The Baltimore Ravens were hurt by the news that star cornerback Jimmy Smith was lost for the season due to injury. Smith had been playing at a high level and was a key player in the secondary. He played both man and zone coverage well and forced quarterbacks to throw the ball away from him.
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Here, the Ravens are in Cover 3, with Smith assigned to the deep outside third of the field. The Falcons have a receiver running a comeback route.
Smith stays on top of the route, but doesn’t immediately bail out to his deep third of the field. As soon as the receiver breaks back to the ball, Smith breaks on it too.
Smith gets his hand on the ball and it falls incomplete. It takes confidence from a corner to not just bail to his zone assignment and break on underneath routes like that. Some younger corners probably wouldn’t make that play because they bailed out from the snap. But Smith showed off his veteran knowledge and broke up the pass.
Smith’s only interception of the season came on an another excellent veteran play.
Smith again lines up in off-coverage.
Smith begins to drop back, but keeps his eyes on the quarterback. The run their slot receiver on an out route, entering Smith’s zone.
Smith reads the quarterback and breaks on the throw as soon as the quarterback begins to wind up.
Smith undercuts the throw and picks it off.
Those are the kinds of plays we are used to seeing from Smith and clearly will miss from him. Teams usually go one of two ways when they lose a key player in their secondary. They can either try to compensate by dropping seven or eight into coverage, or they dial up more blitzes and try to get to the quarterback and limit the time the lesser corners need to cover. Personally, I prefer the latter option.
Last week against the Steelers, Baltimore tried both tactics, sending blitz and then using lots of zone coverage. When they sent the blitz, they had positive plays. Here, Matt Elam lines up over the slot receiver, but is sent on the blitz. They also run a “TEX” or tackle-end exchange stunt up front to further confuse the offensive line.
The stunt up front allows Elam to come free off the edge. Roethlisberger has a receiver breaking over the middle of the field, but feels the pressure arriving and is forced to step up into the pocket to try and avoid it.
But the stunt up front also generates pressure. Roethlisberger steps up to try and avoid Elam off the edge, but steps into the pressure up front.
The pressure gets to Roethlisberger, who is brought down for the sack.
Sending more blitzes is a risky tactic because it can leave to receivers getting open. But if the blitzes get home, then it doesn’t matter. I much prefer this tactic to the alternative.
Here, the Ravens play Cover 3 and send a four man rush. Rookie receiver Martavis Bryant runs a simple post route.
But the four-man rush is picked up easily by the Steelers offensive line. Roethlisberger has all day to sit in the pocket and work through his progressions.
Roethlisberger has time to calmly step into his throw and find Bryant splitting the gap between the deep zones.
Bryant makes the catch and then walks through a poor tackle attempt into the end zone for a touchdown.
No defender got within five yards of Roethlisberger. If you give quarterbacks that much time, it doesn’t matter how many defenders you drop into zone coverage, eventually he’ll find an open receiver. So from my point of view, I think the Ravens should take the aggressive approach to losing Smith and start sending more blitzes. But we’ll see they’re thinking against the Titans this Sunday.
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.