Josh Reynolds is a dagger expert.
That’s “dagger” as in the NFL passing concept, of course.
In Detroit, Reynolds got all the glory on the play. Somebody else handled the clear-out vertical, running a safety down the field to create a void about 18-20 yards past the line of scrimmage, a couple of yards inside the numbers.
Then Reynolds, lined up outside, would run a deep in-cut into that void, find the ball and make hay.
“That was one of my routes, for sure. I was the dagger,” Reynolds told The Denver Post.
Now in Denver, he’s the clear-out man. The ball never goes to that guy.
“Not that I’ve seen in eight years,” he said.
This is the dirty work. Like an off-the-ball screen to free up a shooter in basketball or a rugged forward jostling for position in front of a goaltender in hockey.
“Love of the game route, man,” he says with a laugh.
Courtland Sutton is the Broncos’ dagger man.
He starts outside of Reynolds when the Broncos run this tried-and-true zone-beater. Gets up the field, lets Reynolds do his thing, then snaps inside. During camp and the preseason, rookie quarterback Bo Nix showed an affinity for the play, hitting Sutton on his route in rhythm time and time again.
“He’s a fast dude,” Reynolds said of Sutton. “He’s a fast dude that can stick his foot in the ground and come flat. That’s the whole key to running dagger.”
So far in the regular season, though, Denver’s passing game has been blunted. Their production on dagger and Sutton’s production as a whole? Duller than anticipated.
Sutton’s got five catches on 16 targets through two games and just 64 yards. With a small sample size, one big game can turn those numbers around, but the early per-game and per-target rates are well off Sutton’s career norms.
More pertinent so far is the general inability to get the ball into Sutton’s hands in the first place. Nix targeted him 12 times in Week 1 at Seattle but he only finished with four catches. Then against Pittsburgh, the ball didn’t even get thrown in Sutton’s direction until midway through the third quarter.
“There are routes when he’s primary and you’re hoping that you catch the right look and he gets the throw. It doesn’t always work like that,” offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi said Thursday. “He’s definitely a big part of every game plan and sometimes the flow of the game is such that he doesn’t get the throws like we thought he would.”
Of course, given the overall issues the Broncos have had offensively, nobody is off to a blazing start. But Sutton’s pace out of the gates is noteworthy particularly because of his offseason — he skipped all voluntary team activities to advocate for a contract extension that never came — and because he looked terrific during training camp.
Now, though, it’s a struggle.
Nix has thrown three interceptions while targeting Sutton. The receiver could have been credited with a target on the final-play pick Nix threw against Pittsburgh, too.
“He plays ‘X’, but he can play …read more
Source:: The Denver Post – Sports
