Greetings Ravens fans! I must first apologize for the delay in publishing my first post until after the 3rd week of the NFL regular season. I considered writing a post after the Ravens embarrassed the Bengals, but then I held back knowing full well that a Ravens home opener would not necessarily prove an accurate representation of how the Ravens would perform in week 2 and beyond. I'm glad I held off as we all saw a starkly differnt performance in Philly less than a week later. I then considered writing another post, but I wanted to reserve judgement and refrain from doing too much statistical analysis when I only had stats from two games to analyze. After week 3, however, I decided that I'd seen enough to form an early opinion about the strengths and weaknesses of this team when up against some rather fierce competition. Let's go over what we observed.
LOTS OF FAMILIAR PIECES--BUT A BRAND NEW OFFENSE!
It seems bizarre how much the Ravens offense improved with minimal changes in their weapons. They swapped out Lee Evans for Jacoby Jones, but other than that, the list of playmakers remains unaltered. Many assumed the offensive line would take a step back after losing Ben Grubbs and as a result of Matt Birks advanced age and Bryant McKinney's weight and conditioning issues. Lo and Behold, the Ravens have found that the addition of a solid, speedy 3rd wide receiver opens everything up for the offense as well as helps to take full advantage of Joe Flacco's cannon of an arm. As for the O line, the Ravens have once again taken a gamble on youth and talent by starting Kelechi Osemele and Ramon Harewood--with surprising success.
Let's take a trip back to last season's AFC Championship for just a moment. One thing that held the Ravens back from moving the ball early in the game was the offensive line's inability to keep a dialed up Patriot pass rush off of Flacco. Hell, Vince Wilfork pretty much just bull-rushed his way through the Ravens O line by himself on numerous instances. Fast forward to September 23, 2012 and let's see how many times the Patriots sacked Flacco (I'll give you a hint: it rhymes with hero). Yes that's right, the Pats failed to sack Flacco even once. This had also to do with Patriots' insistance on frequently dropping their linebackers into coverage and seldom using defensive backs to bring pressure off the edge. Regardless of the reason, the Ravens were able to keep Wilfork and company off of Flacco to give him lots of time to throw--and we all know what happens when Joe Flacco has lots of time to throw.
Flacco threw for 382 yards and 3 touchdowns with 1 interception against a newly revamped defense that allowed very few passing and rushing yards during the first two weeks of the season. One might say that it was a fluke or that the New England defense still isn't that improved over last season, but Joe also put up about 300 yards on the Bengals defense and should have had 2 TD passes against the Eagles (I don't wanna whine about the refs, but we all saw that play).
There are a couple of notable factor to which we can attribute Joe's recent success. The first, as I'm sure you've observed, is the no huddle and "sugar huddle" offense that Cam Cameron implemented to keep defenses on their toes and give them less time to adjust and react to the Ravens' pre-snap formations. This style of offense also finally gives Joe the authority to make audible play changes in reaction to what he sees from opposing defenses rather than just having to take a timeout when he sees something that he doesn't like. The other factor has undoubtedly been Jim Caldwell. It's tough to say whether or not to even give Cam Cameron credit for the new up-tempo offense as it never truly appeared until Caldwell was hired. Jim Caldwell, for those of you who have been busy living under your respective rocks, was the former head coach of the Colts and the long time quarterback coach of the great Peyton Manning. Is it a coincedence that the same year the Ravens hire Peyton Manning's old QB coach the Ravens just happen to switch to an up-tempo offense that allows Joe to take control? You better believe it's not.
The speed and success of the pass offense has also opened up the running game. Ray Rice is still Ray Rice, but now he's finding himself running into a pile of bodies a lot less often. We've seen far more instances of Ray getting into open space and taking off for good chunks of yardage. Many people feared that Ray Rice would see fewer touches as a result of the revamped passing game, but thus far, Ray has actually averaged 89.33 yards per game on the ground and 42.33 yards per game through the air with 3 total touchdowns. Through the first 3 weeks of the 2011 season, in comparison, Rice averaged 77 rushing yards per game and 59.33 yards per game receiving with 3 total touchdowns. This shows us that the Ravens receiving corps now gets more frequent separation so that Flacco no longer resorts to as many dump-off passes to Rice when no one else is open. These stats also show us that defenses are no longer able to simply key in on Rice to slow down the Ravens offense altogether. Defenses find themselves, instead, struggling to cover Dennis Pitta, Torrey Smith, Anquan Boldin, and Jacoby Jones while Ray takes the handoff and zigzags his way through traffic--often for 10+ yards! The bottom line: the Ravens are ranked 3rd in the NFL in passing yards averaging 301.3 per game and 11th in rushing yards averaging 118 per game. The offense is doing just fine--the defense on the other hand...
THE RAVENS DEFENSE: WHAT HAPPENED???
It's no secret that the Ravens lost some significant pieces to their defense. Terrell Suggs is the most obvious loss, though he will be back. Had the Ravens defense simply just lost Suggs to injury, however, they'd still be a dominant unit. When you couple the loss of Suggs with Jarret Johnson's departure, you get a unit that struggles to stuff the run AND get to the quarterback. Did Suggs have sacks in every game? No, but he commanded enough brute strength and speed to warrant the use of double and sometimes triple teams to block him, and that opened up space for Pernell McPhee, Paul Kruger and company to pressure and sack opposing quarterbacks.
Another big loss was Chuck Pagano. I'm well aware that the Ravens have gone through a host of defensive coordinators in the last dozen years or so, but its quite clear that Pagano was more in tune with the strengths of the Ravens D than the current defensive coordinator, Dean Pees. I know the defense was able to hold the Bengals to only 14 points in week one, and I'm aware that the the defense was able to come up with big stops at the right time against the Patriots, but one simply can't ignore the sheer yardage that the Ravens have allowed during the last 3 weeks. The Ravens currently rank 28th in passing yards allowed per game with 289.7 and 18th in rushing yards allowed per game with 111.7. Now to be fair, the Ravens have faced 3 high powered offenses during that timespan with great quarterbacks and elite receivers. What scares me most, however, is the fact that the Ravens seldom allowed more than 100 yards on the ground in single games for over a decade, and now they're AVERAGING over 100 yards allowed per game though they've actually only faced one elite running back in LeSean McCoy. The Ravens also touted their secondary as one of the best in the NFL before the season began. I still believe that to be true, but with one glaring weakness: CARY WILLIAMS. Cary has been picked on by quarterbacks during each game he's played thus far. I believe teams watched tape of the preseason game against the Falcons and observed his ability to stay with a receiver, but a total lack of the presence of mind to turn and make a play on the ball. On Sunday night, Cary Williams alone allowed 129 passing yards...please take that in for a minute...129 yards allowed by one Ravens corner in one game, and the Patriots don't even have much speed at the wide receiver position. If Pees is smart, he'll do what needs to be done to correct this issue or else the Ravens will have trouble against any team with big, talented, speedy receivers.
One bright spot has been Ed Reed's renewed committment to laying out receivers with absolutely punishing hits the way he did when he was younger. Reed's contract is up at the end of this season, and a big year with a high level of physicality from him would ensure that the Ravens use the franchise tag on him next season after signing Flacco to a long term deal. It also means that we're going to get everything Ed's got this year regardless of nerve imingement. Another bright spot has been the intimidating and intense play of Bernard Pollard. He has, at this point, taken the crown from old Ray as the team's hardest hitter, and he has been wildly exciting to watch. I simply hope the rest of the defense follows the lead of their starting safeties and puts our troubled minds at ease.
One can attribute the Ravens defensive decline growing pains with a new coordinator, the loss of pro bowl caliber personnel, or a combination of the two, but the real test will be how the Ravens are able to adjust in the coming weeks. Deen Pees still has a defense that is chock full of pro bowlers and soon-to-be pro bowlers, but he has to get the hang of using them correctly. Will Pees learn from weeks 1-3 and begin disguising his blitz packages better? We shall soon see as Thursday is rapidly approaching. In the end, however, all that matters are wins and losses, but it sure would be reassuring to see the Ravens hold the lowly browns far under 100 rushing yards and below 200 passing yards with a handful of sacks and turnovers mixed in. Stay tuned for analysis of notable games and teams from the rest of the league tomorrow. As always GO RAVENS!!!
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