neeta travels mumbai: Tanier: The plays Ravens, Pats will rely on this weekend

Friday, January 13, 2012

Tanier: The plays Ravens, Pats will rely on this weekend

Baltimore won't get fancy, while New England knows how to defend Tebow

updated 8:07 p.m. ET Jan. 10, 2012

Mike Tanier

This week?s strategy session focuses on the teams that enjoyed first-round byes. The Texans and Broncos gave us a long look at what they do well last week.

Let?s see what the Ravens and Patriots will offer in response.

Baltimore Ravens
There are teams that try to confuse and surprise opponents with exotic new strategies and complicated wrinkles. And then there are the Ravens. A few seasons ago, offensive coordinator Cam Cameron tinkered with unbalanced line formations and 1970?s-style fullback runs to give a jolt to the Ravens? power running game. Those innovations have largely been abandoned, and Cameron?s offense is designed to maximize the strengths of his personnel in very straightforward ways.

Figure 1 shows an I-formation ?iso? play. You know it, you love it, and you probably learned it from your Pop Warner coach. It is still a staple of the Ravens' offense. In this instance, the Ravens are running it on first-and-10 in the third quarter against the Texans in Week 6. The blocking scheme is as simple as it was when you were 12-years-old and ran it against Next Town Over. The center and guard double team the nose tackle. The right guard and tackle drive their defenders to the right. The linebacker in the hole, DeMeco Ryans (59) in this case, is the responsibility of fullback Vonta Leach (44). The fullback thumps the linebacker, a hole opens up for Ray Rice (27), and Amos Alonzo Stagg smiles down from heaven.

Ryan actually does a fine job strafing off Leach?s block on this play. Rice, however, is almost impossible to tackle when a defender is out of position. The 5-8, 212-pound back also has exceptional vision and quickness when bouncing to the outside after hitting the hole. Anquan Boldin (81) cracks the safety on this play, taking away the defender with the best chance to stop Rice in pursuit. The cornerback on the offensive right defends this play the way many cornerbacks defend the run -- horribly. Rice gains 18 yards before any defenders can catch up.

The Ravens can run ?iso? over and over again because they are good at it, and because opposing safeties must play deep in fear of that other Ravens staple: the long bomb.

When the Ravens become too reliant on inside runs and bombs, however, they become easy to defend. The Texans endured two long Ravens completions and an endless series of Rice runs in Week 6, but they only trailed 19-14 late in the fourth quarter because they generated sacks and took away intermediate passes, causing the Ravens to settle for four field goals.

When the Ravens needed to sustain a fourth quarter drive, Cameron turned to one of the other weapons in his old-fashioned arsenal: the out route.

Figure 2 shows the Ravens on first down midway through the fourth quarter. They are leading by five points, so the Texans gamble that they will try to grind the clock with more Iso-style runs. The cornerbacks are in man coverage, and a safety has crept close to the line of scrimmage for run defense. There is still a deep safety in position to prevent the bomb, but quarterback Joe Flacco will instead use his powerful arm to throw into a tight spot.

The play-action makes this look like the running play in Figure 1, so the Texans do not mount much pass rush. Only two receivers run pass routes, both on the left side of the field. Boldin runs a 15-yard out route from the slot, while receiver Torrey Smith (far left) runs a deeper comeback along the sideline. The deep out is a difficult throw, but Flacco is comfortable with it, and when he fires a laser to Boldin for 15 yards, there is nothing a man-coverage defender can do to stop it. A second completion on the next play put the Texans defense on its heels, and Rice set up a touchdown with a 27-yard run a few plays later: an iso up the middle that he then bounced to the sideline.

The Texans know what is coming. They know that they can sack Flacco and take away the short middle of the field, where Flacco?s lack of touch becomes an issue. If they can stop iso, out, and bomb -- and score enough points on offense -- they can stay in the game against the Ravens. That is not as easy as it sounds, because the Ravens are very good at the few things they do.

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