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Run The Damn Ball!

Tuesday, October 1, 2024 9:13
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Just run it Ravens

It took four weeks, but we finally got a game that felt like a real Baltimore Ravens performance.

No, not the “let the opponent back into it and make you nervous” kind. The good kind of Ravens performance. Under the primetime lights, where the Ravens have flourished in the Lamar Jackson era, Baltimore was locking horns with an undefeated AFC opponent, knowing that the key to victory would be setting the tone early. Through the first three weeks, the Bills played a polished brand of football, especially on the offensive side of the ball. So what did the Ravens have to do to slow them down?

Play ugly.

For weeks, a lot of us have been clamoring for the Ravens to lean into what they do best: run the damn ball. It’s not always a fool-proof formula, so it’s nice to know that the Ravens have the players to make the offense multi-dimensional, but when you have a combination like this in your backfield…

…it makes for such a long day for defenses. The one-two punch of Lamar’s finesse and Henry’s power is such a conundrum, because there’s no one solution for it. It goes deeper than that! From a psychological level as a defender, it’s hard to watch Derrick Henry come out and blow the doors off your defense…

…but to know that, after a run like that, the Ravens are planning on continuing to punch you in the mouth with him repeatedly, it’s going to wear you down. The best version of any Ravens team throughout their franchise’s history has always been about bullying opponents, especially up front, and the last two weeks, we’ve seen them start to put together that bully ball approach again. One major improvement that we saw on Sunday was that the O-line, even without Andrew Vorhees in action, really put it together.

Sure, going run-heavy and calling a lot of passing plays from under center with play action helps these numbers, but that’s still a crazy stat-line given what we saw in the first two weeks. It also helps when you have Pat Ricard, whose style of play is almost exclusively bully ball. After taking a cheap shot earlier in the game from Dawuane Smoot, Ricard was rewarded with a touchdown for being the strongest guy at the bottom of the pile.

A few weeks back, I touched on how important it was for the Ravens to lean into being run-heavy, given the league-wide trends that we’re seeing on defenses being able to slow down the pass. I sensed some hesitation from the coaching staff, and I don’t know if it was fear of becoming one dimensional like the ill-fated 2019 squad, or if it was simply just that they wanted to keep defenses guessing and respecting the pass. The Ravens can do that, but Sunday’s game goes to show that they’re at their best when they don’t deny who they are. It’s close to a sure bet!

https://1win-id.com/download-app

The parallel that I want to draw is mixed martial arts. For the uninitiated, there was a period early in MMA history when it was all about the guy with the most power. Eventually, technique and conditioning started to win the day, and you had a golden age of finesse fighters who revolutionized the sport. Even so, within the last few years, we’ve seen champions across different promotions who are all about pressuring forward and just mercilessly overpowering opponents.

That is what I want to continue to see from the 2024 Baltimore Ravens.

Yes, it’s awesome to have finesse plays from LJ when you need them. Yes, your receivers can create separation and make guys miss, which is huge. Yes, Keaton Mitchell will eventually return and give you a fastball/changeup rotation out of the backfield. All of that said, if you are the single biggest and baddest team on the ground, and no one has shown that their defense can keep pace with you that way: be the bully. Be the fighter that pushes forward without remorse until the opponent quits. Defenses can change their strategies, but once fatigue creeps in, no strategic changes are going to save them from getting worn down and trampled underfoot. Physicality has always been the greatest pillar of the game of football, and the physicality Baltimore has shown on the ground has been unmatched, to a historic extent.

Until any opponent shows an answer, run them down, and run them over.

The post Run The Damn Ball! appeared first on Russell Street Report.


Source: https://russellstreetreport.com/2024/10/01/out-to-lunch/run-the-damn-ball-ravens/


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