How and Why Jameis Winston Was Sacked 4 Times vs The Falcons
Looking at all four sacks that Winston took
The Saints didn’t get off to the hot start that they had hoped in the first regular season game of the year against the Falcons. The defense got gashed by RB Cordarrelle Patterson, and the offense struggled mightily (Outside of Taysom Hill), especially in the first half.
A big part of these struggles were due to constant pressure on the QB. And while Dean Peas deserves credit, the bulk of the destruction was caused by DL Grady Jarrett. Jameis Winston was sacked 4 times on Sunday, and I’m going to go through each of them and try to explain why they happened, even though a couple times I could simply just say “Grady Jarrett Happened.”
The first sack of the day is one of the instances where I could just say “Grady Jarrett” and that would suffice as an explanation, but I won’t. The Saints run playaction with a switch concept at the bottom, with what looks like primarily clear-outs for Olave deep over the middle. The Saints leave 7 in to block against the Falcons 5 rushers, one of which coming on a slot blitz. Kamara picks the slot guy up nicely and Trautman holds his own on the other side in a 1on1 situation, but as you can see Grady Jarrett somehow manages to beat both James Hurst and Andrus Peat at the same time. It’s easy to say in hindsight, but it looks like Olave would have come open if the protection would have held up a split second longer. And the thought process of leaving 7 in to block 5 is that you would get the time needed for the play to develop, but that obviously did not happen
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The second sack of the day came just a couple plays later when the Saints tried to go hurry-up on 3rd and short. They run a dagger concept against the Falcons cover 1 rat, but Jameis does a poor job of navigating the pocket. If he were to step up into the pocket created for him, he probably could have hit MT coming open on the deep in, or perhaps Kamara on the fade route. But instead he sticks around too deep in the pocket and gets sacked.
The third sack Winston took was due to Cesar Ruiz getting beat badly on a violent swipe from Grady Jarrett. To be fair to Ruiz, Jarrett is beating the majority of OL 1on1. Saints were trying to work a drive concept but didn’t stand a chance.
The fourth and final sack of the day was, in my opinion, the most concerning. Simply because it could have easily been avoided by a simple change to the protection. The Saints call 3 Jet protection, which has the LG and LT manned up on their respective defenders on their side, while from the center over are all sliding right, protecting gaps. The problem with this is, the slide side should be called to the left or “2 Jet.” This would allow the Saints to have 3 blockers, on 3 potential threats. But instead, no change is made and the result is a free rusher. A player with as much experience as Jameis has got to recognize this and make the change. Another way this could have been handled would be to leave Kamara in to take the extra threat. I’m not sure what AK was doing on this play, but it looks as if he was going out for a route, but quickly realized what was happening, but it was too late.
Despite these miscues the Saints won the game, but against a more talented team, they wont be able to get away with playing like this. The OL and Jameis did pick it up however in the 4th quarter and looked much better. It was truly like watching two separate games.
Quality, in-depth write up! You'll never get this from mass media. Thank you