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  1. #1

    Gratuitous self-pimpage - Air Coryell and the Ravens

    Ordinarily I'm a pretty humble guy. Most days of the week you could squeeze my ego through a Cheerio. I'm pretty gratious and overall not at all opinionated. <sic>

    So I'll follow-up on myself by linking my most recent article which headlined Football Outsiders the other day.

    I do this knowing full well that this isn't gonna be a popular article on this board. It won't take more than two paragraphs to figure out why that is. But the short story is, I no longer believe that Cam is the one primarily at fault for the offensive struggles.

    The only thing I'd ask in this thread is, do not simply not bother reading the article, and then make commentary about:
    - how much of an idiot I am for thinking that or
    - how Cam is completely at fault because his system is stupid for misusing the players.
    The first isn't constructive, and you don't get to criticize someone without reading their material first. The second is addressed directly in the article, so you don't get to make a point that's already been countered.

    With those caveats in mind, you are more than welcome to:
    - read the article and tell me how much of an idiot I am for thinking that or
    - present alternate data to prove that Cam is in fact misusing players or running the wrong system.

    And beyond all else, hopefully you enjoy and/or learn something from it, which really was the purpose of writing it.

    - C -
    ---------------------------------------------------

    www.oblongspheroid.com

    A blog about any and everything football.

    Twitter: oblong_spheroid





  2. #2

    Re: Gratuitous self-pimpage - Air Coryell and the Ravens

    Nice job. I think you covered all the bases. The thing I always go back to when assessing why Cam's offense hasn't clicked is indeed the offensive line. But I don't look at the sacks, per se. It really comes down to the running game. As you stated, the key to the Coryell offense is the power running game. If you can pound a big back at a team on first down and pick up four yards or more, you're going to succeed in the Coryell system; if not, you won't.

    The key to making it work is to put the defense on its heels. They bring up safety help to stop the run. You put them in second and five, or third and two situations. Now you have them geared to stop the run, and you throw over the top. And when you make them respect the threat of the long ball, you open up the underneath routes for the tight end or slot receiver. When run correctly, the Coryell system is a triple threat offense and the defense doesn't know what's coming.

    But it all keys off the ability to run the ball on first down. If you don't successfully do that, the offense becomes too predictable. You have defenses pinning their ears back on third down to get sacks.

    Ironically, when Cam first arrived the Ravens had a 235 lb. back in Willis McGahee, who lost the job to Rice. And then the had success with McClain running the ball.

    But you're right, it's not Rice per se that is the reason the offense didn't go. It was the line. Hopefully Yanda back at guard will help. We need to see the right tackle position addressed. Anthony Allen and Ricky Williams are also a good fit for this offense.

    Good job.





  3. #3
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    Re: Gratuitous self-pimpage - Air Coryell and the Ravens

    I just don't buy DVOA as this all powerful metric that can be used to analyze everything. Some things cannot be converted into math.





  4. #4
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    Re: Gratuitous self-pimpage - Air Coryell and the Ravens

    I definitely agree with you about your assessment of what the Air Coryell offensive is supposed to be, but my problem is that you can't always have a perfect scenario. We didn't have any real effective speed receivers, our OL was mediocre, and our running game lacked as a result of the first two things. To me, this is where a coordinator needs to be creative and flexible. Work with what you've got and tailor things to the strengths of your personnel. Asking guys like Boldin and Mason to run long/extended routes knowing full well that our OL was ineffective and teams didn't respect our ground game is bad business and a bad way to game plan.

    However, I think your article was pretty spot on and I definitely feel like that's why our personnel moves this off-season happened the way they did.

    Yanda - back to RG.
    Jah - big bruising RT (hopefully)
    T. Smith - deep threat
    L. Evans - deep threat
    Leach - instantly improves ground game
    R. Williams - bigger change of pace back


    I know you're not a big fan of Ray Rice, but I think that behind Leach Rice could easily become one of the top rushers in the NFL. I mean, if we're not happy with averaging 4.0 yards per carry then I think we'll be ok, haha. It's not like he dropped down to 3 yards per carry or something.
    Disclaimer: The content posted is of my own opinion.





  5. #5

    Re: Gratuitous self-pimpage - Air Coryell and the Ravens

    "The Ravens have neither of these assets, which is why I believed Air Coryell was the cause of the offensive issues."

    I disagree, Ray Ray is a powerful back. While never used as a power back, he can be effective in that role. As evidence he steam rolled Polamolawho and Ike Taylor last year. We now have deep threat WR's now too. Evans can get on top of you quick. T Smith can too.
    Living in Houston, Tx....still living, eating, breathing the Ravens





  6. #6

    Re: Gratuitous self-pimpage - Air Coryell and the Ravens

    Nice article, but I thought everybody knew that the ineffectiveness of the OL was the main reason the Offense did not do as well as expected.

    It's been discussed before that the long ball was tried quite a bit and was actually fairly successfull when you look at the stats. Good analysis in your article.

    I think what your article might be missing is that Cameron did not call alot of quick slants that may have compensated for the poor O Line play somewhat. Flacco doid not show the quick release as much as other "elite" QB's.

    Also, I think Flacco's ball handling skills may have added to the inefectiveness of the running game, not the main reason mind you, but it still detracted from it. Many times he ran back a few yards with his arms fully outstretched. It looked like he was telegraphing the play and what gap it was going toward. That gap was filled quickly most of the time. Flacco coulld also have been better on his fakes. He was okay but there were a number that were not sold at all. This makes the actual handoffs even more predictable.
    Twenty years of Cheers.
    Thanks Baltimore Ravens Fans - You're the Best!





  7. #7
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    Re: Gratuitous self-pimpage - Air Coryell and the Ravens

    Excellent, excellent piece. This is evidence of why I love to read the information here. Not being as much of an analyst as the aces here, I rely a lot on "gut" and always saw Cam as a Professor who exercised most things from the board, without the human factor. Some of the information here causes me to step back and look from a different angle.

    In my mind I have a vision of the Home Steelers game and the plays involving the tight end. I walked away thinking that Joe's connection with Todd was an intangible that made a difference on the play with the release to the left that Joe drilled into the ground. It looked to me like he expected the TE to stop at a certain distance and instead the TE was farther downfield. Also, as I recall the TE caught a low pass and rolled out of bounds rather than roll forward to get a first, putting us in a fourth down position. Whether he was farther than Joe expected or Joe just blew the pass we do not know. Neither of those are Cam's fault, but they were significant. The plays themselves seemed to be the right ones; the execution just came up short.

    If the stats are indicative of there being less fault on Cam, maybe it is a combination of both play-calling and execution on a more equal scale. I still believe though that the Line play dictates a lot more of a game than any other factor, but you still have to call plays to your strengths and against your weaknesses.

    Anyway, great article.





  8. #8

    Re: Gratuitous self-pimpage - Air Coryell and the Ravens

    Yeah the people blaming our WRs were laughable. When our offense struggled it was because of Flacco, the OL, and the running game.

    Not all sacks are caused by poor OL play.





  9. #9
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    Re: Gratuitous self-pimpage - Air Coryell and the Ravens

    Quote Originally Posted by RavensNTerps View Post
    Yeah the people blaming our WRs were laughable. When our offense struggled it was because of Flacco, the OL, and the running game.

    Not all sacks are caused by poor OL play.
    Attacking Joe Flacco again I see, if Flacco finally beats the Steelers with Big Ben and has a big game in the process will you at least leave him alone or give him some credit? You sound like certain annoying member from the Sunspot board (Ravens_Flock).





  10. #10

    Re: Gratuitous self-pimpage - Air Coryell and the Ravens

    Quote Originally Posted by SugarRay52 View Post
    Attacking Joe Flacco again I see, if Flacco finally beats the Steelers with Big Ben and has a big game in the process will you at least leave him alone or give him some credit? You sound like certain annoying member from the Sunspot board (Ravens_Flock).
    Jesus, I'm not attacking Flacco.

    I swear to god if you say anything remotely related to how he can be part of the problem for anything it's "attacking" the guy. I guess I also attacked Ray Rice and Willis McGahee in my post.





  11. #11
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    Re: Gratuitous self-pimpage - Air Coryell and the Ravens

    I thought it was pretty much common knowledge that many of the problems last year were due to bad o-line play. The bad thing is, it's not looking much better for this year. I think they needed to do some skill position personnel changes (I'm okay with Mason and Heap going, they needed to get younger and faster), but I'm disappointed that Ozzie didn't find a LT, and move Oher back to RT. That would've gone a long way to stabilizing the line.
    Never get in a fight with a pig; you both get muddy, and the pig likes it...






  12. Re: Gratuitous self-pimpage - Air Coryell and the Ravens

    I dunno, if the Ravens really wanted a power back they would have re-signed Le'Ron McClain and handed him the ball 200 times this yr. He signed in KC for next to nothing. Unless Harbaugh absolutely despised McClain, I don't know why the organization wouldn't bring him back to 1)lighten Rice's load 2)be that mauler they're looking for on 1st & 3rd downs.





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