 |
Ravens pledge no letdown vs. Browns | ||||
CLEVELAND — Because they played on Thanksgiving, the Baltimore Ravens enjoyed a long holiday weekend and got to rest last Sunday. They can’t afford to take another one off. Baltimore’s three losses this season have followed the same pattern. All of them have come on the road, all of them have come against a weaker opponent and all of them have come the week after an impressive win. So don’t think for a second that a trip to Cleveland has the Ravens (8-3) feeling overconfident. They know the Browns (4-7) are always ready to brawl. “If you were a fighter, this is the fighter you avoid at all costs because he is always going to fight you hard, and he is always going to fight you for the 12 rounds,” Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs said. “If you look at just the matchups between the two teams in the past, they have always brought it against us. They have always had a special thing to play us. They are going to bring it. Our work is cut out for us.” Tied atop the AFC North with Pittsburgh, the Ravens can’t afford any letdown against the Browns, who despite losing four of their past five games and falling back to their familiar spot at the bottom of the division, have the NFL’s top-ranked pass defense and are showing signs of improvement. Cleveland doesn’t have playoff hopes, but nothing would ease the pain more than beating the Ravens, who have already shown a tendency to ease up against lesser teams. Baltimore opened the season by blowing out Pittsburgh 35-7, and followed it with a loss in Week 2 at Tennessee. After thrashing Houston Oct. 16, the Ravens were shocked in a Monday night game the next week by Jacksonville. Then, after Baltimore completed a season sweep by winning at Pittsburgh, the Ravens were beaten at Seattle the next week. Coach John Harbaugh is confident his team knows better than to take anyone lightly. They’ve lived the “any given Sunday” — or Monday — cliché this season. “Our guys, even in the games we haven’t played well and lost on the road, I don’t believe we had an emotional letdown,” he said. “We just have to play well. Every single team in this league is really good and I think the Browns are exceptionally good — much better than their record would indicate. We respect everybody and we really respect the Browns.” Baltimore might again be without linebacker Ray Lewis, the heart, soul and conscience of the Ravens’ nasty defense. Lewis missed practice this week with a toe injury that has kept him out of the previous two games. If Lewis can’t play, Jameel McClain will fill in for the third week in a row. But just because Lewis could be out, that doesn’t make things any easier for Cleveland. Browns coach Pat Shurmur must design a game plan that accounts for all of the Ravens’ defensive stars. “You’ll go into the game knowing this is a certain guy you need to block, this is a certain guy that you don’t want to wreck the game,” he said. “The challenge for them is they’ve got about three or four of them up front.” For the Browns to pull an upset, they’ll need to be able to run the ball and stay out of obvious passing situations. It’s on those second- and third-and-long plays when the Ravens turn their pass rush loose with Suggs and Co. playing a diabolical game of “meet me at the quarterback.” Baltimore leads the league with 38 sacks, including nine to tie a franchise record in the Ravens’ 16-6 win over the 49ers on Thanksgiving. Browns quarterback Colt McCoy expects to be under pressure from the first snap until the last. He’s counting on Cleveland’s line to protect his back, front, side and whatever other direction the Ravens might be flying at him from. “You have to trust your guys,” said McCoy, who threw three interceptions last season in his first matchup with Baltimore. “You have to trust your running backs. You have to trust your offensive line to pick up the protection and you have to trust your guys to get open. That’s how it is week to week.” Peyton Hillis might be the one who can help the Browns most. “(The Ravens are) a good defense,” Hillis said. “They’re big up front, their front seven is great and you really have to prepare well for ‘em if you’re going to run the ball on ‘em.” The Ravens are expecting the Browns to feed them a heaping portion of Hillis. “He’s a really aggressive runner,” Suggs said. “Everybody knows he is Peyton Hillis; he has the Madden cover.” That’s all for today guys, i’ll be back to blog you tomorrow. Posted in 1, baltimore-ravens, John Harbaugh, Peyton Hillis, Ray Lewis | Comments Off
|
|||||
|
49ers, Ravens: similar defense, different wrinkles | ||||
Brant Ward / The Chronicle Jim Harbaugh and staff keep the 49ers’ defense fairly simple, often using just 13 players in a game. When Jim Harbaugh’s 49ers meet John Harbaugh’s Baltimore Ravens in the NFL’s first brother-versus-brother coaching matchup tonight, it should come as no surprise that the teams have been shaped by some common football philosophy. What could be surprising, however, is where some of that philosophy comes from. Stepping beyond the bloodlines, the brothers’ respective staffs went to the same place when it came time to build the foundation of their defenses. Both are based largely on the influence of Dom Capers, architect of a 3-4 defense that helped the Packers win the Super Bowl last season. And it’s defense that has both teams atop their respective divisions. Baltimore shares the AFC North lead with Pittsburgh at 7-3 while the 49ers (9-1) are running away with the NFC West. The 49ers allow the fewest points per game in the league (14.5), and the Ravens allow an average of 17.6, which ranks third. The stated goals of both defenses is pretty much the same. Linebacker NaVorro Bowman says the 49ers’ defense wants to make the opposition “bleed.” The Ravens have a well-documented history of knocking players out of games, and their strong safety, Bernard Pollard, goes by the nickname “Bone Crusher.” The two teams’ schemes also share a similar vernacular, but from there, personnel dictate many differences. “With Baltimore, they roll an awful lot of people through on different downs,” said NFL network analyst Mike Myock, who will provide commentary for tonight’s game. “Baltimore’s 3-4 gets a little more exotic on multiple downs.” The Ravens dress up their scheme with a parade of players, blitzes and fronts. Baltimore rotates up to seven defensive linemen and five linebackers. The Ravens can use five defensive linemen on one down and then switch to two defensive linemen the next with four linebackers and five defensive backs. While the Ravens’ defense can be a radical version of the Capers 3-4, the 49ers keep it relatively simple. The 49ers go with a standard 3-4 on almost all non-passing downs. Then, in passing situations, they pull out linebacker Parys Haralson and nose tackle Isaac Sopoaga and replace them with two rookies, pass rusher Aldon Smith and cornerback Chris Culliver. As a result, the 49ers often use just 13 defensive players in a game. And while Ravens first-year defensive coordinator Chuck Pagano loves to blitz, 49ers defensive coordinator Vic Fangio has gone two games without bringing more than four rushers. “Vic’s defense, and I’m sure (Baltimore’s) defense, really have the ability to look exactly the same if they want to,” 49ers offensive coordinator Greg Roman said. “It’s just what they choose to do.” While Fangio’s basic defenses might appear relatively simple, that doesn’t mean that Fangio isn’t a master of matchups. In fact, his last job in the NFL – before being hired by Jim Harbaugh as defensive coordinator at Stanford – was to serve as a special assistant to John Harbaugh in Baltimore. Fangio’s duties included scouting for mismatches on offense and defense. The 49ers lead the league with 26 takeaways, and many of those can be attributed to Fangio putting players in the right place. Safety Donte Whitner’s interception of a pass by the Cardinals’ John Skelton on Sunday occurred because Skelton thought the 49ers had single coverage on wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald. But Whitner rotated late to the deep middle for an easy interception. “It all goes to the coaching staff,” said Whitner, who credited his interception to the defense’s design. “They are really detail-oriented. As players, we are just going out there and putting the game plan on the field, and that’s how we’ve been winning football games.” Just the way the Harbaugh brothers and their staffs have been drawing it up – with a little inspiration from years past. Leave any suggestions in the comment box. |
|||||
|
Ravens vow not to let down against Seahawks | ||||
BY TIM BOOTH The Associated Press SEATTLE — It’s seems like the perfect trap. Coming off an emotional and important victory, the Baltimore Ravens fly across the country to play a 2-6 team coming off a third straight loss. Problem for the Ravens is it’s a situation they’ve faced and failed at twice this season. The Ravens said all the right things this week about realizing the importance of today’s game at Seattle and how any benefits from their thrilling, last-second 23-20 win over Pittsburgh last week will be completely negated with a West Coast flop. But the Ravens track record this season says the rare matchup against the struggling Seahawks could mean problems. All they have to do is look back to Week 2 at Tennessee and Week 7 at Jacksonville to see the mistakes. “We have been riding an emotional high right now. Coming off those big wins, (the media) like to say we have that tendency of a letdown,” Baltimore running back Ray Rice said. “I think it’s time for us to be able to put the big games behind us and treat every game like it’s a big game.” After routing Pittsburgh in its season opener, Baltimore followed up with a flop against the Titans. Five weeks later, the Ravens had another poor performance at Jacksonville a week after an impressive victory over Houston. They are rare moments in the tenure of John Harbaugh. Since taking over in 2008, the Ravens have three losses against sub-.500 teams. Only one was later than the second week of the regular season, and it came three weeks ago against the Jaguars. The fact two of those slip ups against losing teams happened this season, and with a home game waiting next week against division co-leader Cincinnati, is what’s causing the Ravens concern about this trip. “It’s really easy to get ready for a team like Seattle because they’re very talented. I think they’ve lost a lot of close games and their record is not in any way indicative of the type of football team they are,” Harbaugh said. “We’ve had this experience already and so we know that those records don’t mean anything.” Flacco spent most of the week deflecting the praise being heaped his way following his nearly flawless final drive last week against Pittsburgh, which ended with a 26-yard TD pass to rookie Torrey Smith with 8 seconds left that gave the Ravens a season sweep of their AFC North rivals. Flacco took the Ravens 92 yards in the final 21/2 minutes for the winning score. “If we just dwell on that then the end is going to be nothing. We’re going to look back on it and say, ‘Who cares?’ because we lost a couple more games,” Flacco said. “But as long as we go and do our jobs the rest of the season I think we will be able to look at that as a big win.” A win Sunday would give the Ravens their second 7-2 start in franchise history. The previous time came in 2006 when Baltimore finished 13-3 and had the second-best record in the AFC. Seattle isn’t anywhere near thinking about 7-2 starts and 13-3 records. They’ve dropped their last three, scoring a combined 28 points in losses to Cleveland, Cincinnati and Dallas. The Seahawks are proving talented enough to give better teams fits, as evident by the fact they’ve been within one score in the fourth quarter in five of their six losses. But that only highlights Seattle’s sometimes maddening inconsistency and seeming to always be playing from behind. They are headaches that were expected with such a young team. That doesn’t make being 2-6 any easier to accept. “It’s just been the performance level of our guys has just not been where it needs to be, you know? We haven’t taken care of the football as well as we need to. We haven’t gotten the ball as much as we need to,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said. “With our young guys up front, it’s been a process. As much as we have no patience about it, we have had to be patient as we watch them develop. It’s just been a fight. So, we’re getting along here.” If there was a bright spot to take from last week’s loss in Dallas, it was the rediscovery of a running game. The Seahawks scraped the no-huddle approach that worked in an upset of the New York Giants last month — and subsequently sputtered — and ran for 162 yards against a Cowboys defense that was fourth in the league against the run. Marshawn Lynch topped 100 yards in the regular season for the first time in nearly three years, but Seattle couldn’t overcome three interceptions from Tarvaris Jackson. Carroll said this week that Seattle’s ability to run is of paramount importance to how the rest of the team operates, no matter if it’s in a hurry-up offense or not. If they’re able to run against Ray Lewis, Haloti Ngata and the rest of the Ravens’ defense, it’ll be an impressive statement. “We are in for a fight. What else can you ask for?” Jackson said. “We’re a young team, and we’re trying to show what we have, and put together a nice team here. So what better challenge is it to have to go against one of the better defenses in the league?” —— Follow Tim Booth on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ByTimBooth If anybody needs tickets to games, remember to click the tickets link at the top. |
|||||
|
Ravens look to avoid letdown again | ||||
SEATTLE (AP) — It’s seems like the perfect trap. Coming off an emotional and important victory, the Baltimore Ravens fly across the country to play a 2-6 team coming off a third straight loss. Problem for the Ravens is it’s a situation they’ve faced and failed at twice this season. The Ravens said all the right things this week about realizing the importance of Sunday’s game at Seattle and how any benefits from their thrilling, last-second 23-20 win over Pittsburgh last week will be completely negated with a West Coast flop. But the Ravens track record this season says the rare matchup against the struggling Seahawks could mean problems. All they have to do is look back to Week 2 at Tennessee and Week 7 at Jacksonville to see the mistakes. “We have been riding an emotional high right now. Coming off those big wins, (the media) like to say we have that tendency of a letdown,” Baltimore running back Ray Rice said. “I think it’s time for us to be able to put the big games behind us and treat every game like it’s a big game.” After routing Pittsburgh in its season opener, Baltimore followed up with a flop against the Titans. Five weeks later, the Ravens had another poor performance at Jacksonville a week after an impressive victory over Houston. They are rare moments in the tenure of John Harbaugh. Since taking over in 2008, the Ravens have three losses against sub-.500 teams. Only one was later than the second week of the regular season, and it came three weeks ago against the Jaguars. The fact two of those slip ups against losing teams happened this season, and with a home game waiting next week against division co-leader Cincinnati, is what’s causing the Ravens concern about this trip. “It’s really easy to get ready for a team like Seattle because they’re very talented. I think they’ve lost a lot of close games and their record is not in any way indicative of the type of football team they are,” Harbaugh said. “We’ve had this experience already and so we know that those records don’t mean anything.” Flacco spent most of the week deflecting the praise being heaped his way following his nearly flawless final drive last week against Pittsburgh, which ended with a 26-yard TD pass to rookie Torrey Smith with 8 seconds left that gave the Ravens a season sweep of their AFC North rivals. Flacco took the Ravens 92 yards in the final 21Ú2 minutes for the winning score. “If we just dwell on that then the end is going to be nothing. We’re going to look back on it and say, ‘Who cares?’ because we lost a couple more games,” Flacco said. “But as long as we go and do our jobs the rest of the season I think we will be able to look at that as a big win.” A win Sunday would give the Ravens their second 7-2 start in franchise history. The previous time came in 2006 when Baltimore finished 13-3 and had the second-best record in the AFC. Seattle isn’t anywhere near thinking about 7-2 starts and 13-3 records. They’ve dropped their last three, scoring a combined 28 points in losses to Cleveland, Cincinnati and Dallas. The Seahawks are proving talented enough to give better teams fits, as evident by the fact they’ve been within one score in the fourth quarter in five of their six losses. But that only highlights Seattle’s sometimes maddening inconsistency and seeming to always be playing from behind. They are headaches that were expected with such a young team. That doesn’t make being 2-6 any easier to accept. “It’s just been the performance level of our guys has just not been where it needs to be, you know? We haven’t taken care of the football as well as we need to.” We haven’t gotten the ball as much as we need to,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said. “With our young guys up front, it’s been a process. As much as we have no patience about it, we have had to be patient as we watch them develop. It’s just been a fight. So, we’re getting along here.” If there was a bright spot to take from last week’s loss in Dallas, it was the rediscovery of a running game. The Seahawks scraped the no-huddle approach that worked in an upset of the New York Giants last month — and subsequently sputtered — and ran for 162 yards against a Cowboys defense that was fourth in the league against the run. Marshawn Lynch topped 100 yards in the regular season for the first time in nearly three years, but Seattle couldn’t overcome three interceptions from Tarvaris Jackson. Carroll said this week that Seattle’s ability to run is of paramount importance to how the rest of the team operates, no matter if it’s in a hurry-up offense or not. If they’re able to run against Ray Lewis, Haloti Ngata and the rest of the Ravens’ defense, it’ll be an impressive statement. “We are in for a fight. What else can you ask for?” Jackson said. “We’re a young team, and we’re trying to show what we have, and put together a nice team here. So what better challenge is it to have to go against one of the better defenses in the league?” —— Follow Tim Booth on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ByTimBooth What are your opinions. |
|||||
|
Let down? Ravens say it won’t happen in Seattle | ||||
It’s seems like the perfect trap. Coming off an emotional and important victory, the Baltimore Ravens fly across the country to play a 2-6 team coming off a third straight loss. Problem for the Ravens is it’s a situation they’ve faced and failed at twice this season. The Ravens said all the right things this week about realizing the importance of Sunday’s game at Seattle and how any benefits from their thrilling, last-second 23-20 win over Pittsburgh last week will be completely negated with a West Coast flop. But the Ravens track record this season says the rare matchup against the struggling Seahawks could mean problems. All they have to do is look back to Week 2 at Tennessee and Week 7 at Jacksonville to see the mistakes. “We have been riding an emotional high right now. Coming off those big wins, (the media) like to say we have that tendency of a letdown,” Baltimore running back Ray Rice said. “I think it’s time for us to be able to put the big games behind us and treat every game like it’s a big game.” After routing Pittsburgh in its season opener, Baltimore followed up with a flop against the Titans. Five weeks later, the Ravens had another poor performance at Jacksonville a week after an impressive victory over Houston. They are rare moments in the tenure of John Harbaugh. Since taking over in 2008, the Ravens have three losses against sub-.500 teams. Only one was later than the second week of the regular season, and it came three weeks ago against the Jaguars. The fact two of those slip ups against losing teams happened this season, and with a home game waiting next week against division co-leader Cincinnati, is what’s causing the Ravens concern about this trip. “It’s really easy to get ready for a team like Seattle because they’re very talented. I think they’ve lost a lot of close games and their record is not in any way indicative of the type of football team they are,” Harbaugh said. “We’ve had this experience already and so we know that those records don’t mean anything.” Flacco spent most of the week deflecting the praise being heaped his way following his nearly flawless final drive last week against Pittsburgh, which ended with a 26-yard TD pass to rookie Torrey Smith with 8 seconds left that gave the Ravens a season sweep of their AFC North rivals. Flacco took the Ravens 92 yards in the final 2½ minutes for the winning score. “If we just dwell on that then the end is going to be nothing. We’re going to look back on it and say, ‘Who cares?’ because we lost a couple more games,” Flacco said. “But as long as we go and do our jobs the rest of the season I think we will be able to look at that as a big win.” A win Sunday would give the Ravens their second 7-2 start in franchise history. The previous time came in 2006 when Baltimore finished 13-3 and had the second-best record in the AFC. Seattle isn’t anywhere near thinking about 7-2 starts and 13-3 records. They’ve dropped their last three, scoring a combined 28 points in losses to Cleveland, Cincinnati and Dallas. The Seahawks are proving talented enough to give better teams fits, as evident by the fact they’ve been within one score in the fourth quarter in five of their six losses. But that only highlights Seattle’s sometimes maddening inconsistency and seeming to always be playing from behind. They are headaches that were expected with such a young team. That doesn’t make being 2-6 any easier to accept. “It’s just been the performance level of our guys has just not been where it needs to be, you know? We haven’t taken care of the football as well as we need to. We haven’t gotten the ball as much as we need to,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said. “With our young guys up front, it’s been a process. As much as we have no patience about it, we have had to be patient as we watch them develop. It’s just been a fight. So, we’re getting along here.” If there was a bright spot to take from last week’s loss in Dallas, it was the rediscovery of a running game. The Seahawks scraped the no-huddle approach that worked in an upset of the New York Giants last month — and subsequently sputtered — and ran for 162 yards against a Cowboys defense that was fourth in the league against the run. Marshawn Lynch topped 100 yards in the regular season for the first time in nearly three years, but Seattle couldn’t overcome three interceptions from Tarvaris Jackson. Carroll said this week that Seattle’s ability to run is of paramount importance to how the rest of the team operates, no matter if it’s in a hurry-up offense or not. If they’re able to run against Ray Lewis, Haloti Ngata and the rest of the Ravens’ defense, it’ll be an impressive statement. “We are in for a fight. What else can you ask for?” Jackson said. “We’re a young team, and we’re trying to show what we have, and put together a nice team here. So what better challenge is it to have to go against one of the better defenses in the league?” ___ Follow Tim Booth on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ByTimBooth Feel free to leave your comments below. |
|||||
