Packers Xs and Os Film Session: Finally an Interception by a Safety!

Photo credit: @Packers Twitter feed

Last Sunday, there weren’t many things to celebrate during the Green Bay Packers’ 19-7 loss to their division rivals Detroit Lions.

However, there were a few bright spots during the game, which were (shockingly) on the defensive side of the ball. One such defensive milestone was a Packers safety finally intercepted a pass for the first time since the 2012 season.

Let’s take a look at the play and dissect what happened that allowed a Packers safety (Ha Ha Clinton-Dix) to intercept the pass. The GIF below shows the play in real time from the TV broadcast.

There’s a lot going on in the play, so let’s take a look at the all-22 camera angle in the GIF below.

It’s 3rd down and long, so the Lions are running a deep pass route concept to move the ball beyond the chains. What is unique about this play concept is they are running a high-low triangle concept to the field side. I previously wrote about the triangle concept, but as a reminder, it is equally effective against zone and man-to-man coverages because it stresses the cornerback and the safety in covering the high-low and in-out routes.

The Packers played a deep cover 3 zone defense on this play. They had a four-man pass rush and played full zone behind while using their “big dime” defense, which had three safeties on the field.  Ha Ha Clinton-Dix, Morgan Burnett, and Micah Hyde were all on the field. In the cover 3, Clinton-Dix played deep center field, and the cornerbacks Davon House and Sam Shields played the deep zones on top of the numbers. Hyde played the boundary flat and Burnett played the boundary hook/curl. A.J. Hawk had the field hook/curl and Tramon Williams had the field flat.

As it turned out, Dom Capers called the right defense for this play because the cover 3 was the ideal coverage grid to defend this high-low triangle concept. Williams would be able to pick up the running back in the flat, House would carry the field vertical route, Hawk would cover the slot receiver, and Clinton-Dix would provide help over the top.

However, House played his zone a little too deep, which gave enough space for Matthew Stafford to trust his arm and zip it in there. He almost made a completion, but the ball was just ever so slightly off target, which created the tip drill. A perfect throw would have been a first down. But, the ball-hawking Clinton-Dix drove to the ball to snag a nice interception. See the GIF below.

Let’s take a look at the whole play from the all-22 camera angle in the GIF below. In the play, you can clearly see how the cover 3 zone looks. Also notice how Sam Shields picked up Megatron in coverage after Micah Hyde released him in the flat.

That’s the type of play we can expect from Clinton-Dix. I’m a huge Alabama fan, so I got to watch him play for three solid years. He always seems to be around the ball and picks off any balls that are tipped into the air. Despite how easy many quarterback-receiver combinations make passing and receiving look, it’s really a difficult process, and everything has to go right. If one thing goes wrong, it could be an incompletion. Or, if you have a playmaker at safety, it could be an interception.

I think this is a sign of things to come because Clinton-Dix is a playmaker at safety. He’ll be around the ball plenty, and I expect him to jump routes for interceptions as well as collect any garbage floating around.

That is a refreshing change from the past.

I believe the GIFs embedded above to be fair use under the premise of being short clips of the original broadcast that are transformative for news reporting, commentary, critique, illustration, and teaching purposes.

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Jay Hodgson is an independent sports blogger writing for AllGreenBayPackers.com and WISports.com.

Follow Jay on twitter at @jys_h.

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