Examining the Ravens Bend-But-Don't-Break Defense

The Ravens defense got gashed by Cincinnati on Sunday. The Dalton-led Bengals gained 301 yards through the air (7.9 yards per attempt) and 79 yards on the ground (3.04 yards per attempt) but were held to one touchdown and a 28% fourth-down efficiency.  Bend-but-don't-break, right?

Let me start by saying that I don't think any coordinator maintains the philosophy of stopping an offense only in the red-zone. I'll criticize Dean Pees' defensive game-plan, but I also think this defense's propensity to stop teams in the red-zone is due to the secondary personnel being far more suited to defending compressed fields.

Additionally, Dean Pees has been bashed for not being as aggressive as his Baltimore predecessors, Rex Ryan and Chuck Pagano. Pees has certainly been less blitz-heavy in his approach, but fans have to keep in mind the drop-off in secondary personnel that facilitated this change. Losing Ray Lewis, and to a greater extent Ed Reed, has disrupted the schemes that elevated the Ravens defense to top-of-the-league status throughout the 2000s.

What was the defensive philosophy on Sunday?

Sunday's defensive game was built to get the most out of the Ravens' personnel.  Against the run, the plan was to use Brandon Williams and Haloti Ngata to plug gaps and keep C.J. Mosley and Daryl Smith clean while Suggs and Upshaw squeezed the end-man-on-the-line-of-scrimmage and funneled runs to the inside.

Against the pass, the plan was to play off-coverage (primarily Cover-4 and Cover-3 to mitigate the secondary's lack of speed) and blitz and/or play underneath zones with the inside linebackers while attacking Dalton from the edges with Suggs and Dumervil.

Unfortunately for the Ravens, the Bengals predicted that this would be Baltimore's approach, and they executed a far superior game plan of their own.  Let's dig into why the Bengals succeeded:

Minimizing the Impact of the Ravens Stout Middle

The Bengals had a number of strategies to mitigate the middle of the Ravens defense (and protect their rookie center against Brandon Williams).  For starters, they used the read-option.

The Ravens were clearly not ready for the read-option.  Even though Dalton is actually a pretty poor option quarterback, the back-side zone-read-option play a) overcame the Ravens aggressive edge players by forcing them to read instead of attacking and b) reduced the number of inside run attempts against an outstanding Ravens inner-triangle.

Early in the game, the Ravens did not have a cohesive plan to stop the read-option.  In this play, Upshaw is "slow playing it" by sitting and waiting to determine who gets the ball.  This isn't a particularly good strategy as he has no help due to the inside block of LT Newhouse (#74) and Dalton (red) keeps the ball around the edge after Upshaw (incorrectly) tackles HB Bernard (yellow).

Throughout the beginning of the game, it was obvious that Terrell Suggs was getting frustrated by the read-option.  In the above image, he eschews all gap responsibility and hits Andy Dalton after Dalton makes the correct read to give the ball to Bernard (red).

Put the Coverage in a Bind Using Packaged Plays

With the Ravens playing their corners and safeties deep, they leaned on their linebackers and the inexperienced Asa Jackson to play a lot of underneath coverage on Sunday.  These players all excel in underneath zones at times but they were put into a number of "can't win" situations because of packaged plays.

In the above play, Dalton has four options built into the same play.  He begins by reading the edge defender (to his right) to determine whether to hand the ball off to Bernard (1) or keep the ball and run (2).  Given the defensive alignment, Dalton can choose to either hit Eifert up the seam (3) or a bubble screen in the flat (4).  Based on the Ravens current defensive look, it appears that any of these options would have worked but Dalton opts to hit Eifert up the seam.

The zone-read-action in the backfield (and run blocking from the lineman) froze the Ravens linebackers a number of times, forcing them to over-commit to the run while not gaining depth in their underneath zones.  The relative success of the run-game and the "tackle-the-catch" mentality forced the Ravens defenders to play downhill to their detriment.

Temper the Ravens Pass Rush Using Screens

Contrary to some reports, the Ravens brought pressure on a number of occasions this past Sunday, particularly early in the game.  This was an aspect that the Bengals were prepared for by running a number of screens:

On this play early in the game, the Ravens have all of the secondary playing "off" versus the Bengals five-wide formation.  Mosley (and neighboring Suggs) are both going to blitz, which I interpreted as either a poor adjustment to the formation or an extremely poor play call (Stewart has man coverage on a WR 14 yards away?)

A different angle of the same play shows that the Ravens are still making defensive adjustments at the snap (a pattern throughout the game), which suggests the ultimate defensive call got lost amongst the team. Once the ball was snapped, four of the six rushers should have felt their offensive lineman releasing up-field.  Instead they react far too late...

Stewart's man (Bernard; blue) catches a short screen pass in the flat with no one around him except for lead blocking lineman.

Screen passes were a massive part of Bernard's 6 receptions for 62 yards as evidenced by his 69(!) yards after the catch (since screens are caught behind the LOS, and yards are calculated starting at the LOS, he had more YAC than total yards).  The Ravens pass rush simply got up-field far too quickly and the secondary, which had game-planned to not get beat deep, got beat up underneath.

Take Advantage of the Ravens Lack of Checks

Inferring something like "the defense was unprepared" or "they're inexperienced" is not generally a sound thing to do, especially if you're simply fathering information from the tape.  But appropriate "checks" (i.e. defensive adjustments) were lacking on Sunday.

The Bengals ran the same play twice and the Ravens used two different approaches, both with minimal success:

Prior to the snap, the Ravens align in a Cover-4 look, a zone-based coverage that they had been using for a large portion of the game.  The Bengals motion WR Brandon Tate across the formation in "orbit" motion.  Dalton, noticing that no Raven realigns to Tate, throws a bubble screen to him and allows him to run after the catch.  To make matters worse, the Ravens had no way of checking out of Asa Jackson's (yellow) slot blitz, even though his side of the field was outnumbered.

Several plays later, the Bengals ran the same play to the opposite side:

When Tate went in "orbit" motion this time, Jimmy Smith mirrored him across the formation.  However, by the time Dalton begins to throw, Smith is still >17 yards away from his man.  With two lead blockers (white) in front of Tate, he picks up another solid gain.

Was it all bad?

I think that the Ravens had a decent game-plan of using off-coverage and trying to get their safeties in the box.  Both Cover-3 and Cover-4 allow you to bring safeties close to the line of scrimmage to impact the run while the corners play deeper.  The problem was that there were no substantial adjustments to this strategy once the Bengals began to take advantage of the underneath flats by utilizing bubble screens and dump-offs.

The Ravens played well in the red-zone due to the fact that their safeties, Elam and Stewart, are still better suited closer to the line of scrimmage.  In a compressed field, they had a greater impact on run plays and could force Dalton to try to make pin-point throws, something he still is not proficient at doing.

Adding Lardarius Webb to the secondary will be a massive boost for a team that needs agility and reactivity underneath.  In addition, the Ravens should work to keep their safeties closer to the line of scrimmage outside of the red-zone by using facets of the press-Quarters approach popularized by Michigan State or using zone blitzes to force throws "hot" throws into coverage after pressuring the quarterback.