End of Year Review – The Front Seven

Now that the Ravens season is over, it’s time to look back and take stock in what the team did well, and what the team did poorly. To this end, we’ll be reviewing each of the positional units. First up is the Ravens front seven: their defensive line and their linebackers.

First, the facts. The Ravens front seven was easily one of the best in all of football.  Pro Football Focus rated them first in overall pass rush and run defense by overwhelming margins. They were 5^th in rushing DVOA. They were tied for second in sacks. And they helped propel the Ravens to finish 8^th in overall defensive DVOA, which seems miraculous given how much the pass rush needed to act as a life preserver to an injury-plagued secondary.

But the facts don’t fully communicate the aesthetic joy of watching this unit do what they did on a week to week basis. A potent combination of skill and will, the Ravens front seven was best part of watching the team every Sunday.

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Pass Rush:

The Ravens pass rush starts with Terrell Suggs and Elvis Dumervil. Simply put, the two pass rushers were absolutely incendiary this season. Suggs and Dumervil combined for 29 sacks in the regular season, more than any other pass rushing pair in the league. Most teams would be ecstatic to have even one pass rusher as good as either of them. Look at Suggs and Dumervil get after the quarterback against Carolina in an effort that’s indicative of what they would do week in and week out.

Suggs and Dumervil end up splitting a sack. Dumervil remains as great as ever, beating rushers around the edge with incredible speed. And while it might be easy to attribute Suggs beating a double team simply because of his incredible strength, that would be a mistake. Suggs has become a more refined pass rusher over his 12 seasons in the league, and the combination of this technical acumen and strength has the tendency to make opposing offensive lineman look silly.

This brutal combination of pass rushing allows the Ravens to get pressure and beat up the opposing quarterback even when the team only rushed three or four defenders. That is huge. Not even Seattle or San Francisco can generate the kind of crushing pressure you get on a blitz with so few rushers. This comparative advantage allowed the Ravens to be creative in their allocation of defenders. The Ravens could put more defenders in coverage, which was desperately needed for the sub par secondary. Defensive coordinator Dean Pees could disguise pressure coming from other places because blockers needed to account for Suggs and Dumervil. In short, the pass rushing duo anchored the entire defense with their unique talents. 

And just like no other team can match the duo of Suggs and Dumervil, not many can match the Ravens depth at pass rusher. Pernell McPhee, the always intensely focused Haloti Ngata, Daryl Smith, Tommy Jernigan: go down the roster and you’ll find multiple players that can pressure the quarterback any given play. And this depth isn’t important simply because it means the Ravens have more quality players: it impacts the opponent’s game plan even before the ball is snapped. Because the opposing offensive line had to treat almost every defender as a potential pass rusher,  Pees could disguise delayed pass rushes and get creative to create pressure.

Both Jernigan and Suggs draws the double team, allowing McPhee’s delayed pass rush to go unblocked. Again, the Ravens are able to create mismatches and get to the quarterback without blitzing. This is a testament to the sheer amount of pass rushing talent in the Ravens’ front seven. The combined talent allowed the team to avoid making the traditional pressure vs. coverage decision, which payed dividends in all other parts of the defense.

Run defense:

The Ravens run defense started at the point of attack: the defensive line. Opposing teams averaged 3.6 yards per attempt, meaning they either were stopped before they hit their hole or didn’t get far beyond it. Ngata was incredible as always, but the biggest revolations on the defensive line was Brandon Williams. Williams was a phenominal run stopper, an imposing nose tackle large enough to bully opposing centers, quick enough to keep up with run plays that utilize side to side action, and dexterous enough to disengage blocks when it’s time to make tackles.  Check out the example below.

Williams disengages from his blocker and gets to Ben Tate before he can make a cutback. This kind of mobility out of defensive lineman is invaluable. Again, the comparative talent advantage the Ravens had on the front line meant they could give the secondary additional help and not get burned in the run game.

Another reason for the Ravens fantastic run defense is their linebacker corps. While Courtney Upshaw has been somewhat disappointing and Suggs is more known for terrorizing quarterbacks, both excelled against the run. And Daryl Smith has continued to his impressive understated play that has been his career trademark. 

But C.J. Mosley in particular was phenomenal all year, and should have been the Defensive Rookie of the Year. Mosely was versatile and put up gaudy numbers in each statistical category.  He succeeded not just because he could be used in a diverse number of ways, but because he was an extremely high-impact player as an inside linebacker.

He was a relentless ball hound with an outstanding motor. He led the team with 133 tackles largely because never took a play off, and he flew around the field stopping opposing running backs from getting to the second level. The cerebral Mosley was fantastic at avoiding incoming blockers as seen in the play below. Look how he avoids two blockers to make a tackle on a play that could have easily be sprung for a touchdown.

This kind of play from Mosley was the norm and not the exception. Mosley is young, but still completely deserving of all the accolades he gets. He was a huge reason the Ravens didn’t need to worry about shutting down the run, and allowed more focus on stopping the pass.

Closing thoughts:

There are a lot of parts of the Ravens that might need to be improved going forward. This is not one of those parts. The team has top tier talent that is only matched by other elite defenses. And even if the Ravens lose some players this offseason, their extraordinary depth means they can compensate for those losses. Expect the Ravens to remain one of the best defenses in the league next year, in large part because of their extraordinary front seven.