It's safe to say that almost the entire country was confident the Ravens would beat the Steelers at home with the 3rd string Pittsburgh quarterback starting. It's also safe to say that the Ravens probably underestimated the Steelers without Big Ben. Any member of the Ravens staff or roster will probably tell you that they didn't overlook the Steelers and that they game-planned for them the same way they would with any other team. There are, however, some strong indicators that the Ravens coaches didn't plan nearly as well as they should have.
Cam Cameron did not appear to have done his homework on the Steelers, and if he did, that homework wouldn't have received a passing grade. Cam called numerous plays designed to take the top off of the Steelers' secondary and almost none of them were successful. It's possible that Cam was trying to take advantage of the fact that Ike Taylor injured his ankle and had to come out of the game, but this strategy overlooked an important statistic. The Steelers are the best team in the league at preventing deep passes. Any team that hopes to beat the Steelers will have to do so by running the football and setting up short and intermediate passes. I thought Cam did a great job of setting up plays to pass the ball to Vonta Leach, but he appeared to abandon this type of effort later in the game. It was encouraging last week to see Joe throw a short pass to Torrey on a slant that he then turned up field and took for over 50 yards. If there's one thing the Ravens have, it's speedy receivers. If you get the ball to them quickly, they're likely to get at least 5+ yards easily.
Ray Rice is another speedy weapon who was under-utilized and incorrectly utilized on Sunday. The first major instance was when the Ravens found themselves on 1st and goal from the Steelers 5 yard line and proceeded to throw three consecutive unsuccessful passes before settling for a field goal. Ray Rice has a habit of getting into the endzone when he's given the ball against the Steelers and he did so later in the game, but in this situation, Cam Cameron essentially doomed the Ravens by taking the ball out of the hands of their best weapon. Rice averaged 6.5 yards per carry on Sunday. You, thus, simply have to give him a carry or two to try to get in the endzone before trying to pass. The Steelers have the #1 rated pass defense in the NFL...you'd think Cam would have taken that into consideration. Then again, I've come to expect stupidity from Cam in these type of situations.
Possibly Cam's biggest blunder came in the 4th quarter. Ed Reed just made what should have been a game saving interception in the endzone that he proceeded to return for 27 yards. The Ravens simply needed to run down the clock with a long drive and possibly kick a field goal to put the game out of reach. The best strategy to engineer such a drive would have been to put the ball back in the hands of the running backs that had great success all game up to that point. Bernard Pierce had averaged 4.3 yards per carry on 8 carries, Vonta Leach averaged 10 yards per catch on 4 catches, and Ray Rice had 78 rushing yards on 12 carries. Cam could have designed plays to get the ball back into the hands of these guys quickly by handing the ball off or on short dump-off passes in order to keep the chains moving and the clock running. He did nothing of the sort. Cam instead failed to give Ray Rice a single carry in the 4th quarter and had Joe Flacco drop back to pass downfield. James Harrison proceeded to strip the ball from the clutches of Flacco, and the Steelers recovered the football deep into Ravens territory. In that resgard, this game was eerily similar to one almost exactly two year earlier in Baltimore.
After every Ravens loss, I always hope that the Ravens learn something valuable and become a stronger team as a result. I would have hoped that the Ravens realized their errors in strategy, but somehow I doubt they have. The coaching staff seems somewhat incapable of realizing Joe Flacco's weaknesses. His pocket awareness is poor, and he has a tendency at times to hold on to the ball far longer than he should. This could be easily corrected by calling plays that feature routes that allow receivers to get open quicker so Joe can feel confident releasing the ball much earlier. One has but to study film of Tom Brady and the Patriots' offense to see a good example of this kind of thing. The Ravens' offenseive line is also fairly poor in pass protection, and that is all the more reason to design an offense to get the ball out of Joe's hands early and into the hands of some of the NFL's fastest recievers. Mix that in with a healthy dose of handing the ball off to Ray Rice and then you'll set up deep passes off of play action fakes when you need to get down field in a hurry.
Instead of recognizing Joe Flacco's weaknesses and the weaknesses of the offensive line, the Ravens coaches simply attribute such a loss to errors in execution. The problem is that such errors are common enough that the Ravens shouldn't put Joe in position where he's likely to make them. It may be that the staff does recognize their schematic errors and simply doesn't want to second-guess themselves to the media. If that were true, however, we wouldn't see the same mistakes persist over the course of the season. Cam Cameron stopped giving the ball to Ray Rice against the Eagles when the Ravens had a solid lead and Ray was averaging over 10 yards per carry. Cam stopped giving the ball to Ray Rice after the first two drives of the game against the Texans, and we all know how that turned out. I expected Cam to give the ball to Ray Rice more in the second half of the season since he limited Ray's carries in the first half, but somehow that still hasn't happened to the extent that most fans would have liked. It might be interesting to get into the mind of Cam Cameron, but somehow I don't think anyone would find a whole lot there.
One encouraging statistic going into this weekend's game against the Redskins is that the Ravens haven't lost consecutive games since Joe Flacco's rookie season. After a loss, the Ravens typically bounce back well, and I could certainly see them doing so in a road game that is literally just down the road. There should be plenty of Ravens fans at FedEx field, and hopefully that'll help in the same way it helped when Qualcomm stadium was saturated with purple jerseys two weekends ago. The Redskins also have the 31st ranked passing defense in the league that allows 299 yards per game. The Skin will also be without cornerback Cedric Griffin as he has been suspended for 4 games for PED use. Hopefully these facts bode well for the Ravens' passing offense that has been perplexingly inconsistent all season.
There are, however, many things to worry about with this Redskins squad. Robert Griffin the 3rd is an incredibly speedy and elusive quarterback with a strong arm and some good receiving weapons at his disposal. RG3 and company are on a tear recently winning their last 3 games. They have averaged 28.66 points per game during this recent winning streak, and lead the league in rushing yards per game. If the Ravens hope to beat the Redskins, they're going to have to contain RG3 and try to hold the Redskins to fieldgoals as often as possible. Hopefully Dannell Ellerbe will return to give the Ravens a boost in the linebacker corps especially since Terrell Suggs is currently dealing with a torn biceps and almost certainly won't play. The Ravens won't be able to shut down the Redskins. They'll simply have to outscore them in what could be quite an offensive battle.
THURSDAY NIGHT PREDICTION
BRONCOS AT RAIDERS- I simply can't pretend to be thrilled about this matchup. It will be an utter snooze-fest and an easy win for the Broncos. It will also mean that the Broncos will have a long week to prepare to come to Baltimore. I can only hope that Carson Palmer finds some type of rhythm and puts forth an effort not seen from the Raiders since they beat the Steelers early in the season. The Raiders' defense is so incredibly awful that it has allowed 37.2 points per game in the last 5 contests--that were all losses. The Broncos, by contrast, haven't lost a game since week 5, and they have averaged 30.5 points per game over the last 7 games. The Broncos also have the 6th ranked pass defense and the 7th ranked run defense in the NFL. May God have mercy on the souls of the Raiders...because Peyton Manning most certainly won't. MY PREDICTION: BRONCOS 38-17.
With all of that said, I will be watching the Broncos game simply to observe as much as possible before the Ravens have to play them. The Raiders are such a poor team that I probably won't gain insight in ways to beat them, but I'd still like to observe their offense performing in a divisional game on the road without Willis McGahee as the starting running back. I really hope the Ravens coaching staff alters their game plan against the Broncos as Von Miller and company can really get after a quarterback. Joe Flacco will absolutely need to be able to get rid of the ball early, and Dean Pees is going to have to get creative with his own schemes to make sure Manning doesn't carve up a Ravens defense that he has only lost to once in his career--and that loss was during his rookie season. The Ravens are still 9-3 and can lock up the AFC North by winning two of their last 4 games. Keep the faith Baltimore! As always GO RAVENS!!
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