Inability to defend the slant puts Buccaneers on route to ruin
Washington tight end Jordan Reed leaps into the end zone for the game-winning touchdown after running a slant route as Bucs safeties Chris Conte (23) and Bradley McDougald watch. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS By Roy Cummings | Tribune Staff Published: October 31, 2015 ATLANTA — If you were to trace the ancestry of the pass route that has plagued the Tampa Bay Buccaneers secondary most this year, you’d find its evolution was sparked by one of football’s most innovative minds.Saddled with a porous offensive line when he took over as coach of the San Francisco 49ers in 1979, Bill Walsh made the simple slant route one of the most lethal weapons in what became known as the West Coast Offense.More than three decades later, that quick timing route has become one of the most common in the NFL and the bane of the Bucs’ defense.Of the 15 touchdown passes the Bucs have surrendered so far this year, five have come off slants, including the game-winner in Washington’s 31-30 come-from-behind victory last week.“That for sure is one of the things we have to get corrected,’’ Bucs defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier said of the slant as the team prepared for Sunday’s game against the Atlanta Falcons at the Georgia Dome (1 p.m.; Fox).“We have not been very good in the red zone this year and a lot has to do with our (defense) of inside, breaking routes. That’s why we’ve been seeing it week in and week out, so we have to come up with an answer for it.’’Run in conjunction with a one- or three-step drop by the quarterback, the slant is a quick-trigger route in which the receiver takes one or three steps before darting inside toward the middle of the field. It’s a simple, one-move route designed to take advantage of a quarterback’s accuracy and a receiver’s speed and quickness, but as the Bucs have learned, it is among the most difficult to defend.“It really is, because the quarterback can just rip it to the guy who’s on the run,’’ said Falcons head coach Dan Quinn. “But there are number of different ways to defend it.’’The method the Bucs have most-often chosen calls for their cornerbacks, or in some cases their safeties, to line up close to the line of scrimmage in tight “press-man coverage.’’ The Bucs also have utilized some “off coverages,’’ where the defender lines up about 7 yards away from the line and the receiver, and some zone schemes such as the Tampa 2.No matter what scheme the defense chooses, though, the key to stopping any receiver running a slant lies in the proper execution by the defender of at least three fundamental aspects.The first two are stance and alignment. With his feet parallel to the line of scrimmage, the defender needs to line up with his outside shoulder on the receiver’s inside shoulder. That gives the defender a half-step edge toward the intended target area of the pass and usually forces the receiver to run past the front of the defender’s body, or across his face, during his release.The third fundamental element is hand placement. Defenders have 5 yards to bump a receiver after the snap, and if they’re playing press coverage they’re usually taught to punch the receiver with their outside hand upon release. That tactic is designed to disrupt the timing of the slant pass, and it often negates it altogether because it can slow the receiver or knock him off the route completely.It’s those very fundamentals, though, that the Bucs have apparently not been executing.“It’s the technique,’’ Bucs coach Lovie Smith said when asked why the Bucs have struggled to defend slants. “You’re supposed to take (the slant) away. Once you get down into the red zone, that’s what you do. You make them throw the hard throw. You make them throw the fade, which is a harder throw to complete than the quick slant. But with our players, we haven’t gotten that point across yet.’’No one can say they haven’t tried.In an effort to solve the problem, the Bucs have shuffled their lineup, moving outside corner Alterraun Verner to slot corner and Chris Conte into the starting lineup at safety. Not only that, but after moving Tim Jennings into the starting lineup ahead of Verner, they benched Jennings for the Redskins game after he played a poor game and had what Smith called “a disappointing’’ finish against Jacksonville two weeks earlier.So far, though, nothing has worked, at least not consistently, and that could prove problematic because Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan has the arm, accuracy and talent around him to make great use of the slant.“We’re going to see it again if Atlanta gets in the red zone,’’ Frazier said. “So we continue to go over the tape and go over it in practice because we have to do better against it, bottom line.’’The Bucs have to do better not just against the slant, but also against a variant of it known as the dart route, which is a quicker version of the slant often employed against corners playing too far off the line of scrimmage.“If there’s any space between men and the receiver, then he’s just going now,’’ Jennings said of the dart. “He’s running up the field, and instead of doing a traditional slant, he’s just darting to the middle of the field. And that’s a tough route to defend because now it’s like a race.“It’s a matter of who gets to the ball first. So it’s all about anticipation and taking that route away. Especially down near the goal line.’’Often the result of intense film study, the anticipation element cannot be overestimated, Jennings said. After all, that’s precisely what New England Patriots rookie defender Malcolm Butler used to make the biggest play in Super Bowl XLIX in February.With 26 seconds to play and the Seattle Seahawks about to run a potential game-winning second-and-one play from the Patriots’ 1-yard line, Butler lined up in off-coverage about 3 yards deep in the end zone.Butler said that as the Patriots moved toward the line, his instincts told him Seattle receiver Ricardo Lockette was going to run a slant, so he zeroed in on Lockett, jumped the route and picked off Russell Wilson’s pass to save the game for New England.“He anticipated the route, ran for the guy and beat him to the ball,’’ Jennings said of Butler. “He just made his mind up and took off and made a play on the ball, and that’s what we have to start doing.’’
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