A little late on the draw this time but, as we all know, the Ravens have signed former Bronco Elvis Dumervil. Obviously this is a sweet and unexpected grab. We can all thank the fax deadline debacle for even having a shot at him.

As with Canty and Spears, the Ravens have added yet another defensive lineman. We have almost an embarrassment of riches along the line at this point. And there is nothing wrong with that. The groundwork for success on any team can largely be attributed to strong line play.

That being said, there is one thing worth noting: it’s easy to get overly excited about offseason acquisitions. It’s human nature to think grabbing such and such player or group of players will surely lead us to the promised land for a second year in a row.

But we have to temper our expectations. Dumervil is certainly not a bad acquisition, and we think that he’ll turn into a very strong situational player. But to find out what the Ravens are really getting in Dumervil, we need to turn to the tape.

First…Who is Elvis Dumervil?

Dumervil spent the last seven seasons playing for the Denver Broncos. Like both Canty and Spears, Dumervil had recently signed a huge contract extension. Prior to the 2010 season, Denver locked him up for 6 years for $61.5 million. Just three years later, the Ravens have given him a contract worth slightly more than half of what Denver paid him in 2009.

Now, we’ve been bullish on PFF’s performance-based value metric, which has made our last two acquisitions seem average to good, monetarily speaking. So we can’t just ignore the stat once it looks ugly.

According to ProFootballFocus, Dumervil’s 2012 performance-based value was only $1.6 million (the Broncos paid him $15.7 million). This is a bit shocking considering he had double digit sacks and 39 QB hurries.

But he also played a huge number of snaps (1,037), which means that he got to the QB a pretty low percentage of the time considering how much he was on the field. Additionally, he was penalized WAY too often (10 times last year), mostly for offsides (see more on that below).

Finally, Dumervil was a huge liability in the run game for most of the 2012 season. More on that below as well.

On to the Measurables…

Dumervil is a bit undersized for a defensive lineman. He’s listed at 5’11” and 260lbs, though his playing weight is probably closer to 250. His lack of size is a double edged sword. It gives him his quickness, but turns into a huge disadvantage when he lines up over some of the league’s biggest tackles.

Dumervil has reasonable arm length, but nothing special. Because most of Dumervil’s pressures come from his “speed-to-power” ability, big, long-armed tackles can easily slow him up. When this occurs, he is either stalemated or he gets pressure simply because the QB held the ball too long.  A good deal of his pressures stem from the QB’s inability to get the ball out.

Additionally, Dumervil is not violent with his hands. He shows none of Dwight Freeney’s aggressiveness–a player who excels at using his hands to keep linemen off of him with swift powerful hand-movements. If Dumervil can’t push through a block, he’s basically done.

So ultimately Dumervil’s greatest advantage is his speed. He’s fast (his 40 time was 4.68) but doesn’t have elite speed. By comparison, Freeney ran a 4.4.

Unfortunately, Dumervil shows no other pass rushing skills besides speed. On film, we saw him attempt a few spin and swim moves to no avail. His swim moved looked lazy and his spin gained no ground. He also occasionally attempted a dip/rip (see here for an in-depth explanation) but almost always got pushed out of the play.

Because he has no other pass-rushing skills, Dumervil often tries to anticipate the snap. He seems to know that his only advantages are speed and timing, and this causes him to be offsides way too often. Turns out those NFL QBs are fairly good at disguising the snap count.

But all is not lost! Thankfully, Dumervil is pretty good at the speed rush thing. Here, he lines up in a two-point stance and easily beats the tackle around the edge, putting pressure on Rivers and causing a bad throw.

EDIT: GIF removed per NFL

Dumervil is also able to convert his speed into enough momentum to bull through the man in front of him. Here, he easily pushes past an overmatched Jonathan Dwyer and takes on Heath Miller, too, en route to QB hit.

EDIT: GIF removed per NFL

And here he pushes OT Andrew Whitworth back into Dalton:

EDIT: GIF removed per NFL

A Big Liability

Contrary to his success rushing the passer, Dumervil is a liability in the run game. For the sake of not completely disheartening all Ravens fans who are excited about our new acquisition, we’ll start with the good, then get to the bad, then to the film.

The Good:

Dumervil is good at maintaining gap responsibility, and he rarely gets blown up, even by pulling guards. He holds his ground pretty well, but that’s about it. He typically gets stood up by the lineman and becomes part of the jam.

He also has plenty of agility to make open field tackles–as long as he doesn’t have to take on a block.

The Bad:

He doesn’t get off run blocks well at all. Like…at all. Once he’s engaged, he seems unable to break free until the whistle.

Additionally, he doesn’t appear to ever two-gap or spill. Of course, there’s no way of knowing whether he’s taught these techniques. Regardless, he doesn’t appear to have this sort of versatility.

And then there’s his hatred of contact. It appears that Dumervil seriously hates contact, and will try to avoid getting tangled up with a lineman on running plays. Below you can see that he recognizes the run to his side, sets his feet, but decides not to engage Max Starks. Instead he dances around and all Starks has to do is keep advancing and give him one good shove.

EDIT: GIF removed per NFL

Bottom Line

Dumervil is a very good speed-to-power rusher. He has the ability to generate pressure on the quarterback, which is obviously why the Ravens went after him. Will he get us sacks? Almost definitely.

That said, his pass rushing skill set is limited. He relies solely on speed-to-power and struggles with both offsides penalties and massive offensive linemen.

He is also a pretty big liability in the run game. It’s undoubtedly his biggest weakness. And this leads us to believe that Dumervil will see fewer snaps with the Ravens than he did in Denver.

We believe that Dumervil will end up as a situational pass rusher. Because of his weakness in the run game and Baltimore’s penchant for using varied fronts, it’s unlikely that there will be 1,000+ snaps in the mix for him. But that’s not a bad thing. Atlanta used John Abraham in a situational role last year (he saw about 250 fewer snaps than Dumervil), and Abraham had a ton of success rushing the passer. If the Ravens can find the right balance and put Dumervil in position to succeed, we are certain that the team will get a solid return on their investment.

Hey everyone–we are Chris Worthington (@BSLChrisW) and Dan Bryden (@BSL_Bryden), two good friends and past college roommates as well as avid Ravens fans. We have been using the new All-22 Coaches film to try to get a closer look at the Ravens this year. We hope you enjoy it, and we STRONGLY encourage you to leave comments or questions in the forum–one of our primary goals when we decided to start writing was to foster conversation.

Chris Worthington
Chris Worthington

Born and raised in Baltimore, Chris has been a local sports fan his whole life. His first love was the Orioles, thanks in large part to his grandfather–but ever since the Ravens arrived, football has been his passion. By day, Chris works as a Medical Writer supporting the National Institutes of Health. He now lives in Sykesville with his wife and two daughters.

X