Ravens All-22: Comparing Pierce and Forsett
One of the biggest questions facing the Baltimore Ravens ahead of Thursday night’s game against the Steelers is who will start at running back. Bernard Pierce was the starter heading into week one but after managing just 14 yards on six carries, losing a fumble on the final rush, Pierce was benched in favor of back up Justin Forsett. Forsett came in and took 11 carries for 70 yards and a touchdown.
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Pierce struggled, but it wasn’t all down to him. All the offseason had been spent talking about the zone blocking scheme, and the Ravens went and ran power on their first rushing attempt. I felt that Baltimore attempted too many different styles of runs to break the tendencies that the Bengals will have scouted from Kubaik’s Texans offense in the past. That resulted in plays like these.
Here, the Ravens line will block to their left. Joe Flacco will reverse pivot out and hand off to Pierce, who will fake running left before cutting back to his right. The Bengals defense end highlighted in yellow blows up this play.
While everyone else blocks to their left, Eugene Monroe allows the defense end to reach across him and get inside before Pierce even takes the hand off.
The defensive end gets straight into the backfield and nearly tackles Pierce before he can do anything about it. Pierce does well to run through the tackle, but is forced to bounce his run to the outside.
The Bengals are good at rallying to the ball and this play was no different. Their secondary is quick to react to the run and comes down to support, tripping up Pierce for a minimal gain.
Pierce couldn’t have done too much about those opening couple of rushes. However, once the Ravens started calling for the normal stretch runs, Pierce did appear to struggle.
This was a stretch run to the left, the bread and butter play in this offense.
Pierce gets to the hole and hesitates. He looks to cut it back, but his backside blockers haven’t cleared a lane for him.
That leads Pierce to stop his feet and causes him to lose his burst through the hole. Had he not hesitated initially, he could have hit the hole at full speed and potentially walked through to the secondary. But because of the hesitation, he is slow through the hole. He does manage to pick up six yards on this play, so it might sound like I’m being harsh. But the reality is, he could have had so much more out of the play.
That hesitation seemed to play on Pierce’s mind. On the play that he fumbled, he missed a clear opportunity to cut back.
This is another stretch play, this time run to the right.
Pierce approaches the line of scrimmage. He should be looking to cut this all the way back behind left tackle Eugene Monroe. But instead, he opts to follow his fullback into traffic.
Pierce ends up bouncing around trying to find a hole and ends up getting the ball stripped by Vontaze Burfict. But Pierce could have avoided all that traffic by cutting it all the way back behind Monroe into open field.
After that run, the Ravens benched Pierce for Forsett. Forsett is plenty familiar with the zone scheme, having played in it under Kubiak in Houston. He took full advantage of his opportunity.
Again, we have a stretch play to the left.
Forsett receives the hand off and stays on path to his original aiming point, outside the tackle. Meanwhile, a big cutback lane is developing on the backside of the run.
Forsett makes a quick read and one step later is ready to cut it back. He has no hesitation and doesnt lose any speed stutter-stepping.
That allows Forsett to burst through the hole at full speed, eluding diving tacklers.
Forsett is eventually brought down, but picks up a 10 yard gain in the process.
Forsett looked much more comfortable running the zone scheme than Pierce against the Bengals. But Pierce didn’t appear to struggle with the scheme too much in preseason. The Ravens wont want to overreact to one game, but at the same time, Forsett might well give them the best chance to win. It will be an important decision to make, and one they’ll have to make quickly on a shortened week. The good news for the Ravens is that the Steelers have struggled recently against the zone scheme. On Sunday, they gave up 183 net rushing yards to the Browns, who have Kyle Shanahan, Kubiak’s former offensive coordinator in Houston, calling the plays for them. Whoever the Ravens do opt for on Thursday night should have plenty of yards available to them.
