Quote:
Originally Posted by duncan_idaho
And who are they trying to sack, sir?
They're trying to sack the QB of the team that had the lowest sack percentage in the league even with all of its offensive issues, who has been consistently elite at not being sacked throughout his career.
Throw in that he is protected by one of the better pass-blocking OLs in the NFL, and the prediction the Ravens will have to blitz to get him on the ground is pretty darn sensible.
The only out here is that the Ravens are able to get Madubuike consistently whipping Allegretti. He's no Joe Thuney, but he's also a quality veteran with starting experience and just held up well against Ed Oliver last week. And has Creed Humphrey to his right for help if he needs it on pass sets.
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I'm not discounting the Chiefs' pass protection or Mahomes' elusiveness. They're both great. And the Ravens will blitz. What I was addressing is the suggestion that the Ravens cannot get home without blitzing and so will be forced to blitz more than they want to/should.
The Dolphins game two weeks ago was an example of a team that had no choice but to run the same blitzes repeatedly against the Chiefs. They had so many injuries that even though the blitz is a known death sentence against Mahomes, doing so was still better than not getting any pressure whatsoever with four and just letting Mahomes carve them up.
The Ravens are in a completely different position. They get to the QB with four.
Of course, that won't be enough. If all you ever did was bring four, that wouldn't amount to nearly enough pressure. So they will need to blitz occasionally. But it's not like any kind of blitz is prima facie dead on arrival against Mahomes. The thing you can't do is give him looks he has already seen on tape or in the game. But the Ravens have as deep and diverse of a playbook as there is in the league, and they will give him looks he hasn't seen before. He might still beat them, but it's not going to be spamming of the same blitz packages that he easily recognizes and brushes off.