Raven Variables??

[Seahawkfan80]

I am kinda curious, what variables do the Ravens possess that may be concerns with our team? What I want is not any puffy chest thing..but actual football talk. Defensive backs, running game, Offensive line stuff. Assistance would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[bmorepunk]

Even with all the injuries, they still have a pretty good offensive line. That includes Marshal Yanda, who is probably the best guard in the game and most likely the best run blocker. They've struggled running the ball this year, though, so hopefully they don't have a breakout game with a rookie on this one.

They'll be able to get pressure with Dumervil, have a decent group of linebackers, and the DL are okay. They are good at run defense. The secondary has two decent corners (Webb and Smith) but the safeties aren't great. Pass defense is wildly inconsistent.

Their top two tight ends are hurt and may not even play; they signed two dudes off the street this week behind them. They've lost a bunch of TEs to injury this year, including Pitta who is critical to their team. Gillmore has been having a good season in his absence but is questionable this week.

They have multiple injuries at WR, including Smith. At this point between the WR and TEs Schaub/Clausen will be throwing to random dudes that most of us have never heard of.

This team is a mess right now, and they might have an advantage of the Seahawks not having enough tape on players to really know them.

 

[Seahawkfan80]

The unknown is a great advantage. Thanks for the post Bmore.

 

[Smellyman]

I don't know much about the Ravens. However, their worst loss is by 8 to the Cards.

Ravens are still tough and will fight. A lot of 2 and 3 point losses for their 4-8 record.

It's the NFL, no team is a gimme.

 

[chrisjess]

I'm no Ravens expert but I live in Maryland, listen to Baltimore sports talk, and am friends with tons of Ravens fans and watch most of their games. At the beginning of the year many had this game circled as being a tough match-up. The Ravens lost to the Patriots in the Divisional Round last year and many had them being right back in the playoff hunt this season. Most of the fans have already moved on to what spot they'll be picking in the draft next year. The team is just decimated with injuries. Everyone knows the players I'm talking about. Suggs, Steve Smith, Flacco, Pitta, Forsett are all out for the year.

QBs- Matt Schaub and Jimmy Clausen.
Schaub was banged up at the end of the game last week and Clausen been with the team for less then two weeks now. Schaub has thrown pick 6s in the past 2 games and many fans are already hammering to get Clausen in the lineup.

RBs- Buck Allen and Terrance West
One of the few bright spots has been Buck Allen, a 2015 4th round pick has been putting up good stats since Forsett went down. Terrance West was recently promoted to the active roster. He was a 2014 3rd round pick for the Browns. He scored 41 TDs in 2013 for Towson University an NCAA FCS record

WRs-Aiken, Brown, Butler, Givens
This has to be worst WR corp in the league. Givens was added from STL after Smith went down. Aiken is currently their #1 and would be a low #3 or #4 on most teams. Even when Flacco was throwing them the ball they just looked outmatched in every way. No separation and poor route running.

TE-Gillmore and Boyle
Crockett Gillmore is the starting TE but he is questionable with a back injury. A 2014 3rd round pick is only avg 3.3 REC/G and 41.2 YDS/G. Boyle was suspended for 4 games for performance enhancing substance earlier in the week. They just signed Konrad Reuland from the Practice Squad.

OL-Monroe, Hurst, Osemele, Zuttah, Yanda, Wagner
Monroe has a shoulder issue and Hurst, who is pretty awful, would be filling in for him. Osemele has been dealing with a knee issue. Yanda is one of the best guards in the league. Overall the line has done a decent job in pass protection and run blocking

K-Justin Tucker
A fan favorite and very good kicker. He has been very reliable and one of the best kickers in the league for a couple years now. Although this year Tucker is now just 2-of-8 on field goals of at least 50 yards.

D-Webb, J. Smith, Mosley, D. Smith, Hill, Jernigan
Baltimore is 31st in Turnover Differential with only 4 int and 6 forced fumbles. Tied 17th with 28 sacks and is ranked 24th in weighted DVOA. Dumerveil is still a top ten pass rusher and CJ Mosley is only in his 2nd season he was the runner up for NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year and selected to the Pro Bowl. The secondary is better now then it was in the earlier part of the season. Jimmy Smith is the top CB and Webb after a few years of injuries is finally healthy but not playing at the same level.

There are still die-hard fans that are excited to see what some of the younger guys can do given the chance this season. But most fans have already checked out and moved on to Maryland Terps basketball or what the Baltimore O's do during the winter meetings. I expect to see and hear a large number of 12s this Sunday. Nothing really scares me about any of the match-ups within this game, I just hope we come out injury free and with the W.

 

[Seahawkfan80]

Thanks ChrisJess. Great feedback and adds to what I was looking for.

 

[SeahawksBMX]

Great stuff, chrisjess and thank you.

So Schaub is halfway to equaling his dubious NFL record of 4 consecutive games with a Pick 6 that of course includes the "Shoeless Sherman" one a couple years ago, eh?
I saw that he now has an astonishing 14 career Pick Sixes, which I would have to think is also an NFL record. Tried to confirm that, but gave up.
Hope Schaub is healthy enough to start Sunday and raises that number to 15 or 16. It is the giving season.

 

[Our Man in Chicago]

Great write-up, chrisjess. Much appreciated. There is definitely a hunger for the nitty-gritty on this site.

 

[Attyla the Hawk]

Physical team that kind of likes to play like we do. Wants to drag other teams to their level and beat them with toughness.

Lack of play makers is remarkable. Has been a good team drafting their kind of guys -- so they have depth talent. But they are just very vulnerable now at key positions. Seattle really should light them up because we can easily match up physically with them and beat them at their own game. And we have a lot of players capable of having a big day. Seems Baltimore does better if they match up with imbalanced/star driven offenses. They seem capable of taking one thing away if they focus on it. But if a team spreads it around well and can deal with the toughness aspect they bring -- then the Ravens should be in trouble.

Seattle is that kind of team. Any week can see one of our players have a great game. And we relish tight/tough games. I could see us really dominating this group, even if the score doesn't necessarily reflect it.

 

[ImTheScientist]

The Ravens suck. The next 3 teams we play suck. Im thinking far past them all at this point as we will be 3-0 the next three weeks with blow out wins. On to Arizona.

 

[Siouxhawk]

Great summation chrisjess!
So basically we just need to bottle up Buck early and then have Kam, Earl or K.J. run back a couple of pick 6s when Schaub starts telegraphing passes to Gillmore? I like it? This is a game where we could pound Marshawn all first half and have our way with their defense in the second half. Still plenty of areas in their defense to exploit

 

[bmorepunk]

I'm no Ravens expert but I live in Maryland, listen to Baltimore sports talk, and am friends with tons of Ravens fans and watch most of their games. At the beginning of the year many had this game circled as being a tough match-up. The Ravens lost to the Patriots in the Divisional Round last year and many had them being right back in the playoff hunt this season. Most of the fans have already moved on to what spot they'll be picking in the draft next year. The team is just decimated with injuries. Everyone knows the players I'm talking about. Suggs, Steve Smith, Flacco, Pitta, Forsett are all out for the year.

QBs- Matt Schaub and Jimmy Clausen.
Schaub was banged up at the end of the game last week and Clausen been with the team for less then two weeks now. Schaub has thrown pick 6s in the past 2 games and many fans are already hammering to get Clausen in the lineup.

RBs- Buck Allen and Terrance West
One of the few bright spots has been Buck Allen, a 2015 4th round pick has been putting up good stats since Forsett went down. Terrance West was recently promoted to the active roster. He was a 2014 3rd round pick for the Browns. He scored 41 TDs in 2013 for Towson University an NCAA FCS record

WRs-Aiken, Brown, Butler, Givens
This has to be worst WR corp in the league. Givens was added from STL after Smith went down. Aiken is currently their #1 and would be a low #3 or #4 on most teams. Even when Flacco was throwing them the ball they just looked outmatched in every way. No separation and poor route running.

TE-Gillmore and Boyle
Crockett Gillmore is the starting TE but he is questionable with a back injury. A 2014 3rd round pick is only avg 3.3 REC/G and 41.2 YDS/G. Boyle was suspended for 4 games for performance enhancing substance earlier in the week. They just signed Konrad Reuland from the Practice Squad.

OL-Monroe, Hurst, Osemele, Zuttah, Yanda, Wagner
Monroe has a shoulder issue and Hurst, who is pretty awful, would be filling in for him. Osemele has been dealing with a knee issue. Yanda is one of the best guards in the league. Overall the line has done a decent job in pass protection and run blocking

K-Justin Tucker
A fan favorite and very good kicker. He has been very reliable and one of the best kickers in the league for a couple years now. Although this year Tucker is now just 2-of-8 on field goals of at least 50 yards.

D-Webb, J. Smith, Mosley, D. Smith, Hill, Jernigan
Baltimore is 31st in Turnover Differential with only 4 int and 6 forced fumbles. Tied 17th with 28 sacks and is ranked 24th in weighted DVOA. Dumerveil is still a top ten pass rusher and CJ Mosley is only in his 2nd season he was the runner up for NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year and selected to the Pro Bowl. The secondary is better now then it was in the earlier part of the season. Jimmy Smith is the top CB and Webb after a few years of injuries is finally healthy but not playing at the same level.

There are still die-hard fans that are excited to see what some of the younger guys can do given the chance this season. But most fans have already checked out and moved on to Maryland Terps basketball or what the Baltimore O's do during the winter meetings. I expect to see and hear a large number of 12s this Sunday. Nothing really scares me about any of the match-ups within this game, I just hope we come out injury free and with the W.

Did you get cheap tickets? I left the area in March for Colorado and my Raven fan friends are saying that they've never seen attendance or interest this low.

Do you listen to Scott Garceu and Jeremy Conn? I usually ended up listening to that station on the way home from work and there's where I got all my useless Raven knowledge.

 

[chrisjess]

Did you get cheap tickets? I left the area in March for Colorado and my Raven fan friends are saying that they've never seen attendance or interest this low.

Do you listen to Scott Garceu and Jeremy Conn? I usually ended up listening to that station on the way home from work and there's where I got all my useless Raven knowledge.

It's going to be 4 of us going Sunday and we actually got some great tickets. Section 127 (lower level 45-50 yard line) 19 rows up.


Yeah I listen to 105.7 the fan most of the day. It's really the only sports radio station we get over on my side of Maryland. Garceau is a class act and has been in the business for a long while. Jeremy Conn is kind of a clown and is a huge Manning fan which made XLVIII even that much better. Listening to his XLVIII the day after broadcast was priceless.

 

[Hawks46]

Good write up Chrisjess.

I was just reading that the Ravens have set some sort of record for consecutive games decided by 4 points or less. I might be wrong on that one, but no one is blowing them out.

Buck Allen had 170 all purpose yards last game. It was a break out game for him and they will probably try to ride that. I mean, what else can they do ? They've obviously seen what we did to Minn's running game, but you can't try to put the game on Schaub, and they can't even take advantage of our glaring defensive weakness of not defending TE's.

I really don't know how they're going to score 10 points. This is a game where the defense needs to look to shutout the opponent.

On offense, we can score some points if the Hawks can focus on the Ravens' weaknesses, like we exploited Minn's poor safety play in the middle of the field. Same thing looks to be true for the Ravens. The Raven's are 10th ranked against the run, giving up 97.5 yds/game. They give up 24.5 pts/game and are 19th ranked in passing defense, giving up 244 yds/game.

This is the opposite of Minn. Minn wasn't the greatest run defense, but had a good pass defense. We'll see how this goes, but I expect a fairly easy victory. I can't see how they match up talent wise, they're just too injured.

 

[chrisjess]

Good write up Chrisjess.

I was just reading that the Ravens have set some sort of record for consecutive games decided by 4 points or less. I might be wrong on that one, but no one is blowing them out.

The last 5 teams the have played. Chargers(3-9), Jaguars(4-8), Rams(4-8), Browns(2-10), and Dolphins(5-7). Not exactly world beaters

 

[sc85sis]

Buck is a good runner and he can be deadly as a receiver out of the backfield. I'm happy to see him having success--just don't want it this week.

 

[kf3339]

Thank you chrisjess for the write up! Have fun at the game!

 

[BlueBlood]

Play them almost identically in scheme as you did the Vikings and they will have a hard time scoring a single point. They are in ruins.

 

[IndyHawk]

Nice imfo ChrisJess however you didn't exactly claim to be a Ravens fan.It's like I watch the Colts but the Hawks are my team.Have fun at the game and stop by here more.GO HAWKS!

 

[hawks85]

Good write up Chrisjess.

I was just reading that the Ravens have set some sort of record for consecutive games decided by 4 points or less. I might be wrong on that one, but no one is blowing them out.

The last 5 teams the have played. Chargers(3-9), Jaguars(4-8), Rams(4-8), Browns(2-10), and Dolphins(5-7). Not exactly world beaters

very true. if there team wasnt a mess those would have been blow out wins for the ravens. its pretty much ravens second and thrid stringers versus everyone elses starters and there fighting. kinda of scary if you ask me. you take one star player say off of minny AP put a fork in it or newton in carolina put a fork in it. they would get rocked every week not the ravens though. ive already mentioned this i will not be surprised if the ravens score a TD on the opening drive if they get the ball first.