Every week of football is a great week but the final chapter of the regular season only featured a few meaningful matchups. One was the Bengals/Steelers game to decide if Cincinnati’s playoff hopes would stay alive and seeding for the Steelers. Another was the Lions/Vikings game to decide the top seed in the NFC. In both games, defensive coordinators Lou Anarumo and Aaron Glenn drew up a couple of clever defensive game plans that exposed the weaknesses of quarterbacks Russell Wilson and Sam Darnold, respectively.
Big Lou shines in swan song
Anarumo’s defenses were among the best in the league in his early years in Cincinnati but as more of the money slid to the offensive side of the ball, his defenses began to slip. In his first two seasons, the Bengals ranked third in points per drive (1.59). But letting top talent like safety Jessie Bates and defensive tackle DJ Reader get away resulted in a decline. This season, they’ve been one of the worst defenses in the league, resulting in Anarumo’s firing on Monday.
GO DEEPER
What forced the Bengals to part ways with DC Lou Anarumo, O-line coach Frank Pollack
But even with a bare-bones roster, Anarumo sometimes can still deliver a cleverly crafted game plan and did just that on his way out of Cincinnati.
The Steelers have struggled on offense but there are no easy matchups for this Bengals defense. The Steelers hung 44 points on them in their first meeting as Wilson threw for 414 yards and three touchdowns. But in Week 18, Anarumo did what he does best and took away what Wilson likes to do — either throw deep or check the ball down.
From Hard Knocks. Ravens’ analyst details book on Russell Wilson. #Steelers
“It’s 3-pointers and layups. There’s no mid-range with this dude. He throws that intermediate ball the least in the NFL.” pic.twitter.com/EJ6Ifo8aaO
— Alex Kozora (@Alex_Kozora) December 25, 2024
The Bengals gave Wilson the intermediate part of the field where he’s generally uncomfortable throwing to by playing zone match coverage with two deep safeties. Zone match is different than regular zone as defenders drop into zone coverage but when someone enters their zone, instead of waiting until the ball is thrown, they’ll match the route and essentially play it man-to-man. By playing two safeties deep, they took away the deep shots but jumped short routes with their underneath defenders.
14:48 remaining in the second quarter, second-and-14
Here, the Bengals showed one-high, giving Wilson the pre-snap indication that he might have a deep shot available.
However, after the snap, they dropped into a split field coverage with two safeties deep. Wilson looked deep initially but saw the route was covered.
Predictably, Wilson looked to his checkdown immediately after seeing his deep route was covered. Linebacker Akeem Davis-Gaither started driving on running back Najee Harris before the ball was thrown. This sort of aggressive match happened throughout the game.
By jumping the checkdowns and playing the safeties soft, the intermediate part of the field was open for business but this was by design, knowing Wilson didn’t want to throw there.
When the Bengals did play one-high safety, they shaded the safety toward receiver George Pickens and dared someone else to beat them. No one else could consistently. The key was limiting the Steelers’ run game on early downs. The Bengals have had a leaky run defense all season but they were physical and sound on Saturday, holding the Steelers running backs to only 3.1 yards per carry and putting them in passing situations for which Anarumo could cook up some creative schemes.
5:21 remaining in the third quarter, second-and-8
Here, the Steelers showed pressure with nickel Mike Hilton stepping up toward the line of scrimmage next to the Bengals’ best pass rusher, Trey Hendrickson. The defensive backs gave a one-high presentation on the back end.
Harris was supposed to carry out a run fake to Wilson’s right but he had to abort and go to the left because of the potential nickel pressure.
After the snap, both Hendrickson and Hilton dropped. Hilton ran out to the flats and the defense played inverted cover 2 (corner deep, with a nickel or safety in the flats) to Pickens’ side and regular cover 2 on the other side.
Safety Jordan Battle blitzed from the other side. Harris did a good job of adjusting and winding back to the right to make the block but Wilson looked surprised by the coverage disguise.
Wilson stared down Pickens and when the pressure got to him, he threw the ball away in Pickens’ direction.
The Steelers found some answers for the match coverage by repeatedly throwing to tight end Pat Freiermuth on out-breaking routes in which he could run away from linebackers that matched him. That helped them get back into the game but you can only go to the well so many times. Generally, making Wilson and the Steelers play left-handed had its intended effects. They were discombobulated. When Wilson made the right read, Pickens let him down and dropped passes. When Pickens was open, Wilson didn’t connect.
GO DEEPER
The Steelers aren’t who they think they are. They must realize it before it’s too late
A solution against match coverage is quarterback scrambles. On the final drive, when the Steelers had a chance to win the game on a field goal, Wilson scrambled against match coverage for a few yards with 46 seconds remaining in the game but it was a terrible decision because the Steelers only had one timeout left. They didn’t get another snap off until there were only 24 seconds left. The Steelers still had a chance to get into field goal range and possibly spike the ball on a well-designed counter to the Bengals’ match coverages but failed to execute.
0:15 remaining in the fourth quarter, second-and-8
As mentioned, the Steelers had success in the second half throwing out routes to Freiermuth. On this play, Freiermuth faked like he was going out before breaking back inside.
Once again, the Bengals played 2-deep match coverage. Linebacker Germaine Pratt matched on Freiermuth and bit on the outside move.
Freiermuth was open, Wilson hit him in stride, but he couldn’t haul in the pass.
Some may say the Steelers weren’t playing well on offense, but with this defensive roster, nothing is easy. Credit to “Big Lou” for one more fantastically tailored game plan to give the Bengals a shot at the playoffs. He should get another job quickly.
Glenn shuts down Darnold
The Lions defense, decimated by injuries, gave up 130 points in the four games before Week 18. In one of the most important regular-season games in Lions history, one to decide the top seed in the NFC, Glenn and his defense delivered a gem against the Vikings’ high-powered offense.
We thought Darnold might have exorcised his old demons but the Lions had him seeing ghosts. The pressure got to him early and he was jumpy and inaccurate for most of the game. But it wasn’t just the pressure, Darnold was unsure of what he was seeing. He couldn’t get a bead on what the Lions were doing defensively and it caused him to be gun-shy, squandering multiple opportunities downfield.
GO DEEPER
‘We’ve got a special group’: Plagued by injuries, Lions stay dominant to capture NFC’s No. 1 seed
Darnold only completed 43 percent of his passes, didn’t throw a touchdown, and only passed for 166 yards — all season lows. The Lions’ defense was particularly good in the red zone. Coming into the game, the Vikings were 10th in the league in red zone touchdown rate (59.6 percent). Against the Lions, they didn’t get into the end zone on four red zone trips.
10:19 remaining in the second quarter, third-and-3
The Lions play a stubbornly high rate of man coverage. It’s just Glenn’s philosophy. If the Lions just played straight man coverage across the board, they would have gotten eviscerated. Instead, they played some games with brackets and robbers to help their players.
Here, on third down, they had a bracket on tight end T.J. Hockenson. Linebacker Jack Campbell had him outside and defensive end Trevor Nowaske had him inside. This was a clever tactic because it’s hard to predict that an end would drop and play any form of man coverage. On the other side, safety Kerby Joseph lined up on Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison’s side to give immediate help inside. This allowed the corners to play with hard outside leverage and take anything going to the sideline.
The play was designed to create a rub for Hockenson but because Campbell was playing so far outside of him, he was in position to cover the route. After seeing Hockenson go inside, Nowaske dropped and became the robber to help on any inside breaking route.
On the other side, Addison’s man got picked and he would have been open on the slant but Joseph was there to help. On the inside, the linebacker who covered Aaron Jones blitzed because Jones stayed in protection. This is called a “green dog” blitz.
Hockenson was well-covered. It would have taken a perfect throw for a touchdown but Darnold sailed the ball out of the end zone.
6:55 remaining in the second quarter, first-and-7
Later in the game, the Vikings ran a well-designed version of “super mesh” in which multiple players try to create a rub for Jones running a shallow route from the outside.
The Lions were in the same coverage as the previous play in this article. Because Jones went inside, Nowaske took him, while Campbell dropped.
Nowaske did a great job of clamping on Jones to avoid the rub route. Darnold’s second read was Jefferson breaking back outside but because outside cornerback Amik Robertson knew he had Joseph helping him inside, he patiently stayed on Jefferson’s outside shoulder and didn’t allow any separation. The pass fell incomplete and the Vikings eventually kicked a field goal.
Outside of the red zone, the Lions’ defense was aggressive. They played man coverage but frequently doubled Jefferson. They played a lot of one-on-one coverage on the Vikings’ other weapons. Darnold failed to connect with Hockenson when he got open. Essentially, Glenn was betting that the pressure would get to Darnold before anyone other than Jefferson had the chance to get open.
10:33 remaining in the third quarter, third-and-6
Here, the Lions had an inside bracket on Jefferson with safety Ifeatu Melifonwu playing inside of Jefferson. Campbell blitzed, meaning Joseph had to come off of the roof to cover Jones underneath.
Jefferson looked like he would get open on a slant but Melifonwu broke on Jefferson as soon as he saw him going inside and broke up the pass.
Darnold had no idea where the brackets and help defenders were coming from and had to deal with quick pressures throughout the game. There were opportunities downfield but the uneasiness the scheme and pressure created made life hard on Darnold. A sign of great coaching is the ability to mask weaknesses and take calculated risks. Glenn did that masterfully and now, the Lions get to rest for a week.
(Top photo of Aaron Glenn: Nic Antaya / Getty Images)
