The Morning After Film Fix: Ravens-Bills

Well, nearly everyone assumed that Baltimore would travel to Buffalo and secure a victory (plus a three-game winning streak), but, uh, you know what they say about the best laid plans. And about assuming.

Seriously, what didn’t go wrong in upstate New York this Sunday? The Baltimore defense gave up over 200 yards on the ground, Joe Flacco threw five interceptions, the running game was more invisible than ever… And yet the Ravens only lost by three points – on the road – to a Buffalo team that is better than people want to admit.

But I doubt that will keep the hounds at bay in Baltimore this week. I’m sure the city will be filled with calls for Joe’s head until he has a chance to redeem himself next Sunday. To be fair, $120 million is a lot to spend for five interception games. And with that in mind, I went back to tape to see if I could discern just how much of the credit Joe Flacco deserves for that inordinate number of turnovers.

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Interception #1  – Q1 5:37, 3rd and 7

The Ravens face a third down early in the game. They line up in a singleback formation with four wide receivers. From the slot, Tandon Doss is going to run a 10-yard out. Torrey Smith, on the outside, is going to run a clear-out route. The defense here looks like Cover-2 Trap – two high safeties, with every corner except SS Aaron Williams (lined up across from Torrey Smith) playing man. Williams is in fact going to drop into a 5-8 yard zone.

Here is the view just after Flacco has thrown the ball (circled in yellow). As you can see, Williams is in his zone – not trailing Torrey Smith on the clear-out route – and is now breaking on Flacco’s pass. The “Trap” has been set. In orange, you can see the window that Flacco is trying to fit this pass into.

Here you see Williams about to intercept the pass. It seems likely that this playcall was based on film study and some tendencies that the Bills recognized. And the defense worked perfectly. Verdict? A great defensive scheme. It’s unclear exactly what Flacco was seeing, but he may have read Cover-2 man and thought he had a clean throw to the out route. This is a tough situation because the trap worked perfectly. Still, most of the blame has to be on Flacco. Ultimately, it was his read and his throw. 

Interception #2 – Q2 8:13, 1st and 20

Prior to the snap, the Bills are showing Cover-2 Man. However, just before the snap, FS Jim Leonard (yes, the same Jim Leonard who once played for the Ravens), is going to sneak down into a shallow zone. There is a single high safety (not pictured), the corners are in man coverage, and the ILBs plus Leonard are playing zone coverage.

Ed Dickson has run a 12-yard Curl route and settled into a hole in the defense. Dallas Clark’s route clears out one of the ILBs, creating a throwing lane for Flacco. Meanwhile, the man who was defending Dickson is out of position, having turned his hips in anticipation of a deep seam route. Leonard and the second ILB are in their respective zones, unable to break on the pass before it gets to Dickson. Surely this is doom for the Buffalo defense.

Nope. The ball hits Dickson in the hands and pops straight into the air, where Leonard makes an athletic play, hurdling Dickson while simultaneously intercepting the pass. Verdict: Flacco makes the right read here and puts the pass where only his receiver can get it (on the opposite shoulder of the trailing defender). This one is on Dickson.

Interception #3 – Q3 10:35, 3rd and 11

On 3rd and 11, the Ravens come out with an empty backfield. On the offensive right, Torrey Smith is lined up in the slot, while RB Bernard Pierce is lined up wide right. Smith is running a corner route and Pierce is running a short hitch route (this is called Smash-7). Both are facing man coverage from the defense.

After the snap, Flacco faces pressure from both sides almost immediately. The Bills only send four rushers, but it’s enough. #37 in the image above comes unblocked from Flacco’s left while Oher whiffs badly on his block on Flacco’s right. This forces Flacco to throw off-balance. Even though it appears he has set his feet, his weight is still falling backwards, working against him.

The pass is just underthrown, allowing the DB to make a nice interception. Additionally, Torrey stumbles coming out of his break and is never in a good position to make a play on the ball. He can really only watch as Aaron Williams records his second INT of the day. Verdict: The pass blocking was really atrocious on this play…only four rushers came, and Flacco was under pressure immediately from both sides. But much like the first interception, it seems like Flacco thought he could complete the pass (even though he got destroyed about half a second after releasing the ball). This one is mostly on Flacco for making the decision to go for the end zone, but also a little bit on the line.

Interception #4 – Q# 5:03, 1st and 10

The Ravens are once again in their singleback, four receiver set. Both slot receivers are running clear routes to open up space in the middle of the field. Meanwhile, the outside receivers, Tandon Doss and Marlon Brown, are going to run a “Mesh”.

Here, you can see that Brown and Doss are running routes of nearly identical depth. There should be a dedicated “Under” and “Over” man, so somebody definitely messed up, and you can see that Marlon Brown is twisting his body to avoid Doss. Meanwhile, Flacco has been moving SAM linebacker Manny Lawson with his eyes, convincing him that the throw is going to Doss. Just as Lawson commits to Doss, Flacco turns and fires to where he thinks Brown is going to be. Unfortunately, Brown has adjusted his route, and rather than splitting Doss and the defender (the dotted arrow), he slips around behind the defender (solid arrow). The ball ends up in the linebacker’s hands for an easy interception. Verdict: This one is on Brown. Flacco does all he can here, first moving the linebacker with his eyes then throwing to where Brown should be. Unfortunately, Brown moved behind the defender at the last second.

Interception #5 – Q4 1:04, 3rd and 8

Here, Dallas Clark is running a curl route. At the top of the screen, Marlon Brown is going to run a clear-out route and take his man deep. The slot receiver is going to block his man as if it were a running play. Clark is going to blow past the ILB’s zone then settle into a hole and look for the ball.

Unfortunately, without All-22 it’s extremely hard to tell what’s going on during this play. As best I can tell, FS Da’Norris Searcy makes a great break on the ball. Flacco fires it to Clark as soon as he settles into the hole in the zone, but Searcy comes flying up and gets a hand in between Clark and the ball at the very last second. The ball pops up (sound familiar?) and ILB Kiko Alonso makes a ridiculous play to intercept the pass. It’s hard to assign blame here, but it seems likely that either the pass was a little late or Clark ran a bad route/didn’t come back to the ball enough. Regardless, this interception is really about the incredible athleticism of Kiko Alonso, who comes from almost 10 yards away and stretches out overtop of Searcy to intercept the pass. See below.

Verdict: Again, it’s hard to tell. I’ll give it one third to Flacco for possibly throwing the pass a second late, one third to Clark for possibly running a lazy/bad route, and one third to Alonso for an incredible defensive play.