Bert Faibish
Ticats.ca
The Anatomy Of A Play
As the play begins, left tackle Alexandre Gauthier releases his defender and allows him to penetrate into the backfield, sucking the defence in. At the same time, receiver Maurice Mann sells a deep route up the sideline for three or four steps then breaks down and comes back towards the line of scrimmage.
“I just try to sell it deep and push them off the ball,” said Mann. “It’s important to set up the timing of the play, then let KG make his read and be ready when the ball is in the air,” he added.
#40 in white, Odell Willis, realizes his mistake but it’s far too late. Gauthier is up field delivering a devastating block on the inside defender and Marquay McDaniel seals his man to the outside to create a seam for Mann to take advantage of.
“Alex made a huge block there, but in practice we actually ended up running into each other, so we talked about it and discussed what we could do differently,” said Mann.
With all the defenders cleared out of his path, Mann has nowhere to go but forward, with Willis in pursuit.
Winnipeg still has an opportunity to limit the damage done by Mann, with Bombers DB Brandon Stewart the only man left standing between him and the endzone.
Unfortunately for the Bombers, Mann puts a shoulder fake and a quick juke on Stewart that leaves him scrambling to gather his fallen equipment off the turf.
“I tried to give him a little one-two,” said Mann. “I like to feel like it should be hard to tackle me in the open field, so I just gave him a little shimmy and tried to make it into that endzone, I was too close to get stopped there,” he said.
Joe Lobendahn makes a nice hustle play to catch up and try to bring Mann down short of the endzone, but the new Ticat receiver won’t be denied, and falls over the goal line, making it 14-0.
So many different elements go into a play like this; the timing of the throw, the path the receiver takes up field and how he plays off of his blocks and the blocks that his teammates need to make in order for him to find some room for himself. Without even one of these elements this play would never work, so hats off to the entire offence for executing in a crucuial situation.
