The Ravens open up their season on Sunday against the Cincinnati Bengals. The Bengals have had plenty of changes take place over the offseason, losing both coordinators to new head coaching jobs. Fortunately for Cincinnati, they had capable replacements already on the staff. Hue Jackson takes over from Jay Gruden and expectations for the Bengals offense are as high as ever. They have plenty of weapons for quarterback Andy Dalton to throw to; receivers A.J. Green, Mohamed Sanu, Marvin Jones and of course running back Giovani Bernard.
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But Dalton’s favorite weapons might well be his tight ends. Jermaine Gresham and Tyler Eifert are athletic, versatile players that can line up all over the field. The Bengals offense takes full advantage of this.
Cincinnati can elect to line up both tight ends conventionally on the line in a run heavy look.
They can opt to put one in the backfield acting as a fullback.
They can play with one tight end lined up outside as a receiver. On top of that, they can add in a wrinkle with hiding Gresham in the backfield as we see here.
Alternatively, the Bengals can line up both tight ends as receivers away from the line.
All of these options give the Bengals a great deal of versatility. The New England Patriots lead the way with this kind of versatility at the tight end position when they had the formidable duo of Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez. While Gresham and Eifert aren’t exactly what Gronkowski and Hernandez were, and Dalton certainly isn’t Tom Brady, it still causes a great deal of stress on the defense.
This is what the Ravens will have to deal with on Sunday. The Bengals can move their tight ends around to manipulate match ups. But more importantly, it makes it incredibly hard to disguise the intention of the defense when you have tight ends lined up in different positions. The moment a tight end lines up outside, the quarterback gets a strong idea on if the defense is in man or zone coverage. Rarely do you see a linebacker follow a tight end outside and play zone, indicating to the quarterback that the defense is in man coverage. Similarly, you don’t often see a 5’11” take man coverage responsibilities against a 6’5” athletic tight end, indicating zone coverage.
Knowing the likely coverage of the defense is a huge advantage for the quarterback. He can form an idea in his mind with what should work against the coverage he’s expecting and where to go with the football, making it easier for him to anticipate receivers breaking out of routes and harder for defenders to break up passes.
Using tight ends like this also opens up the threat of the no huddle offense. No huddle and hurry up offenses are the talk of the NFL after Chip Kelly set the league on fire with his up-tempo, no huddle offense in Philadelphia. With the tight ends that the Bengals have at their disposal, they can run no huddle and show vastly different formations each play without giving the defense much time to adjust. One play they can line up run heavy (like the first picture above) and run the ball, the next they can spread it out (like the fourth picture above) and pass. Again, this forces more basic looks form the defense and makes it much easier for the quarterback to get a read and know where to go with the ball.
It will be a stern test for the Ravens defense to open the season against. Baltimore will have to decide early on if they want to run their nickel package to give them better pass coverage against these two tight end looks, or their base defense to help stop the run. Disguising coverages won’t be easy, so the Ravens won’t be able to confuse Dalton with different pre and post-snap looks. They’ll have to be ready and willing to line up and play fundamental football.
Mark is an NFL follower from across the pond. He began analyzing Redskins football for SBNation’s HogsHaven.com, before moving on to The Washington Post. He also helps with NFL Draft coverage on FanSpeak.com. Mark was born and still lives in England, often battling the time difference to watch every minute of football he can.