Football is back this week! THIS WEEK! We got off to a roaring start, with a thrilling Cowboys/Bucs game. During the game, a clip of rookie Micah Parsons started making the rounds, courtesy of Warren Sharp:
It was later reposted by PFF:
Though the captions are ever-so-slightly different, they both have the same message: “Micah Parsons has no idea what he’s doing out there. His head is spinning.”
At first glance, you can see how people would jump to that conclusion. He jumps up toward the line on the play fake, then, upon realizing it’s not a running play, he turns around and starts looking around. Like he’s lost.
But he’s not lost. He doesn’t make the play, but it has nothing to do with how he played this. Parsons is simply utilizing the ROBOT technique.
ROBOT - “roll over and back” - is a technique taught to linebackers to defend against play action. Pre-ROBOT, a common method was for the linebackers to backpedal to their spot after realizing it was a pass. To understand the need for ROBOT, you have to understand what offenses are trying to do with play action. When an offense runs play action, they’re looking to draw the linebackers up, then attack the space where the linebackers have vacated. You’ll see a lot of crossing routes behind play action.
The problem is that backpedaling is slow. If the offense runs a crossing route with depth, linebackers simply can’t get back in time. In addition to that, they can’t see the routes behind them.
ROBOT is an answer for that. Instead of backpedaling to a spot, the linebacker will turn, run and locate the crossing route. It allows him to get back faster, while also giving him a better idea of what he’s defending.
Like seemingly all things related to defensive innovations, you’ll find Nick Saban standing right in the thick of it. I don’t know if Saban is the one who invented the technique itself, but he’s certainly been the main figure to help popularize it.
It’s tough to see exactly how it works with the clips above, so let’s look at a clip from the Packers victory over the Falcons in Week 4 of the 2020 season.
The Falcons are running play action, with a go/wheel on the right and Olamide Zaccheaus [17] running a crosser from the left side. Zaccheaus pushes in and gets a little separation from Josh Jackson [37].
Krys Barnes [51] is one of the inside linebackers on this play. He’s pulled up to the line on the play action, opening space behind him. If he were playing the backpedal, he would retreat back to a spot and read Matt Ryan [2], and Ryan would throw it past him.
Instead - using ROBOT - Barnes turns, runs, and locates the crosser.
You can see him really well from this next angle. As soon as he recognizes that it’s a pass, he turns, runs, locates the crosser and falls underneath it.
Barnes ends up getting a hand on the ball. And, while the end result of the play is a completion for the Falcons, it’s a good read by Barnes and helps illustrate exactly what ROBOT is, and the intended purpose.
Football is a complicated sport, with a lot of moving pieces and a lot of coaching points that we don’t always know about. Sometimes we can see when someone makes a poor play, but it’s not always so obvious.
Very well said brother I kept seeing that tweet although aside from turning right and not left to find the crosser everything else was correct from his part.This is just people who do not know the ins and outs of the game.Their eyes tell them one thing.I heard a lot of well he bit on the run.Well yes and no his first responsibility is stop the run but as soon as he sees the qb not pitch it to his Rb then he turns right adjusting and looking for the crosser.Thanks to his speed he was able to get to the ball catcher pretty fast to assist on a tackle.