Vance Joseph got thoroughly out-gameplanned and out-coached. He came in with a prevent zone type coverage scheme to take away the deep threat from Wallace and totally forgot about the middle of the field and crossing routes. The Baltimore offense completely figured out our weakness before the game and Joseph did absolutely nothing to adjust. The corners were playing way off the whole game which is a big mistake. The receivers got completely free releases and ran away from the corners on crossing routes through the middle of the field all day long. Our linebackers are not quick or fast enough to cover receivers or even good tight ends streaking over the middle, nor should we be putting them in that position. This weakness has been there every week it's just that this week Baltimore really concentrated on hitting it over and over again over the middle. In this defense the corners have to play press coverage and use their size to disrupt routes off the line of scrimmage and prevent the QB from getting the ball out quickly. We have to play press against the tight end as well and double team the tight end on at least half the plays.
Yeah I was thoroughly disappointed in our game plan and lack of adjustments from Joseph. His schemes the last two weeks are inexcusable. Man coverage with a running QB is asinine, then prevent/zone with an accurate passer like Flacco without bringing pressure is dumb dumb dumb. It's his first year, so a pass is available, however he's leaving a lot to be desired from a coaching X-O standpoint.....lack of talent is not a good enough excuse for mental things.
Not pleased with the game plan, but it looked like a lot of guys were standing around flat footed to me. Not sure if it was the field or they didn't understand the game plan or what, but I was pretty frustrated watching guys just stand there and let the play happen before them like they were waiting for someone else to zoom in and make the play.
That's the problem with zone, guys are taught to stay in their zone and read the QB instead of playing the receiver. A good receiver will find the holes in the zone and split the coverage. What we need to do is use press coverage underneath on the receivers and tight ends with safeties providing help over top.
I don't know about that. I think you have to look at the overall talent level of the group of players on the field yesterday. He's don't a great job with a sub-par unit once you pass the DL all year long. That defensive unit outside of the front 4 rotation yesterday though was pretty beat up, and mostly backups. You can only do so much, with so little.
They exploited our lack of LB depth. When you play your 3rd stringers there will be a drop off in talent. Flacco was doing 3 step drops most of the time and the ball was out within about 2 seconds. There isn't any defense that can get to the QB in that amount of time. That coupled with the CB's and DB's playing 10 yards of the ball, it fit right into the game plan the Ravens had developed. Until Vance can figure out how to stop this formula, expect to see this every game until they do. Team now have a road map and if the NFL is one thing, it's a copy cat league. And give the Ravens some credit. They are excellent tacklers. They played extremely disciplined football, maintained their lanes and angles of attack and most times made the initial hit take down the player they were targeting. Maybe we can steal their talking coach from them. Lol.
Vance had nothing to do with the offense not scoring. The d did generate 2 turnovers. But, yeah the d was crappy too.
Why can't we do that? Throw within 2 seconds, it seems like our passes all take 4-5 seconds. A seam or a slant would have to be open if we would ever call them.
THIS A MILLION TIMES I turned on the Chiefs game after ours, it was 4th down, Alex Smith takes a shot gun snap, one step, throws slant to right, 7 yard gain. I yelled "why don't we do that!?!" It seems every team "dinks and dunks" on us weekly, yet Gase wants to keep throwing bubble screens, and hand offs to Landry (Seriously wtf was that)
being limited by talent is one thing, but lack of adjustments was certainly disappointing. i dont know football like most of you guys, but i saw us continually do the same thing on defense. it was like a practice where the offense is doing a drill. i was talking up joseph too, but the game plan going into the game was pretty bad and no adjustments make it worse. one thing joseph is good at is explaining all the things he did wrong in the prior game, so we should find out soon why his performance was so bad.
How is lack of talent NOT a good enough excuse? It is pretty much the ONLY excuse that makes any sense. You play press on these veteran guys and you get smoked over the top and ALL of you are complaining about Vance Joseph's defense, regardless. We haven't been very successful blitzing this season, as a whole. So you want to give Flacco, who is getting rid of it fast, already, MORE of an open field? Ok...sure. When you are playing Neville Hewitt, Mike Hull and Spencer Paysinger at linebacker, with Bobby McCain and Tony Lippett backing them up as CBs, you are going to give up yardage. They aren't good enough (in some cases, they never will be, in others, they may still develop). It is really that simple. We planned to stop the big play, and Baltimore physically dominated, and took what they were allowed to get, and kicked our butts.
Not sure what adjustment or gameplan can help a front 4 that's generating no pressure and getting beat up front. That puts a lot of pressure on your back 7, which we all know is NOT a strength of this team. You couple that with an offense that has played 5 quarters of ball over 13 quarters and you get the mess we saw yesterday.
Lack of talent does not explain the complete whuppin we got on defense. The problem in this game was clearly the gameplan and lack of adjustments. The ravens offense is not any better talent wise than some of the other offenses we've faced this year, yet the ravens torched us like no one has because they outgamplaned us. They found the weakness in our defense and attacked it over and over with us making zero adjustments to stop it. I would rather force them to go deep and give our pass rush a chance than have them kill us in the seams with quick throws play after play. The only thing a prevent defense does is it prevents you from winning. You can't be afraid of the deep ball so much that you don't contest the recievers and tight ends coming off the line of scrimmage.
The front four never had a chance to create pressure. There is no way for them to physically get to the quarterback within the 2 or 3 seconds it was taking Flacco to get the ball out. Flacco was able to do that because our defenders were playing 10 or 15 yards off the receivers letting them release into their routes uncontested for the quick throws. Vance focused too much on taking away the deep ball which gave them too much room to kill us underneath and over the middle.
i didnt like the game plan but to be fair the ravens had a huge talent advantage. we have a defensive line and thats about it. Our secondary and linebacking crew are held together by duct tape and spit. we were due for an asskicking and we got one. Lets see how they rebound. arizona's offense is a major challenge on paper at least
I've complained about that all year. I would rather them hit on a long one then sit there slicing us apart.
It should be interesting how this team takes an arse kicking. Will they fold tents? Will they bounce back"? Will the coaches make adjustments as they know that the Cards will replicate the game play Baltimore used until they can show they can stop it? Should be interesting to see how this plays out.
it bugs me they did not seem to know the field might be like that even though they warmed up on it. Not the first time this has happened
Kind of pissed me off too. Ajayi slipped on the first carry of the game. Landry falls down on a crucial 3rd down on the first drive. These guys were all out on the field well before the game started.
Many of us feel the same way. Now, I've got to thinking and have a question for you all: Considering our starting talent, our depth, and our injuries, do you think our team has overachieved?
Depends on how we finish the season. 9-7 or better and I'd answer yes. 8-8 or less and even with a new coach it doesn't look much different than Philbin years (means we finish 1-4!!).
Good question. I want to believe that our talent is way better then it is, but that is not true. Like cbrad if we are 8-8 not sure, but anything above that perhaps we have. Certainly based on what was produced the past years with similar cast, yes.
Actually the Ravens were not slipping, because they used the right cleats. Later in the game the dolphins changed cleats and the slipping stopped. It was a failure of the players and equipment guys not having the right cleats for the start of the game.
You do realize that we had second and third string players out there right?? I mean what do you expect?? No fall off in talent or execution?? Let's be real here. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Same thing has happened when the starters are in. We haven't been able to cover tight ends and receivers over the middle all season long. Even when we had Jones, Jenkins and Misi in the lineup we still couldn't cover it. It's just that no one focused on attacking that part of the field as much as Baltimore before. It's not like we we had great coverage over the middle before and then you saw the drop off with injuries. In that case I would say it's the players. But when it's been a consistent problem regardless of who is in there it tells me the problem is scheme and coaching.
Personnel limitations for vj at lb more than anything else...hes a good dc...but paysinger in the nickel as a starter is a serious liability that can only be masked by a dominant pass rush...hewitts run for whatever reason has only been in base When you play off with the corners like we did with outside leverage the zone lbs have to get proper depth with their drops to take away in cutting routes run vs the off and outside leverage...paysinger especially has no feel for zone route concepts or depth of drops and does a poor job reading the qbs eyes and flowing laterally to them...and miami has no choice but to play a lot of zone at the lb level due to athletic limitations that will get torched in man carry coverage Wr screens by gase are run pass option out of the zone read where the qb counts the box thus when gase says in this ravens game for example i called 6 more runs hes saying that the zone read was called but the box pre snap said throw the bubble...we ran em from double stacks we run em from trips etc. we are just playing the numbers advantage I wouldnt expect as much zone read with matt moore as the qb isnt much of a threat as a ball carrier for the edge defender or a scrape lb to have to account for meaning they can focus almost entirely on the inside zone hand off and snuff it out more easily gaps wise
The defense has talent, yet it is ranked among the worst in the league. That falls on the coach. The lack of linebacker talent does not excuse this. It's not just paysinger playing bad in coverage, it's the entire linebacking core, the only one I haven't seen play badly in coverage is hewitt and hull, who coincidentaly get the least amount of playing time. Jenkins, Paysinger, Alonso, Butler and Misi before he got injured all had issues in coverage and covering tight ends and recievers over the middle. When so many players fail at the same time at some point you have to look at the system and/or the coaching. Baltimore just attacked the middle more than usual, but that vulnerability in the defense has been there all season.
Give Baltimore credit: they schemed very well for this game. The pass rush was virtually non-existent the entire game. While Miami did have 2nd and 3rd stringers out there at LB, it didn't help that the pressure was very minimal for Flacco that game. I bet they knew they had the middle even before the game started. I have the feeling they took into account the field conditions as well when scheming. They tried it and it worked. And it kept working. And when you have a very tall man back there who can see over his line to make those throws over the middle (with all of the time in the world) against the JV squad, the defense loses. Let's not just blame the LBs; the DBs on the back end deserve some blame as well. It was a bad scenario all the way around. Though I get the feeling this staff will do everything to try an correct it.
Do not blame the pass rush. The D-Line played as well as they could in the baltimore game. They were not able to get any pressure because Flacco was doing three step drops and getting the ball off within 2 or 3 seconds the whole game. There was no way possible for the dline to get to flacco in time. Flacco was able to make all of those quick throws over the middle because the DBs were playing 10 or 15 yards off afraid of the deep ball and because the linebackers were in a soft zone. Playing the DBs off and the linebackers in a prevent zone was a gameplan decision made by Vance. It was a terrible gameplan which left all of the underneath and over the middle routes wide open. And on top of coming into the game with a bad gameplan, vance made no adjustments during the game. There was nothing the defensive line could have done any better against baltimore given how the coverage was not helping them at all. No matter how you look at it vance did a terrible job against baltimore.
The elements played a pretty big role in this, I know. I half-heartedly joke that Ravens ownership did a re-sod knowing the weather would assist (along with the re-sod) in staving the Miami pass rush. Half-heartedly. Unless you are talking about three-steps out of shotgun, this is simply inaccurate. The big plays they had from under center were mainly 5+. Miami can apply pressure from inside, and even with the elements, a three-step drop probably isn't the best idea. Miami simply didn't apply much pressure. When Miami did blitz, they were covered and because of the LBs being poor in coverage, they hit on it. Not necessarily. Totally agree. But you have to think your line can get to Flacco, giving the assist. They usually do. They didn't, and maybe he took a tad too long to try to adjust. He even blitzed. They got gashed. He's young, and he'll learn. Even when the coverage was there (see Bobby McCain all over #11 on a 3rd and 5 deep in their own territory they converted for 18 yards), they simply made plays. And it really hurt. A LB chooses a back thinking he has Pitta covered behind him, and they gash us. Pitta gets 14 yards on a 7-yard catch on a 3rd and 15 and they convert the 4th. The coverage on that 3rd was not out of the ordinary. They simply made plays. While the LBs didn't help themselves, the pass rush could have helped. And they didn't. The plays that were made weren't necessarily out of three-step drops. Out of shotgun, maybe (but who takes a huge drop back out of shotgun?). There were a bunch of 5s and even 7s sprinkled in there and the rush didn't get there. I'm not even sure Miami even had a sack that game.