Noticing A Pattern In These Games...

[SirPainsalot]

Has anyone else noticed that most of the games we win has started with a [b]LONG[/b], explosive run at the beginning by Ray Rice?

Sure, one was taken away by an unfair penalty (@Steelers), but the point remains.

Ray Rice dominates at explosive plays, to the point where I think even Cam Cameron caught on and gave him a ton of carries. Which is good and all, except when that's conservative football and plus, short yardage situations should be reserved for Ricky imo.

Take a l[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]ook[/font] at [url="http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1006323-ravens-vs-bengals-4-things-we-learned-from-baltimores-24-16-win/page/3"]this article[/url], as it's interesting and it explains a lot of our weaknesses. As well as the point I made before.
A good quote would be this.
[quote]
[size=3][font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]When you glance at Rice's numbers, the yardage total is amazing and one would imagine Rice running wild all game long, but the statistics don't tell the whole story.[/font][/size]

[size=3][font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Rice had 24 attempts for 191 yards. That's an incredible average of almost eight yards per carry. No one could argue with that; if that was the whole story.[/font][/size]

[size=3][font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]The only problem is that 121 of those yards came off of two long runs and if you take those two runs away, [b]Rice only had 22 attempts for 70 yards[/b]. That's only an average of 3.2 yards per carry and probably paints a more accurate picture of how effective Rice was on an average running play.[/font][/size]

[size=3][font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Now let's look at Ricky Williams. Williams had six carries for 28 yards; which is an average of over 4.6 yards per carry, which is very good. This means that Williams was probably a bit more effective at grinding out yardage in the game than Rice was versus the Bengals.[/font][/quote][/size]

Another point to see is if other teams would catch on and try to stop Ray Rice early, since they already understand Cam Cameron's dull, repetitive gameplan early on.

[arnie_uk]

what the hell is   ???

[The Raven]

[quote name='SirPainsalot' timestamp='1325540652' post='932211']
Has anyone else noticed that most of the games we win has started with a [b]LONG[/b], explosive run at the beginning by Ray Rice?

Sure, one was taken away by an unfair penalty (@Steelers), but the point remains.

Ray Rice dominates at explosive plays, to the point where I think even Cam Cameron caught on and gave him a ton of carries. Which is good and all, except when that's conservative football and plus, short yardage situations should be reserved for Ricky imo.

Take a l[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]ook[/font] at [url="http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1006323-ravens-vs-bengals-4-things-we-learned-from-baltimores-24-16-win/page/3"]this article[/url], as it's interesting and it explains a lot of our weaknesses. As well as the point I made before.
A good quote would be this.
[/size]

Another point to see is if other teams would catch on and try to stop Ray Rice early, since they already understand Cam Cameron's dull, repetitive gameplan early on.
[/quote]

You do know thats pretty much how running the ball works, right?

[adam713]

We need to stop this discussion of "conservative" football. It's frankly ridiculous to focus on this as if it's the reason we at times lose or flounder.

How conservative is it when we beat those teams with the so-called conservative plays? If it's working it don't need fixing.

Cam crafts & calls the run plays, looks to his coaches to position the offensive line & FB, and the players must execute it. It comes down to execution. When our offensive line, QB, RBs, and wideouts are executing the plays called then they all of a sudden become great plays? It's all about execution, people! The play calling really isn't the issue. Personally, I get scared when it becomes heavy Air Flacco time. Also, Flacco lead the league in fumbles...can't do that.

Was that bomb to Lee Evans conservative? Nope. Did he catch the beautifully thrown ball? Nope. This is one example but this has happened all year with, especially with him, Dickson, and at times TSmith. Gotta throw and catch...basics.

We don't have the players nor QB like the Saints, Packers, Patriots. People need to get over that or hop on another bandwagon. We got really young guns and we have some past their prime guns and right now they're not consistent enough to continue to execute the plays throughout the game to score 30+ points each game.

Who would you rather have as offensive coordinator and why would he be better and "more creative" in order to get us wins?

[jagster]

i thik we"ve all seen that,and it is frustrating

[dontbnvus]

I think it could be argued that for any back to have a MONSTER day that they would have to break off a couple long ones. If i remember right, wasn't Rickys yards per carry skewed by a long run as well? I thought he had a carry for something like 20. Either way, This is why you feed these dynamic backs. It is only a matter of time before they break one off for huge gains. Even if you take aways all the excess yards and just give him ten for each of those two carrys then he would have 22 for 90. Still not a bad day. There is not one running back that just snaps off 5 yars per carry. They ALL have the long gains that help their overall yards per carry

[The Raven]

[quote name='dontbnvus' timestamp='1325541826' post='932253']
I think it could be argued that for any back to have a MONSTER day that they would have to break off a couple long ones. If i remember right, wasn't Rickys yards per carry skewed by a long run as well? I thought he had a carry for something like 20. Either way, This is why you feed these dynamic backs. It is only a matter of time before they break one off for huge gains. Even if you take aways all the excess yards and just give him ten for each of those two carrys then he would have 22 for 90. Still not a bad day. There is not one running back that just snaps off 5 yars per carry. They ALL have the long gains that help their overall yards per carry
[/quote]

Exactly. Some people just don't get it, and it's really, kinda... simple...

[JohnJohnson]

I think a lot of people took issue with the fact that we didn't use play action on first down, not once in the first half. The Bengals were so committed to the run once we got up 17-3, it called for at least one first down play action. Then we finally tried it once in the second half, after they were back in the game.

[i82much]

[quote name='The Raven' timestamp='1325541465' post='932243']

You do know thats pretty much how running the ball works, right?
[/quote]

Exactly ...

[Gordo52]

Rice always will break one loose, always

[jaege]

If he gets the carries, Rice typically has at least one medium to long run a game. You cannot discount that when you look at his average.

[Ravenslifer]

This pattern makes a lot of sense to me. It's two-fold IMO. One, everyone already comes in knowing that they have to stop Ray Rice or they're in trouble. Him breaking out a long run when guys are trying to stop him only makes teams focus more, and opens up the passing game. And two, Rice having a good day means good things for the play-action passing game, and Joe is one of the best in the league at running play action.

[Suggs Package]

Another thing to point out: Defenses loading up on the run also makes them more susceptible to a big run in the same vein as a blitz puts the team at risk for a big pass.

When you put 8+ men in the box, you take them away from the second level. On offense, If you can somehow get thru that first level, there's no one left to stop you, hence those two big runs by Rice.

[The Raven]

[quote name='jaege' timestamp='1325606693' post='933195']
If he gets the carries, Rice typically has at least one medium to long run a game. You cannot discount that when you look at his average.
[/quote]

Not just Rice either. Chirs Johnson, MJD, AP, etc... Just about every RB is like that.

[a20havoc]

Good thread. I'm learning a lot and will throw this in: I noticed in a couple of games that several QB's can achieve good success against an aggressive running defense by dumping the ball to a WR or TE immediately after the snap on 1st down--which is something Joe rarely does. I don't get that. As I recalled, that's one of the tactics SD used to blow us up in SD. And, Alex Smith did a lot of that when they beat Pit the same week. Does that sound right?

[usmccharles]

Running the ball is a numbers game, the more carries rice gets the more chances of breaking a big run. Thats the whole point of a rb getting the ball 20 times a game, increases the chances drastically, always looking for that big one. Next we are gonna start seeing "give ricky more carries than rice" threads...