It's been a while, but game review of Ravens vs Packers

[RoflDogs]

Hey yall, sorry I haven’t done one of these in a while. College is a very busy place with lots of fun stuff like midterms and such. Anyways, I’m on break at the moment, so I just cranked one game review out today.

Offense:

This go around I tried to focus on just exactly why the OL has been struggling in the run game, and I can point to three possible explanations for our struggles: Gino’s inexperience, scheme problems/player’s lack of understanding of scheme, and lack of urgency.

Paying attention to the line blocking, it became pretty obvious that Gino hasn’t been able to catch all the exotic blitzes and such and call them out. There has been an unusually great amount of blitzers coming in free right at Joe.

Q1 11.52.jpg
Gino does not do a good job of calling protections (or Joe if he calls them) here and is in kind of a no man’s land with two blitzers and one blocker, being himself.

The scheme thing was a big one with me. Lots of times the blocking just made no sense to me. We run a ton of zone blocking, but our lineman rarely get into the second level. This is the reason why there is so much clutter in our run game, and our running backs don’t have a lot of room to run.

Along with that, there are a ton of plays where pre-snap, it looks like the play is going to go for a good chunk of gain, but the players don’t block as they are supposed to (don’t know whether this is a coaching issue or player issue, but it’s probably due to both parts), which results in a loss most of the time.

Q1 2.50.jpg
Here’s a pretty simple zone play, and I’ve diagrammed how I would imagine everybody in the play would block, but Caldwell has a different idea of how the play is going to work.

Q1 2.50.2.jpg

Gino, here again, is in no-man’s land. Raji, the man who he’s supposed to block, is just way too far from him pre-snap for him to block him, but it seems like he was his assignment. During the play, he has committed too much into his zone step for him to be able to get the nose tackle (Ryan Pickett) on the play like I thought he would.

It also does not make any sense why the strong side linebacker (Nick Perry) is getting double teamed by both Monroe and Leach, instead of just having one blocker on him and letting him run himself out of the play.

KO seems like he’s supposed to combo Raji and then peel off to the inside linebacker, but he just does not get Raji blocked at all.

If you were wondering what happened on the play, Raji got into the backfield untouched, which resulted in a Bernard Pierce loss.
Q2 9.31.1.jpg

Here is another example of it. This is supposed to be an outside zone play, but it’s not really an outside zone play. Typically, there are two guys that pull on these kind of players, instead of just one, like there is here. Because of this, there are two linebackers that have a free shot at Ray Rice, and it results in a loss.

Q2 9.31.2.jpg

I could actually do this for a large majority of run plays, and it’s something that has to be fixed before we have any chance at running the ball this season.

On the lack of urgency front, I don’t know if it’s just me, but the offensive line lacks sort of a fire, a desire to go and block with 100% effort. It just seems like they do everything half-assed, and it’s resulting in them getting beat I thought Juan Castillo being here would fire everybody up and make them play super hard, but that is clearly not the case.

Q1 7.18.1.jpg

Just look how late Ed Dickson (Ravens fans’ resident whipping boy lately) is on coming off the snap. That is just totally inexcusable and shows lack of concentration. From my eye, he was supposed to block that strong side linebacker and open up a lane for Leach to make a block on the second level, but he is too late off the snap to make any sort of plausible effort to block his man, which prompts Vonta to make his block for him. After that, the play is pretty much broken, and there is just too much clutter for Ray Rice to find any room to run. (Rice probably could have cutback here and gotten a bit more, but the weakside linebacker was there to stop anything big)

Q1 7.18.2.jpg

In terms of the passing game, I think both the lack of targets and offensive line help made Joe a little bit gun-shy. He played extremely conservative last week, and it showed both a lack of faith in his receivers and linemen.

Often times, there were a couple receivers that were open (not wide open, but open) down the field, but Joe elected to just do a quick check down.

He also has developed a bit of Blaine Gabbert syndrome. Whenever a little bit of pressure comes to his face (but no actual pressure), his feet get jittery, and Joe panics a little bit. He ends up just quickly checking things down before allowing things to develop downfield.

This is a complete 180 from last year when he would stand tall in the pocket and throw to contested receivers, whom he trusts to make the grab.

Q2 14.41.jpg

Joe has a pretty pristine pocket here, and there are two receivers open down the field. On the left side, he has a corner playing the flat and a curl-flat route combination, which is absolutely PERFECT against this coverage. Joe looks left after the snap, but even though Marlon is open on the curl (with Clark open down the seam), he just simply checks down to Bernard Pierce for a couple yards. (The linebacker is probably why he didn’t throw there, but I feel as though he could have made that throw)

Overall, most of these issues are very fixable, and I expect the scheme to get fixed as the season goes on, and that Joe hopefully gains trust in his teammates again.

[RoflDogs]

Defense:

On the whole, you can’t be disappointed with how the defense played yesterday. They held an Aaron Rodgers-led offense to less than 20 points.

But Eddy Lacy ran for over 100 yards, which was obviously a pretty big problem.

To me, the reason for all the breakdowns in the run game is that the players aren’t winning their one on one matchups. Also, the Ravens dared the Packers to run the ball most the time, with constantly showing nickel. The Packers blocked perfectly, and Lacy had huge holes to run to.

Q1 15.00.jpg

First play of the game, Packers are running a zone run, and everybody is blocked perfectly (with Suggs over playing the play and losing contain), which set up a perfect cutback lane to run to.

Q1 14.34.jpg

No, this is not the same play as above. It’s the play right after, and the same thing happened again. Finley did a good job of kicking out Suggs, and Lacy had another big lane to run to.

The defensive line was absolutely tremendous. Suggs and Dumervil always got constant pressure from the outside, and with Arthur Jones providing some push on the inside, Aaron Rodgers got rattled a little bit.

The secondary played pretty inconsistently. Lardarius had his worst game of the season, and he got beat a couple times on slant routes by Nelson and got beat deep that on the 64 yard TD (From checking that play, Webb expected help on the backend from Elam, but he was too concerned with an intermediate route in front of him. Webb knew that he got beat one on one and kind of let off, expecting Elam to be there, but he wasn’t). Graham got beat a couple times, but he wasn’t targeted when he was. Jimmy played tremendously well, and he covered very well and didn’t let his man get open too often.

Again, holding Rodgers under 20 points is a huge win for the defense, and there can’t be much that can be criticized about it except for some mishaps

Random player notes:
KO did not play well again. He often lunged and missed, and he often looked confused on who to block. Also seemed very sluggish and uninspired.

Elam still seems a bit slow mentally, and he seems as if he’s processing things too much mentally, instead of just thinking naturally and making plays. This is resulting in him not being too much of a playmaker and just being someone who keeps his assignment. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I expect him to become that playmaker as he gains more experience.

Haloti, on the other hand, does have that experience, yet his presence is not felt on the defense. He has been rather pedestrian this season despite being supposedly healthy. He gets blocked rather easily one on one in the run game, and he gets destroyed on double teams. His pass rushing is ok, but it is not game-changing. Being one of the highest paid defensive players in the game, Haloti’s play still leaves something to be desired. One would hope with his salary that he plays like a JJ Watt or Geno Atkins, but that is clearly not the case. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Ravens parted ways with him in the next two years because of his ballooning salary.

[Raveninwoodlawn]

Outstanding stuff again. I really like how you incorporate pictures here.

I would say that in that first example, that looked like a simple zone stretch that was completely screwed up by KO. I know it looks weird that Raji is so far away from Gino to expect him to block him, but the play works if KO actually engages Raji until Gino gets there....and then release to get to the second level ILB linebacker on the weakside. KO just looks like he was way too impatient to get to that LB, and had no concept of the spacing of the line...there is no way he should have assumed that Gino or any other center in the league can get that far out to a guy like Raji quick enough to put down a good block. Get a quick double on Raji so Gino can get him under control, and then release.

Good stuff man...we all appreciate it.

[callahan09]

Not sure if joe being hesitant at phantom pressure is happening or not but I'll take your word for it and say that phantom pressure by definition is when you feel pressure that isn't necessarily there because you don't trust your blockers. Flacco has good reason not to trust these blockers so phantom pressure is inevitable.

[RoflDogs]

Here's also all the pass plays in the first half. I got too lazy, and it was too time consuming for me to do the second half lol

http://imgur.com/PBlO33h

[darthpemo]

Here's also all the pass plays in the first half. I got too lazy, and it was too time consuming for me to do the second half lol

http://imgur.com/PBlO33h

Thank you... this was neat to see.

[bmorecareful]

To echo the posters above, good work. I like the breakdown and you point out several key factors in why the OL is struggling.

I agree generally that Joe is getting a little bit checkdown-happy, but I think he made the least-worst call on the specific play you cited. The left side of the field definitely has a nice play design with the high-low curl/flat concept, but Green Bay actually has it defended well both pre and post-snap here.

They're in two-deep zone with eyes on the QB. The short-zone DB has the flat route covered perfectly. The coverage has allowed Brown's curl route to develop, but there is both a LB just outside the throwing lane and a safety over the top. Both are watching Flacco ready to drive on the ball and the DB dropping into the flat could also come off his route and make a PBU or INT. Even with Flacco's arm strength that would be an extremely risky pass, and no doubt Flacco remembers how badly he was skewered by the Bills' LBs dropping into zones only a week before.

The other possible throw there is Dallas Clark on the deep seam, but the underneath LB is directly in that throwing lane, meaning he needs to put a lot of air under that ball. Not a good idea when you have a FS playing over 40 yards deep and only the 1 deep route to concern him! Again, at first the play looks like a great design with numerous open receivers, but unfortunately the Ravens have been beaten pre and post-snap by the Green Bay coverage.

[Paintballguy]

Here's also all the pass plays in the first half. I got too lazy, and it was too time consuming for me to do the second half lol

http://imgur.com/PBlO33h

Looks like a lot of vert routes for Torrey from a quick glance. Not sure why they didn't get him more involved with short/immediate stuff.