Remember the “Dino” concept that the Pittsburgh Steelers ran last week against the Baltimore Ravens that resulted in a touchdown pass to rookie wide receiver Martavis Bryant? Well, they tried to run a similar version of that concept Sunday against the New York Jets, only this time it resulted in an interception.
On this second and eight play from the Jets 10-yard-line, Bryant motions from right to left prior to the snap. This lets quarterback Ben Roethlisberger know that the Jets are playing zone coverage.
At the snap, tight end Heath Miller runs the inside post route and that holds the inside linebacker and deep safety. All that Bryant needs to do is to beat cornerback Marcus Williams inside, but that’s not going to be as easy as it was against the Ravens.
Bryant really doesn’t sell the threat to the corner very well at all. In fact, he could have stemmed his route much better and I wrote that on Twitter immediately after the ball was deflected and intercepted. Even former Steelers quarterback Charlie Batch said during the game on Twitter that the rookie broke off his route a yard early.
If you will notice, Williams doesn’t even respect Bryant by playing outside technique. He cheats a little by playing heads-up on Bryant and he disrespects the corner threat by squatting the whole time and never opening his hips. When Bryant breaks inside, so does Williams and the cornerback wins inside over the shoulder of the receiver.
Now, as mentioned, the Steelers ran this same concept just last week and Williams admitted after the game that they had seen the Steelers run a similar play last week.
If Bryant is to have success moving forward inside the red zone, he’s going to have to run some corner fades off the line with a stem similar to the one he uses for this double post concept. In fact, a fade instead of an inside post probably would’ve resulted in a touchdown Sunday had that been called. Regardless, Bryant needs to still tighten up a lot of things with his game and especially his route running. If he sells that corner a little better, the Steelers likely have a touchdown instead of an interception.
