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On Monday Night Football, Al Michaels interviewed Manning about his record breaking touchdown throw to Stokely. Manning said that the play was not designed, and that in the huddle, Manning ordered Stokely to fake the post and run the deep-in pattern. They had thrown several hitches to Reggie Wayne throughout the game, and the safety bit hard when Wayne ran yet another short hitch route. That opened up Stokely leaving only the other safety who got caught heading toward the corner of the endzone thinking it was a post pattern.
Gibbs once said back in his first stint with the Skins, that he didn't like the West Coast styled slant pattern because that often exposed the wideouts to devastating hits across the middle.
Gibbs called several wide receiver screens this year, and other than the first Dallas game, rarely called for bombs to WRs on the fly. From what I saw, and I watched practically every offensive play this year, screens to the running back were virtually non-existant. There might have been one or two slant patterns, but that's about it.
Another pattern I rarely saw was basic deep-in and deep-out routes. Same for the crossing patterns too.
We also have to consider though, that these routes may well have been in the game plan, it's just that this year, our quarterbacks simply didn't complete them, or our wide receivers weren't able to get open.
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