Breaking Down Kenny Moore II's First Pick vs Carolina: Film

How Kenny Moore II came away with a game-changing pick six vs the Panthers.

The Indianapolis Colts' defense completely shut down Bryce Young and the Carolina Panthers this past Sunday. In the Colts' 27-13 victory, Indy's defense held the Panthers to just 3.9 yards per play while also coming away with five sacks and three interceptions.

The most important of those three interceptions came by Kenny Moore II right before halftime. The Panthers were driving to get into field goal territory late in the half when Moore II intercepted Bryce Young on a ball late to the flat. Moore II proceeded to run it back for a score to put the Colts up 20-3 in the waning seconds of the first half.

This pivotal play came on a fairly common coverage call that was executed to perfection by the Colts' defense. Today, let's dive into the finer details of this play and discuss exactly how Moore II was able to put this game away early.

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Cover Three Mable

Gus Bradley is famous for being the last defensive coordinator in football still stubbornly stuck on a cover three defense, but on this play the call worked perfectly to give the Colts a big lead.

Before we discuss the play itself, it's time for a little refresher on how Bradley's cover three scheme works. A common misconception is that the Colts run a simple cover three defense, when in reality, it is a cover three match scheme.

With cover three match, there are coverage rules put in place to eliminate vertical passing elements. Zone match schemes are essentially a hybrid mix of man/zone concepts all in one, and Gus Bradley's scheme is no different from this.

A common way that Bradley calls cover three match on passing downs is to have the weakside of the field play MEG (man everywhere he goes) coverage. This makes the backside of the play a traditional man call with the front side using five zone defenders to eliminate three pass catching options. The classification for this call is Cover Three Mable in most playbooks.

Here is an example of what I'm talking about. Jaylon Jones and E.J Speed are going to man up the weakside of this formation (initially) while the other five coverage defenders are responsible for zones around the strong side pass catching threats:

The Carolina Panthers' offense gets into trouble on this play when they decide to motion Adam Thielen across the formation. Motion is used to give a quarterback a pre-snap indicator, and Bryce Young is able to see that the Colts aren't following the moving receiver. So, he gets the indicator that the Colts are sitting in zone.

The only problem with that pre-snap read is that the Colts are in a match zone with the backside playing man coverage. Instead of motioning Kenny Moore II across the formation and physically flipping him with E.J Speed, the Colts simply rotate the zone coverage to the new strong side and leave man on the new weakside of the offense.

This ends up being a major problem for the Panthers' offense (and Bryce Young) after the ball is snapped. Young is getting that pre-snap zone coverage read when all the Colts did was shift the man coverage call on this match zone to the new backside of the play.

The result of the coverage shift is the new assignments in the picture below. Kenny Moore II is responsible for the running back in man while Darrell Baker Jr is on an island with the backside receiver.

Now the most important element of this entire play is the pressure by the Colts' defensive line. With Kwity Paye and Samson Ebukam both getting a breather on the snap, Jake Martin and Isaiah Land are the defensive ends coming off of the edge.

Land does a fantastic job of closing from the backside while Martin is disruptive as can be right in front of Young. These two pass rushers do just enough to muddy the pocket, which causes Bryce Young to quickly flip back to checkdown in the flats to his right on the play.

Now remember how I mentioned that Bryce Young got a pre-snap indicator of zone coverage with the motion? Well, that comes back to bite him on this checkdown to the flat. He is expecting Kenny Moore II to be in more of a hook zone, so he doesn't feel the innate risk in flipping out this pass to the flat until it is too late.

If this were just a traditional cover three zone, this is a 2-3 yard completion for the offense but because it is cover three mable with man coverage on the backside, it is a massive pick six in what was a relatively close game.

Cover three defense can work (when executed properly)! This was a massive play for a Colts' defense that needed this type of performance at this point in the year.

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