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The Baltimore Ravens Remain One Of The NFL’s Most Interesting Questions

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The Baltimore Ravens promised to be one of the more interesting teams in the NFL in 2013. After their dramatic Super Bowl run of 2012, the Ravens said goodbye to eighteen players, including the team’s heart and soul, in linebacker Ray Lewis. The captain retired and other key veterans like Ed Reed, Paul Kruger and Anquan Boldin went elsewhere, as the team had to pour significant salary cap dollars into retaining quarterback Joe Flacco, who was going into free agency.

Talent evaluators still felt that the ’13 Ravens would be a better team–Lewis and Reed were clearly at the end of the line, their main value being leadership rather than talent at this stage of their careers. The question was going to be whether talent could trump intangibles.


So far, the answer is no. Baltimore is 5-6 as they get set to host hated AFC North rival Pittsburgh on Thanksgiving night. But there’s enough good going on with this team, and after their sudden turnaround in December of last season, the Ravens remain as interesting a team as there is. Let’s take a look at what they need to do down the stretch.

The team as a whole might miss the leadership of Lewis & Reed, but that’s not being reflected in the defensive performance. The Ravens continue to play solid defense, ranking seventh in the NFL in points allowed. They’re a little susceptible to the big play, but that’s a byproduct of a defensive outlook that forces a lot of incompletions (6th in completion percentage allowed), has a great pass rush and shuts down the run.

Taken in that context, a ranking of 19th in yards allowed per pass is a pretty reasonable price to pay. Baltimore is having success turning outside linebackers Terrell Suggs and Elvis Dumervil loose. If the only way to beat a team is to throw the ball downfield, that’s a difficult thing to pull off in December conditions with a hard pass rush bearing down on you.


It’s the offense that’s been a complete train wreck. The line has been terrible. Marked by instability on the left side, the Ravens can’t protect Flacco, nor can they clear any space for Ray Rice and Bernard Pierce. Without time to throw, Flacco can’t use his accuracy on the deep ball and his receiving threats in Jacoby Jones and Torrey Smith.

There’s no statistical category where this offense is anything less than poor. In a purely football sense, Flacco can’t be blamed–when there’s no time to throw and no running game, you can’t get anything done. But Flacco was rather vocal last offseason about maximizing his contract, even if it meant the organization would be hamstrung under the salary cap. If he comes in for some heat now that he’s not carrying the team singlehandedly, he’s asked for it.

But Flacco was inconsistent through much of last season, before turning in a brilliant run in the postseason. The same opportunity is still ahead. Baltimore is one of six teams that are tied for the AFC’s final playoff spot at 5-6. After Thursday night, they’ve got another home game with Minnesota, so getting to 7-6 is very reasonable.

December 16 is when the stretch drive gets tough. Baltimore makes a Monday Night visit to Detroit and they close the season with a road game in AFC North-leading Cincinnati. In between will be a hyped game with New England, the rematch of the last two AFC Championship Games and currently scheduled in the prime-time Sunday night slot.

The Baltimore Ravens remain interesting. I’m sure though, that head coach John Harbaugh would like to replace “interesting” with “unequivocally successful.” The decisive moment for answering all his team’s preseason question marks is rapidly arriving.

AFC Championship Game Preview

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The AFC Championship Game between Baltimore and New England kicks off at 3:00 PM EST on CBS, with Jim Nantz and Phil Simms in Foxboro for the coverage. It’s the Patriots first time in the AFC title game since their undefeated season of 2007, while the Ravens were last here in 2008, when they lost on the road to the Steelers. This is a battle of the conference’s top two seeds in this year’s playoffs.

To understand how they matchup, we’ll look at how each team’s running and passing game matches up with the opposing defenses, starting with New England…

Patriot Running Game: The problems the Patriots have had in the running game can be understood by looking back to last Saturday night’s game against Denver. Bill Belichick unveiled a wrinkle where tight end Aaron Hernandez would get the ball coming around the side and it worked three different times. It’s an example of how Belichick always comes up with the right tactical move, but it’s also a mark of how lousy your running game is when you have to do this kind of gimmick in the playoffs. New England ranks toward the bottom of the AFC in yards-per-carry, while the Raven defense is the conference’s best at stopping the run.

New England doesn’t have a clear go-to back, sharing time between Danny Woodhead and BenJarvus Green-Ellis and their offensive line is built to protect Brady—an inherently passive act, where you stay on your heels—as opposed to the more aggressive act of drive-blocking at the line of scrimmage. All things being equal, there is zero reason to think New England can run the ball on Sunday.

Patriot Passing Game: With the best quarterback of my generation (I’m almost 42) behind center, the Pats produced the AFC’s most prolific pass offense, despite not having a deep threat. Brady excels at pinpointing his tight ends, Hernandez and Rob Gronkowski, along with West Welker underneath. Deion Branch is a veteran on the flank, who might be limited by a knee injury, though he is expected to play.

Baltimore’s pass rush is excellent, with Terrell Suggs being a havoc-wreaker on the edge, and Haloti Ngata, one of the game’s best down lineman, and able to get pressure in a 3-4 scheme. The corners are still a little bit of a problem for Baltimore, but nearly to the extent they had been in recent years, thanks to the ballhawking Lardarius Webb on the corner. And in this space last week I said never to count out veteran Ed Reed, even his big-play skills are noticeably down at this stage of his career. You don’t bet against crafty vets in big spots and Reed made the game-clinching interception last week. Granted, that was T.J. Yates and this is Tom Brady. But it still underscores that while the Patriots merit an edge here, it might not be overwhelming enough to offset problems in other areas.

Ravens Running Game: Baltimore can muscle you on the ground with Ray Rice and I don’t understand commentators who talk about the need to open up the offense. To my mind, the Ravens have problems when they try and finesse opponents rather than just running them over. Rice runs well between the tackles and catches the ball out of the backfield.

The New England rush defense is mediocre at best, and there’s going to be tremendous pressure on tackle Vince Wolfork to have the game of his life and control the interior. The run to Baltimore is what the pass is to New England—they’re going to do it well and win this battle. But how decisively they need to control this area is the real question.

Ravens Passing Game: The talk all season has been whether Joe Flacco can win a big game when the running game and defense alone won’t be enough to carry him. Now he’s in that spot. I’d say he can permanently silence critics, but in a media culture where even Brady is still seen as having something to prove, there’s no such thing as permanent silence. But there is an opportunity for Flacco to do something special here. New England’s top pass rusher, Andre Carter, has been out for several weeks and the Pats pressure isn’t the same without him. The Patriots secondary ranks last in the AFC in yards allowed.

What New England does do well on pass defense is force interceptions. They’re the AFC’s best team at picking off the ball.  Flacco, on the other hand, excels at avoiding mistakes. What’s going to happen in the red zone? Can Flacco target a big receiver like Anquan Boldin over the middle or his tight end Ed Dickson. Can the Ravens’ take shots down the field to Torrey Smith without turning the ball over? I think this particular area is where the AFC Championship will be decided.

If you look at these matchups, it seems plain to me that this is an even football game. Which is why I was stunned to see the Patriots open at (-7.5) last Sunday night, and if you want to bet the Ravens straight –up you could get odds of 2.8 to 1. That’s come down a little bit. It’s now an even (-7) with the odds at 2.5 to 1, but I know if I were in the Bellagio on Sunday I’d bet 55% of my bankroll on the Ravens with the spread and the other 45% on the straight-up win (Of course this would be after I’d paid my regards to Terry Benedict, portrayed by Andy Garcia in the remake  of Oceans 11).

At the start of the season I picked a Ravens-Patriots AFC championship game with Baltimore going to the Super Bowl. A friend of mine implored me not to change course now. While my heart is with New England and the good fans of Foxboro that I share baseball, NBA and hockey territory with, my head says Baltimore is going to win this game. In baseball, the Orioles knocked the Red Sox out of the playoffs. In football, the Ravens will knock the Pats out of the Super Bowl. Let’s call this one 24-20 Baltimore.

 

NFL Playoff Report: Evaluating The Defenses

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The Notebook takes a look at the defenses for the eight remaining NFL playoff teams, a follow-up to yesterday’s post that examined the offenses. As we did yesterday the teams are listed in the order of who they rank overall in points scored.

San Francisco (2nd): The 49ers play outstanding team defense. The best player is inside linebacker Patrick Willis, but he’s not the one who compiles the stats, as playing on the inside in a 3-4 is a tough way to get flashy numbers. But Ahmad Brooks has seven sacks from the outside and a secondary with corners Carlos Rogers and Tarell Brown, and safety Dashon Goldson, all do a good job in getting interceptions. Frisco stops the run and forces turnovers. The only real weakness is pass defense, and on a related point, getting off the field on third down. Although even that isn’t really a “weakness”. With the #10 pass defense in the NFL it’s just simply not as dominant as the other phases of this unit.

Baltimore (3rd): Seeing who the top defenses left in the playoffs are help us understand why that Thanksgiving Night battle the Harbaugh Brothers had in Charm City was so offensively-challenged. Although if two SEC teams played a game like that one, we’d being hearing odes to how marvelous the D was. The Ravens still have the big-name veterans on this unit, although Ray Lewis and Ed Reed don’t make the big plays they once used to. Terrell Suggs is the force, with 14 sacks at the outside linebacker spot. There’s no obvious weak point in this team, either by looking at stats or personnel, but if you can keep Suggs from wreaking havoc at least dealing with them becomes manageable.

Houston (4th): Houston gets an unusual level of pressure from its defensive ends for a 3-4 scheme. Both J.J. Watt and Antonio Smith can get to the quarterback, and then Wade Phillips can also bring Connor Barwin and Brooks Reed from the outside in the more classic 3-4 strategy. This team can get a lot of heat, but getting off the field on third down has been a bit of an issue, where they rank in the middle of the league. One factor to keep an eye on is that the rush defense is weaker than the pass D, so that can help opposing offenses set up manageable third downs and keep that pass rush on its heels.

New Orleans (13th): The Saints play disciplined pass coverage and they get off the field on third down, but the one thing they do not do is force turnovers. New Orleans is the worst in the NFC—the entire NFC, not just the playoff field—at getting takeaways and nobody plays the ball effectively in the secondary. You can also run the ball on New Orleans, and if you get Will Smith blocked at defensive end, there won’t be a pass rush. The Saints rank higher than the Packers and Patriots in points allowed, but as we’ll see it’s not a huge difference and the problems New Orleans has on this side of the ball is as big a problem as the folks in Lambeau and Foxboro have to worry about.

New England (15th): Bill Belichick has managed to jimmy-rig this defense, which allows teams to drive the field both in the air and on the ground, and keep it manageable through turnovers. New England has more interceptions than anyone in the AFC, thanks to corner Kyle Arrington, who’s picked off seven and made opponents pay for trying to avoid Devin McCourty. The Pats did take a huge blow with the loss of Andre Carter, whose ability to rush the passer was vital in helping to stem some of those drives.

Green Bay (19th): Like the Patriots, it’s all about forcing turnovers in Packerland. Green Bay cannot defend the run or the pass effectively. Where they differ from New England is that there’s more potential playmakers here, with Clay Matthews at outside linebacker and Charles Woodson and Tramon Williams on the corners. Matthews consistently draws a lot of attention from opposing offensive coordinators and it’s imperative someone in the front seven step up and get to the quarterback. While Green Bay has more potential than New England here, they’ve also failed to rush the passer as well as the Pats did when Andre Carter was healthy.

Denver (24th): John Fox’s defense has improved ever since Tim Tebow became quarterback, one of the many strange things that’s happened in this amazing Denver second half. The Broncos are a bit better defending the run, where they rank a little above the league average, then the pass, where they rank a little below. Von Miller and Elvis Dumervil are both capable of applying pressure, but this unit needs to improve at getting takeaways if they plan to compete with the league’s best on a consistent basis. Champ Bailey and Andre Goodman have the potential to ballhawk at corner and that needs to happen on a more frequent basis.

NY Giants: It’s the pass rush and the turnovers that bail the Giants out. Jason Pierre-Paul is the best pure 4-3 defensive end left playing right now, and Justin Tuck can still make you pay if you single-team in. Just as important is that Chris Canty gets pressure up the middle, a rare commodity for a defensive line. Corey Webster and Aaron Ross play the ball very well on the corners. What New York must do better is…well, everything else. They have the Green Bay/New England problem of letting opponents drive up and down the field before straightening things out.