Quote from Fitz

When asked if he was surprised the Panthers didn't use their top cornerback, Chris Gamble, on him in man-to-man coverage in the first half, Fitzgerald said:


“They didn't show (that) all year. No matter who they played, (their cornerbacks) always stayed on their sides. Chris Gamble is a phenomenal talent and I'm glad he wasn't following me around.”

 

funny enough, in 05 (06?) when Drago threw for a billion yards against us, a second half adjustment put Lucas on Fitzgerald and that stopped the bleeding.

I think part of it's that they just use so much that compromises zones that it's smarter to play man under and leave safeties deep. Since their TEs and backs are such a dropoff from their WRs in both pass ability and targets, playing man (or I/O, or just zone inside) with LBs isn't that big a deal.

That's more of a cover 2 shell, but it gives you the ability to play some man under it and/or use it to show some double-double zone if you need. We can and have done it, and for those of you new to this type thing that hear 'we're a cover 3 team' or the Colts are a Tampa 2 system, don't make mistakes with that. What they setup to run doesn't keep them from switching. All playbooks, realistically, have any call you'd ever need.

We definitely weren't flexible, we definitely didn't alter the gameplan for Boldin in versus not having Boldin in (though Breaston isn't a guy you just forget about) and we backed off the blitz, so I'm not sure where we were with the gameplan.

 

what game plan?

 

Beat me to it.