Buffalo Right Seven Heaven: All You Need To Know

The play that saved Minnesota’s season is titled something particularly fitting: Buffalo Right Seven Heaven. Since we’ve all watched the play more than a few times, I won’t bother recapping it. But we can watch it one more time, right? Or is that overkill? Oh, who am I kidding, let’s watch it again.

So what led to that amazing moment? Which Xs and Os made NFL history? I set out to break down the play that knocked the Saints, and Sean Payton’s premature gloating attempt, to infinity and beyond. The play’s name starts with Buffalo Right, which refers to the alignment and protection – a “bunch”, meaning three receivers that line up close to each other (“B”unch and “B”uffalo), on the right side of the formation. That puts McKinnon on the left, where there’s more space for an edge rusher to work, and one WR on the left.

“Seven Heaven” refers to the “seven” route, or code for a corner route. And there’s a ton of them at different depths, so it’s like a Heaven of seven routes. The defense was in a “Cover 2” defense – a fairly common decision for this point in a game. You get one deep safety on both sides of the field to prevent anyone from getting past you, while the two corners and three linebackers defend underneath and keep receivers in bounds.

Matt Harmon of NFL.com and purveyor of Next Gen Stats posted a bird’s eye view of the play for us to reference:

The design of the play is for every route to go toward the sideline (a middle-of-field catch doesn’t help much, does it?). This creates a “hi-lo” problem for the defense. Vikings will outnumber Saints on the right sideline, leaving a key defender (Ken Crawley, in this instance) between a rock and a hard place. He has to choose whether to take Diggs or Wright, both of whom come through his zone. Keenum throws to whichever Crawley doesn’t choose, tries to place it away from the lurking safety, and bam! A catch on the sideline in field goal range. Diggs or Wright step out of bounds with a few seconds left on the clock for Kai Forbath to kick a heart-numbing field goal.

The Cover 2 look that the Saints use isn’t perfect against such a play. Manti Te’o, Rafael Bush and Von Bell stay in the middle of the field, where nobody is. They’re entirely irrelevant to the play. But all is not lost –  if Ken Crawley thinks a hi-lo concept is coming, he knows to take the lower guy, and pass the higher guy off to his safety, Marcus Williams. Both Diggs and Wright will be covered, P.J. Williams stays in the flat to make sure Kyle Rudolph doesn’t pull any funny business, and Marshon Lattimore sticks to Adam Thielen like he did for most of the night.

Good news for New Orleans! Williams and Crawley read this correctly. Crawley sits down at the spot Keenum would place it if he were to lead Wright. Williams makes his first of two crucial mistakes. He has Diggs “bracketed,” with Crawley. That is, he and Crawley have Diggs surrounded. As long as Williams keeps Diggs in front of him, Crawley can finish him off. Williams should strafe right on that 30 yardline and try to get between Diggs and the boundary. Instead…

Keenum places it too high for Crawley to contest the ball, so he beelines to tackle Diggs. Williams drives on the ball and tries to contest the catch at the 35. His second crucial mistake is going low on the play. He drives to contest the catch, but doesn’t actually contest the catch.

Perhaps this was to avoid a disastrous DPI flag. Perhaps it was to try to upend Diggs, and land him in bounds. Thing is, both of those strategies are better served by strafing. Most likely, it was a young kid trying to make a play on the biggest stage of his life, and changing his mind last-minute about how aggressive to be. But his tackle misses, takes out Ken Crawley, and Diggs waltzes unopposed into the end zone.

There’s something to be said for the placement of the ball. The pass was too high, leaving Diggs with no purchase to resist a potential in-bounds tackle. But Stefon Diggs has a giant catch radius. He can jump that high. And when he jumps that high, what was an otherwise strategically prudent tackle by Marcus Williams suddenly becomes a life-altering, city-crushing, miracle-making whiff. It’s unlikely Keenum was that many steps ahead. The ball probably just sailed a little. But if you believe this was an act of God, this is how He’d have done it.

Finally, Diggs must be praised for the tail end of this play. Keeping his balance is an incredible athletic feat, but the awareness to know what happened behind him is something else entirely. Perhaps he saw someone on the sideline shouting that he had daylight. Perhaps he felt a brush, and knew it meant everyone fell down. Maybe he was just greedy -a young kid trying to make a play on the biggest stage of his life. Whatever it was, it decided the game, and altered the very personality of Vikings fandom. At least for now.

On to Philadelphia.

Thanks for reading!

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