Let's Talk About Baltimore (AFC Championship)

[SHOWTIME]

Headed back to the AFC Championship Game!!!! Discuss.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by smithandrew051

I just watched the highlights from that game.

Man, that defense was so bad. It’s night and day from this year.

Wasn't that the 'Man, this Chris Jones at DE thing may end very poorly' game?

[smithandrew051]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Wasn't that the 'Man, this Chris Jones at DE thing may end very poorly' game?

Oh yeah. He got embarrassed by Lamar on the edge multiple times.

[Oxford]

Originally Posted by ShowtimeSBMVP

If I’m Spagnuolo this is the game plan. Lock the Everyone 1 on 1 on outside and put as many man in the box. If Lamar beats you throwing I can live with that but letting his beat you with his feet is unacceptable.

46 defense

[Shag]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Likely is good.

If a rusty Andrews takes snaps from Likely, that's a positive.

Now if Andrews takes snaps from Nelson Agholor and they grind us up with 12 personnel, that's not ideal. But they haven't had those two on the field together a lot and Likely isn't really a plus blocker at this stage of his career so it may not be the time to lean into those packages.

We'll see. If Andrews is a problem, Likely would've been as well. It will be a scheme problem more than a personnel mismatch.

That pretty much has to be the plan, right? Given the strengths/weaknesses of both teams, seems obvious that the Ravens will go 12 and just try and run it down our throats the entire game, mixed with short passes to the TEs and Flowers. I can't see any situation where their gameplan is to stretch the field and challenge our DBs, unless they somehow care about the narrative around Lamar.

We need to get them playing from behind, force them out of their plan.

[Gary Cooper]

Originally Posted by pugsnotdrugs19

This will be the first time we have played Baltimore without Mathieu, who admittedly did a lot to limit them over the MOF in the past. But this is a different offense we are facing and defense they are facing as a whole too.

I wouldn't mind having the 2016 Eric Berry for this game.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Shag

That pretty much has to be the plan, right? Given the strengths/weaknesses of both teams, seems obvious that the Ravens will go 12 and just try and run it down our throats the entire game, mixed with short passes to the TEs and Flowers. I can't see any situation where their gameplan is to stretch the field and challenge our DBs, unless they somehow care about the narrative around Lamar.

We need to get them playing from behind, force them out of their plan.

Correct.

I think we should still defer if we win the toss, but this may be one of those instances where you consider taking the ball.

If you get a score and a stop, you're one drive away from putting the Ravens in a real bind. You get up 10 or 14 on them, it'll take a lot of willpower to not start opening up the offense a bit. Especially since they saw this happen not too terribly long ago against Tennessee. Some doubt WILL creep in.

Harbaugh's a good coach - they may be able to ignore all that. That's why I'd probably still defer. But I'd understand if Andy didn't.

[ThaVirus]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Wasn't that the 'Man, this Chris Jones at DE thing may end very poorly' game?

Yep. Kinda glad we put that on tape in a pretty meaningless regular season game against Baltimore.

Now we know we can’t run Chris out at end in this Championship matchup. At least not outside of obvious passing situations.

[T-post Tom]

Originally Posted by Gary Cooper

I wouldn't mind having the 2016 Eric Berry for this game.

I'll take 1990 DT, who had 20 sacks that year. Quickest 1st step EVER.

[Gary Cooper]

Originally Posted by T-post Tom

I'll take 1990 DT, who had 20 sacks that year. Quickest 1st step EVER.

DT was great but Lamar is slippery as an eel. Back then most QBs were statues in the pocket.

[Pasta Little Brioni]

Originally Posted by ChiefaRoo

People are on tv this morning saying KC cannot compete physically with Baltimore. Seems to me that Baltimore is going to get a lot of personal foul penalties.

Ravens are soft. Pound Pacheco and when Lamar gets hit he folds

[Pasta Little Brioni]

Originally Posted by Bearcat

I was MightyMike for a bit and then vented at BL after seeing him shouting into the void several times and making completely false statements about this place.... and then I logged out and didn't care enough to see if it was responded to or deleted or whatever.

Ace screen name

Pasta Little Brioni?

[FloridaMan88]

Originally Posted by ChiefaRoo

People are on tv this morning saying KC cannot compete physically with Baltimore. Seems to me that Baltimore is going to get a lot of personal foul penalties.

Baltimore’s defense was manhandled in multiple games this season.

See Cleveland bludgeoning them for almost 200 yards rushing… led by a back-up RB.

[Coochie liquor]

Originally Posted by rydogg58

You type like someone cut the blood flow to your brain. I hope for your sake you're just naturally reeruned and it's not a stroke.

He’s clearly practicing auto asphyxiation, while jerks it to LameArm highlights. He’s cut the oxygen level off too late a few times apparently.

[Pasta Little Brioni]

Originally Posted by Bearcat

Yeah, I thought the Bills' game plan was pretty good and really tough to defend.... they used all 50 yards horizontally and basically had an extended running game on both sidelines and up the middle to defend, and still had to respect hero ball and Allen taking off.

And with how they were getting blockers out to help with the quick screens and then using those blockers to rugby push forward... it's tough to defend.

As a defense, you aren't going to simply say you're defending all of that all the time, and it takes time to adjust to their script.

Just like every other "scary" running team ever, you let them run the ball and don't get sucked into it too much.... there's no "establishing the run" and "gotta stop the run"... you just can't let it get out of hand to the point the offense is picking up first downs on 1st and 2nd downs (happened on 2 drives last weekend). You still have to make enough early down stops to force them into passing downs, then defend those without letting Allen run wild.

Let them take 13 plays to march down the field.. it's what all defenses do these days. People get pissed early in games when "they're running right down our throats!" and then they settle for a FG and everything is okay again. Rinse, repeat.

Quite honestly, I find the Bills MUCH more difficult to defend than Baltimore especially having to account more for Josh's arm and the undefendable throws that Lamar could never make

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by KCChiefsFan88

Baltimore’s defense was manhandled in multiple games this season.

See Cleveland bludgeoning them for almost 200 yards rushing… led by a back-up RB.

I did see a fairly interesting breakdown somewhere on their defense vs. quality of QB.

Against roughly half their schedule full of shite QBs (plus Stroud in his first NFL game), they gave up 9 points/gm. Against the other half against high quality QBs they gave up 23 points/gm.

Again, the Eagles parallels start to surface again. But then again, the DVOA stuff does attempt to adjust for that. I just don't worry much about how defenses performed against anyone that WASN'T Patrick Mahomes. He's just a different cat.

Can he have a bad game? Sure - but if he's on, the quality of your defense just doesn't matter. I think it was 2 years ago he kept going up against the #1 scoring defense; like 2 or 3 times that seasons - and averaged 30 odd points/pop against them to re-set the rankings.

Guy rises to challenges far more often than he doesn't.

I mean there's really not a ton to say. On paper, the Ravens should win by less than a score. But in either event, these are two teams that are REALLY evenly matched in most ways. It should be a damn good game.

Though I'd be content with a Chiefs blowout win as well...