UFR: Jake Locker's play against the Saints

Written by Tom Gower on .

So, how'd Jake Locker play against the Saints? There's been a great deal of optimism around Titans' fandom the past couple of days about Locker's work in his relief appearance on Sunday, so I thought I'd do a play-by-play breakdown of how he fared.


So, what'd I see?
At 2&35, Locker obviously comes into the game in a very negative down and distance situation, and the Titans' priority is likely to get what they can. I'm a little surprised they didn't start out with the uber-predictable draw, but instead they flex CJ out and go empty. Hawkins runs a 5-yard stop route with the defender playing 10 yards off. Three man rush, five blockers. (CA)

Four man rush this time, with LB Wilson coming off the slot, and Stewart easily fans out to pick him up. Locker's kind of skittish, and eventually takes the dumpoff to Ringer, who leaked out of the backfield. No idea what's going on downfield. (CA)


Titans go empty and the Saints zone blitz and try to overload the left. The OL's MO in particular against zone blitzes is to drop and drop again, and by the time they settle and anchor they're almost on top of Locker, which seems to short-circuit his decision-making process. He vacates the pocket and rolls right, throwing deep for Washington or CJ-the PBP says Washington, I'd guess CJ, but if it was intended for CJ, Washington breaks up what may have been an interception for Greer. No clue how to grade this, (.5 PR, .5 CA)?

EDIT: Chris Palmer said at Thursday's press conference Locker intentionally threw this ball into the turf. Right before the snap, S Jenkins bailed from the box to a deep safety position, changing the defensive look, and the corner played press instead of bailing out. Locker didn't think the play could work, so he threw the ball away. I'm not sure if he could've changed the playcall, or if the WR screen to the 3-WR side opposite D-Will would've worked better. I think Locker still probably should've thrown this ball, but the (IN) grade on my part was inaccurate; good to hear he didn't miss the throw.

Bootleg, and the Saints have it sniffed out, as Harper is blitzing from the weakside and Stevens is covered. Nothing doing on this play, and Locker throws it away. Guessing I'll give this a (PR) but really it's a rock-paper-scissors win for Gregg Williams.


Washington lines up in the left slot and runs a quick out. He's open, but Locker throws the ball too far. (IN)


Designed roll right after the fake to CJ. Hawk does not seem to be expecting the pass. If he turns out instead of in, this is a catch, but as is it's off. Not a great pass in either event. (.5 CA, 5. IN)

CJ motions out to go empty again. They seem to be doing that a lot, and I suspect it's to get the Saints to reveal their defense. Saints blitz, but it's picked up. No receiver is particularly open, but Locker tries to hit Williams about 20-odd yards downfield. There's an angle here, but Locker's pass is underthrown and Robinson breaks it up. It's marginally catchable, so (.5 CA, .5 IN).

Williams does a nice job of getting an inside release on the DB for what looks like a streak route, but Locker's pass is tipped at the line. (BA)

Is this zone read or a pass with a run option? I'm going to go with zone read. Locker does a nice job to elude the tackle in the backfield and uses his legs to pick up a first down.


Nice job not to panic when the Saints bring a delayed linebacker blitz that doesn't get picked up. Play is a screen to CJ that CJ's not really ready to catch. Drop. A good job on a low degree of difficulty throw. (CA)



Locker feels the pocket shrink around him, and looks to vacate. Unfortunately, he scrambles right into Will Smith, and the pocket wasn't shrinking in front. Bad decision to take off. (BR)

I don't get the route combinations here. After about 3 seconds, Harris loses his block on Smith and only then does Locker look to vacate the pocket. He can't elude Smith, so he's forced to chuck one downfield and hope. This is what I want Locker to be doing on this play, but even so it's not successful. (PR)


Locker wants to throw a quick in to D-Will, but Jenkins is in good position and more importantly DT Rogers gets up and blocks the throw. Locker then apparently sees the middle of the field is wide open and commits to a scramble. Personally I'd have preferred that he step up and find Hawkins wide open to the left side, but it's a nice run. (SCR)

The Saints are in what looks like man under, two deep coverage but they're in 3-3-5 personnel against the Titans' 3-WR set with S Harper blitzing. That leaves linebackers in man coverage on both Washington and Williams(!), and Locker picks Washington as the beneficiary of the Saints' deeply questionable call.  Call this a massive RPS loss for Gregg Williams. (DO) for right read and accurate throw over distance, even though the window was not small.

Protection is not great here, as Stewart is slow to fan out to pick up Galette's delayed rush & Scott struggles to pick up LB Vilma even with Stewart's initial help. Locker rightly vacates the pocket, then decides to pick up what he can and get out of bounds. No clue what was or wasn't available downfield. (PR)

Shallow cross for Washington coming out of the right slot, and he makes Dunbar look silly. A good ball on a low degree of difficulty throw. I've probably been underrating his short ball accuracy, so I'll be generous and give this a (DO).

Tipped at line, not sure what was or wasn't available downfield.

Williams really gets jammed at the line by Robinson and struggles to get into his route. Locker's eyes are locked on him the whole way and eventually throws for him. D-Will has to stop and jump for the ball, though, and the throw appears to be high and behind him. (IN)

Five yard stop route, and Washington makes one guy miss but that's not enough to get the first down. The playcall and reads are the things to question here. No issues with the throw. (CA)

Saints blitz two DBs from the offensive right. A commenter on FO suggested Locker should be praised for standing in here before getting drilled by Porter, but I'm pretty sure Locker fails to identify Porter's rush. That makes this a (BR).

Locker returns to the game after missing the prior play, and the Saints bring a six-man blitz with man-free (single-high safety). Locker makes a fine read, eschewed Washington on the quick out that if accurate would've gotten a first down, and Williams has a step on Greeer. Unfortunately, Locker misses the throw. Most message board complaints I've seen have been on the playcall, but if Locker makes a good throw, this is a touchdown. (IN)

Wide receiver screen. A very low degree of difficulty throw. (CA) The key block on the play is made by Cook, who eschews the linebacker to get the defensive back further downfield. Hawk outruns the backer and probably gets 10 extra yards. I feel like I've been very down on Cook, so I just wanted to highlight his good work here.


After a draw play that gains no yards and burns :21, it's close to a redux of Washington's previous 40-yard gain as the Saints out of a 3-3-5 run two-man coverage and end up with linebackers covering both Washington and Williams. Another massive coaching fail by Gregg Williams. When the All-22 goes up, I'll be interested in seeing the timing of when Washington and Williams get separation. Washington's the easier read and throw, but Williams may get out of bounds.

Awesome job by Nate Washington here managing to remain standing. If he goes down for injury, there's an automatic 10 second runoff that would've ended the game. As is, neither Washington nor Lavelle Hawkins (looking at you here) is on the line of scrimmage, so there should've been an illegal formation penalty that knocks the Titans back to the 10 (but would not have ended the game).


Final play of the game, and desperation time. Nothing seems to be available quickly, and Locker ends up having more confidence in his legs than he probably should. I think what he was doing was going to set his feet and throw for CJ, who had maybe the best shot at being open. One thing I didn't see Locker do that I think would've worked here is throw somebody open. The only pass he completed where I'm not sure the player was open when he threw the ball was Stevens. Grade?  Uh, (BR) I guess.

Chart? Chart.

v.Saints 4 11 5.5 3.5 2 5 2

What does that mean? Excellent question.

I went back to the grading scale because I wanted to be able to compare it to Vince Young's performance his rookie year, which has its own chart. Obviously, I'm not going to go back and re-grade all of Young's throws even on the games I still have a copy of. If I have time, I'll do one of Hasselbeck's games for this year to provide a basis for comparison.

My general point of view is that CA is for run-of-the-mill, garden-variety throws. High numbers of CA are neither a positive or a negative indicator. What I'm more interested in is DO (good) versus IN + BR, which are different varieities of bad.  That's 4 minus 9, which is... not particularly good, though we certainly saw a lot worse at times from VY.  SCR and PR exist in a sort of separate ancillary universe, as neither designation is particularly positive or negative in and of itself.  Scrambles can be good and bad, and the mere pressure metric doesn't distinguish between bad protection (OL gets killed) and bad QB play (pocket statue, unnecessarily scrambling into sack). BA, for batted passes, is essentially a null grade; start caring if it's a regular occurrence.

What's your analysis then? I'm getting to that, but wanted to talk about the chart first.




I did not overall have a major issue with Chris Palmer's play-calling. There were a couple plays where the logic of what they were doing wasn't apparent to me, but that shouldn't be taken as me saying there was no logic. Maybe there was no logic, and maybe it just wasn't apparent on-screen, or maybe they identified a Saints tendency I have no idea exists, or maybe one of the players just screwed up.


Should Locker start next Sunday against the Colts? Well, my guess is that he will because, at least in part, of Matt Hasselbeck's injury status.

My biggest concern, and what I'm basically in deathly fear of, is Locker will have success as a one-read and vacate the pocket quarterback, and decide that having success as a one-read and vacate the pocket quarterback means he's a good NFL player. We went through that experience five years ago, and it set back the franchise's long-term development future and may well have cost us a Super Bowl in 2008. I don't want Locker to play until he's mentally at the point where he's ready to display high-level quarterback skills, which I think he should be developing by the start of next year. I fully expect the Titans to start him the rest of this year, though, and I hope it works out.
Andrew Strickert
Andrew Strickert moderator

Thanks so much for this, Tom, I really enjoyed reading it. Great stuff! :)

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