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Originally posted by Critty
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4. Murray played 44 defensive snaps in the game and was featured prominently in the linebacker rotation. He played 55 percent of the defensive snaps — the second-highest percentage he has played in a game since Week 11. He played 75 percent of the snaps against the Texans in Week 16, but that was primarily because Drue Tranquill left that game with an ankle injury. Tranquill was back for Sunday night, but he was still dealing with the effects of that injury. So that played a part in Murray’s high snap count. But Staley also game-planned to have Murray on the field in high-leverage moments. Murray was the lone linebacker on the field in dime packages (six defensive backs). The Chargers played dime on 27 percent of their defensive plays, their second-highest dime rate in any game this season, according to TruMedia. The only game in which they played more dime was the Week 3 win over the Chiefs.
That 27 percent came out to 20 plays. Murray was on the field for 19 of those 20 plays as the only linebacker. The Chargers played dime in the red zone late in the third quarter on a second-and-goal from the 6-yard line. Carr threw incomplete to Edwards on a fade. Tranquill was on the field as the lone linebacker for that play.
Of the 19 plays Murray was in as the lone linebacker in dime packages, 11 were third downs. The Chargers entered the game with the worst third-down defense in the league. Kyzir White, their best linebacker all season, played on only six third downs. Overall, White played 71 percent of the snaps, his lowest percentage in a game since Week 3.
Why take your most reliable linebacker off the field on third downs — an area where the Chargers have struggled significantly — in the biggest game of the season?
This is how Staley explained it after the game: “Murray gives us a really good rusher, and he’s a really good man-to-man cover guy. And that’s what we were going to do in this game, is we were going to play a lot of man-to-man, and he’s our best man-to-man coverage guy. And we felt like that would be a role for him in this game that would be a lift for us. And then we had Kyzir playing like he normally does in everything else. So it was just something that we felt like in dime, because we were planning on playing that grouping a lot, that it would help us if we pressured, which we didn’t end up doing. But he’s also our best man-to-man coverage guy. So we just felt like that was going to be a good role for him tonight, and it had no impact on what happened whatsoever.”
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