HC Candidate Ben Johnson continues to impress in playoffs
Evaluating how head coach candidate Ben Johnson performed in the Lions playoff victory over the Bucs
Yesterday I broke down how potential Commanders head coach candidate Ben Johnson performed in the Lions victory against the Rams in the wildcard round of the playoffs. Today, I thought I’d look at how he went one step further as an offensive play caller in the divisional round of the playoffs where the Lions beat the Buccaneers. The Lions put up 31 points, including three consecutive touchdown drives in the second half that put them in the driving seat to win the game. So let’s take a look at how Johnson did it.
One of the first things that stood out from this game was how Johnson used the run game. Against the Rams, the diversity of run schemes with all sorts of different gap scheme runs and occasionally mixing in some zone stuff too was outstanding, but against the Bucs, Johnson went in a very different direction. Clearly he’d seen something on film in preparation for the game as he leaned much more into the zone scheme runs than the gap scheme that the Lions are known for. Of course, he still maintained his ability to layer plays and build off the looks he shows defenses with the run game and work into the play-action game off of it.
Here we see two different plays from the same look. The Lions use a 12 personnel set with one running back, two tight ends and two wide receivers. Both tight ends align to the same side of the formation, making a clear strong and weak side of the formation. On the first play, the tight ends both align to the left, making the left side the strong side. The Lions then run a wide zone to the weak side, away from the tight ends, and running back David Montgomery finds a nice lane to cut into on his way to an 11-yard gain.
The second play of the clip shows the exact same look, but flipped. The tight ends both align to the right side of the formation this time, but otherwise the look is the same. So the defense naturally assumes the same run is coming. That’s perfect for the Lions and Ben Johnson, because he fakes that same run and actually calls a bootleg. Goff fakes the hand-off to the left and rolls out to his right, where he finds his receiver out in the flat for a nice solid gain.
That’s some nice layering with concepts that we’ve seen from Johnson throughout this season, but it was far from the only package of plays he layered together in this game. Perhaps the best package he put together was the package that saw rookie running back Jahmyr Gibbs score a touchdown on a 31-yard carry.
The first play in this package of clips isn’t the Gibbs TD, but a run that set it up. We see the Lions work out of 21 personnel, with two backs and one tight end. The tight end aligns to the right of the formation while the fullback lines up to the weak side on the left. Just before the snap, Goff motions the fullback across the formation from weak to strong, which changes things for the defense. That fullback is going to insert into the blocking scheme, creating an extra gap to whichever side of the line he blocks on. By shifting just before the snap from the weak side to the strong side, the defense suddenly has to adjust their run fits to ensure they can cover an extra gap on the strong side of the run.
The Buccaneers do adjust to that fullback motion, with both linebackers immediately flowing to the strong side of the line to try and fill that extra gap being created. They do their best to get there, but the Lions offensive line generates good push up front and the running back picks up a nice gain. It’s a nice run on its own, but it most importantly taught Johnson something. He saw how the Bucs linebackers flowed to the play side of the run with the fullback on the strong side, creating the chance to hit a cutback lane, so Johnson made a note to come back to that look.
The second play of the clip shows when Johnson did come back to that look. The Lions flip the formation, but have the fullback start aligned to the strong side. You can see immediately how the Bucs respond, with all three second level defenders all lined up over that strong side of the offensive line. By the time the running back gets the ball, you can see how the Bucs are all flowing hard to the front side of the play, which leaves a huge opportunity for the cutback. Right tackle Penei Sewell does a great job reaching across the face of his defender and sealing him off on the back side of the run, which gives Gibbs an opportunity to cut his run back.
Gibbs takes that opportunity to cut back and suddenly the entire defensive front of the Buccaneers is taken completely out of the play. Once Gibbs makes his cut, he’s left one-on-one against safety Antoine Winfield Jr. Winfield is one of the better young safeties in the league, but Gibbs is just too explosive. He bursts past Winfield and goes all the way to the end zone for a 31-yard touchdown.
The package doesn’t stop there though. Johnson came back to that same look again later on and attempted a counter run, again looking to take advantage of how the Bucs overcommitted to the strong side of the run. Unfortunately, center Frank Ragnow was dealing with a few injuries he picked up in the game and couldn’t contain nose tackle Vita Vea, who makes the tackle for a short gain. But Johnson didn’t stop there. Having hit a few nice runs with that formation, Johnson went back to it again and on the final play of the clip, used it to set up a play-action pass to Jameson Williams for a nice gain.
Johnson’s ability to layer concepts on top of each other and build a package of plays continues to be extremely impressive and the flexibility to switch from gap to zone runs is equally impressive. A big part of the reason why Johnson wanted to use more zone runs in this game was to help him set up a play-action bootleg game. He clearly noticed something on film that suggested the Bucs would struggle against bootlegs, and they work best in combination with zone runs. So Johnson leaned heavily into the zone scheme early in order to get to a package of bootleg plays.
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