Interesting article on 1 vs 2 RB sets

[Carey]

You're talking about something completely separate then, and it's been addressed here plenty. I'm not exactly the biggest Cam fan, and I've got the articles I've authored which prove that, but I think it's ironic that a lot of people complain about how little we use our passing game, when the reason we lost the AFC Championship game was because one of our WRs dropped an elephant sized diarrhea-style shit all over the bed.




Speaking as a guy who charted right around half the Ravens plays for FO, the Ravens had 2 TE on the field a helluva lot more than most other teams had two on the field, I'd bet a ridiculous amount of money on that. The difference is, many times they were split wide, because our #2 receiver was a green rookie who probably shouldn't be handling a full work-load and our #3 and #4 (and #5) receivers sucked donkey-balls.

I think a lot of you guys are reading this chart wrong. This chart is saying that of all our running plays, 80% of them were out of a two-back set. It's NOT saying we ran two-back sets 80% of the time. It's NOT saying we ran 80% of the time when we were in a two-back set. It doesn't tell us anything about our play-calling or game-planning. It simply says that when we ran, we mostly did it with Leach on the field.

This shouldn't be surprising to anyone, given that Leach is the best run-blocking FB in the game. When you're a run-first team, and you have the best blocker in the game, and you've got a bunch of shit receivers, why on earth would you ever want to push the percentage in which you're running without Leach on the field?

- C -

Understood, my argument has always been that in order to get where i feel this passing offense needs to go as well as where Flacco needs to get to individually that we need to become more versatile and less predictable.

This offense, specifically the red zone offense would not be where it is if not for Leach. However if we dont give others specifically a 3rd WR more of a chance to make a mark i think the offense as a whole will continue to be an average offense. The offense has to evolve and do more then just pound people. Even if pounding people is the identity and the primary method of moving the ball, more substance is needed if this team is gonna win a Super Bowl imo.

Im not saying you drastically change the personnel and the snaps they play and i also think my beef is more with the variety of the play calling then it is of the personnel but you make it more difficult for Flacco to take another step in my eyes if the approach of the offense is so close minded..."This is our identity, run it down your throat, play defense".

Now i get your view on the personnel last year, i ask however is it better to go with whats more comfortable yet wildly predictable and put a cap on how successful you can be as a offense or do you step out of the box and look to exploit defenses and go against that notion. The AFCC game you metioned they came out trying to run straight at NE and they were stonewalled. They got into a offensive groove with play action and stepping outside of the box from a play calling standpoint. Now in the end one guy didnt do his job and screwed the team out of a chance to win a super bowl but i thought that was the probably the best game i saw Cam call in baltimore and one of the best and most cerebral games i've seen Joe Flacco. I refuse to think this WR core is just so horrible that they can make a difference, but they have to be given an opportunity to make plays in favorable situations. Not just 3 and 11

[psuasskicker]

Now i get your view on the personnel last year, i ask however is it better to go with whats more comfortable yet wildly predictable and put a cap on how successful you can be as a offense or do you step out of the box and look to exploit defenses and go against that notion.

I think you're still making a subjective argument while the objective results don't support it. You're saying be less predictable. The suggestion implies - based strictly on the data from the FO article - that we should have run out of the one-back set more. i.e. "When we were in one-back sets, we almost never ran. We should have run the ball more so that teams didn't expect the pass!" But the data completely contradicts that. In theory, we ran so infrequently out of the one-back set that it should take other teams off-guard, and we should see a performance better running out of that set than out of the two-back set. But we didn't see that. In fact, we saw worse-than-league-average performance running out of one-back sets. Thus, the argument then becomes "We didn't run well when they didn't expect it, why should we have done it more?

A lot of people talk about being this predictable, run-first team. And it sounds nice to say "We need more change-ups and we need to get Flacco and the receivers experience and need to throw it more," but it just doesn't wash. The Ravens passed the ball on 53% of their offensive plays. Flacco had the tenth-most passing attempts in the NFL. And the Ravens were 12-4 last year, and took the lead into the fourth quarter in all but one of those wins. This is not a "run first team." And while it's nice to say "We should run more complex plays" or "We should mix up which plays we're running," those arguments fail completely when you look at the performance during those times when we went away from our strengths. Lee Evans was the perfect example of this, failing completely almost every time he was thrown the ball.

I hate the argument that "We should give [x player] more of a chance to do something." The implication is that the coaches don't know what the player is capable of doing, as if they aren't watching the player constantly in practice before the season and during the week throughout the season.

We discussed this in another thread, but I'll ask it again. Does anyone here really think Antonio Brown just got thrown into a game one day because Mike Tomlin thought "Let's see what this guy can do?" No. They saw something from him that looked like he could be a very good addition on the field, and started working him in. Same with Torrey Smith. There's a reason the guy moved to our #2 and stayed there, while Lee Evans moved down.

So many people here seem to believe that if they don't see the performance on the field, it must be because the team isn't trying it. In some cases that may be true. In most cases, it's because the coaches are playing to the team's strengths. And so it shouldn't be surprising that the team doesn't use certain things. It's not because they don't want to develop guys. It's because the team feels that's not what gives them the best shot to win the game.

- C -

[wickedsolo]

We discussed this in another thread, but I'll ask it again. Does anyone here really think Antonio Brown just got thrown into a game one day because Mike Tomlin thought "Let's see what this guy can do?" No. They saw something from him that looked like he could be a very good addition on the field, and started working him in. Same with Torrey Smith. There's a reason the guy moved to our #2 and stayed there, while Lee Evans moved down.

- C -

Yea, it was called Lee Evans being hurt. THAT is ultimately the only real reason why Torrey was bumped up to the #2 spot. I'm sure he performed adequately enough to put confidence that he could develop into a starting caliber WR (which he did), but had Lee Evans not been injured I think it's entirely likely that Evans would have been the #2 and Torrey would have been relegated to significantly less snaps.

So many people here seem to believe that if they don't see the performance on the field, it must be because the team isn't trying it. In some cases that may be true. In most cases, it's because the coaches are playing to the team's strengths. And so it shouldn't be surprising that the team doesn't use certain things. It's not because they don't want to develop guys. It's because the team feels that's not what gives them the best shot to win the game.

If the coaches were ultimately trying to play to the team's strengths then it wouldn't have taken an essential crisis situation in the Arizona game for Cam to move Boldin down to the slot and then he exploded.

The coaches may know what they player's strengths are, but that doesn't mean one iota that they're always playing to their strengths.

[Carey]

I think you're still making a subjective argument while the objective results don't support it. You're saying be less predictable. The suggestion implies - based strictly on the data from the FO article - that we should have run out of the one-back set more. i.e. "When we were in one-back sets, we almost never ran. We should have run the ball more so that teams didn't expect the pass!" But the data completely contradicts that. In theory, we ran so infrequently out of the one-back set that it should take other teams off-guard, and we should see a performance better running out of that set than out of the two-back set. But we didn't see that. In fact, we saw worse-than-league-average performance running out of one-back sets. Thus, the argument then becomes "We didn't run well when they didn't expect it, why should we have done it more?

A lot of people talk about being this predictable, run-first team. And it sounds nice to say "We need more change-ups and we need to get Flacco and the receivers experience and need to throw it more," but it just doesn't wash. The Ravens passed the ball on 53% of their offensive plays. Flacco had the tenth-most passing attempts in the NFL. And the Ravens were 12-4 last year, and took the lead into the fourth quarter in all but one of those wins. This is not a "run first team." And while it's nice to say "We should run more complex plays" or "We should mix up which plays we're running," those arguments fail completely when you look at the performance during those times when we went away from our strengths. Lee Evans was the perfect example of this, failing completely almost every time he was thrown the ball.

I hate the argument that "We should give [x player] more of a chance to do something." The implication is that the coaches don't know what the player is capable of doing, as if they aren't watching the player constantly in practice before the season and during the week throughout the season.

We discussed this in another thread, but I'll ask it again. Does anyone here really think Antonio Brown just got thrown into a game one day because Mike Tomlin thought "Let's see what this guy can do?" No. They saw something from him that looked like he could be a very good addition on the field, and started working him in. Same with Torrey Smith. There's a reason the guy moved to our #2 and stayed there, while Lee Evans moved down.

So many people here seem to believe that if they don't see the performance on the field, it must be because the team isn't trying it. In some cases that may be true. In most cases, it's because the coaches are playing to the team's strengths. And so it shouldn't be surprising that the team doesn't use certain things. It's not because they don't want to develop guys. It's because the team feels that's not what gives them the best shot to win the game.

- C -

See thats my thing, im not asking for a spike in Flacco's attempts. Im asking that the offense have be more versatile in the ways they attack. The good and smart defenses we've played against i've noticed a pattern. They use the Ravens predictability against them and once they do we are stuck in ugly games like the Jacksonvile game or the Titans game. More freedom for Flacco and less predictability and more versatility doesnt mean i want Flacco to throw the ball 60 percent of the time. I want an offense that can adjust to defensive gameplans quicker. An offense that can win in a variety of ways. An offense that develops its secondary talent. Im a skill set guy first before the numbers and its no way your telling me some of our secondary guys cant be productive weapons. I just dont believe the cupboard is bare as you make it to be. My concern is taking the next step and competing to win championships and you have to be able to score points in the passing game to be able to do that. The AFCC is a prime example of when i think Cam truly allowed Flacco to make an inprint on the game, im looking for more of that as well making the 3rd WR more of a priority. Nothing drastic, just to the point where it creates versatility and makes the Ravens a little more difficult to gameplan for.

Right now a defense comes in a says...Try to contain the run game, keep someone over the top for Torrey Smith, spy Rice with a linebacker if he leaks out of the backfield. Nothing else imo has been expanded enough to truly show up as a concern to the defense. That has to be expanded upon. I guess my view is more general as opposed to being directly related just to this thread.

[psuasskicker]

Yea, it was called Lee Evans being hurt. THAT is ultimately the only real reason why Torrey was bumped up to the #2 spot. I'm sure he performed adequately enough to put confidence that he could develop into a starting caliber WR (which he did), but had Lee Evans not been injured I think it's entirely likely that Evans would have been the #2 and Torrey would have been relegated to significantly less snaps.

Right. It had nothing at all to do with the fact that Evans had a 15% catch rate, and had nearly as many balls intended for him intercepted as that he had caught. It had nothing to do with Evans being a completely unmitigated disaster. It had nothing to do with Smith being what appears to be a great player, and outplaying Evans in practice once Evans came back. That's why the team cut Evans the first chance they got, right? Because he was hurt last year?

No, that doesn't wash.

If the coaches were ultimately trying to play to the team's strengths then it wouldn't have taken an essential crisis situation in the Arizona game for Cam to move Boldin down to the slot and then he exploded.

Again, the data doesn't back your point up. I charted the second half of that game. Flacco went to Boldin several times, but he had 5 catches for 117 yards in the second half. Here they were, and the formations used for those plays:
37 yard completion, one-back, two WR wide to each side, 2 TE to each side
23 yard completion, one-back, two WR, 2TE bunch right (both WR and a TE were pulled tight to the formation on the right side)
9 yard completion, one-back, two WR wide to each side, 2TE right side
27 yard completion, one-back, two WR wide to each side, 2 TE to each side
21 yard completion, split-backs, two WR wide to each side, 1 TE

i.e. In none of those plays where Boldin ripped off huge catches was he lined up in the slot. You're making a very typical mistake, which is that you look at something ("look, Boldin's in the slot in [some game I'm watching]"), make a judgment about it ("Boldin is good in the slot, we should use him there more") and then translate it to whatever situation you want to ("that second half where Boldin blew up, he must have been in the slot cause he's so good there"). You don't use what the actual data shows.

Right now a defense comes in a says...Try to contain the run game, keep someone over the top for Torrey Smith, spy Rice with a linebacker if he leaks out of the backfield. Nothing else imo has been expanded enough to truly show up as a concern to the defense. That has to be expanded upon. I guess my view is more general as opposed to being directly related just to this thread.

I can buy that, and I'm not particularly thrilled with the play-calling either. But I don't think it's nearly the problem that most seem to think it is. A lot of people here complain about how bad the offense is in some fashion. You don't directly state it's bad, but the implication is clearly "It can be better than it is." But you have no evidence to support that defenses come in with one singular objective in mind. Meanwhile, there are two very contradictory points to such a statement...
1) If they do come in with the thought "The Ravens are really predictable, all we have to do is stop exactly what we know is coming," then the Ravens offensive players are awesome, because they still managed to have an offense ranked in the top half of the league in base and DVOA stats despite the fact that defenses knew exactly how to stop them. I would bet that most of our offensive players just aren't that awesome.
2) If they really aren't that awesome, then as it turns out, defenses didn't really know how to perfectly defend them, and the offense was in reality a lot more unpredictable than you suggest.

Bottom line, how much better an offense do you think this would be if we had Aaron Rodgers, Calvin Johnson, Larry Fitzgerald and Rob Gronkowski with all-pros across the offensive line? But we don't. We have Joe Flacco, who's a decent but not great QB at this point in his career, Anquan Boldin who can definitely be argued is misused but isn't a dominant receiver, Torrey Smith who looks like he could be great but is a rookie and was just good last year, two TEs who are mediocre and a bunch of absolute garbage at receiver behind all that; all tucked behind an OL who would be lucky to be called middle of the pack. So the point in general is, why do people feel so unbelievably confident that these guys would perform that much better if they ran a significantly more complex offensive system, instead of playing to their strengths?

- C -

[wickedsolo]

Right. It had nothing at all to do with the fact that Evans had a 15% catch rate, and had nearly as many balls intended for him intercepted as that he had caught. It had nothing to do with Evans being a completely unmitigated disaster. It had nothing to do with Smith being what appears to be a great player, and outplaying Evans in practice once Evans came back. That's why the team cut Evans the first chance they got, right? Because he was hurt last year?

No, that doesn't wash.

- C -

If Torrey was the receiver that they thought then why trade for Lee Evans in the first place?

They weren't looking at his "15% rate", or whatever. They were looking at starting a rookie WR with questionable hands and questionable route running. They wanted insurance at the #2 WR spot and they wanted a deep threat in case Torrey's learning curve took longer than they expected.

If Lee Evans doesn't get hurt again and essentially misses the entire season then it is very likely that he is named the starter opposite of Boldin and Torrey is slotted as the #3. Does Evans hold that #2 spot all season long? Who knows, but probably not because Torrey really was pretty incredible for a rookie receiver. However, THAT's not the point.

The point is they had no choice but to start Torrey because they needed a deep threat and the vet they just traded a 4th round pick for can't suit up because of a foot/ankle injury.

They cut Evans because Torrey proved that he is better and Evans was due a roster bonus that they didn't want to pay. I don't see how that's not clear. It's not always solely about the numbers.

[psuasskicker]

It's called "incomplete information." The Ravens traded for Evans April 13, before they drafted Smith. They hadn't even seen him on the field!

And Evans played in 9 games. He didn't "essentially miss the entire season." He played in the first two games, got deactivated for a bunch, Smith took over the spot and never gave it back. Evans was terrible last year. Stop pretending Smith got the job only cause Evans was hurt. He was horrific when he was healthy. You're kidding yourself if you believe Smith wouldn't have won that job had Evans never gotten hurt. It may have taken longer, but it wouldn't have changed the fact.

- C -

[wickedsolo]

It's called "incomplete information." The Ravens traded for Evans April 13, before they drafted Smith. They hadn't even seen him on the field!

And Evans played in 9 games. He didn't "essentially miss the entire season." He played in the first two games, got deactivated for a bunch, Smith took over the spot and never gave it back. Evans was terrible last year. Stop pretending Smith got the job only cause Evans was hurt. He was horrific when he was healthy. You're kidding yourself if you believe Smith wouldn't have won that job had Evans never gotten hurt. It may have taken longer, but it wouldn't have changed the fact.

- C -

If you didn't catch this:

Does Evans hold that #2 spot all season long? Who knows, but probably not because Torrey really was pretty incredible for a rookie receiver.

[psuasskicker]

Then why are you arguing with me about it?

[wickedsolo]

Then why are you arguing with me about it?

I'm not.

Hahaha.

You were making it seem like the coaches were going to go with Torrey from the get-go regardless of whether or not Evans was healthy. I disagreed and said if Evans was healthy then he would have been the likely #2 and Torrey would have been the #3. However, it's entirely probable that due to Torrey's ability to get better and catch on then he would have supplanted Evans at some point during the season.

The only thing I was arguing with you was the point that it's not so black and white as you're trying to make it out to be. If Evans was such a terrible player then why did they trade for him in the first place? They thought they were getting a legitimate deep threat who could help bridge the gap of having to go into a season with Boldin as the only vet and a bunch of untested rookies in a season with a lock out and no off-season. They didn't realize how much his nagging ankle injury was going to impact him and even though he didn't technically miss the entire season he hardly dressed because he wasn't really close to being 100% until the 49er's game on Thanksgiving.

It isn't out of the realm of possibilities that Evans has a solid season if he isn't dealing with that injury starting in the off-season and he and Flacco are able to get on the same page.

[srobert96]

I think you're still making a subjective argument while the objective results don't support it. You're saying be less predictable. The suggestion implies - based strictly on the data from the FO article - that we should have run out of the one-back set more. i.e. "When we were in one-back sets, we almost never ran. We should have run the ball more so that teams didn't expect the pass!" But the data completely contradicts that. In theory, we ran so infrequently out of the one-back set that it should take other teams off-guard, and we should see a performance better running out of that set than out of the two-back set. But we didn't see that. In fact, we saw worse-than-league-average performance running out of one-back sets. Thus, the argument then becomes "We didn't run well when they didn't expect it, why should we have done it more?

A lot of people talk about being this predictable, run-first team. And it sounds nice to say "We need more change-ups and we need to get Flacco and the receivers experience and need to throw it more," but it just doesn't wash. The Ravens passed the ball on 53% of their offensive plays. Flacco had the tenth-most passing attempts in the NFL. And the Ravens were 12-4 last year, and took the lead into the fourth quarter in all but one of those wins. This is not a "run first team." And while it's nice to say "We should run more complex plays" or "We should mix up which plays we're running," those arguments fail completely when you look at the performance during those times when we went away from our strengths. Lee Evans was the perfect example of this, failing completely almost every time he was thrown the ball.

I hate the argument that "We should give [x player] more of a chance to do something." The implication is that the coaches don't know what the player is capable of doing, as if they aren't watching the player constantly in practice before the season and during the week throughout the season.

We discussed this in another thread, but I'll ask it again. Does anyone here really think Antonio Brown just got thrown into a game one day because Mike Tomlin thought "Let's see what this guy can do?" No. They saw something from him that looked like he could be a very good addition on the field, and started working him in. Same with Torrey Smith. There's a reason the guy moved to our #2 and stayed there, while Lee Evans moved down.

So many people here seem to believe that if they don't see the performance on the field, it must be because the team isn't trying it. In some cases that may be true. In most cases, it's because the coaches are playing to the team's strengths. And so it shouldn't be surprising that the team doesn't use certain things. It's not because they don't want to develop guys. It's because the team feels that's not what gives them the best shot to win the game.

- C -

It would be interesting to see if there was a site that detailed information on passing stats. I don't chart games but it would seem to me that Flacco was throwing in 2nd and 3rd and long situations quite often.

[Carey]

Right. It had nothing at all to do with the fact that Evans had a 15% catch rate, and had nearly as many balls intended for him intercepted as that he had caught. It had nothing to do with Evans being a completely unmitigated disaster. It had nothing to do with Smith being what appears to be a great player, and outplaying Evans in practice once Evans came back. That's why the team cut Evans the first chance they got, right? Because he was hurt last year?

No, that doesn't wash.



Again, the data doesn't back your point up. I charted the second half of that game. Flacco went to Boldin several times, but he had 5 catches for 117 yards in the second half. Here they were, and the formations used for those plays:
37 yard completion, one-back, two WR wide to each side, 2 TE to each side
23 yard completion, one-back, two WR, 2TE bunch right (both WR and a TE were pulled tight to the formation on the right side)
9 yard completion, one-back, two WR wide to each side, 2TE right side
27 yard completion, one-back, two WR wide to each side, 2 TE to each side
21 yard completion, split-backs, two WR wide to each side, 1 TE

i.e. In none of those plays where Boldin ripped off huge catches was he lined up in the slot. You're making a very typical mistake, which is that you look at something ("look, Boldin's in the slot in [some game I'm watching]"), make a judgment about it ("Boldin is good in the slot, we should use him there more") and then translate it to whatever situation you want to ("that second half where Boldin blew up, he must have been in the slot cause he's so good there"). You don't use what the actual data shows.



I can buy that, and I'm not particularly thrilled with the play-calling either. But I don't think it's nearly the problem that most seem to think it is. A lot of people here complain about how bad the offense is in some fashion. You don't directly state it's bad, but the implication is clearly "It can be better than it is." But you have no evidence to support that defenses come in with one singular objective in mind. Meanwhile, there are two very contradictory points to such a statement...
1) If they do come in with the thought "The Ravens are really predictable, all we have to do is stop exactly what we know is coming," then the Ravens offensive players are awesome, because they still managed to have an offense ranked in the top half of the league in base and DVOA stats despite the fact that defenses knew exactly how to stop them. I would bet that most of our offensive players just aren't that awesome.
2) If they really aren't that awesome, then as it turns out, defenses didn't really know how to perfectly defend them, and the offense was in reality a lot more unpredictable than you suggest.

Bottom line, how much better an offense do you think this would be if we had Aaron Rodgers, Calvin Johnson, Larry Fitzgerald and Rob Gronkowski with all-pros across the offensive line? But we don't. We have Joe Flacco, who's a decent but not great QB at this point in his career, Anquan Boldin who can definitely be argued is misused but isn't a dominant receiver, Torrey Smith who looks like he could be great but is a rookie and was just good last year, two TEs who are mediocre and a bunch of absolute garbage at receiver behind all that; all tucked behind an OL who would be lucky to be called middle of the pack. So the point in general is, why do people feel so unbelievably confident that these guys would perform that much better if they ran a significantly more complex offensive system, instead of playing to their strengths?

- C -

Because from my view there is a cap on the potential of the offense and the players in it by playing to just said strength. And the biggest cap of all would be put on the QB you'll have to soon make the highest financial commitment you've made to anybody.

Reading your perspective i can certaintly understand the apprehension about not doing so last season to an extent. I just hope that doesnt carry over into this season.

The Ravens will always be able to run the ball unless teams sell all the way out to stop it. The Oline is big, Leach is fantastic, Boldin is a very good blocker and a Torrey Smith is a better blocker then people realize. I think you saw clearly the teams that decided they would let the game come to them defensively and the teams that said we are gonna dictate to the Ravens early that they arent running the football. Most of the teams i saw go all out to say that left the game with wins. I expect that gameplan to be more prevalent until the Ravens decide they are gonna be able to beat teams other ways.

What i saw as staples to bad Ravens offensive performances were extremely aggressive defenses, stacked boxes on early downs which led to press and cover 2 coverages on 3rd downs. What i saw in these situations from the offense was under developed staple plays and roles on 3rd downs and unwillingness by the play caller to adjust to the way he was being defended. Now i saw it crystal clear in the AFCC, he made the adjustment and if not for Lee Evans we are talking about a Super Bowl berth. So i know it can be done, just has to be a constant.