Mountain_Commando
Rotational Player and Threatening Starter's Job
- Joined
- Nov 25, 2008
- Messages
- 1,138
- Reaction score
- 962
Let me start with a full disclaimer that on a scale of football IQ, I fall somewhere between functionally ******ed and vegetable. That said, please bear with me if the questions I ask have very obvious answers.
Looking at our 3 regular season losses:
- Bills: Turning over the ball four times is a sure recipe for disaster. Even so, margin was only 3 points, thanks in part to the time lost on Fred Jackson's overturned TD.
- Giants: Two interceptions and zero pressure on the opposing qb. Still, the game was in hand until our horrid secondary (spearheaded by Sergio) gave the game away to Sheli in the last minute. Margin also 3 points.
The common theme in the above two games is piss poor play on both sides of the ball. So it was us beating ourselves in both those games.
However, the single most glaring stat in the loss to the Steelers was time of possession: Steelers had the ball nearly TWICE as long at 39:22 compared to NE at 20:38. This was due to good ball control and clock management by Steelers offense, and a well planned, well executed game plan on the defense which consistently forced quick 3 and outs (10 in all) and kept our offense off the field.
Now even the most passionate doubters will admit that our defense is much improved since week 7. If we can contain Ray Rice (which you can be sure will be agenda no.1 on the game plan), I really don't expect a Joe Flaccid led offense to control the clock like the Steelers did.
So this brings be to my questions. The Steelers playing all man coverage gave our offense a lot of trouble. How much of that gameplan can the Ravens copy, how successfully can they do it, and how do the Pats counter that?
Looking at our 3 regular season losses:
- Bills: Turning over the ball four times is a sure recipe for disaster. Even so, margin was only 3 points, thanks in part to the time lost on Fred Jackson's overturned TD.
- Giants: Two interceptions and zero pressure on the opposing qb. Still, the game was in hand until our horrid secondary (spearheaded by Sergio) gave the game away to Sheli in the last minute. Margin also 3 points.
The common theme in the above two games is piss poor play on both sides of the ball. So it was us beating ourselves in both those games.
However, the single most glaring stat in the loss to the Steelers was time of possession: Steelers had the ball nearly TWICE as long at 39:22 compared to NE at 20:38. This was due to good ball control and clock management by Steelers offense, and a well planned, well executed game plan on the defense which consistently forced quick 3 and outs (10 in all) and kept our offense off the field.
Now even the most passionate doubters will admit that our defense is much improved since week 7. If we can contain Ray Rice (which you can be sure will be agenda no.1 on the game plan), I really don't expect a Joe Flaccid led offense to control the clock like the Steelers did.
So this brings be to my questions. The Steelers playing all man coverage gave our offense a lot of trouble. How much of that gameplan can the Ravens copy, how successfully can they do it, and how do the Pats counter that?