When I posted back on page 4 of this thread, I hoped it would ignite a discussion of ACTUAL ways that the Pats could attack the very effective Ravens offense. Instead it ignited a 15 pages of how the Pats are hated, disrespected, or spoken ill of on sports radio. What the F*CK. Who cares what people thing before Thanksgiving. Last year at this time we had 3 losses (all to mediocre teams) and had 2 more coming (also against mediocre teams).....and how did our season end up.
So lets stop whining and start talking football, which was why this thread was started.
So me start again with answering the question of why don't we simply beat the sh!t out of the QB every time he runs an option play. It seems like the logical thing to do. It was what I recommended many times myself when we talked about how to defend the RPO offenses that are popping up all over the place.
Back when option offenses like the triple option or Veer option were prevalent it was a lot easier to punish the QB because the mesh happened close to the LOS, while here it's happening 5-7 yds behind the LOS and usually the QB decision happens before the defense can attack him.
Then we come to the problem of numbers - We'd usually assign 2 men the run option, and one guy for the QB, and another for the pitch. There has been much talk about the way to solve the Ravens' offense is simply to be really disciplined. But here's the problem with that at the NFL level. The athletic ability of your athlete might not be equal, and when it isn't, you can be as disciplined as you want, and STILL not be able to stop this offense.
It's not like any of the coaching staffs of the teams the Ravens have beaten by 30 points in their run didn't know enough about football to defend what the Ravens were doing ON PAPER. Remember they know a LOT more about what exactly the Ravens are doing than we do and they have all reached the pinnacle of their professions. So they are well versed in X's and O's. Yet they STILL lost by 30+. So it isn't going to be as simple as "Bill will find a way"
I would love if the PP2 or others of the more internet savvy guys would put together as series of clips that showcase the Ravens offense so we (or at least I) could get a better sense of what they are doing and help me participate in this thread better.
But from what I HAVE seen, I think we are going to need to get bigger up front. So I wouldn't be surprised to see some sort of 8 man front alignments. And you can morph into a 6man front from an odd alignment by slanting your DL in one direction or another at the snap.
The key to doing that is finding an actual formation or motion key in their offense. Slanting the DL is not something you see much these days in the NFL and could be just the kind of thing a guy like BB came up with much like the 6-1 he unvieled in the Superbowl.
BTW- there are 2 ways you can move your DL You can have them move from the man they are over to the next one in a flatter move, or you can move them from their man they are over to the next gap. The latter way would be used to create penetration as well as a direction advantage. Slants often confuse blocking assignments and free up LB's. Problems occur when runner cuts back and LB over pursue. or if the play is going opposite of your slant.
