Nicks has a knack to make a play everytime he's on the field.

Why was there not a penalty called on the helmet to helmet play on Boss? ( Man, he deserves that #89...doesn't he? sure reminds me someone )

On the play before the last Eli pick....Can someone explain to me what "face-guarding" is? I always thought it was when a defender has his back to the flight of the ball and he throws his arms up to disrupt the receiver's vision. According to Collingsworth, Smith had to make a move towards the defender and make contact to get that call. That is nuts!!!

Things are critical....we now have a must win in Philly next week. 3 losses in a row in a short season can snowball. They have to stop the bleeding now.


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written by Roberts, October 27, 2009
You have to wonder if there is something wrong with Manning's foot. If you subtract the game against Oakland, he has looked real bad the last two weeks throwing the ball. His throws aren't pretty and he is not hitting his spots. I don't think it is all the opponents. He just isn't getting the ball where it needs to be.
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written by peteathis45, October 27, 2009
third play on offense is a throw to hedgecock? THAT"S a scripted play??? How many consecutive times do we have to watch this play fail before gilbride puts it away?
No Huddle
written by Jeff Andreasen, October 28, 2009
Early in the season we heard about Eli practicing the "no-huddle" offense. We heard that the Giants wanted to use it more often because Eli functioned better in those kinds of situations. During various 2:00 minute drills he can bring the team right down the field and score. So what happened to "no-huddle"?
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written by ultimatenyg, October 28, 2009
everything boils down to effectiveness and predictability. it is a very good question. I am NOT defending the coaches, but I think that part of the reason why they may not want to use the no huddle "voluntarily" is because w/o Canty and Alford(IR) in the DL rotation, they may be concerned that fatigue hurts the DL. So if you hurry up the offense and give the defense "no time off" it is harming other parts of your team.

One thing I know is that if you get up the line of scrimmage quickly, u r not going to get a delay of game penalty! I'd prefer to see it used sporadically just to cause some probs for the opposing defense- u can get a delay of game for too many men on the field if you do it right. Or ofrce them to burn a timeout. (Not to mention Eli being much more effective out of that set.)

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