The Morning After Film Fix: PreWeek 1 v Tampa Bay

Now that the preseason is here, Chris and I want to debut a new series we’ll be running throughout the season. It’s called The Morning After Film Fix.  During the regular season, this will appear on the board on Monday mornings.

Join us on the Message Board to discuss this piece and others here.

We decided to get started right away with the preseason games, but this particular instance is late due to the complications of getting the TV copy via NFL Preseason Live.  Basically, because Tampa didn’t sell out their game, we had to wait for the game to be posted…

Flacco’s Pick

Flacco manned only two drives this past Thursday and performed as expected.  The game-plan was extremely vanilla and of Flacco’s nine pass attempts, only two went further than 10 yards in the air.  Unfortunately one of the remaining two attempts was picked off by former Ravens CB Danny Gorrer.  ProFootballFocus graded this pass as -1.5, their second lowest grade for any single play.  I went back to see how poor of a pass it really was:

With their 11 personnel on the field, Flacco and the Ravens are striving for a First Down at Tampa’s 31 yardline.  Danny Gorrer is lined up across from Jacoby Jones while CB Leonard Johnson aligns in front of Tandon Doss in the slot.

Jones pushes Gorrer down the field with his vertical stem.  Gorrer is playing a deep zone (likely a deep third in Cover-3) and therefore bailing at the snap, keeping his eyes on the QB.  In Image #2 Jones begins to break his route to the sideline.  Image #3 is the point in time where Flacco has released the ball and Gorrer begins to drive the route.  The red line in Image #4 indicates Jones’ exact route trajectory.

The Ravens have coached “speed cuts” on Out routes for a number of years which explains why Jones doesn’t square his route to the sideline.  The issue with speed cuts is that it allows defenders to drive underneath of these routes because once a receiver begins his outward bend, there is only one direction he can be turning.  To eliminate that issue and accentuate the strength of the speed cut (speed), the receiver must come back to the ball along the sideline.  Jones needs to drive back to the sideline and step in front of his defender or fight for the ball.

Some (myself included) said on Thursday that Flacco sailed that pass a bit and a stronger throw would not have been intercepted.  After rewatching this play, Flacco needed to loft the throw a bit to avoid a pass defense by the Curl/Flat defender (Johnson, in orange).  At the point of Image #3, Johnson has passed off Doss and is in the passing lane between Flacco and Jacoby Jones.

If I were to allocate blame for this interception, I’d place the blame 65% on Jones and 35% on Flacco.

Bernard Pierce Touchdown Run

The Ravens’ second string offense got the team on the board for the first time, and it came on Pierce’s 20 yard TD run. Not to knock the second string offense, of course… There are some teams (I’m looking at you, Browns) who would probably take Taylor and a healthy Pierce over their equivalent starters at this point.

This is essentially a variation of what’s known as Power O. It’s a staple power running play in both college and professional football. The goal is to use a pulling guard and double teams at the point of attack to spring the runner free. Tampa is in a 4-3 here, and their RDE  is playing outside of the tackle – way away from the play. The Ravens are going to downblock on the interior linemen and let the RDE come free, knowing he is out of the play already. Visanthe Shiancoe, meanwhile, is going to briefly down-block the LDE and then slide upfield and take on the ILB, Hayward.

Here, you see Shiancoe executing the double team. Soon, he will slide up and engage #57, Hayward. Meanwhile, Harewood is making his way across the formation to take on #52, LB Jonathan Casillas.

Once Harewood and Shiancoe are in place, Pierce has a massive hole to run through. One of the things that most impressed me about this play was Pierce’s patience and vision. He gets to the hole before it’s really there and decides to take one quick chop step before he bursts through the whole. A less patient running back would hit the hole at-speed, likely getting five yards but in the end being tackled for just a decent gain. Pierce knows this, waits for the hole to open, then uses his athleticism to get to the endzone.

Finally, the reason this play goes for a touchdown and not just a long gain is none other than Deonte Thompson. Off the snap, his job is to block the CB, who is playing man against him. Deonte does a great job of moving the CB to the middle of the field, essentially blocking three people at once by pushing his man into the path of pursuing defenders. Pierce uses his speed and balance to beat the safety to the pylon, and the Ravens got six points on the board.

Chris Canty Sack, First Defensive Drive:

When I turned on this Preseason game, I was most excited to see how well the revamped (and suddenly very deep) defensive line had gelled.  When the starters were on the field, it was tough to contain my optimism for this unit (it is Preseason after all).

On the Bucs first third-down of the night, the Ravens rushed four to perfection:

The outside rushers (Suggs, Dumervil) are speed rushing which leaves the three interior lineman to block Ngata and Canty in the middle.  The two D-Lineman run a designed Tackle-Tackle stunt where Canty drives toward the weak-side A gap to occupy the center and guard while Ngata scoops to daylight on the strong-side.

Image #1 shows Ngata planting his outside foot in order to loop around Canty.  Image #2 shows the Center Jeremy Zuttah falling forward after his attempt to stick with Ngata around the stunt.  Ngata gets picked up by the strong-side guard (Image #3) but the Center is on the ground and the Guard Cody Wallace has peeled back to help block Dumervil which leaves a huge alley straight to the QB.  Canty plants Freeman in Image #4.

Inside stunts are not infallible play-calls.  In fact they are often easy to pick up especially when three O-lineman are blocking two D-lineman.  But the power/acceleration of Canty and Ngata against back-up O-lineman does not spell success for the Bucs.

Lastly, without the luxury of All-22, it is impossible to know how much the coverage impacted this sack.

Daryl Smith/Arthur Brown Strip Sack

Well, it may have come against Tampa’s backup quarterback, but this play gives us reason to be excited about a position of perceived weakness – inside linebacker.

At the top of the slide, you see the Ravens lined up in a base 4-3. Daryl Smith is the WILL while Arthur Brown is the MIKE (this is an interesting alignment because typically their roles would be reversed). In the bottom half of the image, you see Smith creep up to the LOS just before the ball is snapped, right above the B gap.

The playcall is a double-B gap blitz. Smith blitzes right off the snap, and Art Brown’s delayed blitz comes through the same hole a few seconds later. As you can see in the second half of the image, Smith takes the RB, Mike James, head-on. Even though James is listed at 5’10” and 223lbs he has absolutely no chance. Daryl Smith shows solid power and leverage as he drives James back and clears a path for Brown.

Here, you can see the enormity of the hole that Brown would have to run through if RG Cody Wallace wasn’t holding the crap out of him. Luckily, Smith puts a hand up and knocks the ball away from Glennon as he is about to throw, so Brown doesn’t even need to get home. Ultimately, this play could’ve had numerous positive endings for the Ravens (sack, fumble, penalty, etc.).

There are a bunch of reason to be excited here. Smith shows he’s still got the strength to overpower running backs and the speed to get to the quarterback, in addition to his smarts (put your hands up in passing lanes). Brown shows good speed, even if he couldn’t get past the hold and make the play. And the defense as a whole successfully executes an aggressive playcall. It’s like Rex Ryan all over again!