Panthers Film Room: Bryce Young's Interceptions

Breaking down what Bryce Young saw on his two game-changing throws

Bryce Young’s two interceptions were the main difference on Sunday afternoon. At first glance, it looked like Young threw two passes straight into the bread basket of Falcons safety Jessie Bates. 

Upon further review, it seems like the Panthers’ rookie quarterback was fooled by the Falcons' first-year defensive coordinator Ryan Nielsen, and the calls he made. 

Let’s break it down.

This is the picture that Young sees at the snap. To me, it looks like sees a Cover 2 defense, which he ends up being correct about. In Cover 2, the two safeties drop deep and are each covering one half of the field. Underneath them, the five linebackers and corners (depending on the defensive formation) each zone off an area below the safeties. This is also known as an MFO (middle field open) defense. When attacking that coverage downfield, the defensive weakness is up the sideline in what is affectionally called “the honey hole” by quarterbacks, and the middle of the field between the two dropping safeties.

On this particular play, Adam Thielen is running a deep route up the seam with the intention of clearing Bates out of Young’s picture. Underneath, Frank Reich dialed up a levels concept with Hayden Hurst and Jonathan Mingo running in-breaking routes to stress the corners and linebackers on the play side. This is a classic concept that Peyton Manning used for years. Ideally, with Theilen running Bates out of his deep half, Young would have a window to hit Hurst on the deep dig 15ish yards downfield. Below is a crude mock-up on the original screenshot of what Bryce Young *thought* the coverage was, and how the route concepts were supposed to work.

Unfortunately for Young, playing quarterback in the NFL isn’t that simple.

What the Falcons ended up doing was dropping their slot cornerback into a deep half as he shadowed Adam Theilen’s route up the seam. That allowed Jessie Bates to cover the underneath middle zone that linebacker Kaden Elliss vacated to guard the check down in the flat. Because Bates was already driving downhill to cover the zone he was responsible for, Young had no chance to thread the ball to Hurst across the middle. Check out the screenshot below taken right as Young releases the ball.

Bates already has a head of steam to cut off Hurst and intercept the pass. If it was the coverage the rookie quarterback had assumed, Hurst would be open for a chunk play. Alas, he was not, Bates made a great play on the ball, and the Falcons would score just a few plays later.

In this passing concept, Young needs to read the safety that would be covering the seam on the vertical side of the route. If he had checked Bates and saw him crashing towards the line of scrimmage before he threw the ball, he would have seen Thielen running downfield with a step on his defender with the chance for a chunk play.

These things will come in time.

Young’s second interception was fairly similar, but it came on a different coverage concept by the Falcons.

Pre-snap, the Falcons are manned up across the board with one deep safety. This specific coverage the Falcons are in is Cover 1. One deep safety, a linebacker covering anything over the middle of the field, and the rest of the defends are in man coverage. As opposed to Cover 2 which is a middle field open coverage, Cover 1 is middle field closed and traditionally a quarterback would look to attack the boundary. Below is another crude coverage mock-up I made on an internet version of Microsoft Paint (not an ad).

When Young throws this ball to Marshall, he’s essentially throwing into double coverage and playing right into the hands of the Atlanta defense. Young did exactly what the Falcons wanted him to do. Marshall did get separation from his original defender with a nice route, but the corner played Marshall with an inside shade knowing that he had help from Bates in the middle of the field. This interception isn’t so much Young getting tricked by coverage as it is just a bad decision. His protection held up and Bates didn’t drop deep, so Young had the option to hit a receiver down the sideline for a big play if he uncorked it.

Two plays and two costly mistakes for the first overall pick.

Remember, Young is a rookie, playing his first game, in a hostile environment. Like Aaron Rodgers once said, R-E-L-A-X. Young has the physical tools, the maturity, and the mental processing to be an elite quarterback in the NFL, but mistakes happen and they’re to be expected.