he got injured during the game - but our DL was already bullying that offensive line before he got injured
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The Good, the Bad, and the Titans
- Thread starter Oldfaithful
- Start date
he got injured during the game - but our DL was already bullying that offensive line before he got injured
Grim
Ravens Ring of Honor
Yeah but the whole OL had issues. It was just a perfect storm. Their tackles struggled possibly due to injury, they lost Spain, and our DL was dominant. Not much else to say here.
Flacco is like top 5 on 3rd down passer rating. We are the no.1 offense on 3rd down conversion rates in the league i think. Alot of that is to him. He just has a nack for getting open
Its also not like we make it easy, we can't run so we get caught on third and long a lot.
I never thought I’d consistently feel confident in our ability to convert 3rd and long over and over
Sooky
Pro Bowler
I'm not sure how long the team can bank on this though. Seems like something teams will catch on to. No doubt the new receivers have been huge and for the first time in years like I have been preaching it has been because we have receivers now who can create separation. Flacco got the name for checking down because of lack of confidence in receivers. Let's be honest we had Torrey Smith as our #1 a few years ago and he was the #3 on a super bowl team last year. Steve Smith was great but was on his last stretch and there was nobody else to compliment him. I think this is the first time in a long time I have been confident in the Ravens receivers and to add to it there are 3 tight ends making huge plays every game for the team. Hurst hopefully will get healthy and start contributing more.
but what will teams catch on to? we beat teams in numerous ways on 3rd and long because we have been opening up huge amounts of space in the middle - teams cant afford not to pay attention to john brown on any given snap, crabtree is great at finding the soft spot in the zone and that clears out space for willie snead underneath - if its vs zone then that's snead just short of the sticks but vs a linebacker and the odds are he's going to get enough of a step to get past the sticks after the catch or its vs man in the slot and snead out of the stem is so hard to defend when the ball is well timed because he could break in either direction - on top of that we've got tight ends lined up inline who can slip out to just past the sticks and body a defender or you've got a guy like mark andrews who can get down the seam between the LBs and any deep safety and if all those guys are covered (like on the first 3rd and 10 situation we had on sunday) then it opens up space for buck allen to pick up chunk yardage in the backfield
there's nothing for teams to really catch on to here - we've just been executing really well for the most part (except vs the browns)
Steve Smith was our number 1 in 2014. Torrey was our number 2. SSS had 1000 yards in that season and was headed for an even better year in 2015 before he blew out his Achilles
Sooky
Pro Bowler
Yeah Steve Smith was on pace for an insane 1500 yards in 2015 before his achilles injury. But 2015 was also a shit show with all that happened you could tell the team was not going to win many games with so many injuries early on and continued throughout the season. Torrey Smith was the #1 the year before in 2013 and proved he was nothing more than a deep threat and should never be more than a #2 and better as a #3. The supporting cast is better this year not so much is depended on a single player, but a lot of players that can all play to their strength which is why the team is consistently moving the ball.
To put this in specific perspective - our top 3 wrs are all on pace to get at least 800 yards each in the regular season
For context - not a single receiver got 800 yards for our team last year
what's stupid is we're pulling tight ends in pulling 1 gap over which makes little to no sense - when we pull we normally are trying to overload one side with extra blockers coming downhill with momentum while a tackle seals off the backside - but we're pulling guys inside against the motion of the play and putting them in bad positions with no momentum, bad angles and bad matchups...
i want us to go back to what i saw a lot of last year which is Boyle and Williams pulling the entire way across the formation and a guard coming across as well
i wonder if the problem is that we dont want people pulling past the center because we dont trust skura's anchor vs the nose
as much as jackson's 22 yard run was on him - it was also on the play setup and the way we had everybody on offence pulling towards that side for the designed run
cdp
Ravens Ring of Honor
That's what I'm thinking.
100 yards allowed by the Baltimore defense at Tennesse is the second fewest in franchise history. (Only behind 94 vs. Cincinnati in 2000.)
It may be more of an accomplishment now due to the offenses nowadays vs 2000
Hey Bmorebird22 I don't see ya much anymore bud. Hope your well. I hope you beat the Saints Sunday!
Edgar
Ravens Ring of Honor
It is a very complicated scheme predicated on everyone doing everything perfectly and there is usually something/someone asked to [perform a block that will work only if the defender is precisely where you anticipate him to be pre snap. I saw Yanda, of all people confused and seem to blow an assignment vs. Titans. This resulted in a stop in the backfield.
I admit that it is very interesting to observe these schemes but the assignments must be difficult to keep straight from play to play.
JoeyFlex5
Hall of Famer
You win these matchups by stringing together plays, similar to pass rushers setting up their next move. Make the DT penetrate, give him a lane, then exploit him. Zone/power combo concepts is essentially what it is, run a makeshift inside zone concept on the play side and a power concept from the backside by pulling players. The problem is, you need highly intelligent and reactive blockers to nail the play side zone blocks because one little misstep or misread and it becomes a disaster, if a defender ends up a half yard away from where you need to put him, the RB has to hesitate and now the backside of the play has been flooded because of the pulling blockers. This is precisely why hurst and Skura are hurting us, hurst doesn’t have the feet to play OT in this scheme and the edge defender is just able to get that extra little step, and without a strong anchoring center the RB suddenly has way too much to dance around.
I’d like to see us run more inside zone with a FB to compensate for this. Instead of pulling across the line you let a fb be that extra blocker, preventing the backside defenders from making a mess of the backfield, and a pull blocker isn’t worried about having to cross skura. If you DO pull a blocker, the FB can seal the backside and give the RB time to react to the hole being set.