My Analysis of Our Game Against Arizona

[RavenDomination]

I used Football Outsiders and the stats they have to come to my conclusion. I also watched the game film on the NFL's Youtube channel of the Detroit at Arizona game.

https://www.footballoutsiders.com/info/methods

ARIZONA'S DEFENSE

Let me start out by saying that Arizona's D can definitely be passed on. Matthew Stafford destroyed that defense for most of the game and gashed them on some deep passes. He ended with a 110% passer rating. They tightened up in the 4th quarter though which allowed Kyler Murray to make a comeback late in the game.

Their pass rush looks pretty intimidating. They got to Stafford and was in his face much more than Miami was against Lamar in Week 1. I think the plan will be to blitz LJ early in the game and force him to pass under pressure. This will be a good test for our O-Line.

I think Lamar is going to have a solid game in the air again. I'm not predicting 300+ yards and 5 TD's again, but I definitely think he can pass for 220-250 yards and at least a couple TDs. We're probably going to need at least 1 rushing TD and some FG's too to win it though. I don't think his completion percentage is going to be as high as it was in Week 1 either. In Week 1, he had an 85% completion rating on 20 attempts. I'm thinking his completion % will fall between 70-75% in this game. Which is still not bad. But assuming he throws more than 20 passes, his percentage likely drops some.

So overall I'm expecting a 30-17 type of game in favor of the Ravens.

Ravens - 30 points (2 passing TDs, 1 rushing TD, 3 FG's)
Cardinals - 17 points (2 passing TDs, 1 FG OR 1 passing TD, 1 rushing TD and 1 FG)

ARIZONA'S OFFENSE

Kyler Murray can throw one hell of a pass and he has weapons. David Johnson and Larry Fitz (even at his age, he's still lethal) are the two to focus on in this offense. According to Football Outsiders, when you look at the WR stats, you see that the Arizona WR's all had poor catch rates...which is likely part of the reason why they were down most of the game. Fitz got the most attention by far with 13 targets and 8 receptions. Don't sleep on Christian Kirk though, he had 12 targets, but a much worse catch rate...only 4 receptions.

Arizona's offensive line had a hard time protecing Murray from the Detroit pass rush. Our defense should definitely be able to get behind the line and throw Murray off balance. According to the Offensive Line stats from Football Outsiders, the Cardinals had the 18th ranked O-line in terms of pass protection of Murray and they allowed 5 sacks! That's tied for 2nd worse in the NFL, only Houston allowed more Week 1 sacks with 6 and only four other teams outside of Arizona allowed 5 sacks.

Arizona's run blocking was a lot better than their pass blocking. Their run-blocking is ranked 11th overall, however they're still ranked #1 in the entire league for stuffed runs. Meaning their offensive line allowed the most runs by the Arizona RB's that were stopped at the line of scrimmage or behind the line. Their Power Success is also at 67% and ranked 15th overall. This stat determines how effective the Arizona o-line was on 3 and short downs where they tried (and failed) to covert to a first down by running the ball. Neither of these stats are that impressive and tells me David Johnson can definitely be stopped and limited at least in terms of rushing against us.

[GirlsKickButt]

Nice write up, DR.

The only thing I was add was that Murray's inaccuracy was the reason for Kirk (and K. Johnson's) poor catch rate. Most of the balls that went their way were uncatchable.

[Ravenswintitle]

nice overview. I also saw Murray had 3 or 4 passes batted down at the line so keep those hands up.
But the 4th quarter comeback was very impressive IMO

[sailorsam]

not worried about Cards running

I see our TEs having a good day

about time Koch pinned somebody inside the 5...