One of the elements that made the Patriots successful in intercepting Peyton Manning three times was a good job disguising their coverages. You can see Brian “Baldy” Baldinger break it down here. Try not to get distracted by Badly’s loose pinky that just sort of flops around while he’s making his points.
While we often hear about confusing a quarterback with disguised coverages you don’t hear much about confusing the receivers. In today’s NFL, and especially with a team like the Patriots, the receivers have to make pre-snap reads and adjust their routes accordingly.
On two of the three interceptions Manning threw, he saw one thing and his receiver saw another. This shows that you don’t necessarily need to fool Manning. He has young and fairly inexperienced receivers, except for Reggie Wayne. Confusing them and forcing them to make the wrong sight adjustment is probably a little easier than trying to do it to Peyton.
Seems like the Patriots knew that and exploited it. Those three interceptions ended up being the difference in the game.
Fooled You, Peyton!!
Mike D note: consider this my last post about the Colts game. I’ve tried to turn the page like the players and coaches have had to do but there’s just been so much interesting stuff to break down over the last three days. As an uber fan blogger I can afford that luxury. So that’s it. On to the Lions…
