The Defence, The Bad, The Ugly - Chargers Edition

[Simba]

Speaking of Elliott, I really underestimated his impact. Not a perfect player by any stretch but he's such a tone setter.

 

[Deebo813]

More of bynes, less of queen right now..

 

[gtalk12]

Our defense makes no sense...they shut down the Flying Duck but struggled against the Colts lol

 

[gtalk12]

Every catch Bateman had was a first down and if he focused on that last one he would have had yet another first and some YAC.

Excited to see him

 

[redrum52]

Deshon Elliott is a goddamn fool btw, he said “we were gonna give it all to them, pause” in his press conference lmfaooooo

I think 1 person in the crowd caught it too.

For the pedestrian day Lamar had he still had 70% comp.

We've known for a while we're a better 2nd half team. This is the most confidence I've seen from this core group and mentally sound. We have reinforcements coming and this team is looking like it can make a deep run.

 

[JoeyFlex5]

I think 1 person in the crowd caught it too.

For the pedestrian day Lamar had he still had 70% comp.

We've known for a while we're a better 2nd half team. This is the most confidence I've seen from this core group and mentally sound. We have reinforcements coming and this team is looking like it can make a deep run.

We really need our run game and coverage to show some consistency, if that happens I’ll start feeling really optimistic.

I just don’t wanna see Lamar in a shootout against a great pass rush in January, in potentially bad weather, on a day where we have no run game to keep that great pass rush off balance. In other words, I worry about seeing either buffalo, Pitt, or Cleveland in January, those defenses worry me.

 

[redrum52]

We really need our run game and coverage to show some consistency, if that happens I’ll start feeling really optimistic.

I just don’t wanna see Lamar in a shootout against a great pass rush in January, in potentially bad weather, on a day where we have no run game to keep that great pass rush off balance. In other words, I worry about seeing either buffalo, Pitt, or Cleveland in January, those defenses worry me.

LOL

I feel you though. The OL seems to have failed us almost every post season with Lamar for some reason. Just a different vibe to this team. Everyone including coordinators seemed to have upped their game and poise.

 

[JoeyFlex5]

LOL


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I feel you though. The OL seems to have failed us almost every post season with Lamar for some reason. Just a different vibe to this team. Everyone including coordinators seemed to have upped their game and poise.

I agree, still gotta see it in January though.

and for Pittsburgh, that’s just because they’ve really given Lamar the shits on defense, and Lamar still seems to have the occasional blind spot when it comes to LBs underneath and the Steelers are the essential zone blitz team, and obviously they should be able to abuse tf out of our tackles, so they are just a bad matchup for our offense more than anything

 

[rmcjacket23]

Our defense makes no sense...they shut down the Flying Duck but struggled against the Colts lol

NFL is a matchup leagues. We matchup better with what the Chargers do offensively than what the Colts did. Colts actually had a running game and were a pretty balanced offense. Colts are a very pass-heavy offense.
Defensively, it's also night and day. Colts D is way better than the Chargers, and the Chargers appear to be following in the ideology of Brandon Staley, who basically throws in the towel on his defenses being able to stop the run. I can't necessarily blame him, because not many teams in this league can run the ball well AND, in that division, pretty much none of them do.

That being said, the NFL is also largely inconsistent. It was a great performance by our defense, but it could also easily be their best performance of the year. That's why if you ever hear "fans" or really anybody saying "o man look what V player on X team did to ya'll... you got no chance of stopping Y player on Z team"... it's all a bunch of bullshit. It's a week to week league. Practically nobody is consistent. Great teams aren't consistently great every week, and bad teams aren't consistently bad every week.

 

[Tank]

Lamar was deadly in the first quarter, after that it seemed like the chargers changed up defensively to bring more pressure and the line was folding in pass pro, and earlier in the game Lamar was scrambling well, in the second he suddenly stopped.

one thing I wish Lamar would stop doing is trying to step up into a collapsed pocket instead of rolling out. He really does try too hard to be a pocket passer sometimes

I'll have to rewatch to tell you exactly when, but he missed several big plays with errant throws. And he took some needless sacks. As we move through the season those plays will become more and more important with much less margin for error.

 

[Simba]

I'll have to rewatch to tell you exactly when, but he missed several big plays with errant throws. And he took some needless sacks. As we move through the season those plays will become more and more important with much less margin for error.

This is the big thing. He didn't play poorly by any stretch but he missed a couple of easy throws that would have turned this into another really good game for him. Not his best but far from his worst.

 

[redrum52]

I agree, still gotta see it in January though.

and for Pittsburgh, that’s just because they’ve really given Lamar the shits on defense, and Lamar still seems to have the occasional blind spot when it comes to LBs underneath and the Steelers are the essential zone blitz team, and obviously they should be able to abuse tf out of our tackles, so they are just a bad matchup for our offense more than anything

It was more that you thought they'd be there in janurary... If the Seahawks ran on them I'm very confident we'll do the same. That and the fact we're watching a corpse toss a football in a Big Ben jersey each week. That offense is horrible. Our defense might outscore their combined totals when we play and I'm not joking.

NFL is a matchup leagues. We matchup better with what the Chargers do offensively than what the Colts did. Colts actually had a running game and were a pretty balanced offense. Colts are a very pass-heavy offense.
Defensively, it's also night and day. Colts D is way better than the Chargers, and the Chargers appear to be following in the ideology of Brandon Staley, who basically throws in the towel on his defenses being able to stop the run. I can't necessarily blame him, because not many teams in this league can run the ball well AND, in that division, pretty much none of them do.

That being said, the NFL is also largely inconsistent. It was a great performance by our defense, but it could also easily be their best performance of the year. That's why if you ever hear "fans" or really anybody saying "o man look what V player on X team did to ya'll... you got no chance of stopping Y player on Z team"... it's all a bunch of bullshit. It's a week to week league. Practically nobody is consistent. Great teams aren't consistently great every week, and bad teams aren't consistently bad every week.

People really undervalue matchups. In the early years with Harbaugh, we struggled with Pitt but "kept up" with the Patriots who dominated them. Like you said because you beat team A doesn't mean you'll dominate a lesser team B.

 

[RavensMania]

I'd have to look at the breakdown of snaps. He didn't appear to be out that long with the injury to me. I understand the notion of potentially resting him late in the game, BUT, I'm also not really buying that too much either, considering we rested virtually nobody else late in the game either, including guys like Elliott, who had been out with injuries already.
I was actually advocating for us to put guys like Harrison and Queen back out there in late in the game so they could get reps in pass coverage, because that's where they've been primarily struggling. Only a one game sample, but I didn't see a stark increase/decrease in production between Queen, Harrison, or somebody like Bynes being more involved. That tells me I'm not shying away from a player late in a game out of fear of injury, because I'd argue they're simply not that critical to the defense at this point.

he only played 19 snaps. 12 in coverage and 6 run d snaps. The other was in coverage.

 

[OURavensFan]

Our defense makes no sense...they shut down the Flying Duck but struggled against the Colts lol

Wentz is better than Herbert

 

[rossihunter2]

Shout out to Wink!

harbs gave out 1 game ball yesterday - to Wink

 

[rossihunter2]

Lamar was deadly in the first quarter, after that it seemed like the chargers changed up defensively to bring more pressure and the line was folding in pass pro, and earlier in the game Lamar was scrambling well, in the second he suddenly stopped.

one thing I wish Lamar would stop doing is trying to step up into a collapsed pocket instead of rolling out. He really does try too hard to be a pocket passer sometimes

partly teams are doing well with disciplined rush lanes and stopping the escape out the side - teams are doing well forcing him to step up - he's just been better than them

 

[rossihunter2]

He also needs to learn how to throw the ball away sooner. He took at least one, and maybe two sacks yesterday, where he had ample time to throw the ball away and not take a huge loss. I understand he's going to scramble more than most QBs and try to get his way out of a sack situation, but there's times where he clearly needs to see that he's not escaping, and he's either getting sacked or the ball needs to be thrown away.

i mean that's just one of those things you have to accept will happen with lamar - because sometimes that's where the big play comes from his ability to hold the ball longer than other QBs - it's the same with deshaun watson who takes a lot of sacks too

 

[rossihunter2]

Snap counts from yesterday indicate a couple things:
1. Not much "easing" of Bateman back in. He played 65% of snaps. Only six snaps less than Hollywood, and 11 snaps more than Duvernay. Will see how they balance when Watkins comes back, but it's pretty clear he's the #2-3 WR in this offense right away.
2. Ravens aren't waiting around to improve the inside linebacking performance. Josh Bynes played 77% of snaps (among the highest in the front seven) and both he and Board played more defensive snaps than Harrison (14) and Queen (19). Some of this could be gameflow specific, with Queen missing part of the game with injury and the Chargers being basically pass-only in the 2nd half, but the noticeable drop in playing time for Queen should be a wake up call, especially against pass-heavy offenses.
Also slightly concerned about the high snap counts for Campbell, who played 44 snaps yesterday. I get why it's needed, but I don't want to see him wear down as the season goes on. Would probably prefer to see a better distribution of snaps on the Dline. Madubuike only saw 25 snaps, for example.

i wonder if some of it was down to him playing a lot of "x" which has predominantly been sammy watkins in previous games - duvernay and proche don't really play that position and while boykin had some snaps on offence this week they dont trust him at that spot either

think the snaps are partly related to game flow - noticed that campbell was coming on the field a lot for passing downs and many times subbing in for madubuike - think that was partly just a byproduct of the heavy passing game

 

[JoeyFlex5]

partly teams are doing well with disciplined rush lanes and stopping the escape out the side - teams are doing well forcing him to step up - he's just been better than them

Yes but there were times yesterday where Lamar absolutely had the opening, not even to run, just to buy time to throw, and instead of a modest rollout he would take one hitch up, see the center in his lap, THEN try to scramble and by then it’s too late because the tackle already lost the edge.

it’s the stepping up into the centers ass that bothers me, it’s one of the more frustrating things he does and he’s done since day one. Is what it is though, lamars gotta be Lamar and that’s that, and if he does this five times a game and it results in 2 sacks, 2 incompletions, and one big play, then oh well, I just wish he could feel the interior collapsing a little bit better and maybe turn one of those sacks into another incomplete by rolling and tossing the ball away, he took 2 sacks in a very short time frame that were just pretty unacceptable for someone with his leg talent.

 

[rossihunter2]

Board is the wildcard. Coaching staff pretty much indicated they're skeptical of seeing high defensive snaps for Board because he's such a core ST player and they don't want to risk injury.
Bynes will be seeing high snaps it seems going forward.

they think board is the best coverage linebacker on the team right now - he's playing mostly in dime packages