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Bengals Film Breakdown: How Defense Earned Back-to-Back Goal Line Stands in Win Over Seahawks

Cincinnati is 3-3 following their win over Seattle and their defense led them to victory.

Mike Santagata

In this story:

The Bengals' defense won the game against the Seahawks on Sunday. They forced back-to-back goal line stands in the final three minutes of the 17-13 victory. 

They didn't give up a point and allowed just five yards once Seattle got close to the end zone.

Geno Smith was sacked twice on those eight plays and only completed 1-of-5 pass attempts. The defense was not perfect in this game, but when the game was on the line they stepped up. 

Let’s dive into the film to take a deeper look at these two game changing stands:

The First Stand

The Bengals were up four with only 3:25 left in the game when the Seahawks drove down to the 7-yard line. With how poor the offense was performing at this point, it was unlikely that the Bengals would be able to drive down the field and score to win the game.

The first play was a sack from Trey Hendrickson.

The Bengals are in a red zone Cover 3 look with a 4-man rush. Smith starts by reading the one on one between Cam Taylor-Britt and D.K. Metcalf, but Taylor-Britt does a good job of disrupting timing with the jam. Smith moves off of that route to the concept to the 3-man side. 

The idea is to occupy the strong hook defender (No. 55) with the out-route while an in breaking route comes open behind it. This actually works as Logan Wilson matches the out, but Dax Hill makes a fantastic read and break to come off of the roof and take away the in breaker. Smith has nowhere to go and it ends in a sack.

Sam Hubbard and Hendrickson cage Smith in from both sides. Typically this is how the Bengals want to rush the quarterback. It takes a little bit more time than winning around the outside or inside, but it does not allow for the quarterback to escape the pocket. 

Watch as both Hendrickson and Hubbard drive their feet to push each offensive tackle into the quarterback. As Smith attempts to read this out, he can feel the pressure. He tries to spin out and create to his left, but because Hendrickson is working to keep Smith within the pocket, he easily disengages and finishes with a sack.

That sack moved the Seahawks back to the 19-yard line where they faced 2nd-and-goal.

The Seahawks have two different concepts going here. Shock to the right and race to the left. Shock is a single-high safety beater, which the Bengals are in. This is a form of Cover 1. 

This concept is something that has given the Bengals issues throughout the year. Specifically the slot fade route on this concept has beaten them deep numerous times. JuanDrago Turner is defending the slot fade and while he doesn’t completely clamp the route, he does stay to the outside to funnel it to his help. There may be a window to complete this pass, but Smith turns it down knowing he would have to fit the ball between Turner who is a 4.2 athlete and Hill who is a 4.3 athlete.

As Smith attempts to work to the backside, Hubbard wraps up his leg, which doesn't allow him to drive the ball. Hubbard won the corner on this play with a two-hand stab and rip around the outside. The stab shocks the tackle which stops his feet, then Hubbard’s rip around the outside gets him to disengage so he can get clean to the quarterback.

On 3rd-and-extra long, the Seahawks had their most successful play of these two stands.

Seattle planned on picking up about half of the yardage here and the Bengals are playing man match quarters in an attempt to stay +1 to each side of the field in terms of coverage. Zoning in on the inside slant to the lion concept to the left, the Bengals should have a bracket inside and out from Chidobe Awuzie and Nick Scott. The slant route means that this should get passed off to Scott who takes a poor angle and misses the receiver. Luckily, Mike Hilton and Hill are there to make the tackle to bring up a 4th-and-goal from the 6-yard line.

They went back to Cover 3 on fourth down and Wilson makes it work. By passing off the corner route to the safety, he can get into the window of the short in without leaving the window of the throw. This makes Smith hold the ball an extra tick which allows the pressure to get home.

This play has the best rush of the stand as both Hubbard and DJ Reader win their matchups in dominant fashion. Reader bullrushes the left guard into the ground and finishes by wrapping up Smith’s plant leg. Hubbard wins around the outside with his signature side scissors move to beat the hands of the offensive tackle. He also shows some bend around the arc to get to Smith without losing any speed. A clutch combined sack from those two to end this drive and give the offense a chance at finishing this game off.

The Second Stand

Unfortunately for the Bengals, the offense went three-and-out and didn't finish the game for them. Technically this is not a goal line stand as the Seahawks could have picked up a first down at the 1-yard line, but it basically is one.

First down almost was a touchdown for the Seahawks as the tight end gets open out of structure. Hill again saves the day as he picks him up and breaks on the ball, knowing Smith is throwing it there. He drops the interception, but this was a game saving play from the second-year starter.

Second down was part of the time management chess match as the Seahawks ran the ball trying to bleed the clock so the Bengals wouldn't have a shot at a drive if the Seahawks finished with a touchdown. This didn't work as the Bengals called a timeout to conserve the clock. It’s a good look for the Seahawks pre-snap though, as both A-gaps are open against the Bengals' wide front.

Despite starting in a loose 3-technique, Reader is able to make this stop and show the importance of his ability to this defense. He can cover up mistakes and make a play on the opposite side of the formation as he completely dominates his block. Wilson also does a nice job of running through the open C gap to help bring down Kenneth Walker.

For the first time in either stand, the Bengals defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo called a pressure look on third down. He runs a Cover 0 look with Wilson fake blitzing before dropping out and Reader dropping out as well.

This is a brave call with quite a bit of belief in the pressure getting home. There are two reasons that this pressure works so well. The first is that they don't play standard Cover 0 with everyone taking the man closest to them. This type of pressure is one of Anarumo’s staples and is known as a rain check in Bill Belichick's system. The linebacker to the side of the slide will drop back into a hook zone after initially rushing to occupy one of the offensive linemen.

The corner route is passed to the safety and the inside cornerback takes the shallow in route instead. This switch does a great job of putting both players in a position to tightly cover those respective routes because the coverage player is now inside against the in breaker and outside against the out breaker. 

The second reason this works is that Wilson drops right into the shallow window. It seems as if Smith was expecting to throw the shallow in as the safety would be picked by the corner route if they tried to play this straight man. He does not have time to reset and instead throws the ball out of the back of the end zone to avoid a sack or interception.

The pressure gets both Hill and Scott free to the quarterback almost immediately. This makes it so Smith has no chance to get beyond his first read. Drawing up this pressure requires it to get home so the defense only needs to cover for about 1 to 1.5 seconds. This was a big win for Anarumo, which forced the fourth down attempt.

Before the final play of the game the Bengals took a timeout after the Seahawks lined up. Seattle then took a timeout after lining up again to see how the Bengals would play. The game came down to this play and both play callers wanted to get as much information as possible before making the play call.

Once again the Bengals seemed to play another variation of red zone Cover 3. The Seahawks tried to run snag-n-go, which was bold considering the pass protection they were getting on these plays. The corner route from the tight end is open for a moment although it appears as if this is actually a corner return route which doesn’t stand a chance with Turner’s leverage. The snag-n-go is clamped with Wilson underneath and Hill over the top. If the pass pro held up, the corner return from Lockett against Hilton was open, but the front for the Bengals once again won too quickly.

B.J. Hill does an amazing job as the penetrator on this TEX stunt. Hill not only penetrates and sets up Hubbard to come free, but he also wins to the outside and gets to the quarterback. He gets a hand on Smith and it’s curtains for the Seahawks in this game.

These back-to-back stands were nothing short of incredible performances  by the defense and play calling by Anarumo. 

Repeatedly, the Bengals were in position to take away the Seahawks concepts in structure and the front did not allow for them to work out of structure. It was a signature performance from Anarumo, as he dialed up all the right calls and expertly placed his guys in positions to win. These eight plays won the game for the Bengals in a game they truly needed to keep pace in the AFC.

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Mike Santagata
MIKE SANTAGATA

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