Next Up: @ Washington

[Militant X 1]

Gus runs downhill hard! Bruising type of back and I love that!

 

[RavensMania]

beat the sh!t out of them.

I know this is wrong on so many levels due to the Potomac Drainage Basin being in the NFC, but if I had to pick us beating one team between KC and the Skins it would be the Skins.

 

[Militant X 1]

After that b.s. I witnessed from the Ravens on the field last night, there is no pregame hype up, no excitement and no enthusiasm from me at this point for the Ravens vs WFT game.

Just win the game!

 

[Deebo813]

Man i hope lamar comes out this game healthy. That front 7 nasty. I mean we did kinda injury rg3. Prolly see some rg3 action against his former team anyway

 

[JO_75]

Is Chase Young ruled out for the game?

 

[QuothTheRaven]

Bad teams like the Steelers Bills Patriots Texans Niners and Seahawks last year?
There's criticism for Lamars postseason record and the chiefs are obviously a problem, but what in the world would lead anyone to say that Baltimore can't beat good teams? Anyone saying that who is not a Chiefs fan probably has no room to talk since it's likely that Baltimore has soundly beaten their squad.

You can only play the teams on the schedule and it's Washingtons turn to get slapped now.

Yeah I know. We can hang our hats on the Patriots and 49ers games last year in particular. I was just fed up yesterday but I'm ready to go win now.

 

[rossihunter2]

After that b.s. I witnessed from the Ravens on the field last night, there is no pregame hype up, no excitement and no enthusiasm from me at this point for the Ravens vs WFT game.

Just win the game!

winning won't be enough - we need to send a message in this game - the nfl's last sighting of us was pathetic we need to make a big enough statement that monday night wasnt us

 

[ravenslord]

Am i the only one who thinks Washington will give us a scare?

 

[rossihunter2]

this is dire - how did the pass rush get worse - we havent lost anyone except michael pierce and chris wormley who werent doing anything pass-rushing-wise, tyus bowser's better than he was last year and we've added campbell and wolfe on the DL as well as Queen and Harrison at LB (we still have LJ)

but the blitzes just arent working which leads me to believe it's down to 1 of these 2 things:

1. the blitz scheme has been found out with teams able to prepare for it better and understand what we're doing and take advantage of it
2. peanut was that crucial to the pass rush that it's fallen apart without him

and i dont know which is more troubling

not sure really what we can do to fix it beyond hope that justin madubuike is everything we hope he is

 

[rossihunter2]

 

[rmcjacket23]

Am i the only one who thinks Washington will give us a scare?

I'm not seeing many paths where Washington scores more than MAYBE like 17 points. They have very limited talent on offense, I don't think they'll be able to run the ball at all, and Haskins is a statue back there and gets rattled easily. I expect our defense to really bounce back and make a statement.

If they give us a scare, it'll be from self-inflicted problems, i.e. turnovers, sloppy play, etc. On talent alone, they should not be able to compete with us for very long.

I expect a 30-10 type victory

 

[cdp]

this is dire - how did the pass rush get worse - we havent lost anyone except michael pierce and chris wormley who werent doing anything pass-rushing-wise, tyus bowser's better than he was last year and we've added campbell and wolfe on the DL as well as Queen and Harrison at LB (we still have LJ)

but the blitzes just arent working which leads me to believe it's down to 1 of these 2 things:

1. the blitz scheme has been found out with teams able to prepare for it better and understand what we're doing and take advantage of it
2. peanut was that crucial to the pass rush that it's fallen apart without him

and i dont know which is more troubling

not sure really what we can do to fix it beyond hope that justin madubuike is everything we hope he is

We also have to consider we played Watson and Mahomes. Two guys who aren't easy to sack and aren't necessarily affected by pressures because they extend plays.
I don't like to single out pressure % without taking a loot at each of its components (sacks, hurries and knockdowns). The problem is we generate hurries - 11.3% (ranks 9th) - but we can't convert them into sacks and/or knockdowns (rank 30th).
To beat the Chiefs I wouldn't focus too much on defense. They're going to score no matter what you throw at them. Our offense has to score consistently.

 

[rmcjacket23]

We also have to consider we played Watson and Mahomes. Two guys who aren't easy to sack and aren't necessarily affected by pressures because they extend plays.
I don't like to single out pressure % without taking a loot at each of its components (sacks, hurries and knockdowns). The problem is we generate hurries - 11.3% (ranks 9th) - but we can't convert them into sacks and/or knockdowns (rank 30th).
To beat the Chiefs I wouldn't focus too much on defense. They're going to score no matter what you throw at them. Our offense has to score consistently.

I agree with everything but the last part. If your defense plays like it did on Monday night, you're never beating KC. They scored 34, but they could have scored 45-50 if they didn't take their foot off the gas.
Nobody should expect a shut down game, but you need to be able to hold them to like 25-30 points to have a chance to win.
Their defense isn't great, but they're certainly good enough to hold good offenses to 30 points themselves. So if the expectation is to win shootouts, I think KC is more than comfortable playing that game.
I obviously know 20 points isn't close to enough to win. But 30 still would have lost and probably lost badly. And even against KC, I think scoring 30 points should be enough to win in the long run.

 

[JoeyFlex5]

I agree with everything but the last part. If your defense plays like it did on Monday night, you're never beating KC. They scored 34, but they could have scored 45-50 if they didn't take their foot off the gas.
Nobody should expect a shut down game, but you need to be able to hold them to like 25-30 points to have a chance to win.
Their defense isn't great, but they're certainly good enough to hold good offenses to 30 points themselves. So if the expectation is to win shootouts, I think KC is more than comfortable playing that game.
I obviously know 20 points isn't close to enough to win. But 30 still would have lost and probably lost badly. And even against KC, I think scoring 30 points should be enough to win in the long run.

The key is to control the pace of the game, that’s where we failed yet again. We go out and throw 3 incompletions and punt after giving up a long TD drive and it’s a compounding effect, it gasses our D, it lets the chiefs figure out our D even more, and only a minute or so has passed so now they’re getting enough time in the half for a whole extra TD drive, and then they further the score gap which as we know hurts us more than anyone because we are gonna stray even further from the run game. If we are marching and burning clock then the chiefs now have to score on every possession or else they’ll lose, they had 2 turnovers, we had a ST TD, that’s the game right there, that’s before you add the extra likelihood of a turnover due to forcing plays.

if we are taking 5-6-7 minute drives, whether it ends in a fg, punt, or even no points, we are controlling the pace and forcing the issue, we won’t win a shootout, but in a game where we had a special teams TD, a forced fumble, and a midfield TOD(2 stolen possessions and a free score) we not only can win, we almost certainly WILL win, yes even against the chiefs, if we are controlling the pace. We give them so many extra chances to score by going 3 and out and burning no time off the clock.

the defense was dog shit, no way around that, one of the worst performances I’ve ever seen from the ravens, but it’s the goddamn chiefs and we gave them everything they wanted, which was basically easy stops to get extra chances on offense.

it’s no coincidence that we played hands down our best game vs the chiefs with the least talented of our rosters the last 3 years, it’s because in 2018, despite our defense being less talented and less complete, and our offense having no threats at all, we didn’t trust Lamar to pass and we forced the run and as a result we dominated a large portion of the game and lost on a blind faith heave that is intercepted 9 times out of 10. We run the better now than we did then, but we always get away from it the second the chiefs hit the scoreboard, we will never beat them until we stop trying to make Lamar into pat mahomes

 

[rossihunter2]

 

[rmcjacket23]

The key is to control the pace of the game, that’s where we failed yet again. We go out and throw 3 incompletions and punt after giving up a long TD drive and it’s a compounding effect, it gasses our D, it lets the chiefs figure out our D even more, and only a minute or so has passed so now they’re getting enough time in the half for a whole extra TD drive, and then they further the score gap which as we know hurts us more than anyone because we are gonna stray even further from the run game. If we are marching and burning clock then the chiefs now have to score on every possession or else they’ll lose, they had 2 turnovers, we had a ST TD, that’s the game right there, that’s before you add the extra likelihood of a turnover due to forcing plays.

if we are taking 5-6-7 minute drives, whether it ends in a fg, punt, or even no points, we are controlling the pace and forcing the issue, we won’t win a shootout, but in a game where we had a special teams TD, a forced fumble, and a midfield TOD(2 stolen possessions and a free score) we not only can win, we almost certainly WILL win, yes even against the chiefs, if we are controlling the pace. We give them so many extra chances to score by going 3 and out and burning no time off the clock.

the defense was dog shit, no way around that, one of the worst performances I’ve ever seen from the ravens, but it’s the goddamn chiefs and we gave them everything they wanted, which was basically easy stops to get extra chances on offense.

it’s no coincidence that we played hands down our best game vs the chiefs with the least talented of our rosters the last 3 years, it’s because in 2018, despite our defense being less talented and less complete, and our offense having no threats at all, we didn’t trust Lamar to pass and we forced the run and as a result we dominated a large portion of the game and lost on a blind faith heave that is intercepted 9 times out of 10. We run the better now than we did then, but we always get away from it the second the chiefs hit the scoreboard, we will never beat them until we stop trying to make Lamar into pat mahomes

So, I think it depends on what drive you're looking at.

The second drive, when we're down 6-3, we basically have to throw. Its 1st and 20, not 1st and 10. We ran it on first down, and Boyle gets called for a phantom tripping penalty. Its a bad call obviously, but the fact remains you now need 20 yards, not 10. Now your playbook is significantly less open, and we punt. Like you can run the ball there, but you're still looking at 2nd and/or 3rd and long, since its not like our running game, outside of Lamar, was going for chunk yardage early in the game. That's been our problem all year... last year we would start the game with chunk runs. We've had very few of those until the second half this season.

Now, our first possession in the 2nd quarter, where we're down 13-10, we did go three and out on 3 passes, which was an interesting play call to be certain. But our defense was also fairly rested at that point, having forced a 3 and out the prior drive.

The next time we get the ball back, we're down 20-10, we do run twice, but only for 5 yards. Then you're down 27-10, we're in the 2 minute drill now (all passing obviously), and you're down 17 at half, which obviously limits your ability to run and get back in the game in the second half.

So in my eyes, there's basically one drive that was head scratching to me in the first half. I was actually overtly critical of our "run first" mentality in the second half, because you literally don't have time for 7 minute drives when you're down 17-20 points in the 2nd half.

 

[JAAM]

What’s Khalil Mack up too these days? Just kidding. Kind of.

 

[JAAM]

Seriously though, are there any great pass rushers on shitty teams with a year or two left on their deals that we can pry away? I’m starting to think the Wolfe signing was a wash.

JO said something interesting in another thread. He commented on maybe switching to a 43 next season and replicating the 9ers’s system. We have a cover LB in Queen. Can Harrison play OLB in coverage? Then just go all out on pass rushers in the draft that put their hands in the dirt and get lucky and nab one for cheap in FA. This big dime blitzing crap is being exposed. It’s not going to work against the cerebral QBs like we saw Monday night. We need organic pressure

 

[RavensFan419]

This probably isn't the thread for this but at this point I'm so incredibly happy we didn't pay Judon thank god

 

[rmcjacket23]

Seriously though, are there any great pass rushers on shitty teams with a year or two left on their deals that we can pry away? I’m starting to think the Wolfe signing was a wash.

JO said something interesting in another thread. He commented on maybe switching to a 43 next season and replicating the 9ers’s system. We have a cover LB in Queen. Can Harrison play OLB in coverage? Then just go all out on pass rushers in the draft that put their hands in the dirt and get lucky and nab one for cheap in FA. This big dime blitzing crap is being exposed. It’s not going to work against the cerebral QBs like we saw Monday night. We need organic pressure

In my opinion, the notion of a 3-4 vs 4-3 is largely irrelevant in the modern NFL. You're spending most of your snaps in either Nickel or Dime coverage. Your "base" packages are like 20 snaps a game or less in a lot of cases.

Plus, like yeah you could make the switch, but does it really matter if you don't have the personnel? What DT's or DE's do we have on the roster that are really going to matter in a 4-3? Campbell? He'll be retired in 2-3 years, so I'm not switching base packages just for him.