Midweek thoughts...I feel like I'm taking crazy pills

[VJCPatriot]

Gronk is indeed a beast and he will be a key to this game. Ravens will try to take Gronk away. But that's a tall order. And the Pats have other weapons to make them pay if they try that. They will also move him around to get him some clean releases.

 

[Ring 6]

Gronk is indeed a beast and he will be a key to this game. Ravens will try to take Gronk away. But that's a tall order. And the Pats have other weapons to make them pay if they try that. They will also move him around to get him some clean releases.

This is a key facet to our offense. We can out 5 guys out there, Welker, Branch, Gronk, Hernandez and Woodhead that they don't have 5 guys who can cover.
I am sure they could take away Gronk. But to do it you weaken your coverage on Welker. Or Hernandez, etc, etc. Each receiver has his own unique skill set and no team out there can match up with all 5. Whereever they are weak, Brady will expose.

 

[NYCPatsFan]

Brady can expose the defense's weakness provided the OL protects him. We have seen Brady miss open receivers when he's been rattled - e.g the Jets game last playoff.

So, here's wishing that the OL does not allow a single hit or sack.

 

[VJCPatriot]

Brady can expose the defense's weakness provided the OL protects him. We have seen Brady miss open receivers when he's been rattled - e.g the Jets game last playoff.

So, here's wishing that the OL does not allow a single hit or sack.

This is the BEST Pats offensive line I have seen in a long time. If they continue to perform like they did against Denver and have done for the most part all year, Brady will scorch the Ravens. Because no secondary can cover forever, not against all our weapons.

 

[i82much]

Hmm. You know there's a thread on the Ravens board about whether to start Kruger or at least give him some serious reps, possibly McPhee as well. Some are even talking about sitting a d tackle and dressing Kindle. I don't know if that's even possible but anyway ...

I guess the point is it will be interesting to see how the hurry-up dictates the tempo of the game and whether the Ravens will be able to make substitutions with some of the younger guys and/or better pass rushers. I mean I can't envision the Patriots running successfully against JJ, Suggs, Ngata, Redding, Cody et al., but can they use the hurry up to get guys like Kruger and McPhee on the field and guys like Redding or Cody off the field, and then make an effort to run the football?

I guess more generally I'm asking, to what extent does your team change its play calling responsive to the defensive personnel on the field? And how do your offensive personnel tend to rotate in or out to accommodate such a strategy?

 

[Ring 6]

Hmm. You know there's a thread on the Ravens board about whether to start Kruger or at least give him some serious reps, possibly McPhee as well. Some are even talking about sitting a d tackle and dressing Kindle. I don't know if that's even possible but anyway ...

I guess the point is it will be interesting to see how the hurry-up dictates the tempo of the game and whether the Ravens will be able to make substitutions with some of the younger guys and/or better pass rushers. I mean I can't envision the Patriots running successfully against JJ, Suggs, Ngata, Redding, Cody et al., but can they use the hurry up to get guys like Kruger and McPhee on the field and guys like Redding or Cody off the field, and then make an effort to run the football?

I guess more generally I'm asking, to what extent does your team change its play calling responsive to the defensive personnel on the field? And how do your offensive personnel tend to rotate in or out to accommodate such a strategy?

The primary purpose of the hurryup for the Pats is to get a personell group on the field it can exploit with its group. Thats why the TEs are key. Go big vs 2 TEs and you can't cover them, go small and we can run and/or throw to big TEs covered by small DBs.

 

[Deus Irae]

Hmm. You know there's a thread on the Ravens board about whether to start Kruger or at least give him some serious reps, possibly McPhee as well. Some are even talking about sitting a d tackle and dressing Kindle. I don't know if that's even possible but anyway ...

I guess the point is it will be interesting to see how the hurry-up dictates the tempo of the game and whether the Ravens will be able to make substitutions with some of the younger guys and/or better pass rushers. I mean I can't envision the Patriots running successfully against JJ, Suggs, Ngata, Redding, Cody et al., but can they use the hurry up to get guys like Kruger and McPhee on the field and guys like Redding or Cody off the field, and then make an effort to run the football?

I guess more generally I'm asking, to what extent does your team change its play calling responsive to the defensive personnel on the field? And how do your offensive personnel tend to rotate in or out to accommodate such a strategy?

New England is a "game plan" team as opposed to a "scheme" team, meaning they adapt to their opponent each week rather than lining up and saying "beat this!". They will have schemed for any expected sub packages, and will have talked about which packages they want kept around based upon their own personnel.

For example, If the Ravens come out with a run stopping defense while the Patriots are in a 2/2/1 personnel package, the Patriots will keep that run defense on the field and go with 4 and 5 receivers running routes.

 

[mgcolby]

I guess more generally I'm asking, to what extent does your team change its play calling responsive to the defensive personnel on the field? And how do your offensive personnel tend to rotate in or out to accommodate such a strategy?

Like Deuse said. Your sub package will determine what we do. And that is what makes the hurry up so deadly. For instance, lets say we come out with a empty back set and you guys send out your dime to counter our spread. We can either attack it with the bigger TE's on smaller DB's or we can line up Hernandez in the backfield as the RB and run at you with him.

Its quite the dillema.

It forces the opposition to do:

A. Waste a timeout and play the chess match all over again or
B. Try to stop it with what you got on the field or live with the consequences

 

[jays52]

Hmm. You know there's a thread on the Ravens board about whether to start Kruger or at least give him some serious reps, possibly McPhee as well. Some are even talking about sitting a d tackle and dressing Kindle. I don't know if that's even possible but anyway ...

I guess the point is it will be interesting to see how the hurry-up dictates the tempo of the game and whether the Ravens will be able to make substitutions with some of the younger guys and/or better pass rushers. I mean I can't envision the Patriots running successfully against JJ, Suggs, Ngata, Redding, Cody et al., but can they use the hurry up to get guys like Kruger and McPhee on the field and guys like Redding or Cody off the field, and then make an effort to run the football?

I guess more generally I'm asking, to what extent does your team change its play calling responsive to the defensive personnel on the field? And how do your offensive personnel tend to rotate in or out to accommodate such a strategy?

The hurry-up gets a lot of press in the media because when the Pats go to it they execute with surgical precision. This is because the Patriots have won the substitution game and gotten advantageous personnel that they immediately go no-huddle on to gash. A main component of what the Patriots do is try to personnel a team to death. They will sub at an obscene rate and continually give different looks to a defense. They seldom react to the defensive personnel because they spend so little time in one personnel group themselves and try to dictate what personnel the defense will deploy to stop them. Should the Ravens get in a light look, the Patriots do run quite a few check with me run calls to get the defense to respect the run again. The key to defending the Patriots is not trying to sub with them, but by presenting a unit that has enough positional flexibility to match what the Patriots are trying to do. Tall task, but Baltimore has good personnel to do that.

 

[Patspsycho]

The hurry-up gets a lot of press in the media because when the Pats go to it they execute with surgical precision. This is because the Patriots have won the substitution game and gotten advantageous personnel that they immediately go no-huddle on to gash. A main component of what the Patriots do is try to personnel a team to death. They will sub at an obscene rate and continually give different looks to a defense. They seldom react to the defensive personnel because they spend so little time in one personnel group themselves and try to dictate what personnel the defense will deploy to stop them. Should the Ravens get in a light look, the Patriots do run quite a few check with me run calls to get the defense to respect the run again. The key to defending the Patriots is not trying to sub with them, but by presenting a unit that has enough positional flexibility to match what the Patriots are trying to do. Tall task, but Baltimore has good personnel to do that.

With that being said, we now should expect some "injuries" to occur on the Ravens D if they get jammed in a package they can't sub out of.

 

[supafly]

Bingo. Suggs can wreck an entire offensive game plan. You have to double him AND chip him with a RB. You have to double Ngata. Just dont throw deep at Webb or Reed. Throw to gronkowski and welker in the middle of the field and let them get their YAC.

Technically Suggs and Ngata are the all pros. Reed and Lewis aren't this year.

So basically block the opposing team's pass rushers and give Brady time then, sounds like a plan

 

[BradyFTW!]

Hmm. You know there's a thread on the Ravens board about whether to start Kruger or at least give him some serious reps, possibly McPhee as well. Some are even talking about sitting a d tackle and dressing Kindle. I don't know if that's even possible but anyway ...

I guess the point is it will be interesting to see how the hurry-up dictates the tempo of the game and whether the Ravens will be able to make substitutions with some of the younger guys and/or better pass rushers. I mean I can't envision the Patriots running successfully against JJ, Suggs, Ngata, Redding, Cody et al., but can they use the hurry up to get guys like Kruger and McPhee on the field and guys like Redding or Cody off the field, and then make an effort to run the football?

I guess more generally I'm asking, to what extent does your team change its play calling responsive to the defensive personnel on the field? And how do your offensive personnel tend to rotate in or out to accommodate such a strategy?

I think there will be at least a couple of occasions where you'll see the Patriots go into a hurry-up offense to keep a certain Ravens' personnel package on the field. Personally, I wouldn't be at all surprised if they do it the second the Ravens try to put Ray Lewis on the field in a nickel personnel package. As soon as that happens, I imagine that the Pats will exploit Lewis' lack of range in coverage and try to gash the Ravens over the middle until someone fakes an injury.

Generally speaking, the Patriots' hurry-up personnel is Branch, Welker, Hernandez, Gronk, and Green-Ellis: all guys with multiple seasons for the Patriots under their belt who know the playbook and all of their reads like the back of their hands.

 

[strngplyr]

With that being said, we now should expect some "injuries" to occur on the Ravens D if they get jammed in a package they can't sub out of.

Real or not, they had injury timeouts about half a dozen times in the Bronco's game and it didn't change anything.

 

[andrewgarrr]

I'm expecting a lot of three TE sets. Hopefully Solder and Cannon are healthy.

 

[i82much]

Man I have never seen so much emphasis on personnel packages on a football forum before. On the Ravens' board it is all about the playcalling.

So I can remember NE doing the hurry-up thing against us in the past, but I don't remember as much talk about the different substitutions being such an issue for the defense. Is this something where having versatile TE's has made this tactic that much more useful for you guys?

I know this may seem like an odd thing to say on a Patriots' board, but man. The Ravens sure could use a guy like Adalius Thomas in his prime. At one point that guy seemed like he could do anything on the football field. Him and Suggs would be a really nice counterpoint, give the Ravens D some flexibility.

 

[SVN]

Baltimore can take away gronk. Even denver did it in the first game. They wll put webb on welker and hit him at the LOS. Ask brady to beat with hernandez and outside routes with branch consistently. The bills and fins in the last 2 games actually had very decent plans vs the pats

 

[ivanvamp]

Baltimore can take away gronk. Even denver did it in the first game. They wll put webb on welker and hit him at the LOS. Ask brady to beat with hernandez and outside routes with branch consistently. The bills and fins in the last 2 games actually had very decent plans vs the pats

And the Pats still scored 27 against Miami and 49 against Buffalo. Ok, so the Bills may have had a good game plan but lousy personnel (they were ranked #

But the Dolphins had the #6 defense (points allowed) in the league and the Patriots rolled them in the 2nd half.

I think you guys make a lot of good points in this thread. One thing that is obvious but maybe overlooked is that the Pats are at home. With all the checks at the line, it's going to be a huge help to NE to not have to deal with crowd noise.

 

[everlong]

Another wrinkle they could try to deploy to get the Ravens to declare their defense is the moving the entire offensive set pre-snap. So in a modified hurry up they go to the line in one formation and then everybody moves to a different location based on what Brady calls out. It could force the Ravens to play a lot more vanilla zones which would be a great benefit or at least if they move with the formation Brady knows ahead of time it's man coverage. Dallas used to do a lot of this.

 

[grandpajim]

I just had a brilliant insight into a very difficult formation for the Ravens to cover in 3rd and 5 or so situations.

You line up as follows

.....................Gronk - Light - Mankins - Connolly - Waters- Volmer - Solder

Welker...................................................................................................................Branch

.......................................Hernandez
........................................................Brady

This is a very strong run formation, and as we found out last week Hernandez is a very strong runner

Its also a very strong protection formation. So if you wanted to release Gronk deep in the middle or Branch down the sideline, then Brady will likely have the time to get it to them.

Motioning Welker or Hernandez, get the Ravens to declare their coverage and keeps the motion man from getting hit off the LOS

Lots of stuff you can do from this formation and personnel package.

At least once I'd like to see Big Vince lined up in the backfield at the goal line.
He has a ton more athleticism than The Fridge Perry ever did. I envision Waters & Connoley just standing up & Vince playing giant bowling ball.

 

[Patspsycho]

Man I have never seen so much emphasis on personnel packages on a football forum before. On the Ravens' board it is all about the playcalling.

So I can remember NE doing the hurry-up thing against us in the past, but I don't remember as much talk about the different substitutions being such an issue for the defense. Is this something where having versatile TE's has made this tactic that much more useful for you guys?

Yes, the reason we go with that many packages is that those two tight ends are hybrid WR/TE's, Gronk is a TE/WR/OL (his monster blocking qualifies him as pretty much an effective OL-man) and Hernandez is a hybrid WR/TE/RB. Having that embarrassment of riches dictate that we use them the way we do, and personnel other teams to death.