A film breakdown of Jarryd Hayne's big plays in the NFL pre-season

Jarryd Hayne in his first pre-season game in the NFL. Picture: Bob Levey, Getty Images

Australia, it might be wise to temper your expectations for at least this season on Jarryd Hayne and his NFL dream.

The Australian media is fawning all over Hayne, and the American media is even catching on as well, but there are still hurdles in the way for Hayne to leap if he wants to claim a roster spot.

Just a note here that this writer absolutely wants to see Hayne succeed, and regardless of how far his NFL plan goes, I think he is a great NRL player and has potential to be a great NFL player too.

The following article will breakdown game film to show how Hayne’s two big runs happened, as well as his most eye catching punt return against the Dallas Cowboys at the weekend, and why it doesn't necessarily guarantee him a spot.

Hayne has had two big runs so far, and four eye catching punt returns.

Hayne’s first big play was in the second quarter of the match, and he took the hand-off from quarterback Blaine Gabbert.

This is important to note because McCoy is the second string quarterback, which means Hayne was most likely on the field with either a mix of first and second string players, or the second string team.

This means that for the Texans, there were likely similar personnel groupings on the field.

While he still has to perform against the second string players, we have yet to Hayne get significant time with the first string offense, which means he has not been extensively tested against first string defences.

The first big play we saw from Hayne was in the first pre-season game against the Houston Texans.

It was a stretch run to the left, which was blocked perfectly by the 49ers.

The 49ers have eight guys in the box, and the Texans also have eight guys (the box is an imaginary area between the offensive tackles and about 7 yards deep in each area).

The red box shows “the box”. Houston Texans rookie linebacker Bernardrick McKinney, #55, has two gaps to cover, indicated by the blues lines. His assignment is to read the play and fill the gap which the play is flowing to. 49ers fullback Bruce Miller, #49, executes an excellent block later in this play.

The play starts and it is immediately clear the 49ers have the advantage. Just a second into the play, the numbers in the box turn from 8 on 8 to 9 on 7 in favour of the 49ers.

The two inside linebackers for the Texans get caught in traffic, which leaves them out of position.

#55 fills the wrong hole. Hayne’s red line indicates where he is running to. #49’s red line indicates the player he is about to block. The San Francisco wide receiver, furtherest white jumper to the left, is about to crackback into the linebacker meant to contain.

The play side defensive end is blocked by the tight end on the left, and is then cleared out of the gap by fullback Bruce Miller.

Shows the inviting gap Hayne is about to run through.

The play side outside linebacker, who looks in this play to have contain but this is just a guess, gets blown up by a crackback block by the wide receiver from the 49ers.

With the inside linebacker, #55, who should have been in the hole to stop Hayne caught up in traffic, and the defensive end blown away by Miller, a gaping hole opens up on the line .

Three Jarryd Hayne’s could have fit through the hole created, and with that much space and his physical attributes, it was child’s play to dodge the safety and take the ball upfield.

Off to the races.

In week two, Hayne pulled off another big run, this time against the Dallas Cowboys.

It was in the third quarter, and Hayne was on the field with the third string offence.

Cowboys’ safety Jeff Heath, #38, is meant to cover the gap that Hayne eventually runs into.

Dallas Cowboys safet Jeff Heath, #38, has the C gap if the play is a run.

Both teams have eight guys in the box and theoretically the Cowboys should be able to cover the play.

The play by the offence is called a “read-option”. The quarterback basically takes the snap, and places the ball in Hayne’s belly as Hayne runs to his assigned gap. The play all hinges on what the defensive end on the side opposite where the running back runs. In this case, Hayne runs right (in the pictures anyway) and the defensive end is on the left. The quarterback reads the defensive end to see what he does. If the defensive end bites down and chases Hayne, the quarterback removes the ball from Hayne’s belly and runs himself. In this case, the defensive end does not bite, so the quarterback lets Hayne take the ball.

The red line shows where Hayne will run, the blue line shows Heath looking at the quarterback.

Heath gets caught watching what the quarterback is doing. It looks as if he reads pass, because he drops back and to the middle of the field slightly, instead of charging the hole he is assigned to cover.

The red box is where Hayne is running, with no defenders in it. The red line shows the quarterback running to the right, faking as though he has the ball. The blue line shows Heath still looking at the quarterback.

To be fair to Heath, we can see it is not a pass from our angle, but on the field, with several offensive linemen who tower above Heath, it can be hard to even see Hayne.

In any case, Heath completely misreads the play, and is not in his assigned gap when Hayne hits the hole, in fact, he is a few yards deep and to the inside of the hole.

The two lines show the depth between Hayne and Heath. It is about seven to eight yards. If Heath read the play correctly, it should be zero to two yards.

Hayne running through the gap untouched.

Heath sprints to catch Hayne but Hayne is too quick and delivers a stiffs arm to his face and then is off to the races.

The last play breakdown is one of Hayne’s punt returns, which was in the first quarter of the game against Dallas.

The Dallas gunner essentially has a 50-50 chance he will tackle Hayne for a minimal gain because of how fast he has to run to get to where the punt is caught.

The gunners are the Dallas players at the top and bottom of the screen.

Gunners are always moving very fast when they get near the returner so it is always a tricky proposition as to whether they will actually make the tackle or fly past, like this gunner does.

The amount of room Hayne has to play with.

Hayne makes the gunner miss.

After this Hayne simply follows his blockers upfield and unfortunately cannot beat the tackle of the punter, which if he did, you would think he would take it all the way to the house.

The red box shows a 49ers player about the block the player in the best position at this stage of the play to make a tackle on Hayne.

The block worked. Look at how much space on the field there is for Hayne to work with. He plays it smart and follows his blockers.

Hayne slips through an arm tackle and follows his blockers. The red box shows the next block in the sequence which allows the play to continue.

The final block before Hayne is tackled by the punter. Bruce Miller shows up again and cleans up the Dallas player trying to make the tackle.

While Hayne showed quickness of feet, as well as vision on this play, the importance of the blocks cannot be understated.

At least three potential tacklers are prevented from getting to Hayne because of blocks by the 49ers.

While Hayne has undoubtedly had success so far in his NFL try-out, it can be easy to get carried away and assume he has locked down a roster spot.

To an outside observer it does seem likely Hayne will secure a spot with the 49ers as a return specialist, but whether he sees anytime at running back is a completely different story.

Firstly, there are at least five running backs on the 49ers’ roster who have potential to make the team.

Second year player Carlos Hyde is widely tipped to be the starter, and long time veteran Reggie Bush is there as well. The 49ers also have Kendall Hunter on the team, who has spent a number of seasons with the team, and was mostly a backup behind long term 49ers legend Frank Gore. There is also fourth round draft pick Mike Davis. Hayne signed after the draft, and it is possible the 49ers had not factored him into their plans when they drafted Davis, but a fourth round pick is unlikely to get the boot in his rookie season.

Secondly, it needs to be made clear that this is the pre-season.

The Detroit Lions went 4-0 in the pre-season in 2008 and then went 0-16 in the regular season, the only time an NFL team has never won at least one game.

The pre-season is not the same as the regular season. After Green Bay Packers player Jordy Nelson tore his ACL in the Packers' game at the weekend, his quarterback, Aaron Rodgers, described the game as 'meaningless'.

Most teams only send their starters out for one or two series and then bench them for the rest of the game in the pre-season.

The Atlanta Falcons lost to the New York Jets at the weekend, but when the starters were on the field, the Falcons looked much better than the Jets.

Hayne had eight carries for 54 yards at the weekend, a team high. But this doesn’t mean much, because four other guys also had carries, including Carlos Hyde, who had six carries for 39 yards and a better yards per carry stat to boot. Rushing yards in the pre-season mean very little because starters are often only on the field for one or two drivers and then benched for roster bubble guys.

It would be fair to say plenty of Australians want to see Hayne succeed in the NFL, and you can count this writer in that group, but temper your expectations because most Australians are only seeing Hayne’s achievements through the Australian media prism. He will ultimately be judged through the American football coaching prism, and on what value he can bring to the 49ers.

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