Pass Rush

[The King]

Of the many things done well tonight on defense, the pass rush was certainly not one of them. In fact, we pretty uniformly failed to get after Big Ben at all. Obviously, he's a QB with a lot of talent at escaping rushers, but he barely needed it tonight as the protection was there constantly. On only one play, when McPhee and Kruger got to Ben, did we even create real pressure.

The lack of a rush was definitely felt by the coverage unit. A lot of big completions were made after six or seven seconds of Ben holding the ball.

To what do we attribute this? Has the Steelers line just significantly improved? Did Pagano play it safe with his calls tonight to try and limit Ben's big play potential? I'm having a tough time pinpointing one thing, other than Starks ability to deny Suggs all night long.

[BmoreRavens732]

There line played great....but they were spreading the D out most of the game

[XxSizzleXx]

The reason the Steelers were able to hang around was because we couldn't get to Ben. I was somewhat surprised as this was not a problem since the Titans game.

[Free Agent]

I was very surprised that we didnt see more out of our pass rushers, particularly Suggs, but i was very proud of Kruger. He and McPhee have become two excellent pass rushers.

[rlh445]

[quote name='The King' timestamp='1320649106' post='858050']
Of the many things done well tonight on defense, the pass rush was certainly not one of them. In fact, we pretty uniformly failed to get after Big Ben at all. Obviously, he's a QB with a lot of talent at escaping rushers, but he barely needed it tonight as the protection was there constantly. On only one play, when McPhee and Kruger got to Ben, did we even create real pressure.

The lack of a rush was definitely felt by the coverage unit. A lot of big completions were made after six or seven seconds of Ben holding the ball.

To what do we attribute this? Has the Steelers line just significantly improved? Did Pagano play it safe with his calls tonight to try and limit Ben's big play potential? I'm having a tough time pinpointing one thing, other than Starks ability to deny Suggs all night long.
[/quote]

Honestly, coming into this game what do you think the Steelers' offense was most worried about? All Suggs talked about all week was owning Ben, having his butt in a fridge and stuff like that..and they knew it was all true especially after him having a three sack performance the first time. So they keyed in on Suggs, max protected Ben and made it really hard for us to rush in. They obviously studied a lot of our game film against other opponents, because no matter what Pags drew up they were ready for. We as a defense were also really worried about that 'new' offensive look the Steelers had against the Patsies, so we were running a lot more four man rushes than we usually do. It ended up bottling up Ben a lot though, and kept his receivers in check for most of the game so I say it was a successful defensive plan. Also, instead of having those turnstiles Scott and Legursky on the left side, they had Max Starks who just flat out made some really good blocks on Suggs. I don't think it means anything other than the Steelers had a really good game plan as far as our pass rush went and for most of the night excluding Kruger's timely sack, went very well for them.

[T3hRaven]

The Steelers really have an [i]Offensive Line [/i](haha) in most games. I don't know how such a terrible group helped what I thought was a decent stable of pass rushers in check. Barring the interception, Suggs was a non-factor in the game, and I don't think he's had a game against Pitt where he didn't get at least one sack. At least Kruger is finally contributing to the team.

[TSizzle00]

Starks shut him down, however his one big play turned out to be very important. Big time players make big time plays.

[BloodRaven]

We whiffed on Starks, he was always good but I thought he was too old or had retired. He's much better than McKinnie.

[beasy2487]

I think the lack of a pass rush today was a great statement for the Ravens, especially regarding their growth since the Titans debacle. The Steelers played us exactly how the Titans played us on offense except without the physical mismatch of Britt-Foxworth but with the added factor of Ben's ability to extend plays--which I believe evens out. Quick passes and with the back up option of backyard football with ben on the move when plays brake down. We prepared for that.

Perfect Example: People are calling Ben's attempted screen-turned-pick a bonehead play but I really think it's a testament to Pags' coaching and Suggs' film study. They prepared for the offense the steelers put on the field, rather than the offense they're used to, and played just well enough to put the offense in a position to win us the game. Can't really ask for much more.

[jdynamite]

Pitts TE 85 D.Johnson was often used at FB and TE to help beef up pass protection.....
There were so many plays I kept thinking where is Heath miller and it turns out he was in blocking on max protection ( I kept thinking it was gonna be sneak route block delay on pass play).

We brought pollard on blitz and others but they made sure Ben stayed clean....

[Radinho84]

i was a little disappointed with our pass rush today. maybe suggs was a little tired from all the talking. but at the end of the day it should´t be a concern. we played pretty well on defense. you just cannot shut big ben down for the whole game. he will find a way to get the ball to his receivers. just like flacco :-)

we had a lot of respect of ben and didn´t blitz as much as in the weeks before. but you cannot play the steelers like any other team in the nfl...

[GrimCoconut]

When you have that many people protecting Ben, yeah, it's going to be hard to get much pressure. They protected Ben better than I've ever seen them protect him. They also did quite a bit of shotgun from what I remember. So, yeah, it's going to be difficult to get much pass rush with that. I am disappointed we didn't do better in that area of the game. That was my major problem with our team last night, was the lack of pass rush allowing Ben time to make those plays.

[Twistidfunk]

I remember commenting on it during the game with some other guys. That o-line really max protected all night basically. They did a good job.

We didn't blita a whole lot because the league knows Pitt has problems running the ball this season so Ben is airing it out. I thought our secondary played very well. We broke up tons of passes made big tackles. Sure, we gave up some but for the most part I thought we held 'em off really well.

We didn't get much of a pass rush because it just wasn't that type of a game. We needed to hone in on their receivers spreading us out.

RAVENS!!!!!

[FerrariFan87]

Sure the pass rush was nonexistent but we won the game and I fully expect a bounce back game this week against the Seahawks.

[Purple Punishment]

Sizzle wasnt getting beat much 1 on 1 by Starks. Even the announcers pointed out that almost every play Suggs was being chipped by other players to slow him down a bit

[wikle]

people are too quick to discredit the steelers, they played a great game and their offensive line was outstanding. it is hard to get to the qb when they have 6 or seven guys blocking. they also used a lot of quick passes against us which slows down the rush quite a bit

[Ravensstrike4424]

[quote name='The King' timestamp='1320649106' post='858050']
Of the many things done well tonight on defense, the pass rush was certainly not one of them. In fact, we pretty uniformly failed to get after Big Ben at all. Obviously, he's a QB with a lot of talent at escaping rushers, but he barely needed it tonight as the protection was there constantly. On only one play, when McPhee and Kruger got to Ben, did we even create real pressure.

The lack of a rush was definitely felt by the coverage unit. A lot of big completions were made after six or seven seconds of Ben holding the ball.

To what do we attribute this? Has the Steelers line just significantly improved? Did Pagano play it safe with his calls tonight to try and limit Ben's big play potential? I'm having a tough time pinpointing one thing, other than Starks ability to deny Suggs all night long.
[/quote]

even though we win,people still hating

[Ravensstrike4424]

[quote name='T3hRaven' timestamp='1320650094' post='858082']
The Steelers really have an [i]Offensive Line [/i](haha) in most games. I don't know how such a terrible group helped what I thought was a decent stable of pass rushers in check. Barring the interception, Suggs was a non-factor in the game, and I don't think he's had a game against Pitt where he didn't get at least one sack. At least Kruger is finally contributing to the team.
[/quote]

wow,ravens cant please you eatheir eh go away

[ravens88]

we rushed 4 maybe one extra but we devoted the defense to coverage Pitt spread us out often and we had to place the safties over the top reducing how many blitzes we could do. We pressured him at time but he just stepped up in the pocket i really didnt see us blitz much at all maybe 5 times tops.

[nextgen_RavensFan]

Kind of shows us something very good actually. Our CB's actually did well as Ben had the time to do his thing and we still beat him. I know Suggs wanted 3 more sacks but our corners did a decent job and that is great news.

[RavensAllTheWay]

If you had told me coming in that we'd fail to get to Ben and not play our style of defense and still win, I would have laughed. It's good to see we can win without a pass rush. I agree, they were pretty non exsistent last night, but I think the fact that we were spread out so much made it harder for Chuck to blitz.

[jus'_crAzy]

For whatever reason, any blitz that was called didn't work. I've seen times when we brought 5 or 6 and we still couldn't get to him. O-line just had our number this time.

As for the Titans game, that was different because their offense is different. West coast offense consists of getting the ball out of the QB's hand very quickly and nullifies any type of pass rush. That was not the case here. Ben had an average of 5 seconds in the pocket on every play.

I was hoping to see some sort of overload n' contain type plays to sorta mix it up on D, but whatever. We'll get em next time.

[jdynamite]

I think NFL Officials have been "conditioned " when officiating Steeler games... Because they have become so accustom to Big Ben ( breaking tackles and extending plays ) that they allow some holding penalties while Ben slides around pocket. It's like they are waiting for him to move around ( just like Vick ) and they marvel at this rather than noticing guys holding as ben scrambles to sideline to throw down field.

[nk02442]

I think it was a combination of the Steelers O LIne playing out of their mind. Yes I have never seen that line play so well before, ever,

The other was Ngtata. Keep in mind I think hes by far the best player on the team, but he didnt seem to do much. I also saw that he sat out a good number of plays. I dont know if that was attributed to his thigh injury, but there wasnt a ton of pressure up the middle. If Ngata was playing better or uninjured, I think their O line would not have held up near as well. First time I have ever seen Haloti not look allpro.

[The King]

I agree with Ngata's role being lessened this week as a crucial difference. I've been assuming that the thigh injury is why he hasn't seemed to have as much power in the middle the last couple of weeks, and that showed up when Ben was able to step straight up in the pocket. It was definitely a detriment to our pass rush.

[da#1ravensfan]

We will be fine in the pass rush but could of used some last night though

[Suggs Package]

I think we'll be fine also.

I think three things happened that most of you already mentioned

1.) The Steelers O-Line played outta their minds
2.) They had a lot of max-protect packages
3.) Big Ben is the best in the league in extending plays

Because of all of these things, we didn't quite get to him. Our pressure was felt in other ways though. The pocket was considerably smaller because of us collapsing the pocket. Don't underestimate the impact of that. Collapsing the pocket can lead to early throws, bad throws and tipped passes. If you rewatch the game, you'll see how much of a push we got on their interior linemen. We didn't get the penetration, but we constantly pushed them backwards, moving Big Ben off his spot in the pocket.

Big Ben barely completed over 50% of his passes and a lot of his passes were completely off-target. We may have not have gotten the sacks, but our pass-rush was effective because we made him somewhat uncomfortable.