Rooting for your team in a real game is easy. Just keep yelling. If something good happens, yell joyously. If something bad happens, yell angrily. Repeat these steps for all of eternity.
Watching your team play in the preseason is much different. There are no stakes. Nothing worth yelling about. Once the novelty of “football is back!” wears off, many fans start flipping to another channel by halftime.
Visit our New York Jets Analytics page to learn the advanced football numbers.
Don’t be one of those fans.
There is a lot to learn from each NFL preseason game – if you know how to watch it like the coaches do.
From the first time you pick up a bat in your Little League career, your coaches will drill the phrase “keep your eye on the ball” into your tiny skull.
Erase that from your mind. To be a certified Grade A preseason watcher, you need to follow one rule: take your eye off the ball.
Former NFL coach Pat Kirwan popularized this phrase in his 2010 book “Take Your Eye Off the Ball: How to Watch Football by Knowing Where to Look.” It’s from this book where I learned the phrase, and where I began to learn how to stop watching football like an Internet troll and start watching it like someone with a brain.
I highly recommend the book, and you should pick it up if you want to dive deep into how the philosophy applies to every facet of the game. To sum it up, though, the gist of “taking your eye off the ball” is simple: make the effort to watch things that you are not trained to watch.
From the snap to the whistle, the camera follows the ball, training fans to stay fixated on the ball throughout the duration of the play. This causes people spend most of the play staring at the quarterback or the running back instead of observing the many other simultaneous events that will determine the result of the play just as much as the guy with the ball, if not more so.
Instead of watching the quarterback stand around for three seconds, watch the pass protection. It’s hard to process all five players at once, so pick a player before the snap and focus on him throughout the play. Try to watch the same player for a few consecutive plays or drives to see how consistently he is winning his reps.
Or, if the Jets are on defense, pick a defensive lineman to watch. How fast is his get-off? Does he generate push with his bull rush? Does he win with his finesse moves? Is he effective on stunts? The answers to these questions will determine who makes the roster – not who lucks into a sack or two. Don’t wait for a defensive lineman to make an on-ball play to notice him. Look out for wins, pressures, and other subtle contributions that might not make it into the stat sheet.
On a run play, instead of watching the running back, keep your eyes glued to the run-blocking. Don’t just write off a run for zero yards as a wasted play that should be forgotten about the moment it ends; these reps matter and deserve as much attention as a 40-yard pass. Look closely to see whose blown block caused the run to be stuffed. It’s lazy to attribute failed runs to the entire offensive line instead of pinpointing the exact culprits.
In the event of a successful run by the Jets, see if you can figure out whose blocks made it happen. The running back doesn’t always deserve all the credit for a great run. If it’s an unblocked 20-yard run where the running back breaks zero tackles before going out of bounds, we should be shouting out the blockers that created the lane, not praising the running back for something he had essentially no part in facilitating just because he got the statistical credit.
If the Jets make a stop against the run, don’t just give credit to the guy who makes the tackle. Try to see if anybody else contributed to stuffing the run by eating up blocks or penetrating a gap. Watch the edge defenders and see if they do a good job of setting the edge. When the Jets allow a big run, see if you can pinpoint who was at fault by missing a tackle or failing to plug their gap.
Unfortunately, television broadcasts do not give us an opportunity to watch all 22 players on the field at once, which is a real shame. This makes it tough to analyze the away-from-the-ball events in the back end, particularly the receiver-versus-corner battles, the offense’s route concept, and the defense’s coverage call.
However, networks will occasionally show replays with the All-22 angle. To prove you are a true die-hard preseason psycho, take the time to pause and rewind the game when these replays are provided. Study the coverage schemes. See how the cornerbacks, safeties, and linebackers performed in coverage, regardless of whether they were targeted.
While taking your eye off the ball is the best way to analyze any football game, it is hard to watch football this way if your favorite team is playing in a regular season or playoff game. In those situations, you’re emotionally invested and want to overreact, not overanalyze.
That is why the preseason is a great opportunity to practice this method of watching football. With no stakes, you can put on your scouting cap, sit back, relax, and study Takkarist McKinley’s get-off in his one-on-one reps against Cornelius Lucas.
Preseason football, baby!