Unto us a Child is Born: Perfection, Defeat, and the Greatest Story Ever Told

[PhillyB]

Gather 'round and lend me your ears, countrymen, for the greatest story ever told.

Once upon a time a man was born. But he was no ordinary man! No, this man arrived at our unlikely story in the unlikeliest of ways: the product, perhaps, of Fortune's smiling favor, the manifestation of an ancient prophecy, the miraculous gift of God Himself. Against all odds, and against the grit teeth and clench-jawed fury of kings and tyrants and foes on the field of battle, this man only ascended in power and reputation. His growth was marked by awe and wonder, his miracles excitedly penned by every scribe, his praises sung in every tongue across every nation. He, and those he led, were perfect. He was unblemished, unstained, untarnished by the black stains of defeat and decay that marred the broken world around him.

But man is a jealous creature, and men hate few things more than the bright light perfection in another. And thus did the wicked conspire, demanding amongst themselves the demise of he whose record was perfect. They demanded the end of his reign, the cessation of his miracles, the mockery of a Christmas child.

I am not talking about Cam Newton. I am talking about Jesus Christ.

That's right, the Jesus Christ. The Jesus Christ who was perfect in every way, the Jesus Christ whose records are immortalized in two millennia of canon, the Jesus Christ of sweet salvation and blessed rebirth for whom Creation groans. That Jesus Christ, his record perfect, nevertheless found hanging derelict on a cross, bloodied, conquered; his followers in tearful grief, trudging home to their boats and their farms and the mundane banalities of the everyday life they'd known before they'd followed Perfection. Identities stripped, morale weakened, faith shaken.

"The Cardinals will destroy us in the slot!" cried the Apostle Peter.

 

"Seriously, Jesus, your swim move would be fire at defensive end."

 

Let's be honest. The Falcons played the best game of their life. They executed their gameplan flawlessly, and although they were held to 17 points as a result of several red-zone miscues, they were astonishingly successful on third down. Let's take a look at what they did.

In the screen below, the Falcons are backed up against the goal line and assemble in a single-wing formation with Julio Jones kicked out wide. Josh Norman is covering him.

Notice anything?

 

 

Josh Norman's body is angled inside. That means he's playing an inside technique. When corners play inside technique, they are essentially - you guessed it - attempting to route the receiver inside. In other words, they're trying to keep the receiver from getting leverage outside, cutting past them, up the sideline behind them. Teams who are worried about getting beat deep or lost in coverage will often employ this, preferring to chase a guy down on a post, slant, or crossing route and utilize linebackers in zone to take care of the stuff underneath.

But you can disguise it. Corners do it all the time. If this coverage were disguised, Norman might square off with the receiver, giving no indication which way he's going to try to jam the route. He might even play mind games, cheating towards the sideline with his body and telegraphing an intention to route the receiver outside, but then quickly coming back in at the snap. A lot of teams' number ones can signal to the quarterback that they're changing the route, so conceivably Norman could end up surprising an offense by being inside a quick timing route. It's happened before, and in fact it happens all the time in the NFL. It's part of playing defense in the modern era.

Josh Norman doesn't disguise his intentions, though.

He angles his body inside.

He routes the receiver inside.

The receiver runs his route inside.

The receiver catches the ball inside for a critical first down.

 

 

 

It wasn't just on this play. The Falcons ran inside and away from corners like this all day long. They were content not throwing deep; that's not Matt Ryan's game anyway. They took the underneath stuff, tossed to holes in zones, and took advantage of cornerbacks trailing speedy receivers on lateral patterns by throwing precision strikes on short and intermediate routes.

The result? Well...

 

 

Those numbers speak for themselves. Not all of Julio Jones's yards came against Norman, but a huge chunk of them did. It's not the kind of performance we're used to seeing out of this squad and it's hard to imagine Rivera sticking with it. With an anemic pass rush and clear weaknesses at nickel back, the zone defense is much too easy to exploit, and the results looked frighteningly similar to 2012's play-not-to-lose game plans.

It's much easier to give the offense a pass. In the five games prior to this one they averaged 39 points, which is damn near historical. It isn't difficult to imagine a fired-up Cam Newton and a young, eager stable of running backs carrying the load to dominate the field against the Buccaneers on Sunday. But there's concern. Right tackle Mike Remmers has looked shaky in pass protection for two straight games. Third-string rookie Cameron Artis-Payne is the current starter at running back. Magic is real and Cam Newton is 0-1 with a baby.

Cause to panic?

Hell no! Did Jesus panic when the Romans savagely killed him for being the freaking Son of God?

Hell no! Jesus gutted up and did the manliest, most unselfish thing possible: he laid down his life for his friends. He spent three days in sheol, a Hebrew word that approximates as "Metairie, Louisiana" in English, and then managed to come back from it just in time to crash a house party and teach a bunch of fishermen how it's done, right out there on the Bay. He rallied everyone, saved the universe, sealed Satan's fate, locked his followers in to the ultimate ride to the ultimate destination, and then ascended like a Superb Owl to the right hand of God, where now he sits, smiling down on you and me, waiting for you to accept his invitation to believe.

And that, my friends, is the greatest story ever told. So hark! and be of good cheer: we're no longer perfect, but Jesus Christ has vanquished death itself. Whom then shall we fear? Certainly not Jameis Winston.

And all God's people said Amen.

15-1

 

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[PhillyB]

i feel i should also add this: i was very careful to construct the jesus analogy in a way that doesn't offend anyone. i hope no one will see this as any kind of a jab at their belief system any more than it's an endorsement of it. contemporary christian pastors are famous for the invocation of the hilarious and completely harmless jesus juke, and this post may be considered accordingly.

thanks everyone!

[LUUUUUKE]

Never a disappointment to open one of your threads

[JawnyBlaze]

not to nitpick or anything, great post as always, but

Quote

Those numbers speak for themselves. Not all of Julio Jones's yards came against Norman, but a huge chunk of them did.

if I remember correctly, it was like 75ish of Julio's yards that came against Norman.  Less than half.  A terrible game by Norman's standards, but not as appalling as the damage he did against the rest of the defense.

[PhillyB]

1 minute ago, JawnyBlaze said:

not to nitpick or anything, great post as always, but

if I remember correctly, it was like 75ish of Julio's yards that came against Norman.  Less than half.  A terrible game by Norman's standards, but not as appalling as the damage he did against the rest of the defense.

i heard 98, but i could be remembering wrong. still that's trending in the wrong direction and coincides with a marked shift in field application that multiple players themselves have actually reflected in interviews.

default inside leverage in that game is partially to blame, but it's also that zone. i hate to just rip on the zone, because it's used effectively by plenty of teams, including us (remember those awesome keuchly picks against the cowboys? both were the result of phenomenal zone coverage) but it seems like every time we get torched it's because we're running zone and teams are figuring out how to punch holes in it. the deep touchdown against keuchly/coleman was one such example.

[JawnyBlaze]

1 minute ago, PhillyB said:

i heard 98, but i could be remembering wrong. still that's trending in the wrong direction and coincides with a marked shift in field application that multiple players themselves have actually reflected in interviews.

default inside leverage in that game is partially to blame, but it's also that zone. i hate to just rip on the zone, because it's used effectively by plenty of teams, including us (remember those awesome keuchly picks against the cowboys? both were the result of phenomenal zone coverage) but it seems like every time we get torched it's because we're running zone and teams are figuring out how to punch holes in it. the deep touchdown against keuchly/coleman was one such example.

yea, no doubt.  I'm hoping we can get another stud CB soon, whether by draft or by an uncharacteristic FA splash so we can play more man.  the past few games we've seen what you're talking about, and teams nullifying Norman by simply moving their good WRs into the slot and putting JAG decoys out for Norman to cover. 

[PhillyB]

5 minutes ago, JawnyBlaze said:

yea, no doubt.  I'm hoping we can get another stud CB soon, whether by draft or by an uncharacteristic FA splash so we can play more man.  the past few games we've seen what you're talking about, and teams nullifying Norman by simply moving their good WRs into the slot and putting JAG decoys out for Norman to cover. 

i don't know what the answer is this year. late in the game last week josh norman started sliding into the slot to cover jones, so i'm guessing they're going to be giving josh tons of reps in the slot this week to see if he can work it. peanut outside doesn't bother me, nor does finnegan if he's shadowing a slot guy anyway.

we'll see. we've got the bucs game and then two weeks of practice to figure out a personnel alignment that minimizes the effect.

[JawnyBlaze]

1 hour ago, PhillyB said:

i don't know what the answer is this year. late in the game last week josh norman started sliding into the slot to cover jones, so i'm guessing they're going to be giving josh tons of reps in the slot this week to see if he can work it. peanut outside doesn't bother me, nor does finnegan if he's shadowing a slot guy anyway.

we'll see. we've got the bucs game and then two weeks of practice to figure out a personnel alignment that minimizes the effect.

I think the only thing we can really do this year is hope the DEs remember how to find the QB.  Looking at the rest of our likely schedule, there aren't any Julio Joneses or OBJs left for Norman to shadow.  Assuming the rest of our schedule looks something like TB, Seattle, Arizona, NE: vs TB Norman will probably be on Evans most of the game, I don't foresee them putting him in the slot much; vs Seattle the biggest worry is Baldwin and they do use him from the slot a lot so we will have to rely on QB pressure to force quick throws and minimize damage; vs Arizona I would REALLY prefer Norman stay on Fitz the whole game even though he's mostly in the slot these days....I could see Brown being a problem for us no matter who's on him so if Norman can shut down Fitz we can try to double cover Brown and hope that Finnegan or Peanut can handle Floyd (I don't think Floyd will be as much a problem as the other two could be); and vs NE we mostly have to worry about Gronk.  Pressure Brady, keep Norman on either Edelman or Gronk (whichever is wide), keep Coleman and Luke or TD on Gronk when he's in the slot or Finnegan when it's Edelman and that should probably lead to the best results for us.  Peanut should be able to handle Lafell or Amendola, whichever is in at any given time.

So, TLDR, the teams we likely have left on our schedule don't have the single beast WRs that some of our recent opponents have had so they won't be able to play the "hide our good WR from Norman in the slot" game as much.  Baldwin in Seattle is the closest thing to that we might have to see.

[CPF4LIFE]

Everybody and there mama knows Matt Ryan cant throw a deep ball worth poo and we defended like thats what we were preventing the entire game. We really did not come to play last sunday.

[PhillyB]

4 minutes ago, CPF4LIFE said:

Everybody and there mama knows Matt Ryan cant throw a deep ball worth poo and we defended like thats what we were preventing the entire game. We really did not come to play last sunday.

yeah it was really weird. it didn't help that luke and TD both had measurably horrible games, since that inside zone scheme is predicated on your backers taking away those routes. even in the coach's film shots in the OP shaq thompson is a little late coming over underneath julio's slant (though those are damn near impossible to stop anyway.)

sunday's performance is huge.

[uncfan888]

Another great post.. I've never heard of a "Jesus juke".

 

Jesus juice, on the other hand...

[Carolina Cajun]

4 hours ago, PhillyB said:

Hell no! Jesus gutted up and did the manliest, most unselfish thing possible: he laid down his life for his friends. He spent three days in sheol, a Hebrew word that approximates as "Metairie, Louisiana" in English, and then managed to come back from it just in time to crash a house party and teach a bunch of fishermen how it's done, right out there on the Bay. He rallied everyone, saved the universe, sealed Satan's fate, locked his followers in to the ultimate ride to the ultimate destination, and then ascended like a Superb Owl to the right hand of God, where now he sits, smiling down on you and me, waiting for you to accept his invitation to believe.

 

I chuckled a few times reading your post, but I can't lie, I absolutely lost my poo laughing when I read this.

[Cat]

We shall burn with fire all that oppose us!!! 

Go Panthers!

[caatfan]

Our game 16 opponent and playoff participants will be looking over Atlanta's recipe for beatthepanthers casserole. Let's hope they don't have the right ingredients or get the proportions wrong, while Chef Ron comes up with an antidote for the poisonous pie. 

I don't think Tampa has what it takes to come up a winning meal, but better cooks are already doing the taste test for the playoffs.