Call it what you want. Call it “Mills,” call it “Post/dig,” or call it “Pin.” But that route combination is going to be featured in the Indianapolis Colts’ game plan Saturday when they look to knock off the Buffalo Bills in the first game of Super Wild-Card Weekend.
While much of the attention is going to be focused on the matchup between Matt Eberflus, the defensive coordinator of the Colts, and quarterback Josh Allen, there are more matchups to study for this game. Another such matchup is between quarterback Philip Rivers and the Bills defense, led by DC Leslie Frazier.
Down the stretch the Buffalo defense seemed to round into form, matching some of the expectations for that unit dating back to the summer. While the Bills offense was scoring points in bunches, the defense was putting the clamps down on a few different offenses, some of whom are in the playoffs (looking at you Pittsburgh).
But if you are head coach Frank Reich and offensive coordinator Nick Sirianni and trying to craft a game plan to attack this defense, a place to start is by identifying when the Bills have given up big plays in the passing game this season, and to try and find some common elements. In charting the Bills’ defensive snaps this season, they have given up 32 passing plays with a gain of 20 yards or more, with a throw ten yards or more downfield. A small sample size to be sure, but something to work with.
Any common elements? The bulk of those came with the Bills running either Cover-3 (nine such plays) or Cover-4 (nine such plays). Next was Cover-1 (seven) and Cover-2 (four).
So what you might want to do is to make sure you have some plays installed to attack those coverages. But what if there is a play that can stress either coverage? That would be ideal, right? As you would give Rivers a chance to hit on a big throw downfield regardless of whether the Bills were in Cover 3 or Cover 4.
That is where “Pin” comes in.
This route concept, which pairs a dig route with a post route over the top of it, is crafted to attack either Cover 3 or Cover 4. When attacking Cover 3, this route design stresses the safety in the middle of the field by “high-lowing” that player. If the safety stays deep to help on the post, you can throw the dig route in front of him. If that player drives down on the dig, you can throw the post over his head.
That is exactly what Rivers did on this play against the Steelers, who are in Cover 3 on the play:
Pittsburgh brings pressure on this play but they play Cover 3 behind the blitz. The safety in the middle of the field sees the dig and drives on it, perhaps influenced by Rivers’ movement in the pocket. The QB sees that and throws the deep shot over his head, hitting the post route for the touchdown.
When it comes to attacking Cover 4, this concept is perhaps the ideal route design to implement. This coverage, often referred to as “Quarters,” keeps a defensive back deep with the field divided into four parts. Teams have different rules for how a defender playing that deep quarter of the field relates to the nearest receiver, but generally speaking if a receiver gets into your area of the field past a depth of ten yards, that is going to be your man.
Offenses can exploit that, and “Pin” is the ideal combination of routes to do so. Cornerbacks will play with outside leverage, giving the receivers the middle of the field because there is expected safety help. So offenses will attack that by sending the outside receiver on a post, and then eliminating that safety help by having an inside receiver run a dig. The safety has to respect that dig route and drive on it, and now you have a post route working against a CB playing with outside leverage, and no safety help to the inside.
A prime example of this came last week when Ryan Tannehill hit A.J. Brown late on a post route to set up Tennessee’s game-winning field goal. Watch as the cornerback fights to stay to the outside, the safety reacts to the dig and Brown’s post route works away from the outside-leveraged defender:
Now Rivers and the Titans have hit on this route concept against Cover 4 this season, but that was often do to coverage busts in the secondary more than the concept itself. That was the case on this play against the Raiders:
With the flexibility to attack both Cover 3 and Cover 4 – coverages where the Bills have given up some big plays this season – this would be an ideal part of the game plan for Rivers and the Colts on Saturday.