SNF Week 12: Ravens @ Chargers

[Nobellythrower]

51 minutes ago, Ray Reed said:

They ran one to Bateman in the first half (Stanley got called for a block in the back) and it was just painfully obvious that Bateman doesn’t have the acceleration or short area quickness to consistently make the first defender miss (which is what you need to actually pop those plays).

He looked pretty fast against arizona, but dont let it be predictable  let duvernay get some in then 

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

I think a lot of those quick hitch routes to Zay are just the result of how Monken wants to combat zero blitzes. We don't trust Lamar to actually punish Cover 0, so we throw hot and hope that someone can break a tackle. Of course, it hasn't happened all year, but we've also tried numerous times throwing deep against cover 0 and Lamar simply can't do it, so what else can you do?

[DreamKid]

The biggest observation I can make at this point is the drastic need for the team to develop some 'easy' offense. Clubs that labor through mental mistakes, execution errors, and frequent dips in consistency do not win championships. Our defense is great but in the modern game and against the true contenders(Bills, Dolphins, Chiefs, Eagles, etc) you can't reasonably expect that side of the ball to make up for an offense that's drastically underperforming. 

Monken and Harbaugh have an above average line, a Top 5 QB, and weapons they can line up all across the formation. It's simply not acceptable for us to have the dips in production we do on offense. Add in the defeated body language, mental lapses, and massive energy dip that comes with one or two bad drives and you're staring our biggest weakness right in the face. It needs to stop. We've played offenses with talent ranging from Minshew to Watson to Herbert, and what all of them had in common was their ability to face brutality on defense drive in and drive out- yet still come back swinging like nothing happened. Our offense lacks that quality too often. We've had our moments, but the constant of the Lamar era has been that of a frontrunner offense. Even small momentum shifts against so so defenses are like a gut shot to that side of the ball. 

This BYE presents a golden opportunity to right the ship and center ourselves as we stare down the stretch run to a 3rd ring. Protection needs to be better, mental mistakes need to be eliminated, more vertical danger needs to be injected(Unleash our WRs), and the playbook in general needs to be opened up. We have the talent to beat anybody and be the most feared team in the playoffs, it's time to make good.

Other observations:

- Mike MacDonald just dropped a prime time audition for the rest of the league.

- Linderbaum is a lock and a healthy Voorhees is a nice chip to have for 24', but we need to HAMMER the offensive line in the draft. Luckily it's an awesome OT class and I'm guessing that's where our top picks will be invested. 

- Zay Flowers is the Lamar Jackson era's Ray Rice. His infectious personality, game breaking ability, and love for the game present a switched on weapon to the offense and team for 4 Quarters. We're lucky to have him, and like Rice it feels as if he was designed specifically for the Ravens. 

- Every single FA acquisition is exceeding expectations to such a degree that it should officially be considered a master crop for EDC and one of the major reasons Eric will be looking at Executive of the Year nominations during award season. 

- Unbelievably Kyle Hamilton is 22 years old(Younger than Zay) and has the talent to be the first Safety in 10+ years to win DPOY. 

- Madubuike, Jones, and Washington all had Sacks, Urban recovered a fumble, and Pierce's fat a** was inches away from an INT on that 4th & 6 after dropping into coverage. We were hyped about our DIs coming into the year and this was a showcase game for them. 

[Nobellythrower]

14 hours ago, AFlaccoSeagulls said:

think a lot of those quick hitch routes to Zay are just the result of how Monken wants to combat zero blitzes. We don't trust Lamar to actually punish Cover 0,

You gotta switch it up though this is the nfl, if a defense is playing cover 0 and they know zay is the hot read thats not gonna be good , can't be predictable in the nfl 

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

1 hour ago, Nobellythrower said:

You gotta switch it up though this is the nfl, if a defense is playing cover 0 and they know zay is the hot read thats not gonna be good , can't be predictable in the nfl 

What else is there to do? You want to get the ball out quick, and basically it seems like if teams play off coverage when they blitz we hit quick throws, and most of the time we've settled on just throwing a quick little screen to Zay. We can't throw deep, and Lamar has missed so many quick slants against cover 0 this year so idk what else there is.

[Nobellythrower]

29 minutes ago, AFlaccoSeagulls said:

What else is there to do? You want to get the ball out quick, and basically it seems like if teams play off coverage when they blitz we hit quick throws, and most of the time we've settled on just throwing a quick little screen to Zay. We can't throw deep, and Lamar has missed so many quick slants against cover 0 this year so idk what else there is.

It doesn't have to be specifically be to zay though, if me and you know that imagine the guys in the nfl on defense knowing that, just asking for it, let bateman be the hot read sometimes or obj switch it up, but sometimes go deep if they run cover 0 just for the threat , the deepball is struggling its either lamar misses the wr or they drop it , the offense is struggling dont add predictability to it . kurt talked about the offense and its showing 

[diamondbull424]

On 11/27/2023 at 8:51 PM, DreamKid said:

The biggest observation I can make at this point is the drastic need for the team to develop some 'easy' offense. Clubs that labor through mental mistakes, execution errors, and frequent dips in consistency do not win championships. Our defense is great but in the modern game and against the true contenders(Bills, Dolphins, Chiefs, Eagles, etc) you can't reasonably expect that side of the ball to make up for an offense that's drastically underperforming. 

While not a hard disagree, I tend to disagree with the assessment of the team needing to develop ‘easy’ offense being the biggest issue plaguing the squad. I think that’s actually one of the strengths of this team over teams in years past. We’re finding the running backs for the check downs, we’re getting short work with Zay along the edge, slants to OBJ and Bateman, Likely getting some quick passes and being a force in YAC. I think the evidence of this being a strength of this squad over previous years is Lamar’s higher completion percentage.

Personally I think the biggest issue plaguing this team and offense has been Todd Monken abandoning the run between our 40 yd line and the opposing 40 yd line. It’s like that area of the field he enters into the twilight zone and regardless of whether the run has been eating on that drive or not, he decides to leave the run off the table. Which has stalled too many capable drives that resulted in punts as opposed to field goals.

On 11/27/2023 at 8:51 PM, DreamKid said:

We've had our moments, but the constant of the Lamar era has been that of a frontrunner offense. Even small momentum shifts against so so defenses are like a gut shot to that side of the ball. 

I get the point about momentum swings, I agree. Though I sort of feel as though it sort of lets those other offenses off the hook. Those teams also had momentum shifts where they look depleted. I think we’re just hyper-fixating on our own team. There were multiple drives where those offenses crapped the bed and looked lifeless and like they were going to get throttled. Our offense stalling and refusing to run the football led those offenses to gaining enough swings of momentum that they eventually got their ish together.

I find a front running offense to be one that does well when in front but not when down or when in a tight game, I don’t think this seasons that has been the case. 1) because we haven’t been down enough to say how this offense operates when they have to respond when down and in a pressure situation. 2) Though the offense has consistently been in front, they’ve not displayed the same level of energy when ahead as in the past, those offenses were definite front runners that when they got a lead had an identity s f wanted to ground the opposing defense into dust and run for 400 yds if it could. Whereas with this offense, they seem to lack an identity as to what they are and want to be. It doesn’t have a finishing move and just sort of gets ahead on talent, but hasn’t the identity to really front run well. It just sort of thrives and then survives IMO.

That said, part of me is hoping this is a strategy of Monken to consistently test the passing attack and not over rely on the run game. Perhaps he’s trying to allow the offense to organically develop its passing attack identity for a playoff run, knowing that we can always do more with the run game come playoff time.

On 11/27/2023 at 8:51 PM, DreamKid said:

This BYE presents a golden opportunity to right the ship and center ourselves as we stare down the stretch run to a 3rd ring. Protection needs to be better, mental mistakes need to be eliminated, more vertical danger needs to be injected(Unleash our WRs), and the playbook in general needs to be opened up. We have the talent to beat anybody and be the most feared team in the playoffs, it's time to make good.

 

Agreed. The protection, particularly Stanley, is IMO the second biggest Achilles heal. We’ve got some great indicators going for this offense. It’s been very efficient in the red zone, very efficient on 3rd downs IIRC, the run game has been efficient, and when Lamar has been given time he’s been incredibly good in a clean pocket.

Lamar being more accurate on his deep balls and the receivers catching his accurate deep passes is IMO our 3rd biggest offensive issue only behind abandoning the run game for stretches and the pass protection.

So I definitely tend to agree with most of what was mentioned in your analysis. I’m not entirely confident that we can fix the deep passing attack, but any improvements in that area will go a long way. As long as we can fix the top 2 issues, I feel confident this squad can win a SB. And we’ve got some quality tests moving forward to see where the squad stands on those fronts.

[DreamKid]

4 hours ago, diamondbull424 said:

Lamar being more accurate on his deep balls and the receivers catching his accurate deep passes is IMO our 3rd biggest offensive issue only behind abandoning the run game for stretches and the pass protection.

It's harder for Lamar to get into rhythm when we have so few deep shots baked into this current version of the offense. If Monken would open it up and make use of both Bateman and Flowers' ability to win in the deep 3rd we'd start cooking.

[diamondbull424]

9 hours ago, DreamKid said:

It's harder for Lamar to get into rhythm when we have so few deep shots baked into this current version of the offense. If Monken would open it up and make use of both Bateman and Flowers' ability to win in the deep 3rd we'd start cooking.

True. It’s definitely a bit of a catch 22 there though IMO. The Ravens offense is 12th in both 20+ and 40+ passing plays.

Lamar is 9th in Intended Air Yards while tied for 13th in Completed Air Yards. Which shows that the passing attack is above average in taking deep shots and creating explosive plays IMO.

Conversely Lamar’s completion percentage has been higher because we’ve generally done a better job than in years past of a) getting him to the LOS quicker to read coverages, but also b) giving him shorter passes that can keep him in a better rhythm.

If we do too many more deep shots, I’d be curious where we take that offense away from, as well as with defenses playing more cover 2 shells than in years past, all deep completions have seemingly been down across the board. We might be inviting more interception potential, and lower offensive efficiency with minimal gain.

Lastly, I wouldn’t say we really have an excellent deep threat WR option. Most of our WRs are great in the intermediate to short game, Aghalor is probably the only guy known as a deep threat… and his hands are known to be suss.

If anything, I’d just love for us to increase our efficiency deep. If we can stay top 10 in air yards, but increase our completed air yards to top 10 as well, I think even such a marginal improvement would make for a Ravens offense that would be much more formidable.

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

17 hours ago, DreamKid said:

It's harder for Lamar to get into rhythm when we have so few deep shots baked into this current version of the offense. If Monken would open it up and make use of both Bateman and Flowers' ability to win in the deep 3rd we'd start cooking.

Would we? Or would we just be wasting downs watching Lamar throw passes 5-10 yards off target down the field more?

[AngusMcFife]

Lamar is currently 5th in completion % and yards/attempt. 

That's good, I wouldn't change too much here. 

[Nobellythrower]

3 hours ago, AFlaccoSeagulls said:

Would we? Or would we just be wasting downs watching Lamar throw passes 5-10 yards off target down the field more?

They barely throw deep so when he misses its more noticeable, he needs to get the deep ball better or teams will just make him beat with the deep ball. But also there's been some drops or misses from the wrs like zay against the chargers, but they should just use bateman/aghlor for those deep ball 

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

12 hours ago, Nobellythrower said:

They barely throw deep so when he misses its more noticeable, he needs to get the deep ball better or teams will just make him beat with the deep ball. But also there's been some drops or misses from the wrs like zay against the chargers, but they should just use bateman/aghlor for those deep ball 

I would argue we don't throw deep because Lamar's just not good at it. He never has been, tbh.

[Nobellythrower]

4 hours ago, AFlaccoSeagulls said:

I would argue we don't throw deep because Lamar's just not good at it. He never has been, tbh.

He was pretty good with the deep ball in 19 pretty sure 20 and 21 when brown was here, don't know what happen after that it was regressing ,  but its still gotta be apart of the offense or defense will just make him throw deep all game 

[DreamKid]

On 11/27/2023 at 5:51 PM, DreamKid said:

- Zay Flowers is the Lamar Jackson era's Ray Rice. His infectious personality, game breaking ability, and love for the game present a switched on weapon to the offense and team for 4 Quarters. We're lucky to have him, and like Rice it feels as if he was designed specifically for the Ravens.