Having Tony Romo working the booth gives viewers an understanding of the game in real time that we’ve never seen before.
On Sunday, Romo worked his magic again an explained something that looked like any other play in the NFL.
During the 4th quarter of Patriots-Saints with the game in check for New England, the Saints scored a touchdown. Instead of dropping more players into coverage that could have prevented a completion, the Patriots opted to blitz, something New England doesn’t tend to do in the red zone. But it was all on purpose.
Belichick called a blitz knowing he would likely give the Saints a meaningless touchdown just to skew the analytic findings of teams that have to play New England later in the season.
Analytics will now up the percentages of red zone blitzes for the Patriots defense, and while offenses will study these tendencies and prepare for such a blitz to occur, the Pats’ defense will be able to drop back and the opponent will have never seen it coming.
Unless they heard Romo’s telecast, of course.
