Breaking Down Harvin’s Return Touchdown

This is an excerpt of my weekly film breakdown of the week’s biggest plays over at Bleacher Report, for your edification and edumacation:

On a day when the Vikings managed only six offensive points, Percy Harvin’s runback of the game’s opening kickoff provided the margin of victory. The Lions took a brutal home division loss, mostly because of this play:

According to MLive.com's Justin Rogers, Vikings head coach Leslie Frazier said it was a victory of Xs, Os and film study:

I remember in our first special teams kickoff return meeting we saw some things, and we pointed out that if everybody held their blocks, Percy's going to score. I mean, it was obvious. There are some things that we saw if we just held our blocks and our guys did it. They leveraged the football. They got where they needed to be and Percy did the rest.

Let's see if we can see what they saw.

At the kickoff, we see nothing unusual. The Lions are lined up conventionally, and so are the Vikings. But by the time the Vikings finish retreating, some things take shape:

Doug Hogue and Stefan Logan were set up as the second- and third-leftmost players, but by now Hogue's inside the hash mark and Logan's nearly so. The Vikings have paired up into their two two-man wedges (the most allowed by current NFL rules), but are also double-teaming Hogue.

The key here is No. 34, Keiland Williams. He was initially lined up five yards outside the left hash, but in order to avoid former Lions fullback Jerome Felton's block, Williams dances to the outside of the right hash. The Lions' fate, and Williams, is sealed by Felton.

Hogue can't beat the upfield double-team, and one wedge takes out No. 97, Ronnell Lewis. The other wedge splits up; one man seals Logan, while the other, Matt Asiata, splits off to block the widest Lion, Jonte Green:

This creates the lane Harvin eventually runs through, having sprinted on a steep angle from the far right corner. Incredibly, one Lion does his job and then some. Special teams captain John Wendling:

Wendling was lined up all the way to the right, but he shadowed Harvin's sprint to the left around all his blocked-off teammates. He has neither the angle nor the speed to make a play, though, and Harvin races off to the end zone untouched.

The Lions overcommitted to the right and didn't penetrate deep enough downfield to prevent Harvin from beating them far to the left. The Vikings knew exactly who they had to keep from making the play, and they made sure they had more than enough beef in place to block them.

That's the power of breaking down film.

For the Lions, this seems to be a coaching failure: the Lions have “obvious” flaws in their approach to covering kickoffs, and Vikings special teams coordinator Mike Priefer (yes, longtime Lions STC Chuck Priefer’s son) had no problem exploiting it.

However, note the big “if” in Frazier’s statement: “We pointed out that if everybody held their blocks, Percy's going to score.” The Vikings double-teamed the two guys with the size and speed to blow the run up: Doug Hogue and Ronnell Lewis. Keiland Williams is next biggest/fastest, and he got assigned the strongest single blocker, Jerome Felton. The Vikings knew nobody else would tackle Harvin, especially if he made sure to get away from Wendling.

What this means is that it's also a failure of execution: the three beefiest Lions couldn't overcome the stiff blocks, nor could any of the other Lions get free to make a play. In all three phases of the game, the Lions are coaching to execution; they expect the talented players to make plays. When they don't, it looks like bad coaching, as in here. The question is, can the Lions coaches scheme up good performances out of okay special-teams talent? Or should they try and upgrade the talent?

At this point in the season, the latter's almost impossible--which means, the former had better happen fast.

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meet the cubs: Dan Gronkowski

 Now that the 2009 NFL Player Selection Meeting has concluded, there's a whole new group of Lion cubs: ten rookies who represent a desperately-needed shot of talent to the Lions' roster.  Every single one of these players will have an excellent opportunity to not only make the team, but contribute significantly in short order.  Unfortunately, that's not a function of the quality of these players as much as of the dearth of talent on the Lions' roster.  Since I ran my roster review series from defense to offense, I think I'll starts with the runts of the litter, and end with the heir apparent.  So, let's begin with the end: the second-to-last-selection, the penultimate pick, the dude who went as low as you can go without actually winning something for it . . . 

Dan Gronkowski, Maryland TE:

His official bio offers up some much-needed background info.  Recruited to Maryland as a quarterback after a school-record-smashing senior season, Gronkowski and his 6'-6", 255-pound body were quickly shifted to tight end.  In fact, here's an interesting recruiting blurb from Rivals that, in hindsight, suggests that they might have only ever paid lip service to letting him take snaps under center . . .

Gronkowski took to the weight room immediately, earning their Iron Terp status in spring ball every year. His career-best squat, 635 pounds, is second only to Vernon Davis amongst all Maryland TEs ever. Lest you think he's just a meathead, Gronkowski he earned his Marketing BA in just three years, and pursued an MBA during his senior season. He's a two-time Academic All-ACC team honoree. His father actually owns a chain of fitness stores, and he says the best athlete in his family is actually his little brother Rob (Dan has four brothers), who's a tight end at Arizona.

Gronkowski spent most of his career as a pure blocking tight end, but was powerful enough in doing that to start twenty-nine games in his last three seasons. As a senior, he started to flash some recieving skills, and caught 29 passes for 287 yards and 3 touchdowns. Obviously he's not a devastating offensive weapon, but here's a nice little TD catch that shows he's got some potential:

And here's a little post-draft reaction blurb from him and another player. He notes that several other teams called him to say he was the highest player left on their board . . . and yet, he fell. Schwartz's statement backs this up:

"We didn't anticipate taking two tight ends but at that point in the draft with the people that were available he was by far the highest-rated guy and you want to still stick with that."

Don't expect much out of Gronkowski right away, but he will certainly push Will Heller for playing time as "the blocking TE" on the roster--in fact, this may bode ill for Heller's prospects for making the roster.  Either way, the Lions have added an extremely smart, extremely tough young man to the roster, who'll no doubt make an impact on special teams right away--which is about as much as one can hope for from a pick so late.

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