After a shaky performance against the Seattle Seahawks in Week 2, the Lions needed cornerback Jerry Jacobs to bounce back. With one of the best performances of his career against the Packers last week, Jacobs did more than just bounce back.
Not only did he have two interceptions, he also had five tackles and four pass deflections against the Packers. That’s all while playing 100% of the snaps in that game. He’s the only player to play on all of the Lions defensive snaps. Like I said, he did more than just bounce back. He solidified himself on this Lions defense. Let’s jump into the tape and look at some of the best plays from Jacobs against the Packers.
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Sometimes for a defensive player, you just need to be at the right place at the right time on the field. Looking at the play above, that’s exactly what happens for Jerry Jacobs. On the play, Jacobs has a heads up play off a tip drill with Alex Anzalone.
The Lions defense comes out with a 4-man front while having three linebackers on the field and defensive back Brian Branch in the box. Prior to the snap, you can see Jerry Jacobs on the bottom of the screen back up a few yards and this shows a Cover 3 look defensively.
Once the ball is snapped, you can see Jacobs backpedal to cover his 1/3 zone that the wide receiver appears to be running towards. However, the wide receiver breaks to the middle of the field on a dig route. As the quarterback sits on the route, you can see Alex Anzalone (LB 34) drop to the middle of the field on his mid-hook drop.
With the ball in the air and intended for the receiver on the dig route, Anzalone does a great job getting his hand on the ball and popping it in the air. Reading the ball, you can see Jacobs adjust to it and come down with the interception.
Moving onto the second interception from Jacobs, it’s a misread from the quarterback but another heads up play from the cornerback. On the play above, the Lions come out with their nickle package (4-2-5) having a two-high shell.
Now my guess is that this is split-coverage from the defense. The defenders aligned to the trips side of the formation (top of the screen) are in Cover 2. Meanwhile, the safety and corner to the single receiver side of the formation (bottom of the screen) are in Cover 3. To the single receiver side is Jerry Jacobs (bottom of the screen).
Once the ball is snapped, Jacobs shows an outside 1/3 drop into his zone while the safety over the top of him shows a middle 1/3 drop to the middle of the field. Reading the quarterback and the 4-man pressure from the Lions, Jacobs realizes that he’s got to flow inside and get near the receiver as he breaks to the middle of the field.
Despite the misread and the delayed double move from the receiver, Jacobs makes the correct read and is in the right spot. With that, he’s rewarded with his second interception of the game and this one pretty much sealed the Packers fate against the Lions.
Like I said in the intro, it wasn’t just interceptions from Jacobs. He played well across the board and that includes some big time pass breakups. Moving to the next play, we look at the play above where the Packers come out with a trip bunch formation to the right (bottom of the screen).
Aligned on top of the single receiver (top of the screen), we have Jacobs. In what appears to be Cover 2 from the Lions defense, Jacobs should have flats coverage but he reads the eyes of the quarterback and essentially runs in man coverage.
As the receiver tries to break to the middle of the field on a slant route, you’ll see the fluidity from Jacobs while playing through the hands of the receiver to breakup the pass. This is textbook coverage from Jacobs and I hope he’s able to build off it.
Lastly, I want to focus on a play where Jacobs is in tight coverage and it forces the quarterback to over throw to the middle of the field. Looking at the play above, you’ll see the Packers come out in a 2×2 set on offense.
To defend this, the Lions come out in a dime package (3-2-6) on defense. But they player they have roaming around the box is defensive end Aidan Hutchinson. The Lions end up sending Hutchinson to bring another 4-man pressure. Meanwhile, they three safeties roaming near the first down marker and that indicates the Lions are willing to give up the yardage underneath. They just don’t want to get beat deep.
At the top of the screen, you’ll see Jacobs have either flats coverage or curl-to-flats responsibility with a safety over the top of him. The receiver aligned across from Jacobs runs a hitch route and while the quarterback reads left, he sees Jacobs in tight coverage so the quarterback scans to the middle of the field. This is where he decides to essentially throw it deep and get rid of the football so he doesn’t get sacked.