Charles Clay vs 3-4 & 4-3 defenses (1 Viewer)

[PitBoss55]

This guy is so boom or bust that I went game-by-game looking for some clues as to why.

And I got something.

All his huge games are against 3-4 defenses, and all of his duds are against 4-3 defenses.

3-4 Defenses Faced:

W2 Indy 5/109

W4 NO 6/42/1

W11 SD 6/90/1

W13 NYJ 7/80

W14 PIT 7/97/2

4-3 Defenses Faced:

W8 NE 5/37

W9 Cin 3/22

W10 TB 4/21

W12 Car 4/27

W15 NE 1/6

This week he's got the Buffalo Bills, a 3-4 defense.

Full disclosure: My list of teams running 3-4 vs 4-3 defenses was dated January, so its possible a change may have been made.

 

[ChuckLiddell]

Its a big enough sample size and the numbers are pretty conclusive. The question that comes to my mind though, is how does this make sense? What is the rationale for this discrepancy in statistics? I'm far from a football genius, but I would think that a TE would have a tougher time vs a 3-4 due to the extra potential LB in coverage. I understand that there are stunts, blitzes, etc that could change that, but from a base defense perspective, I would have thought that he would be better off vs a 3-4 than a 4-3.

Could possibly be that against 4-3 D's, he stays in more to block the extra down lineman. Speculating.

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

Could he be covered by a safety or corner in a 4-3, instead of a LB?

 

[buck naked]

What about weeks 1, 5, 6 & 7?

Edit - week 6 was a bye. Week 7 was a 1 catch performance against Buffalo, so that should be added to your list.

 

[Gatorman]

Buffalo is a sack machine kind of team and Miami is not the best of O lines, and their RBs are not great in pass protection. Either clay stays in to help block (hence his stat line from the last game) or there are going to be lot of short passes thrown.

 

[Kool-Aid Larry]

Could he be covered by a safety or corner in a 4-3, instead of a LB?

the problem is that this is overly simplistic, as teams generally don't run more than half the plays in base, and sometimes only a small fraction, so you have all these different looks as far as number of linemen, linebackers, and db's.