Dom McRaven
Hall of Famer
It's gonna sting watching Baker and/or Josh Allen win a playoff game before Lamar (if we miss the playoffs this season).
Steelers won't be the 1 seed now.
If the Ravens were to be the #7, I would feel way better about going to Heinz, than Arrowhead.
For me, its basically don't blitz. Rush 4-5 and play coverage. Skins didn't even get much pressure yesterday and still held them in check.There wasn’t much to expose.
play top down coverage, don’t turn the ball over, make good sound tackles, don’t fall for the PI bait. When the Steelers aren’t getting PI calls and refs aren’t bailing them out and you don’t give them short fields, they don’t score. They are good for ONE drive of 80 yards per game against a good defense.
True, but if we win out, we'll be 11-5, and 11-5 isn't getting the 7 seed. That'll be a 5 or 6 seed, at worst.If the Steelers win out, they'll still have #1 seed, as their conference record will be better than KC.
Also of note, if both we and Steelers win out, we'll have a higher seed than the Browns. (Or if we win out and Browns lose any other game.)
We all know that all roads eventually go through the Chiefs, though it would be nice if that wasn't our first playoff game.
There wasn’t much to expose.
play top down coverage, don’t turn the ball over, make good sound tackles, don’t fall for the PI bait. When the Steelers aren’t getting PI calls and refs aren’t bailing them out and you don’t give them short fields, they don’t score. They are good for ONE drive of 80 yards per game against a good defense.
So what does that mean?
a) Pittsburgh either doesn't or doesn't want to throw down field. Their entire pass game is based on quick throws and YAC.
b) So the solution to that is typically don't blitz, play coverage, and tackle well. If you do those things, you can usually neutralize their passing game.
It felt like that deception has been missing lately tbh, most of this season it’s been more about just throwing the kitchen sink it feels like, it’s really nice to see a change up, and hopefully wink is growing as a coordinator and can start learning to do more with coverage than just lean on your corners talent. I’ve been a big proponent of using bowser in coverage more for a while, I thought he would have been better as a edge rusher this year but oh well, regardless I wanted him to drop more from showing blitz, also I am perfectly okay with the way we gave up the short stuff and made the tackles, the press coverage and baiting and bailing on assignments to jump routes and going for fumbles is very exciting when it works, but god damn if we ran the same coverage from the Steelers game against the Titans, we probably would’ve beat them, we were overly aggressive same as the last time we played them, we gave up big chunks and let guys break tackles for big runs as we go for the strip, etc. and it felt like a different defense vs the Steelers.i think the crucial thing here was the ravens (and everyone) knew the steelers werent going to run the ball, they also know that big ben is getting the ball out quicker than any other player in the league
you're right that you dont want to blitz them but what we did was muddy the line of scrimmage (like we do even when we are blitzing) and create free rushers and free hits with scheme and flexible use of EDGE and linebackers to take away hot reads, throwing lanes but also create confusion upfront
the ravens are a great blitzing team not just because of the numbers we send but because of the way we create deception
It felt like that deception has been missing lately tbh, most of this season it’s been more about just throwing the kitchen sink it feels like, it’s really nice to see a change up, and hopefully wink is growing as a coordinator and can start learning to do more with coverage than just lean on your corners talent. I’ve been a big proponent of using bowser in coverage more for a while, I thought he would have been better as a edge rusher this year but oh well, regardless I wanted him to drop more from showing blitz, also I am perfectly okay with the way we gave up the short stuff and made the tackles, the press coverage and baiting and bailing on assignments to jump routes and going for fumbles is very exciting when it works, but god damn if we ran the same coverage from the Steelers game against the Titans, we probably would’ve beat them, we were overly aggressive same as the last time we played them, we gave up big chunks and let guys break tackles for big runs as we go for the strip, etc. and it felt like a different defense vs the Steelers.
sorry if I didn’t make sense at any point, this was rambled as I multitasked and I typed it in 3 different sessions lol and I don’t have time to revise
Apparently Queen has been graded by PFF as the 2nd worst defender in the entire NFL. I know PFF isn't everything, but I feel he has played better than that. What's everyone's thoughts on that?
Apparently Queen has been graded by PFF as the 2nd worst defender in the entire NFL. I know PFF isn't everything, but I feel he has played better than that. What's everyone's thoughts on that?
I think his grade has suffered because of 2 really rough games earlier this year... particularly the Chiefs game in which he’d have probably graded negative if that was a thing. I think he’s been solid otherwise. Coverage has been a weak spot but there have been moments. Positive signs are there. I think he’s the exact type of guy that a full offseason would really help. Lots of responsibility in a complex defense.
Ah, this makes sense. Thanks for explaining.because of the way their grading system works - making big impact splash plays are less important than consistency
every single snap gets graded with a score that ranges from -2 to +2 which creates a total when all the plays are tallied that then gets normalised into a grade out of 100
so even if you make 3 massively important critical plays the highest those plays will score you cumulatively is +6 but every time you get caught in the wash or get drawn out of your zone that’s taking away from that score too
All offseason winks talked about not worrying that much if queen screws up as long as he screws up at 100 miles an hour because the worst thing he could do is doubt himself and hesitate - which means he’s going to screw up frequently but it also means he can make important plays in big moments and their impact won’t be reflected in the grade
it’s no secret that queen has struggled in coverage and every time that happens no matter whether the ball went in that direction or not he gets dinged by pff
it’s not a bad system necessarily but it’s important to understand the context of the grading to work out why it might not reflect what you think it should
especially with LB play where it’s so hard to be right on many plays and especially with the way we use LBs especially with the way we blitz
this sort of grading system is great for normalising OL grades and will probably help a ton more OL get all-pro votes and eventually hall of fame nominations too
but as with everything it’s a tool to analyse not the be-all-end-all
I wasn’t implying that we’ve changed anything up, just that since we’ve had wink we have really just been all blitz and I feel like we could stand to use more disguised coverages when the game calls for it, like the chiefs gamei dont agree with that - we've been sending numbers for sure but no more than last year - and the blitz designs have been as amazing as ever - the stunts, the decisions to drop various guys from the LoS vs rushing DBs etc.
we're an aggressive defence because we want to control what the offence is doing - it was nice to see Wink be able to change it up when the offence against us doesnt fit that style of play and the losses in personnel made some things tougher
I have never trusted their grading as far as coverage goes, OL grading is suspect too I thought, dont they struggle to properly grade combo blocks and don’t allocate their “points” appropriately on a lot of plays?because of the way their grading system works - making big impact splash plays are less important than consistency
every single snap gets graded with a score that ranges from -2 to +2 which creates a total when all the plays are tallied that then gets normalised into a grade out of 100
so even if you make 3 massively important critical plays the highest those plays will score you cumulatively is +6 but every time you get caught in the wash or get drawn out of your zone that’s taking away from that score too
All offseason winks talked about not worrying that much if queen screws up as long as he screws up at 100 miles an hour because the worst thing he could do is doubt himself and hesitate - which means he’s going to screw up frequently but it also means he can make important plays in big moments and their impact won’t be reflected in the grade
it’s no secret that queen has struggled in coverage and every time that happens no matter whether the ball went in that direction or not he gets dinged by pff
it’s not a bad system necessarily but it’s important to understand the context of the grading to work out why it might not reflect what you think it should
especially with LB play where it’s so hard to be right on many plays and especially with the way we use LBs especially with the way we blitz
this sort of grading system is great for normalising OL grades and will probably help a ton more OL get all-pro votes and eventually hall of fame nominations too
but as with everything it’s a tool to analyse not the be-all-end-all
As far as I know they don't splitt sacks when grading OL. In some cases like filmstudy does it makes more sense to allocate half or 3/4 sack which leads to a less biased grading.I have never trusted their grading as far as coverage goes, OL grading is suspect too I thought, dont they struggle to properly grade combo blocks and don’t allocate their “points” appropriately on a lot of plays?