http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8kEbKwm_PU

Kyle Arrington playing sub pass rusher vs. Colts and Lions.

Really interesting stuff here that you can take a lot from. This right here is one of the reasons that Arrington is so intriguing to me as a slot corner assuming Bodden takes back his starting RCB spot. The Pats tried to use Arrington’s speed and shiftiness as a way to surprise the Colts offensive line.

If you watch closely you’ll also see the genius of Peyton Manning. Did I really just type that? I will now go cut myself…

As you’ll see at first Arrington does a pretty good job and the Colts are clearly a little unsure how to handle him. But once they understand how he’s being used they really do a good job of exploiting him. It’s one of the few times you can watch game tape and see exactly what the offense is pointing out. When Arrington sees them identifying him as a rusher he stops trying to fake coverage and just puts his hand down to help him get a jump.

The Colts attacked this wrinkle first by doing the common sense thing and running right at him. Clearly the Patriots were tempting the Colts to do just that with their shitty running backs. Once Peyton established that they’d run right at him it set the Patriots up to fall for play action which is exactly what happened to Jerod Mayo on Blair White’s touchdown at the 3:33 mark. Manning fakes the hand off, Mayo steps up and leaves a nice little area for the touchdown throw.

My only question is why not start having Arrington drop into coverage at some point? They had him rush every single time he put his hand down. But what do I know?