When your answer to why running at Lewis is bad is that it makes you run at Ngata, its not a big leap. Its not putting words in your mouth, its reading.
Not really. Running right at Ray Lewis instead of devising a game plan that takes advantage of his speed loss doesn't make sense to me. Now maybe you're saying that, ultimately, we should do both. But you haven't stated that yet. Compound that with the fact that you have to go through Ngata (and maybe Cody) to do it, and it REALLY doesn't make sense to me.
Really? Bill Belichick agrees with you?
Thats the best you got?
You may want to read his conference call from today where he was talking about just that.
Lewis does not hold up well at the point of attack. His strength has always been that he is incredible at diagnosing plays, and at pursuing.
You've got to be kidding me here. His strength has been EVERYTHING. He's one of the greatest LB's of all time for that reason alone. What he's lost the most of is speed. Running more misdirection plays (such as counters) are the best way to take advantage of that. Now, are you really going to sit here and tell me that he hasn't lost speed?
This is where you are off. He is much more deficient taking on blockers than he is pursuing a play. Misdirection isn't good agaisnt a penetrating defense. But what we are talking about is a way to exploit Lewis. Misdirection is not the way to attack him.
Misdirection is key if your blocking can hold up. And that blocking holding up is absolutely why it can burn a penetrating defense. It's one of the many reasons why we started out the 2004 AFCCG against the Steelers with a reverse and it's the reason why one of our more memorable plays in the dynasty era happened against the same penetrating defense with a throw back to Brady and a bomb down the field.
The bottom line is that there is no set way for attacking a style of defense. You can do it in multiple ways. You can pound the ball up the middle or you can take advantage of them by catching them in overpursuit and then burning them in the other direction. When you're looking at a defense and assessing a guy that has been in the league for 17 years that has clearly lost a step, getting him to chase your faster backs is a great idea.
By the way, his losing speed doesn't make him a liability it takes away the extra talent that he used to bring in pursuit. You don't 'attack' someone by going after what they used to do better than anyone, over and above their normal job.
This makes me think that you're just here because you're looking for something to argue about. On one hand, you freely admit that he's lost a few steps, on the other hand, you don't think getting him to chase guys like Vereen is a good idea. Further, you admit that Ray Lewis used to pursue well, but does not anymore. And, really, you STILL can't admit that misdirection plays to take advantage of that are a good idea? This makes your final statement in this post even more ridiculous.
Well this discussion was about the running game.
And yet, this was one of the first sentences of the OP...
With all that said, there is one area in which the Ravens have clearly played better without Lewis, and that is in pass coverage.
And yet, here was my first response...
Agreed. We might as well now that Gronk is shelved. I would still stay away from running right at him but, in the passing game, Lewis should have a Maryland sized bullseye on his chest.
It was actually you who took issue with the running comment and made the discussion about that. My OP was centered around using his lack of speed against him in both the run game and in the passing game.
You seem to be grasping at straws to just not admit you erred, so I will just move on. I see no point in monitoring what you will come up with next to avoid saying "yeah I got that one wrong".
So I erred because I think that the best way of attacking a 17 year veteran who has lost his speed is to throw at him and mix in a good amount of misdirection and plays centered around getting him to chase our runners? I guess maybe I erred if you're incapable of putting that together.
By the way, you still haven't refuted anything I said, nor have you refuted mgcolby's post where he pointed to Lewis selling out hard on misdirection plays to make up for his lack of speed.
