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1. The vertical passing game. This much is clear from the Ravens’ Saturday night win in Denver: Quarterback Joe Flacco has extraordinary arm strength, and the Ravens have the manpower to stress a secondary down the field, specifically in receivers Jacoby Jones and Torrey Smith. Smith went for two touchdowns and 125 yards back in a Week 3 matchup with the Patriots, and the pure speedster had two more touchdowns against the Broncos on Saturday. The Patriots have been vastly improved in allowing passing plays of 25 yards or more since the arrival of cornerback Aqib Talib, who had arguably his best game of the season against the Texans on Sunday. Nonetheless, the secondary will need to be air tight down the field to prevent the Ravens from establishing their vertical passing game. The vertical passing game is a quick-strike mechanism for Baltimore’s offense to turn the tide of a game (as it did on Saturday), and the trickle-down effect is reflected in the fact that the team is 6-0 this season when Flacco throws for more than 300 yards, and 7-0 in games in which Smith scores a touchdown.
2. Kickoff returns. Speaking of explosive plays and players, the Ravens led the NFL in average yards per kickoff return this season (27.3), and Jones was a runaway choice as a first-team All-Pro selection as a kick returner. Jones returned two kickoffs for touchdowns this season and has tremendous straight-line speed. The Patriots' kickoff coverage was an area of strength throughout the 2012 regular season, but was a major weakness on Sunday, allowing Texans returner Danieal Manning to average 54 yards per return on four tries, including a 94-yarder to open the game. The Patriots need to play with much better lane discipline on Sunday and can’t give Jones room to find daylight because he’s tough to catch in the open field.
3. Setting the edge in the running game. By the numbers, Baltimore’s run defense was below average during the regular season, but that was not the case in the win over Denver. If the Patriots are going to establish their running game next Sunday, they’ll have to be able to win on the edge, as the Ravens have a number of physical, strong players who can turn a play inside and reduce the field. Terrell Suggs, Paul Kruger, Courtney Upshaw and others have the ability to control tight ends and offensive tackles, which forces running backs to funnel back inside to the territory that linebacker Ray Lewis patrols. The Patriots were held to just 2.3 yards per carry in the first matchup and will need to be better on the ground on Sunday. After rushing for 122 yards against the Texans, the Patriots are 13-0 in games in which they surpass 100 yards on the ground this season, and 0-4 in games which they do not.
4. Slowing down Ray Rice. Rice is one of the best offensive players in football and was once again a force this season as both a runner and pass catcher. He accounted for 150 yards against the Patriots back in Week 3 and is a pivotal cog to the Ravens' offense. The Ravens are dedicated to running the football on first down with Rice, and the Patriots will be put to the test in slowing him down to set up second- and third-and-long situations for Baltimore. Rice is not large in stature, but can wiggle to make defenders miss in the hole, is incredibly quick and has tremendous power for his size. Much like the Patriots keyed on Arian Foster on Sunday, they’ll do the same with Rice next week.
5. Pressuring Flacco. It seems obvious, but pressuring Flacco is an area in which the Patriots must do much better than they did back in Week 3, when he had time and space to throw. The Patriots failed to register a single hit on Flacco during that game while allowing him to throw for 382 yards. Though Flacco has had moments of inconsistency throughout 2012, he’s shown himself to be capable of diagnosing a defense and make it pay when he has time to stand tall in the pocket. With Chandler Jones leaving Sunday’s victory over Houston due to an ankle injury, the Patriots could be without a top pass rusher next Sunday. Whether it’s with better pressure in their four-man rushes or via designed blitzes and pressure schemes, the Patriots will have to find a way to make Flacco more uncomfortable than they did back in Week 3
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Suggs back; Webb and McClain out. The Ravens didn't have linebacker Terrell Suggs in the Sept. 23 meeting (torn Achilles in the offseason), with rookie Courtney Upshaw playing in his place. Suggs is back, but the Ravens won't have top cornerback Lardarius Webb, who tore his ACL in October. Even with Webb on the field, top Patriots receivers Brandon Lloyd (9 catches, 108 yards) and Wes Welker (8 catches, 142 yards) had big days, with Webb often on Welker. Who covers Welker now? The Ravens also lost starting linebacker Jameel McClain in December.
Solidified Ravens offensive line. The Patriots will see a different configuration along the Ravens' offensive line, as veteran left tackle Bryant McKinnie wasn't in the mix Sept. 23, which moved Michael Oher from right tackle to the left side. But McKinnie has since settled in and Oher is back on the right side, and that means rookie Kelechi Osemele is at left guard. The Ravens' line protected well Saturday in Denver, and it wasn't as if the Patriots generated great pressure Sept. 23 anyway. One change for the Patriots: Rookie defensive end Justin Francis was inactive in the first game, and he's now emerged as a top sub rusher.
Check this thread on Ravens forum. Good analysis by Ravens fans (measured and balanced analysis unlike idiotic Broncos fans who came here before they even played against Ravens and started talking trash.)
I've re-watched the Houston/Patriots game a couple of times and taken some notes on what I saw.
- The Patriots have a very very good offensive line, and can give Brady all day to throw, they aren't bad as a run blocking unit either. They are all tall athletic players who can get to the second level and do their jobs very well.
- The Patriots really don't have a deep threat element at all, but this is nothing new, they haven't had that since Randy Moss left. They are going to be pretty much the same offense we seen from Denver, just not as physical at WR, their receivers are much smaller. They will likely run the ball a ton like Denver did too, but unlike at wide out, their running game is much more physical than Denvers running scheme. The Patriots seem to run a variant of the power run scheme and the ZBS. The Patriots will likely be quicker to the snap than Denver were against us, so we must be prepared to deal with that.
- On defense the Patriots are big and physical up front, they have a large front 7, their LB's actually look more like D linemen with their size. Their secondary can tackle well, they come up and attack, similar to how Pittsburgh play, just not as good. They are still a liability in coverage, and we will need to throw a lot of deep ones like against Denver.
-The Patriots pass rush doesn't really scare me at all, they don't have any scary edge rushers, and certainly no where near the level of what Denver offered. If Oher and McKinnie play as well as they did in Denver, the Patriots wont have much of an impact off the edges. The rookie Chandler Jones has a lot of talent and can make plays, but he still appears to be fairly raw as an every down player.
- It is more the interior line of that defense that worries me, lead by Wilfolk, who as we all know is their best player on D and gave us fits last year. Birk is going to have to do a better job this time around, but I'm sure KO and Yanda will give him plenty of help, our Oline is much more physical and larger with KO playing guard and McKinnie at LT now. I'm not sure if there's a bigger Oline pound for pound when we have our current line up there.
What my gameplan would be:
- Their Oline is very effective, so Kruger and Suggs are going to have to be on top of their game, and Ngata has to push the pile up the middle. I would go to mostly a 4-3 base defense like we did last year. Have Kruger play LDE rotating with Upshaw, and Suggs play RDE, with Ngata and McPhee/A Jones on the inside. Have Ray and Ellerbe as the LB's, and Pollard should come in as the weakside LB dropping back into coverage covering Hernandez, and play Chykie Brown as the nikel corner and Ihedigbo at SS. There is no Grontkowski to worry about in this one. We are going to get nikel and dimed all up and down the park, so it's vital that our front 4 can create some pressure. We did a good job against a similar front @Denver, we were creating pressure with only 3 men at times, so hopefully it will be the same here.
- Stop the run, and you will stop Brady and the offense. We stepped up against the run against the Broncos, and we must do the same here. You would scratch your head at this one, but this years Patriots team has a very effective running game that is quick to the snap and is really hard to defend, we must make sure that Ridley has no room to run. If Brady is forced to throw the ball around, and we get after him, he doesn't like it. History shows that if you pressure Brady, he starts to crumble.
- On offense, use zone stretch plays. Arian Foster had somenice runs around the edges against the Patriots, but not many up the middle. Again this defense is built up the middle, and Wilfolk makes it very hard for the interior of the Oline. Hopefully Pierce can go for this one, as he's a very effective zone runner, and the Patriots are poor at setting the edge from what I seen.
- Throw over the middle, and take a significant amount of deep shots. The Patriots weakness on defense lies mostly through the middle in the passing game. Their big LB's can't cover that well, and their safeties are average. Shaubb at some success throwing down the middle last night. I think we could do a job with Pitta and Boldin excelling around that area. Then take the deep shots with Torrey and Jacoby. The Patriots are still not very good at defending the deep shots.
- No stupid penalties, **** ups, silly drops in clutch moments, or ST **** ups. I'm confident we can win this game if everyone does their job and avoid making boneheaded plays. We lost last year because of a stupid lack of concentration by Lee Evans, and a gigantic **** up by Billy Cundiff. I don't expect Tucker to make the same mistake, but lets try and avoid the kicking to tie or win the game for once. Lets try and make this an outright win that isn't forced to OT, so I don't gain increased blood pressure.
I'm fully confident we can win this, but its going to be a very hard game, and I expect this game to be just as hard as the Denver game- maybe not as physically demanding due to the altitude and having to play 6 quarters of football.
Re: Ravens Game strategy/strengths/weaknesses - Lets discuss
I keep reading about Torrey Smith blowing by our secondary. I don't see it. He may make a catch but it won't be because he blew by or out ran our secondary. He and Talib both run a 4.4. I saw somewhere else that Champ ran a 4.2....yup he did in 1999! And McCourtey runs a 4.3.
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Re: Ravens Game strategy/strengths/weaknesses - Lets discuss
The Ravens' running game is less daunting than it was a couple of weeks ago - Bernard Pierce is injured and he left the Broncos' game and didn't play in the 4th quarter or both overtimes. No word is out yet, but if he cannot go, Rice will have a very heavy load.
Also, Rice is over 300 carries for the season (302 after the Broncos game) and just carried the ball 30 times on Sunday - he has to be quite beaten up heading into this one. The 30 carries against the Broncos were the most in any one game all year.
I imagine that the Patriots will give the Marshall Faulk treatment to Rice on Sunday - have someone smack him on every play whether he is involved, or not.
Here's an interesting chart on the effects of 300+ carries on star NFL backs:
Re: Ravens Game strategy/strengths/weaknesses - Lets discuss
Quote:
Originally Posted by RealityCheck52
wow.. clutching at straws comes to mind..
Excuse us RealityCheck. This is our only hope...
The deadlier version of 1976 Bears are walking into our stadium and all the PATS are scared and shivering thinking of combination of the most deadliest Defense ever to walk on the surface of the earth and Better than Greatest Show on the Turf offense is coming.
We all know how your Greatest QB to ever play in NFL with his 100% accurate Deep Ball thrower is coming to torch our inferior Defense.
Looks like as your whole fandom decided Brady is so scared off your Deadlier than 1976 Bears Defense is coming that he might be afraid to step on the field on Sunday.
Our offense is only scoring 40+ points of late. How can we keep up with your fast, dynamic offense and Defense that will limit us?
Re: Ravens Game strategy/strengths/weaknesses - Lets discuss
Long term weather forecast shows high of 35 degrees with 25 mph wind and low of 9 degrees with wind reduced to 17 mph. Wind is good and should affect Flacco's arcing deep passes.
Has anyone else not noticed...or should I say haven't noticed many PI penalties this post season for any of the games. Hopefully my Hobbs Syndrome won't kick in Sunday
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"In the end, Belichick juiced Moss like an orange, and once all the good pulp was squeezed, he tossed Moss aside. "
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Ravens Game strategy/strengths/weaknesses - Lets discuss
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