Offensive Line Model and Notes vs. Bills

[Filmstudy]

Offensive Line Notes—Ravens vs. Bills

I thought I’d try something different this week. The idea is to take a single play from the game and break down the timing of it. In this case, I used the DVR timing method (30 clicks per second) to measure the time from the snap of the football to a number of in-play actions. For judging false starts, it’s very nice to have a timing device accurate to .03 seconds, but once we get further into the play, I’m going to round to the nearest .1 seconds. The play I decided to do this week was Flacco’s 36-yard completion to Mason (Q4, 5:36).

Overview of the play: Flacco took a 10-yard drop off play action and looked first to the middle of the field, then threw a low-trajectory bullet to Mason near the right sideline who brought it in cleanly, then ran for 6 YAC before being taken down by McKelvin. Joe got good blocking and ample time/space to throw.

Birk initially moves ball: 0 clicks
RDE Dwan Edwards out of stance (3 years ago in Baltimore he’d still be in his stance): 6 clicks (.2 seconds)
Flacco pulls back play action handoff: 33 clicks (1.1 seconds)
McClain engages Edward on left side: 48 clicks (1.6 seconds)
Flacco reads deep middle/left as he continues to drop back: 64 clicks (2.1 seconds)
Flacco completes 10-yard drop (including the play action, this took 9 steps): 78 clicks (2.6 seconds)
Edwards gets by McClain to the outside (none of the other rushers made any progress): 96 clicks (3.2 seconds)
Flacco cocks arm: 110 clicks (3.7 seconds)
Flacco releases: 117 clicks (3.9 seconds)
Mason catches the ball at the Ravens’ 48-yard line: 170 clicks (5.7 seconds)
Mason is taken down at the Buffalo 46: 197 clicks (6.6 seconds)

One note to make is that this won’t synch up with the game clock exactly since the clock manager does not start the clock until slightly after the snap. If you want to follow along with your own DVR, I’d suggest you try to calibrate it first to make sure yours is also 30 clicks per second.

The Ravens ran 62 offensive plays Sunday.

Oher: Coming off his disastrous game at New England, Oher played well. He avoided negative plays until getting a share of the OT sack, but missed 6 blocks. He made 4 blocks in level 2 and made 2 pancakes by my count. Scoring: 54 blocks, 6 missed, 1/3 sack, 52 points (.84 per play).

Grubbs: Ben’s streak of 18 consecutive successful pulls came to an end on his 2nd attempt Sunday (Q1, 0:40). For the game he found a block on 7 of 9 pulls. He was also flagged for the first time this season (false start, Q1, 10:48). He had 5 blocks in level 2. On the McGahee/Flacco fumbled exchanged (Q4, 15:00), he was beaten for a penetration that would have resulted in a loss even if there had been no fumble. I also gave him 1/3 of the jailbreak sack (OT, 14:20). Scoring: 57 blocks, 2 missed, 1 penetration, 1/3 sack, 1 false start, 50 points (.82 per play).

Birk: Matt turned in another fine game Sunday, blocking effectively on both run and pass plays. He missed just 2 blocks while recording no negative plays. He pulled twice successfully and had 6 blocks in level 2. Scoring: 59 blocks, 2 missed, 59 points (.97 per play).

Chester: Chris was having one of his best games until overtime when he allowed a PD to Edwards (OT, 14:24), shared in the jailbreak sack (OT, 14:20), and was pancaked while pulling (OT, 11:38). For the game, he completed 8 of 10 pulls and had 3 blocks in level 2. Scoring: 53 blocks, 6 missed, 1 penetration, 1/3 sack, 49 points (.80 per play).

Yanda: Marshal had another good game at RT despite a full sack allowed (Q2, 1:24). On that play, he allowed the initial hit although Edwards would clean up. He otherwise missed just 1 block and made 2 blocks in level 2. Scoring: 59 blocks, 1 missed, 1 sack, 53 points (.87 per play).

Cousins: Oniel entered for 6 plays as a 6th lineman and made a block on 4 of those. He and Oher both contributed to the failed 3rd-down conversion (OT, 11:38) which preceded Cundiff’s game-winning FG. Had the kick been missed, we might still be talking about the failed 3rd down conversion. Scoring: 4 blocks, 2 missed (.67 per play).

Individual Offensive Notes:

• The Ravens offensive line has played every snap of the season together through 7 games.
• Edwards’ sack was the 3rd of his career. He had 7 tackles and a PD. It appears last season may have been the turning point for Dwan. He got a big payday for it, but the Ravens got just 1 good season of 6 he played here.
• Billy Cundiff was the Ravens’ offensive MVP with kickoffs that resulted in starting field position of the 28, 18, fumble (lost), 20, 20, 20, 20, as well as a 3 for 3 on field goals.
• McGahee’s touchdown (Q3, 1:04) differed from his usual field-vision efforts on the Ravens regular stretch plays to the strong side. This time Flacco pitched right allowing Willis to operate in space where he beat Posluszny and McKelvin to the goal line.
• Flacco had a poor game based on the time he had in the pocket. He had ample time and space (ATS) to throw on 23 of 33 drop backs (70%). That’s his highest percentage of ATS this season. On those plays he completed 12 of 23 passes for 189 yards, 3 TDs and 0 interceptions. The 8.2 YPP when given time is disappointing. With the Bills rushed 4 so regularly, they had more men in coverage. We’ve seen the Ravens have success, however, running 2 man patterns with Flacco’s arm.

Let’s take a closer look at Flacco’s 11 incomplete passes with ATS:
• (Q1, 14:51) Had good time in pocket, then pressured left where he threw incomplete to Heap on the sideline
• (Q1, 8:38) Joe threw Complete to Boldin out of end zone deep right. There was a safety approaching, but as John Gruden says, “the ball has to land in the field of play.”
• (Q1, 8:31) Overthrew Houshmandzadeh deep between the hashes in triple coverage
• (Q2, 14:52) On target to Houshmandzadeh deep middle who was separated from the football by Posluszny
• (Q2, 9:42) Overthrew Rice short right on what would have been a loss of 5 had it been caught with Posluszny approaching
• (Q2, 3:59) Flacco was on target for Boldin perhaps 15 yards downfield on the sideline, but stared down the route and Whitner barely missed an easy pick 6.
• (Q2, 2:50) Overthrew Boldin deep middle. Boldin was covered by Byrd to his left, but had room to his right.
• (Q2, 0:41) Underthrew Boldin deep right on Reggie Corner’s near INT. Watching that several times, I think both players were guilty of pass interference. I’d really love to know if Boldin was thinking about getting Corner off the field of play. In any case, that was a terrific play.
• (Q4, 9:53) Overthrew Boldin deep left as Anquan was single covered. Ideally the ball would be on target and Boldin would simply out jump Florence (I think) for the ball, but had the ball been slightly underthrown there would have been a high probability of pass interference.
• (Q4, 5:40) Threw too low for Todd Heap short left between the hash and numbers. Heap was quickly sandwiched by 2 defenders.
• (Q4, 3:37) Overthrew Boldin short left against tight coverage

Flacco has played extremely well the last 7 games, but despite a high QB rating, he had a mediocre performance last Sunday.

[skip727]

Filmstudy. Great analysis. Since getting introduced to your threads, I look forward to your thoughts following Raven games. Keep it going.

[JimZipCode]

Flacco had a poor game based on the time he had in the pocket. He had ample time and space (ATS) to throw on 23 of 33 drop backs (70%). That’s his highest percentage of ATS this season. On those plays he completed 12 of 23 passes for 189 yards, 3 TDs and 0 interceptions. The 8.2 YPP when given time is disappointing.

That's a bold statement. The stat line you give (12 of 23 for 189 with 3 TDs and 0 INTs) gives a QB rating of 119. Really, we find that disappointing?

This seems like a clear step forward for Joe. Previously he's done great against the blitz, finding the guy in single coverage, but struggled some against zone looks. Here we have a game where Joe puts up a great rating against a coverage look (7 in coverage). And clearly the game plan was not just to settle for the checkdown, but instead attack the D moderately deep. Thus the lower completion pctg, but over 15 yards per completion.

I don't get the criticism.

Love the rest of the post. I look forward to the O-line notes ever week, and they don't disappoint.

Thanks,

Jim

[Filmstudy]

That's a bold statement. The stat line you give (12 of 23 for 189 with 3 TDs and 0 INTs) gives a QB rating of 119. Really, we find that disappointing?

As strange as it seems, the answer is yes, that’s disappointing.

We are reviewing not all of his throws, but only those where he had the best chance for success, so I expect these to contain most of his best throws. In fact, Joe has only 1 of his 6 interceptions this season with ATS. The QB rating scale uses a set of arbitrary standards to determine how much rating credit is given. For “perfection” in terms of rating, those standards are:

77.5% completions

12.5 yards per attempt

11.875% TDs

0% interceptions

Sometimes it helps to look at an extreme example. Let’s say Mr. QB has 30 passes thrown and we want to separate his 3 best to determine if they have met a “quality standard” (TBD). Those 3 best are:

16-yard completion
13-yard completion
9-yard completion for a TD

That’s a perfect 158.3 passer rating, but would that be acceptable for a QB’s 3 best completions of a 30-pass game?

By component:

The completion percentage is 100%, which is exactly what I’d expect and require from the 3 best passes selected from a 30-pass game.

The 12.7 yards per attempt are awful for the 3 best passes of a 30-pass game. I would expect 25+ yards per attempt when taking the top 3 throws.

The 1 TD is slightly below what I would expect, since I’d expect my QB to throw more than 16 TDs per season

The 0% interceptions is exactly what I would expect when taking the best 3 of 30. To fail to meet this standard, our QB would need to throw 28 INTs on 30 passes

So of the 4 standards for QB rating, our hypothetically perfect QB has exactly met 2 (more accurately, these 2 elements are not at all meaningful standards for best 3 of 30), missed 1 by a little and missed the last (yards per attempt) by a lot.

The moral of the story is that when you are comparing the right side of any curve, a different set of rules and standards apply.

[UKRavenGordon]

Wow! FilmStudy, I was going to reply to that same question but the best answer I had was that the reason the QB rating is so high was because three of the passes were touchdowns. That explanation was outstanding!

[JimZipCode]

We are reviewing not all of his throws, but only those where he had the best chance for success, so I expect these to contain most of his best throws. In fact, Joe has only 1 of his 6 interceptions this season with ample-time-and-space. The QB rating scale uses a set of arbitrary standards to determine how much rating credit is given. For “perfection” in terms of rating, those standards are:
...
The moral of the story is that when you are comparing the right side of any curve, a different set of rules and standards apply.

I disagree with the premise. Your "ample time and space" plays would include both plays where the opponent dropped everybody and rushed 3, and plays where they tried and failed to get pressure. In general, if a team is not getting a lot of pressure, then unless they are overmatched, they are probably in coverage. Defenses play nickel and dime and all the other coverage packages, in order to prevent completions to WRs. It's a passing defense. So some of your "ample time and space" plays would include plays where I would not expect Joe to have a high rate of success, because those are defensive formations designed specifically to counter the pass.

To me, the real "right side of the curve", the plays where the odds would be completely in Joe's favor, would be those plays where the opponent attempts to get pressure, but the O-line picks everybody up and suddenly the DBs are on islands. (Ideally the defensive backs all trip and fall down too.) An example that comes to mind is the winning TD in Pittsburgh earlier this season, where Heap came across the formation to block Polumalu. On that play, Joe had "enough" time and space; but was it "ample"? I'm not sure.

Point being, there are a lot of factors, and coverage is one of them. "Ample time and space" is hugely important, but it's not the whole story.



As long as we're deconstructing the passer rating, another yardstick to compare against is the NFL's best season by passer rating. The top 5 single seasons in passer rating are:

http://www.pro-football-reference.co...gle_season.htm
Rank   Player, Year            Team   Rating
1.     Peyton Manning, 2004    IND    121.1
2.     Tom Brady, 2007         NWE    117.2
3.     Steve Young, 1994       SFO    112.8
4.     Joe Montana, 1989       SFO    112.4
5.     Daunte Culpepper, 2004  MIN    110.9

Drew Brees last year is just a couple places behind, at #7.

Those are the seasons where the very best passers in the game had the most weapons and the best pass-blocking, and they just tore everybody apart. These were the pass offenses with the most factors operating in their favor.
(Possible hidden factor: I suspect we would probably find, if we broke down those teams' schedules, that they did not play a lot of games against great defenses. Records are set when conditions are conducive, and quality of opponent is one of the important conditions.)

I think we agree that Joe Flacco as a player doesn't quite rank with Peyton Manning and Steve Young et al, right? (Maybe he'll grow into it.) Yet Joe's numbers in the "ample time and space" plays, if you extend them out over a whole season, would place him #2 on this list. That would be the 2nd-best season by passer rating of all time. Put another way, in the "ample time and space" plays, Joe was about as productive as the most productive QBs in history have been in their greatest seasons.

Disappointing? Really?

I suggest that we might need to recalibrate expectations, a little.

[Filmstudy]

I disagree with the premise. Your "ample time and space" plays would include both plays where the opponent dropped everybody and rushed 3, and plays where they tried and failed to get pressure. In general, if a team is not getting a lot of pressure, then unless they are overmatched, they are probably in coverage. Defenses play nickel and dime and all the other coverage packages, in order to prevent completions to WRs. It's a passing defense. So some of your "ample time and space" plays would include plays where I would not expect Joe to have a high rate of success, because those are defensive formations designed specifically to counter the pass.

To me, the real "right side of the curve", the plays where the odds would be completely in Joe's favor, would be those plays where the opponent attempts to get pressure, but the O-line picks everybody up and suddenly the DBs are on islands. (Ideally the defensive backs all trip and fall down too.) An example that comes to mind is the winning TD in Pittsburgh earlier this season, where Heap came across the formation to block Polumalu. On that play, Joe had "enough" time and space; but was it "ample"? I'm not sure.

I agree wholeheartedly that there are 2 points for me to prove here to claim Joe's 8.2 YPP with ATS is disappointing:

1. That the YPP (or QB rating if you prefer) on a (to be defined) subset of throws needs a different standard
2. That Joe's game wasn't good against that different standard

Reading your well-reasoned response, I thought "he's on board witht he basic math and disagrees about where the sample is coming from". That's legitimate and I have thus far asked you to take on faith that ATS as I have defined it is going to provide significantly better opportunities.

Then I got down to the table of QB ratings, and I think I lost you, because I'm going to say flatly that I can define a subset of throws (forgetting for a moment if ATS is it) where a QB rating of 150 is expected and anything less is disappointing. My point is we need to toss out the old arbitrary standard (QB rating) and make a new one.

Without checking, I'd completely agree that a QB is going to have more ATS opportunities to be successful against a 3-man pass rush. But we're also stripping out the times he did get pressure when compiling ATS stats. For example, against New England, Joe had ATS on just 8 of 14 3-man rushes. So you can get a sense of just how truncated the sample is.

When I get home, I'll create a table of with and without ATS for each game this season.

BTW, absolutely no one should read into this that I think Flacco is a bad QB. He's good and could be great.

[TheExtraPoint]

The benefit of the league's formula for QB Rating is that it's a standard, albeit incomplete measure of quarterback play. I think it's extremely valuable for points of comparison but not as much for individual evaluation.

From what I can gather, Filmstudy's disappointment stems from the fact that Joe left plays on the field in favorable situations - something that isn't accounted for using the current QB rating formula.

Watching the game in person, I remember thinking to myself, "Wow... Joe had a solid statistical game and didn't even play as well as he is capable of. He was slightly off his game all day." Watching the game back a few times with DVR control and reviewing Filmstudy's analysis only confirms that.

I actually look at this in a positive context however. Historically, Joe is a remarkably consistent passer from the pocket in those ATS situations (perhaps Film can shine a statistical light on my eyeball analysis in that regard). I strongly believe that not only were his struggles in ATS situations an anomaly and the product of a rare occassion where Joe was slightly "off", but also a positive indication that Joe is making good decisions, and in this case making plays, in imprefect situations.

IMHO, that bodes exceptionally well for the Ravens going forward. Joe doesn't have those off games very often, and the Ravens can still win games when he does... perhaps so long as our defense remembers how to tackle.

[TheExtraPoint]

Filmstudy - How do you decipher ATS?

[Filmstudy]

Filmstudy - How do you decipher ATS?

I define Ample Time for my scorekeeping if the QB had at least 3 seconds and good space to throw the ball. In cases where the ball is out very quickly (on a slant or WR screen, for example), or the QB leaves the pocket by design, I try to determine if the protection would have held up for that long and score accordingly, but if I can’t tell, I err on the side of excluding the play from ATS.

Ample space means the QB can step into a throw in any direction that is roughly 150 degrees in front of him. It’s perfectly possible for the QB to be sacked or hit on a play with ATS, but it would occur after time in the pocket. Despite the fact that ATS is a judgment call, I think we’d agree on 90+% of pass plays.

[psuasskicker]

Then I got down to the table of QB ratings, and I think I lost you, because I'm going to say flatly that I can define a subset of throws (forgetting for a moment if ATS is it) where a QB rating of 150 is expected and anything less is disappointing. My point is we need to toss out the old arbitrary standard (QB rating) and make a new one.

It's interesting, cause this is where you're losing me. I'm doped up on Percocet right now (excuse any spelling plz) so that might have something to do with it.

But why are we expecting a QB rating of 150 and anything less is disappointing on plays where Flacco has ATS? There will be a few plays where Flacco has ATS in the face of a blitz. But many of them will be plays where the defense rushes 3-4 players while the Ravens block with 5-7 players, which leaves 3-5 receivers trying to find open psace against 7-8 defenders.

Suggestion: Break down the 23 passes with ATS as follows, and show stats of each...
1) Those with 5+ rushers.
2) Those with 4- rushers.
If so inclined, break down further by showing stats for 3, 4, 5 and 6+ rushers.

Regardless, let's give a "best case" expectation for Flacco's situation when he has ATS. This would be the Bills rushing 6+ players, the Ravensn sending 4+ receivers on routes, Flacco has ATS. Almost all receivers will have single coverage or may run wide open. Even in such a case, should we really expect a 150+ QB rating?

Maybe it's reasonable to, but the more pertinent reality is that it's highly unlikely that the majority of those 23 passes were of that type. My guess would be at most two were, probably zero (ATS with equivalent rushers to blockers is rare).

Reviewing your incompletions list, many of those look to be throws into significant coverage. While there isn't a list of # rushers for each, it looks like many of them included throws into double/triple coverage which would suggest a significant number of blockers vs. rushers. In most cases I would bet there were 2+ more blockers than rushers for many of them (including when the RB looks to block, sees no one needs to be picked up, and jumps into the flat). Those typically mean 4 rush to 6 block and 4 route runners, or 5 rush to 7 block and 3 route runners. In the first, it's 4 on 7; the second is 3 on 6.

I would contend that it's completely unreasonable to expect a QB rating of 150 for most QBs not named Peyton Manning under these circumstances.

The reason so many teams (and media/fans) place huge importance on generating solid pass rush with four rushers is because of the additional help you can be afforded in coverage. While a QB can have success with ATS when facing 7 in coverage vs. 3-4 receivers, it's really not going to result in perfect or near-perfect QB play. If it would, teams would almost never rush only 3-4 players, because no team will ever get pressure every single play with only 4 rushers, and could not afford perfect QB play on those they don't. But on the plays they do generate pressure with 7-8 in covergae, QB's play is likely to be worse than their avg.

- C -

[psuasskicker]

PS- That's a long-winded was of saying I completely agree with Jim that we need to recalibrate expectations on ATS plays. Near perfect QB play is not at all reasonable to expect.

PPS - Sorry for the spelling...my mind's only partially there right now.