Perfect Blocking Leads to a Perfect Run!

The New York Giants obliterated the Washington Redskins today, 40-16.  The Giants have certainly gotten their money's worth from their first-round draft pick, Saquon Barkley (#26).  The rookie is having a great year.  Almost midway through the second quarter, the Giants faced 1st & 10 on their own 22-yard line.  The screen capture below shows the formation (click on image for a larger view).

Barkely is the lone running back and wide receiver Sterling Shepard (#87) is just behind the right side of the Giants line.  I've highlighted Washington free safety D. J. Swearinger (#36) because he's about to get to know Sterling Shepard really well.  The arrows I put on the image show where those two players will meet.

After Giants quarterback Eli Manning (#10) handed the ball to Barkley, the rookie saw a wonderful hole of daylight open up for him.  Check it out below (click on image for a larger view).

What running back wouldn't love that alley to run through!  Once Barkley blasted through the hole at 14 mph, Redskins strong safety Ha Ha Clinton-Dix (#20) became Washington's last hope.  Clinton-Dix is on the far left of the screen capture below (click on image for a larger view).

You can see that Clinton-Dix was about 7 yards in front of Barkley, but Clinton-Dix took the wrong angle of pursuit.  Check out the point when tackling Barkley was no longer possible (click on image for a larger view).

Barkley is climbing over 17 mph at that point and Clinton-Dix has to know that he's chosen the wrong pursuit angle.  By the time Barkley hit his top speed of nearly 22 mph, Clinton-Dix could only watch helplessly from behind (click on image for a larger view).

Barkley scored 4.7 seconds later in rather theatrical style as he hurdled the goal line (click on image for a larger view).

Washington fans didn't have much fun, but they surely had to respect the great blocking and phenomenal speed they witnessed on that play.

I need to take a few sentences and pay tribute to the great blocking on that play.  There were a total of eight Giants blocking eight Redskins, which formed the alley Barkley ran through.  Accounting for all the padding and helmets, the Giants brought about 2460 pounds of meat to the block party.  The Redskins countered with roughly 2330 pounds, which meant they were outweighed by an average of about 16 pounds.  It was as it everyone was the same size, but each of the Giants was blocking with a bowling ball!  Those 16 football players clashed together with weights comparable to two adult black rhinoceroses.  That's a lot of mass coming together to create that lane for Barkley!

It was fun talking about this play on TuneIn's 1st & Goal Check Down segment.  Chuck Nice of Playing with Science joined me on the show.  Click here for the audio link.