Mike Check: How Vick handled the blitz
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Mike Check: How Vick handled the blitz
Sheil Kapadia, Philly.com
Michael Vick completed 18 of 31 passes for 237 yards, a touchdown and an interception against the Redskins.
He was also credited with seven rushes for 54 yards, although three of those were kneel-downs and two were QB sneaks.
Vick failed to complete at least 60 percent of his passes for the first time since Week 1, and his quarterback rating was less than 80.0 for the third time in four weeks.
But do those numbers matter?
Here's the weekly look at how Vick played, starting, as always, with pass distribution:
| Targets | Catches | Yards | Drops | |
| Jeremy Maclin | 7 | 5 | 101 | 1 |
| Brent Celek |
8 |
4 |
42 |
1 |
| DeSean Jackson |
5 |
3 |
46 |
0 |
| LeSean McCoy |
4 | 2 |
13 |
1 |
| Jason Avant |
4 |
3 |
28 |
0 |
| Steve Smith |
1 |
1 |
7 |
0 |
| TOTALS | 29 | 18 |
237 |
3 |
There were a couple balls batted at the line so they are not counted here. Neither is Vince Young's interception.
Vick was very successful on throws to Maclin, and he targeted Celek a lot this week too.
As you can see, the pass-catchers didn't always help Vick as they piled up three drops. The ones by Maclin and Celek weren't costly, but the McCoy drop on the shovel pass looked like it could have gone for a touchdown had he held on.
Smith played seven snaps and made his first catch since Week 3.
AGAINST THE BLITZ
The Redskins blitzed Vick on 18 of 35 dropbacks, or 51 percent of the time. I believe that's the most of any team so far this season.
Against the blitz (defined here as five rushers or more), Vick went 9-for-15 for 127 yards. He was sacked once.
On non-blitz throws, Vick was 9-for-16 for 110 yards and a sack.
In other words, the numbers were pretty similar. But we learn a little more by breaking down the number of rushers. Here's the chart:
| No. of Rushers | No. of Plays | Completions | Attempts | Yards |
| 4 | 17 | 9 | 16 | 110 |
| 5 | 11 | 7 | 8 | 86 |
| 6 | 6 | 2 | 6 | 41 |
| 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 8 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
In previous weeks, we saw teams hold off on frequently sending six or more pass rushers after Vick, but that wasn't the case here. As you can see, Vick was excellent against five pass rushers or fewer (16-for-24 for 196 yards), but he struggled against heavier blitzes, going just 2-for-7 for 41 yards when Washington sent six or more defenders after him.
It will be interesting to see if defenses start to send more of those "all-out" blitzes at Vick after the bye.
THIRD DOWN, RED ZONE
As a team, the Eagles were just 6-for-16 on third down. Vick had the ball in his hands on 10 of those plays and converted four of them. He was 4-for-8 for 33 yards, a touchdown and an interception on third down. He was also sacked once and had the 1-yard QB sneak at the end.
Young's interception came on third down too.
The Eagles converted two of five red-zone trips into touchdowns. Vick was 2-for-7 for 6 yards, a touchdown and an interception in the red zone. The one completion was the 7-yarder to Celek. The other one was the ball that was batted high in the air before Maclin came down with it. In fairness to Vick, McCoy dropped the shovel pass in the red zone, like I mentioned above.
Vick dropped back to pass eight times in the red zone, and the Redskins sent six or more defenders at him on three of those plays (0-for-3).
There were multiple instances where the Redskins had a free rusher, who came at Vick unblocked. As I mentioned in Man Up, the cameras caught Andy Reid getting on Vick after one such play, so it's possible he made an error in his protection call. But that's just a guess.
SUCCESS BY DISTANCE
Here's a chart of Vick's throws by distance. I used the same ranges that Football Outsiders uses so we'd have a point of reference. Short is 5 yards or less. Mid is 6 to 15 yards. Deep is 16 to 25 yards. And Bomb is more than 25 yards. These are measured from the line of scrimmage to the point where the ball is touched, hits the ground or goes out of bounds.
| Completions | Attempts | Yards | |
| Short | 7 | 13 | 35 |
| Mid | 7 | 10 | 73 |
| Deep | 3 | 4 | 70 |
| Bomb | 1 | 2 | 59 |
That completion percentage on the short throws is not particularly good, but there were a couple drops in there. The Eagles have not had a lot of success with the screens to McCoy. On the season, he has 21 catches for 123 yards and is averaging 5.9 yards per catch. He's on pace for 56 catches and 328 yards. Last year, McCoy had 78 catches for 592 yards and averaged 7.6 yards per catch.
Vick was very good on the intermediate and deep throws. The first pass of the game was a Bomb attempt to Jackson that was incomplete. Later, Vick connected with Maclin for the 59-yarder.
OVERALL
There were a couple very encouraging things to take away from this game for Vick. The first is that he looked comfortable taking short drops and delivering the ball on time and on the money. At one point in the first half, he completed seven straight passes for 91 yards.
The Eagles' second scoring drive went 73 yards on 10 plays. Vick dropped pass to pass four times and completed all four attempts, while the Eagles ran the ball six times.
Vick's completion percentage and yards per attempt (61.5%, 7.87 YPA) are still similar to last year (62.6%, 8.11 YPA). The difference, once again, has been turnovers. Vick is averaging one interception every 25 attempts, compared to one every 38.8 attempts last year.
Vick the runner has been outstanding. He's averaging 8.3 yards per carry and is on pace for 992 rushing yards. Against Washington, he took off to run three times. Vick was sacked once and picked up 25 and 31 yards, respectively, on the other two carries.
We're at the bye week, and Vick has started all six games, although he's finished only four. The offensive line has allowed just nine sacks, fourth-fewest in the NFL, but Eagles quarterbacks have been hit 34 times, sixth-most.
In the final 10 games, Vick's challenge will be to stay healthy and take care of the football. If he does those two things, the Eagles should be able to put up some big point totals in the coming weeks.
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Outstanding work, as usual. You added in the commentary that Vick was sacked once and gained successful yardage twice when he took off to run. Were the 2 runs against the blitz? (If my math is right: 18 blitzes; 9 completions; 6 incompletions; 1 sack; 2 scrambles for gain). If so, it would be helpful to integrate the successful runs and unsuccessful runs/sacks into the table. Obviously, this changes the calculus of Vick against the blitz: if he can burn you for a 25+ yard gain, you will be less likely to try that as a DC. Yardage is yardage, whether on the ground or in the air.— Sunset_Shazz
Comment removed.- I look at a record of 2-4 and say...YOUR GOING NOWHERE BUT DOWN! Giants fans can be happy cause they are riding in 1st place and have a Vick-tory over you losers. Get ready for the Draft! See you in April....with your new head coach!— MRD
- Listen to this clown talking like the Giants are the Packers or something. From the looks of this division, I think we'll all see each other in april... — j-fizzle
- Comment removed.
- McGagg got benched again.....maybe he'll take the hint and retire. Maybe all you sniffers will finally fade away, just like him.— Mark1npt
We got to the bye 2-4 and surprisingly, we're still in the hunt to win the division. We have to get on a roll and win at least 9 out of the remaining 10 games. We can't afford for that 1 loss to be to the Giants or any division team. I think we can do it, but might take a loss in New England. Patriots are just tough to beat when they are at home. If we can beat the Cowboys twice, Redskins twice and split with the Giants and win the remaining conference and the 3 AFC opponent games that will put us at 12-4 and a wild card game in the playoffs. GO EAGLES! I'll take 11-5 or 10-6 but we have to win out in the division. WOW who would have thought at this point in the season that a NFC West team could be playing for a 1st round playoff bye this season. I know it's early and anything can happen but for the NFC my playoff picks are:
Green Bay
San Francisco
Tampa Bay
Philadelphia
wild card
Detroit
New Orleans
AFC:
New England
Baltimore
Tennessee
Oakland
Wild card
San Diego
Buffalo- mark pt at least mcnabb got to play in the superbowl, unlike your boy vick, you typical philly trash— smiggs13
You did a lot of homework to make below average look good against an awful team, and running yards? we want passing yards and touchdowns that's how you rate a quarterback, no running quaterback ever took a team to the super bowl.The press if afraid to tell the truth.- No question, Vick is still a work in progress as a QB. He lacks the ability to spot pass blitz at line as the "elite" few QBs do. His athleticism is occasionally an antedote to a major blitz as stats show. Vick needs to audible out--OR--JUST MAYBE MM needs to give him more flexible packages and schemes with a hot read or more pass protection. Continue to believe that FAULT is shared between Vick and his OC. Btw: eagleinflorida--check out FRAN TARKINGTON as running QB. He put Vkes in Superbowl 3 times. Believe he was the "original" running QB.— Smashmouth
- Fran Tarkinton scrambled was not a runner, you check the facts.
- I have a feeling Andy and co. will welcome the "all-out" blitz.— beerflow
- MRD seems to me that the Redskins were that team last week... You know riding in first place The Division leader... Seems you got a short memory six (6) straight Eagle beat-downs over the A'ints... Until their recent win...Too early in my mind for playoff forecasting... Still dealing with my Fallen Expectations...This after my teams 2-4 start... I hope and believe my team has turned the corner... However this is a one game at a time process...This New Team has to defines it own identity and character...All that..."This Team USED to have a great Defense under JJ is just that... IT USED TO BE"... That is"History"...I am looking forward to the new history this talented group will add.— trinieagle
- eagleinflorida - fine line between scramble and running but for the record John Elway, Steve Young, Steve McNair and Donovan McNabb took their teams to a SB, the first two won one or two. The Redskins aren't a bad team. Their defense is good, the offense was good enough to win games when Rex didn't make the mistakes. Turnovers kill a team's chances of winning and it just so happens the 4 turnovers by Rex the Skins couldn't get back in it but Young sure gave them an opportunity.
- Hey TNEaglesFan, I like your picks and these are mine and I know it's early and anything can happen but for the NFC my playoff picks are:
Green Bay
San Francisco
Detroit
Philadelphia
wild card
Tampa Bay
New Orleans
AFC:
New England
Baltimore
Buffalo
Oakland
Wild card
San Diego
Pittsburgh
Read more: http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/eagles/132154863.html#ixzz1bMmGN7QQ
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