Grinding the all-22 like a professional

The NFL made their GamePass product available for free until the end of May for fans. Here’s are some tips for watching the All-22.

Don’t hit play just yet

It probably sounds much easier than it is to accomplish in reality, but the beauty of the “All-22” angle is just that: You can now see everything. So resist the urge to hit the play button too quickly before each play. Removed from the constraints of the broadcast angle, you can let your eyes just…go.

Look at the above photo, captured from before a play between the Dallas Cowboys and the New Orleans Saints. Suddenly everything that the quarterback sees before the play, you can see. So rather than racing through the plays, take some time to soak in the information available to the quarterback before the snap. The more you know before the play, the more you’ll appreciate what happens as the play unfolds. So spend some time and get into the quarterback’s mind as best you can.

You can start with the offensive personnel and formation. Most offenses these days use 11 offensive personnel (three wide receivers, one tight end and one running back) as their base offensive package. See who is on the field for the offense, and where they are lined up. Here, the Cowboys have their 11 offensive personnel on the field in a 3×1 formation. Tight end Jason Witten is detached from the right tackle, with two receivers outside of him.

Now look at how the defense responds with their personnel. Here, the Saints use a 4-2-5 nickle defense.

Now we go through the pre-snap indicators. Look at the above still again and work through the quarterback’s pre-snap checklist. Start with the safeties. What do you see there? Two safeties, deep in the middle of the field. That is a pre-snap indicator to quarterback Dak Prescott that the Saints are in some variation of a two-high, middle-of-the-field-open (MOFO) coverage. It might be a basic Cover 2, a Cover 2 Man Underneath, perhaps Cover 4, or they could be bluffing. But Prescott’s understanding of the defense starts with that foundation.

Next, look at the cornerbacks. Where are they looking? How are their feet aligned? Are their feet staggered, with their eyes and hips facing into the offensive backfield? That is usually a zone coverage indicator. But look at the cornerbacks above: Feet parallel, eyes trained on the receivers. That is an indication that they are in man coverage on this play.

Next, try and see if there are any “capped” defenders. What does that mean? A cornerback, usually a slot corner but sometimes a boundary corner, with a safety aligned behind them. That is a signal that the corner might be blitzing, and the safety is in position to pick up their man coverage responsibility. If you look at the above still, the slot corner is somewhat capped by the safety to the strong side of the offense, so Prescott might want to at least be ready for a potential blitz.

For a great example of how the “capped” defender indicator works on a play, watch this adjustment by Carson Wentz and the Philadelphia Eagles:

See how the safety “caps” Nelson Agholor in the slot? That is an indicator to Wentz before the play that the slot cornerback is blitzing. Wentz audibles to a bubble screen to beat the blitz.

After looking at the secondary, now look at the defensive front. How many down lineman are there, and are there any indicators of a potential stunt or twist upfront? Sometimes you might see a defender staggered off the line of scrimmage a bit, and that could be a clue that they are stunting or looping. Are there any overload looks? Is a fearsome edge defender aligned inside? Don’t ignore what is happening up front.

Let’s work through the big play from Super Bowl 54, the 3rd and 15 conversion. Here is the pre-snap look:

Let’s start with the offensive personnel and formation. Patrick Mahomes is in the shotgun and the Kansas City Chiefs have a 3×1 formation, with three on the left. The personnel package is actually 12 offensive personnel. Tight end Travis Kelce is the inside receiver to the trips side while fellow TE Blake Bell is the single receiver on the right, using a tight split from right tackle Mitchell Schwartz.

Now let’s look at the defense. The first thing you might notice are the two safeties high, a potential Cover 2 (or two-high variation) indicator. But there is something else you might notice, and this is why it is important to note the offensive personnel the offense has on the field. Remember, the Chiefs have a tight end on the right side of the field alone, in Blake Bell. The defender to that side of the field? Richard Sherman, a cornerback. Either the 49ers are using a coverage cornerback on a reserve tight end, or some kind of zone coverage is in play.

So Mahomes, thanks to the alignment, can be pretty sure the defense is using zone coverage. But while he might expect a two-high look, he will need to confirm that once the play begins.

Now, let’s hit play. But don’t run through the entire play, instead take a note of what happens right after the ball is snapped:

Did you notice what happened right before, and right after the snap? Sherman retreats a few steps right before the snap, and then one safety drops down after the snap. The 49ers are indeed in zone coverage, but instead are running a three-high zone coverage called Cover 6 Buzz. The weak safety is the safety rotating down while the strongside safety drops to the deep middle of the field.

So now we know the coverage, and as stated earlier, we can appreciate that much more how the play unfolds. Sammy Watkins runs a deep in route, and the outside cornerback to the top of the screen has to respect that route because he has no safety help over the top. Kelce also runs a deep crosser, which draws the attention of the linebackers and the safety rotating down into the box. That allows Tyreek Hill to get vertical and it creates a one-on-one with him and the free safety, and the FS is in a bad spot:

Hill spins the safety around, Mahomes hits him with the deep throw, and Super Bowl 54 changes on the spot.

Now the All-22 or “Coaches Tape” also gives you the end zone angle of every play, which is fascinating to see as well:

What do we see here? Before the snap we see the 49ers using two different “Wide-9” alignments. Nick Bosa is aligned well outside the left tackle, while Dee Ford is in a two-point stance inside of Bell, the tight end and outside of Schwartz, the right tackle.

As the play begins, the Chiefs slide their protection towards Bosa, with center Austin Reiter sliding to the left to join the left tackle and left guard. Bosa tries to knife to the inside while defensive tackle DeForest Bucker loops to the outside. Left tackle Eric Fisher stays on Bosa and drives him to the inside and the top of the pocket, keeping him away from Mahomes. But this puts left guard Stefen Wisniewski in a bad spot, as he has to stay on the looping Bucker. He manages to do that, giving Mahomes just enough time to uncork the deep ball on this slow-developing play.

Another feature of the end zone angle, besides seeing just how incredible the battles in the trenches are? You can engage in a favorite pasttime of football writers and play the game “Is this inside zone or is this duo?”

The end zone angle allows you to see how the blocking develops on running plays, and you can often figure out the difference between gap/power plays (where the blockers are blocking a man and creating a crease) versus zone plays (where the blockers are blocking zones or areas, and the running back is reading the flow of the play). But there is a catch. Inside zone plays often look like “Duo,” which is variation of power sometimes termed “power without the puller” with a pair of double-team blocks.

If you’d like a handy thread on how to identify Duo, I would recommend this thread from former University of Wisconsin quarterback Nate Tice:

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