Defensive Notes 10/12/08 vs. Colts

[Filmstudy]

10/12/08 vs. Colts—Secondary Burns

The Ravens took their first whipping of the year on Sunday. Say what you will about Peyton Manning’s insatiable lust for endorsement dollars, the man knows how to pick apart a defense. When ahead, I know of no one else that milks the clock any better, particularly with a pass dominated offense. It’s a week we’d rather forget, so I’m going to keep this short. On to the stats:

Overall: 58 plays, 336 yards, 5.8 YPPA (excludes 2 kneels)
Best: Douglas 20/49, 2.5 YPPA, Bannan 26/78, 3.0 YPPA
Worst: Ivy 33/272, 8.2YPPA

Vs. the Run: 28 carries, 78 yards, 2.8 YPC
Best: Douglas 13/1, 0.1 YPC, Bannan 16/12, 0.8 YPC
Worst: Ivy 11/66, 6.0 YPC

Vs. the Pass: 30 pass plays, 258 net yards, 8.6 YPP
Best: Suggs 29 plays, 224 yards, 7.7 YPP, Bannan 10/67, 6.7 YPP
Worst: Ivy 22/204, 9.3 YPP, Pryce 24/216, 9.0 YPP

By number of Pass Rushers:
3: 3/30, 10.0 YPP
4: 14/134, 9.6 YPP, 1 sack
5: 9/38, 4.2 YPP, 1 sack
6: 2/34, 17.0 YPP
7: 2/22, 11.0 YPP

By number of Defensive Backs:
3: 2 plays, 1 yard, 0.5 YPPA
4: 23 plays, 65 yards, 2.8 YPPA
5: 33 plays, 270 yards, 8.2 YPPA, 2 sacks
The Ravens did not play a single set with 6 or 7 DB’s

Individual notes:
• Suggs sat out his first 3 defensive plays of the season. On those 3 plays he was replaced by Barnes (Antwan’s only 3 plays). For the year now, only Johnson, Lewis, and Reed have played every snap. Suggs time off came with the game out of reach in the 2nd half. It’s becoming more apparent that there is not a spot for Barnes in this defense.
• Ngata appears overworked, and it’s showing. He played 49 of the team’s 58 snaps Sunday in a lopsided game. For the year, he’s played 76.4% of the team’s real snaps. That’s too many for a DT (Gregg played 67% in 2006, Adams under 64% in 2000). The loss of Gregg has definitely hurt the rotation and the Ravens have yet to play a game where they have been stretched in terms of total snaps (the 58 real vs. Indy were the most this season).
• Each corner was picked on at least once. Ivy gave up a long TD to Wayne, McAlister was burned for the 67-yarder to Harrison, and Walker was beaten for both a 34-yard completion and a 63-yard TD to Wayne that was nullified by penalty. It was reminiscent of last year’s secondary torching in the Monday night game at Pittsburgh.
• The Ravens did not once have more than 5 DB’s on the field Sunday. I think I would not be far off to say Manning approached the game by finding the deep safety and throwing into the man coverage on the other side. He threw safe passes which only his receiver could catch, and they did so with alarming regularity. The Ravens completely shut down the Colts on the ground with the exception of Rhodes’ 38 yard run (they were 27/40, 1.5 YPC on all other non-kneels). It’s always easy to second guess, but against Manning it might have been prudent to play nickel as the base defense and dime in passing situations. That would both keep the linemen fresh (since there are fewer on the field) and give the Ravens much more blitz and coverage flexibility. Would the Colts have rushed for 4 YPC? Perhaps, but that would have been much better than the alternative. BTW, there is precedent for exactly this strategy. In last year’s near-upset of the Patriots,
the Ravens played a 4-man defensive backfield on just 4 plays. Here’s a link to the analysis from that game:
• I have noted several times that the Ravens had not employed a 7-man pass rush this season, but it happened for the first two times this season on Sunday. The first was Wayne’s 22-yard TD catch. The second was incomplete. Ryan’s trademark this season has been to rush with 4, but drop 1 or more linemen to coverage in order to confuse the protection. It’s been effective as the Ravens have sacked the QB on 8 of 78 (10.3%) 4-man rushes. On Sunday, the sack following Manning’s trip was 4-man pressure with Ngata dropping to zone. It wasn’t the poster-sack for 4-man pressure, but it was indicative of Ryan’s willingness to drop anyone off the LoS.
• Corey Ivy is having a lousy year. His YPPA is 5.4, which is .4 higher than the next worst Raven (Walker 5.0). The last 3 weeks in particular, he’s looked outclassed by his assignments. He’s been one of the Ravens versatile players the last 3 years, with contributions on special teams, as a pass rusher, and both on the inside and (when desperation necessitated) on the outside receivers. I’m not giving up yet, but I certainly hope he can turn it around these next 4 weeks.

[elland]

Thanks for a great analyze, somehow when we really blew it, its that more interesting for me to see what went wrong.

And clearly this was a cheesmatch, which we lost.

I just find it hard to understand without Rolle/Fab or both of them we give our corners less help, when vs Palmer and Anderson, that really helped us, playing with 5, 6 or even 7 DBs.

[RAVENOUS52]

FilmStudy, you are an absolute pinball wizard when it comes to defensive analysis... keep up the great work.

That Walker/Ivy combination was abominable Sunday...Brought back bad memories of Antoastio Langham.:grbac:

[Jeremiah W]

FilmStudy, you are an absolute pinball wizard when it comes to defensive analysis... keep up the great work.

That Walker/Ivy combination was abominable Sunday...Brought back bad memories of Antoastio Langham.:grbac:

I have seen Peyton, Marv and Wayne do the exact same thing to Champ Bailey and Dre Bly.

Sometimes they just beat you, badly if you let them. They have jumped on NE, SD and other good teams the same way, but they did a much better job of fighting back from the QB position.

[ravensnhokies]

& Deron Jenkins & Donnie Brady:grbac:

[ravensnhokies]

re: DeRon Jenkins

Anybody remember when he came back to Bmore as a Titan in 01, and got toasted by Ismail for a long TD. He was soon on the bench again that season.

Another one in our long line of stellar 2nd round draft picks

--- Just realized ... he also was covering Stokley on a TD pass when he was a Charger in 00

[Filmstudy]

re: DeRon Jenkins

Anybody remember when he came back to Bmore as a Titan in 01, and got toasted by Ismail for a long TD. He was soon on the bench again that season.

Another one in our long line of stellar 2nd round draft picks

--- Just realized ... he also was covering Stokley on a TD pass when he was a Charger in 00

In the 12/10/00 game vs. San Diego, he was blocked into a kick returner by Brad Jackson, causing a fumble. The play still makes me laugh.

[RAVENOUS52]

I have seen Peyton, Marv and Wayne do the exact same thing to Champ Bailey and Dre Bly.

Sometimes they just beat you, badly if you let them. They have jumped on NE, SD and other good teams the same way, but they did a much better job of fighting back from the QB position.

True...right now Flack and Manning are at opposite ends of the spectrum.

Manning is still recovering from two knee surgeries, yet his mind is so sharp and his arm is so precise that he's still able to play a flawless game, whereas Flacco has youth and all the physical gifts you could want, and yet his mind is nowhere near where it will hopefully evolve when that figurative "light clicks on" and he begins to fully blossom into the future of the Ravens.

Right now, I'd settle for Flack just calming down enough to take care of the ball.

[yeahravens]

Great Job on the breakdown!!!!!!

You summized why I said before the Colt game why this season is OVER.

Ivy and Walker are the only two healthy DB's along side CMac, and when Ed Reed decides his injury is too much to play with, every team we play beyond that will run on 1st and 2nd and then on 3rd they will pass for a first AT WILL.

It's only a matter of time before CMac comes up lame, he could use the knee or old shoulder injury as a reason.

The only way to salvage this season is to sign a REAL NFL corner to fill in while Rolle and Washington are out. A few things...
if Dallas can fit Roy Williams under the cap, we can fit a corner (even Ty Law)
no way Rolle plays for another month, at that point we could be on a 7 game losing skid and you have seen those players react to losing
even if Ivy and Walker could play mediocre corner, who is the nickle and dime back???? Derek "it wasn't me" Martin is currently hurt.

Teams will spread us wide and move the ball at will if we get any thinner in the secondary, the NFL is set up perfectly for it.

[Jeremiah W]

Great Job on the breakdown!!!!!!

You summized why I said before the Colt game why this season is OVER.

Ivy and Walker are the only two healthy DB's along side CMac, and when Ed Reed decides his injury is too much to play with, every team we play beyond that will run on 1st and 2nd and then on 3rd they will pass for a first AT WILL.

It's only a matter of time before CMac comes up lame, he could use the knee or old shoulder injury as a reason.

The only way to salvage this season is to sign a REAL NFL corner to fill in while Rolle and Washington are out. A few things...
if Dallas can fit Roy Williams under the cap, we can fit a corner (even Ty Law)
no way Rolle plays for another month, at that point we could be on a 7 game losing skid and you have seen those players react to losing
even if Ivy and Walker could play mediocre corner, who is the nickle and dime back???? Derek "it wasn't me" Martin is currently hurt.

Teams will spread us wide and move the ball at will if we get any thinner in the secondary, the NFL is set up perfectly for it.

The only part of this that makes any sense is the Ty Law option, at the right price. He is not a whole lot faster than Ivy anymore, but he obviously could help us. Reggie Wayne would have burned him also though, and he would not have shut down Harrison, or any one they had out there. I think we still would have been torched with Washington and Rolle eventually with the way our offense was playing, but when we get those guys back, we will have the best coverage unit in the NFL back.

Every team faces injuries. The Ravens do not have half the secondary right now, and the ones we do have are a little injured themselves, but unless they are BSing us about the condition of Rolle, Washington and Landry, we should be alright on defense the rest of the season. Ty Law would be a nice pickup to help get us to that point, but we should not need him this week.

[yeahravens]

My fear is that by the time Rolle and Landry get back (at least 4 weeks from now) we could be 2 - 6. I say that because whether it was an aging Harrison or a fast Reggie Wayne, there is no wide reciever in the NFL that Ivy or Walker could shut down, AND when teams can torch your outside DB's they will throw up to 4 WR's at you and spread the ball around.

The NFL is set up for the passing game, period.

All I am saying is just watch, if I'm wrong blast me in week 16 or 17.

[Rxdoxx]

I say that because whether it was an aging Harrison or a fast Reggie Wayne, there is no wide reciever in the NFL that Ivy or Walker could shut down, .

[ironic humor] I wouldn't say that, they may be able to shut one of ours down [/end joke attempt]


Filmstudy, another thanks... great as always.