Commanders Training Camp Review: Brissett Interception

Breaking down an interception from Jacoby Brissett from the Commanders training camp practices

With the Washington Commanders training camp under way, I thought I could take some time to break down some of the plays that we see coming out of practice sessions. If you’re going to training camp or know someone that is and you film some clips on your phone, send them to me or tweet them at me and I’ll try and break them down. 

Today I wanted to highlight a particular play I saw on Twitter from my friends over at the Redzone In The Lab podcast. Here’s the link to the clip:

https://twitter.com/redzoneinthelab/status/1684931550197002240

Note: Twitter has banned substack from embedding tweets, so you’ll have to click the link to take you to a separate window for Twitter in order to watch the clip.

This looks to be the second team offense working against the second team defense in an 11-on-11 drill. If you watch the play through, you’ll see quarterback Jacoby Brissett throwing an interception over the middle to linebacker Cody Barton. So why am I highlighting an interception on a random play in second team drills? I thought the schemes involved across the board were interesting and worth talking about. 

Firstly, the defense is in a 5-1 front, meaning instead of their usual 4-2 front with four defensive lineman and two linebackers, they substitute a linebacker for an extra defensive lineman. That gives them five defensive lineman up on the line of scrimmage and just one linebacker behind them. To help the linebacker not be isolated, the Commanders work out of a big nickel package with three safeties on the field. Second year safety Percy Butler and rookie defensive back Jartavius “Quan” Martin join Barton on the second level of the defense, giving the Commanders eight defenders in the box. That leaves just the outside corners and safety Jeremy Reaves out of the box. When drawn up, that front looks like this:

With five defensive lineman on the line of scrimmage, the offense is probably expecting at least a five-man rush. If the defense only rushes four, then one of those defensive lineman would have to drop into coverage. With Martin and Butler in the box, Reaves is the only safety back deep pre-snap. So the offense is probably also thinking it’s likely getting a form of single-high coverage, perhaps Cover-1 or some sort of fire zone. But what they actually get is this:

This is where the versatility of this defense becomes very interesting. Two rookies enable the Commanders to completely disguise their intentions here. Quan Martin lines up in the box, but as we saw in college, he has the range to line up close to the line of scrimmage pre-snap and still sink back to a deep responsibility post-snap. That’s what they ask him to do here, as the defense rotates to a Tampa-2 coverage post-snap. Martin has a ton of ground to cover but he does it smoothly, giving the defense two defenders over the top. 

The other rookie that plays a key role is seventh-rounder Andre Jones Jr. He lines up as the defensive end on the far side of this clip, but at the snap, he drops back into coverage. This isn’t an easy role for any pass rusher, but Jones does well as he looks smooth sinking backwards. It might seem like a minor thing, but having the flexibility of a defensive end that can drop into coverage allows the team to break tendencies. You wouldn’t expect a team using five defensive lineman to drop into a Tampa-2 coverage scheme, so it can catch the quarterback by surprise, which I think it may well do to Jacoby Brissett here.

From the offensive side of things, they actually run a fun scheme of their own.

The offense lines up in the shotgun but has rookie running back Chris Rodriguez in the backfield on one side of Brissett with fullback Alex Armah on the other side. This looks like a likely run play, but actually the offense is running a double move. It’s a fun adaptation of the old sluggo-seam concept. Sluggo-seam traditionally is run with the outside receiver running a slant-and-go, or sluggo, route where they initially break inside like they’re running a slant before then taking off down the sideline. The quarterback has to pump fake the slant route and then decide if he can either hit the shot down the field or move back across to the other side of the formation where he’ll have another receiver in the seam. 

The other receiver in the seam traditionally has been a tight end or slot receiver, but here the Commanders have their tight end stay in to block, giving the defense a false read, while the fullback sneaks out of the backfield and up the seam instead. It’s an interesting adaptation on an old concept which I could see being very effective if the Commanders were to keep a fullback on the roster and revisit this look during the regular season. 

However, on this occasion, I think the disguised look from the defense gets the better of Brissett. As I mentioned, the last thing Brissett is expecting from the pre-snap look of the defense is Tampa-2. When he snaps the ball and fakes to Dyami Brown outside on the sluggo route, he then most likely is checking the deep safety to see if he’s biting on the fake or holding his spot in the middle of the field. 

Now Reaves started in the middle of the field as part of the pre-snap disguise, but his responsibility is to play a deep half in Tampa-2. So when Brissett checks him after the pump fake, he likely spots Reaves gaining depth and working hard to get outside. This may well have given Brissett the impression that Reaves had bitten hard on the pump fake and that would have left the fullback wide open up the seam. But instead, the fullback is carried up the seam by linebacker Cody Barton, who reads the throw and then peels off the route to intercept the pass. 

It was an interesting look on both sides of the ball with the defense coming out on top on this occasion. While it may have been the second team unit, the starting defense could easily replicate this look. Darrick Forrest would likely replace Reaves deep while Kam Curl could replace Butler or Martin. Both Martin and Butler are likely to be borderline starters at some point this season anyway, so they could maintain their roles too. It’s unlikely Jones would be playing much and the Commanders probably wouldn’t want Montez Sweat or Chase Young dropping into coverage, but Casey Toohill performed that type of role very well when Young missed most of last year and could easily rotate in for a few plays and do the same. 

If you enjoyed this style of post breaking down a single play from training camp, let me know and I’ll try and find more footage to break down. And as I said at the top, if you’re going to training camp and you record some plays, send them to me or tweet them at me and I’ll try and break them down too!