Bert Faibish
Ticats.ca
The Anatomy Of A Play
As this play begins, you can see that the Ticats are in a little bit of a different look, with two down linemen and three standing pass-rushers. Justin Hickman is lined up in his usual spot at end, but isn’t in a three point stance on this, an obvious passing down.
Hickman gets a good jump off the snap and makes a sudden move inside, making right tackle Jeff Perrett take a short step to his left to compensate. Setting up an offensive lineman one way, and then countering that move is the favourite ploy of a usually much quicker defensive lineman. In this case, it works perfectly.
After making Perrett adjust to the inside, Hickman explodes back outside, using his quick hands to knock the larger offensive lineman off of him, and keeping his hands away from his body. Hickman gains the outside edge and Alouettes QB Anthony Calvillo is forced to take his eyes off of his receivers downfield and try to compensate for the pass rush coming his way from both Hickman and Garrett McIntyre, who has gained penetration on the interior of the line.
As Calvillo tries to scramble away from the pressure, he has no choice but to step up into the pocket, a very bad move in this case. Calvillo has nowhere to go, and is quickly wrapped up and brought down by a hard-charging Hickman for his first sack of the night.
Hickman’s second sack begins with a similar look to the first sack, but this time are no down linemen, and there are now two linebackers added to the mix in this passing-down blitz look. A scheme with no linemen in a three or four-point stance allows the defence to get off the ball faster and use their hands to keep the O-line off of them. In this particular look, defensive end Justin Hickman has kicked inside and is flanked on the outside by linebacker Jamall Johnson. In another wrinkle, you can see that linebacker Ike Brown is lined up inside of defensive end Khari Long on the other side.
This time, instead of a straight pass-rush from the defenders, Johnson and Hickman are asked to stunt, which means that they employ a tactic where they attack holes other than they ones they have lined up across from, usually with a twist or cross. In this case, they employ a cross, where Hickman “crosses the face” of right guard Scott Flory and ends up rushing the outside tackle and Johnson comes inside, attacking Flory.
The stunt leads to some confusion along the offensive line, exactly as it was meant to. Scott Flory’s first instinct is to follow his man, double teaming Hickman with Perrett initially. However, he realizes his mistake and is forced to slide back inside to pick up the blitzing Johnson, trusting Perrett to handle Hickman one-on-one.
The absence of Flory creates some space for Hickman on the inside, and a bullrush move knocks Perrett backwards, giving the Ticats defensive end all the room he needs. Calvillo is once again forced to take his eyes off of his receivers and is forced with trying to avoid Hickman who is flying inside diagonally, and Long who has gained the outside on left tackle Josh Bourke and is coming hard off the edge.
In the end, Calvillo tries to step up in the pocket but Hickman has gained far too much speed and runs him down before he can take more than half a step. Hickman wraps up the veteran quarterback and celebrates his second sack of the game.
In each case this week, solo efforts by Hickman lead to success, but in each case it is also the effort of his teammates that make the play possible. This is the most beautiful aspect of football; it often takes twelve men working as one to accomplish a goal. There is no other sport like it.
In the first case, it’s also penetration by McIntyre that eliminates the space Calvillo has to navigate. In the second, defensive coordinator Greg Marshall drew up a play designed to confuse the offence and it worked. Without Jamall Johnson on that play taking the guard inside, Hickman wouldn’t have the space and time to get to Calvillo before he got the ball away.
