Minutes after the Patriots’ 26-3 win over the Colts final weekend, a recreation the place they gained a season-low 203 whole yards, a number of offensive gamers mentioned within the locker room how Indianapolis linebacker Shaquille Leonard appeared to know their play-calls.
Leonard completed with solely 5 tackles, however jumped screens and zone run performs, in accordance with the gamers. The Patriots completed with a 2.5 yards per carry common and have been routinely stuffed on outdoors zone runs.
During a convention name Tuesday, Pats coach Bill Belichick not solely confirmed that Leonard was a step forward of the offense on a handful of performs, however talked about Jets linebacker C.J. Mosley referred to as them out per week earlier in a 22-17 Patriots win. Belichick stopped in need of saying the offense had definitive tells, although the workforce’s coaches, like all NFL staffs do, will doubtless self-scout earlier than heading into the bye week. B.
Below is Belichick’s full reply about whether or not Leonard knew the workforce’s offensive performs earlier than they have been run:
“I thought that there were two or three plays for sure that Leonard really got a big jump on and stopped us, basically, on those plays. You know, Mosley got a couple of those plays a couple of weeks ago in the Jets game. It looked like Mosley — it almost looked like he heard the play in the huddle he was on it so fast, and Leonard had a couple like that, too,” he mentioned. “So whether or not that’s one thing we have been giving freely or simply one thing that he anticipated based mostly on regardless of the keys have been that he may’ve picked up, we definitely need to attempt to forestall that. But I believed that undoubtedly Leonard for positive did it, and Mosley had a pair performs like that, as effectively.
“But , that’s what good defensive gamers do. They anticipate issues, and so they’re in a position to typically get a learn on what they suppose goes to occur. They’re not at all times proper, however typically they’re, and so they can definitely make you look unhealthy offensively. But as an offense, you at all times needed to be balanced and take a look at to not give issues away to the purpose the place you don’t have one thing complementary that goes with them. So that’s sort of the sport inside the recreation there.
“Obviously if a player or a team is stopping one thing, you have something complementary to go to, then you can offset that. So we’ve certainly had that situation come up as well, too, where we were able to take advantage of whether it was a player thinking he knew what a play was or the defense trying play a certain paly but not defend another play, you’ve got to strike that balance. So that’s, yeah, that’s what it looked like to me, too.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com