I do agree that Burns was the most to blame on that misidentified wheel route. I also played Free Safety, and I will tell you one thing. When I had deep 1/3 responsibility, I looked at the alignment pre-snap. They had 2WRs, and TE, and a RB (4 players) lined up to Mitchell's right, but he lines up the play on the left hash with one WR, directly over center. I would have at least lined up between the hashes, though I probably would have cheated to the opposite hash, because in all likelihood, this play was designed to go to the defenses right, due to the receiver overload. Also it is smart to line up in the center of the field anyway on deep 3rds, otherwise you are giving positioning to 4 players on the wider portion of the field, which you should never do with a receiver overload. That was the issue I had with Mitchell on that play in the game thread, not the fact that he wasn't in the play, but he could have helped his D with smarter positioning, and a player that is playing at 75% speed, needs all the positioning help they can to make plays.
This shows what I mean by seeing where Mitchell lined up on the play: http://www.Invalid Link - Check SN ...m-room-breaking-burns-sensabaughs-breakdowns/
The Sensabaugh TD was definitely his fault as well. No way that catch should have gone for a TD, and a healthy Mitchell makes that tackle 9/10 times. With poor COD playing injured, he is nowhere near making a play on that TD, even though he had deep help