Film Room: Quenton Nelson vs. Washington Redskins — Pass Blocking

While we focused primarily on Quenton Nelson’s performance as a run blocker this week, we did grab a few clips to analyze how he handled the young and talented Redskins front seven. There were no glaring mistakes that stood out this week so the third clip is about as bad as it gets for Nelson.

On the Colts goal line, Washington brought in Ziggy Hood to generate pressure. Nelson was having none of it. As you can see here, Hood is not in the same class as other linemen the Colts have seen this year and Nelson makes mirroring and anchoring against him look easy.

We see some improvement in Nelson’s balance and hand-fighting in this clip. The defender attempts to club over and win the engagement by moving laterally. Nelson reacts and shuts the move down. If Luck sees this in front of him regularly throughout the year, football fans are in for a treat.

This play sticks out most as the most challenging passing snap in the game for Nelson. Even here, while he certainly has his hands full with the outside move and gives up his outside shoulder, the real issue is that Le’Raven Clark is driven directly back. The two offensive linemen end up colliding back in the pocket.

Throw in that Haeg gets pushed back into the pocket and Luck had to escape and get rid of the ball quicker than he would have liked here.

ANALYSIS

We didn’t place a great deal of emphasis on the passing game in this one as Luck wasn’t as active and frankly because there weren’t nearly as many plays that stuck out as worthy of specific focus, at least for Nelson. Still, the clips we did grab show that he is working on his ability to win versus lateral agility and continues to outclass his opponents consistently.