Mr. Lines is my father. Con is fine or any other nickname you wish to give, but Mr. Lines gives me the heebee geebees Means I'm old.
Con it is. Seriously, though, I love your work, at least when I can understand it. Newspaper or ESPN previews are elementary-school level by comparison.
Great write-up, Con. Your Keys to the Game are quickly becoming one of my top reads on the site. I sort of envision this game a lot like the Tenn/Balt game. Fierce, hard-hitting, and low-scoring. I'd like to test their secondary deep, but aside from the trick play last game, we haven't shown much of a propensity to do that. Peyton Manning's long toss down the sideline to Harrison in last week's Colts shellacking of the Ravens opened up that game. Of course, when you have WRs like Harrison and Wayne going against a beat up secondary with Manning throwing the ball, well, there's a chance at a lopsided score. We don't have the same explosive capabilities, but hopefully we can, as you said, do a little something in the passing game to make them have to defend at least the intermediate routes. It will help the rest of our offense extensively. It would be good to stop the run - make them one dimensionsal (which was one of your keys - put the game in Flacco's hands). When Flacco was forced to pass last week, the Ravens were intercepted three times, which was as many points as they scored. We're not a great turnover defense, but neither are the Colts, I don't think. But if Baltimore is made to throw, Flacco's going to make mistakes. Plus, if we make their offense one-dimensional and our guys are flying at the QB, maybe the game doesn't slow down for him this week. One can hope, anyway. Because of the way the Colts opened up Baltimore's defense, they got to run the ball a lot, and Rhodes had a couple of good runs. Still, as much as the Ravens had to be wary of Manning and the Colts passing game, the Colts still only managed 2.5 ypc. That's a troubling stat. Our line has its work cut out for it this week, because the Ravens won't have to worry as much about their defense being stretched. This is going to be smashmouth football. If we come out of this one with a win, we'll have earned it.
Honestly, I could see it where the score ends up being 14-3 either way. Either we can't stretch the defense and get eaten up with Penny giving up a pick six, or we shut Flacco down and are able to grind out a win by capitalizing on a turnover. I have a feeling we'll be eaten alive by the roll out though - Roth worries me in that spot.
The texans were the more physical team last week, the ravens are more physical then the texans, the dolphins better come to play, i will be watching closely, i know Joey will be amped to go toe to toe with the best linebacker in the game, hopefully he insipres his teammates, something that did'nt happen last week.
Nice write up. As good as anything I have read in the media. You should begin your write ups with "Conuficus Says". Another test for the Dolphins to see if they can out-physical a physical team. It will also be interesting to see if they utilize the running game more than last week where it was pretty much ignored. Wonder how much the Wildcat will be used?
Great read as always! I think Roth is a terrific assett at LB and has a GREAT motor and quickness, just not fast. As for this game, I think we could throw some 4 and 5-wide packages at them like Indy did. We can run and throw out of this formation which seemed to beat them up pretty well against Indy. Flacco does not have accuracy on the run so we need to flush him as much as possible. IF we get up on them early they'll have a hard time keeping up. I'm seeing a couple new wrinkles coming early out of the Wildcat. Spreading them out seems to tire them down then run the rock! I'm not feeling scared of this Ravens defense, we've had success before! I'm actually more worried about the Dolphins pass defense. If our D shuts down the long play we WILL WIN THIS GAME! That's it... Dolphins 24 Ravens 13
I will say i was off in terms of expecting to run better against the Texans, but some of that was playcalling, not sustaining drives and generally getting away from the pass in key spots. We had two big plays and then we left the pass alone so many times it killed me. The corners of the Txans made me look somewhat good as they played better than many expected and stopped our WR's from making many memorable plays. There were many times that Chad went to pass and couldn't get the ball to anyone - which is telling. And can we please run a counter or two.
I was a little puzzled by this sentence: Does "levels" mean: LBs, corners, safeties? Or something else? Can a flooding scheme attack different levels of the defense on the same play? Or do you mean sending people from the same place to different levels of the defense on different plays?
Running routes from the same side that attack different levels of the defense on the same play. 3 WR to one side, one runs a 5 yard in, the other a 10 yd hitch route and the third a skinny post. This can happen on the same play and should if you intend to flood a zone or are of the field. It just makes it hard for the defense to take everything away at the same time.
I think we should exploit the Ravens disrespect for Penningtons arm strength. How? By throwing two or three quick 5-6 yd slants to Ginn and setting them up for the double moves, they'll be jumping the short routes early. If you attack the different levels of the D like Con says and they pick up the deep WR that will leave Ronnie or a TE wide open 10-12 yds down field. I think the best way for us to win this game is to be behind til the 4th quarter, that way the coaches can't try not to lose this game. I don't know what happened to the Coaches last game, it was like they left their balls at home. Not just the 4th and inches play either they just weren't any where near as aggressive. Like letting the clock run out when we had the ball and over a minute left at the end of the first half.
Oh, sure. Now you have nothing to say. For anyone who isn't a club member, Bpk having nothing to say in response to this is pretty hilarious, if you see his reply in thread. Barry, you are killing me right now. I can't stop laughing.
I don't like how we match up, even if Flacco is at QB. A lot of that is due to this analysis. Thanks bro, although you just made me a little more nervous.
