Is the defense for real?

[reed20]

Or was it just the bills?

 

160 yards makes us #1 so far in fewest yards allowed. And next week we play against Cleveland  

[LosT_in_TranSlatioN]

Bills actually have a respectable offense with a great run game and good left side of the oline with Glenn Incognito and Wood. Sammy Watkins is a very good WR and Charles Clay is a good TE. Tyrod was one of the league leaders in passes down the field that were completed, and they have a solid #2 WR in Robert Woods. Oh, and this RB named Lesean McCoy who's a very good RB.

 

Our defense seemed changed.

[usmccharles]

I think if we weren't playing a mobile QB we would have had numerous more sacks,  and doom wasn't even playing.   I like what I see. 

[Filmstudy]

Definitely things to like, but the Bills are damaged goods.  Both starting tackles lost by halftime.  

The Ravens will likely get a good contribution from their defense, but the blueprint of this game isn't one I think will work against the bulk of the league.

[AppStRavenfan]

Hard to say really, one game isn't enough to tell. We could be as legit as we looked, or we could have just matched up really well with the Bills offense - which we definitely did. We won't really know what caliber our D is until we go up against an actual offensive minded team, which won't really happen until maybe week 4 against Oakland.

Edited September 12, 2016 by AppStRavenfan

[RaineV1]

2 hours ago, usmccharles said:

I think if we weren't playing a mobile QB we would have had numerous more sacks,  and doom wasn't even playing.   I like what I see. 

Agreed. Taylor's legs were the only thing that saved him on several occasions. Our front 7 is pretty good at getting after people, so if they stay healthy it's possible we end up with a great passrush all year long. It wasn't that long ago where the passrush was all the defense had going for it and it still got us into the playoffs. Now the passrush is paired with a competent secondary.

[KBoum]

Leslie Frazer helping A LOT those DBs. and Weedle man... that guy is the QB of the defense. Everyone is ready on every play knowing what to do. No miscommunications

[Sami84]

shhhhhhh

 

remember last year after game 1? 3 more games until i say ''real''...

[K-Dog]

I blame Pees.

 

Wait! Is that how this is supposed to work?

[jazz1988]

1 hour ago, Sami84 said:

shhhhhhh

 

remember last year after game 1? 3 more games until i say ''real''...

The Ravens also lost Suggs after their  first game last year.its quite obvious now Suggs helps give The Ravens defense life .

[Cillmatic]

We need to give Judon more snaps becauE without him the interior pass rush was almost non existent in the middle of the game.

 

We won't know how good our defense is until we go against the Jags.

[Sami84]

7 minutes ago, Cillmatic said:

We need to give Judon more snaps becauE without him the interior pass rush was almost non existent in the middle of the game.

 

We won't know how good our defense is until we go against the Jags.

 

yup..thats why im telling everyone to lay off the kool aid..last year, even after the defeat to denver people here were calling this D elite!

[52liveforever]

7 minutes ago, Cillmatic said:

We need to give Judon more snaps becauE without him the interior pass rush was almost non existent in the middle of the game.

 

We won't know how good our defense is until we go against the Jags.

Agreed, I think he needs to take some of ZDS' reps. ZDS seems to always be close, but I think Judon has a step or two on him.

[52liveforever]

15 minutes ago, jazz1988 said:

The Ravens also lost Suggs after their  first game last year.its quite obvious now Suggs helps give The Ravens defense life .

In fairness if the defense can't find life without Suggs I don't have the warm and fuzzies.

[JoeyFlex5]

Mccoy, watkins, woods, and tyrod are no slouches together, it's a dynamic unit, BUT we have a primary weakness that this unit doesnt test. We got good pressure without doom and Taylor was contained very well, pees dialed up a great blitz all game long, I didn't like The slack he allowed in the middle of the game but it could've been his little chess match. The difference between a pees defense with and without quality safeties is ridiculous. We also sniffed out screens at an elite level which we struggled with last year.

We will get a very good test against barnidge next week. And we will need another test against a dink and dunk offense. For now some of Our problems look improved but it wasn't a proper test to see if we're for real. We need to see how we cover the middle of the field and quick release offenses.

[RaineV1]

1 hour ago, Cillmatic said:

We need to give Judon more snaps becauE without him the interior pass rush was almost non existent in the middle of the game.

 

We won't know how good our defense is until we go against the Jags.

Yeah, when we face the Jags and Raiders back to back, we'll really know how good the defense is.

[BOLDnPurPnBlacK]

The one thing I really really liked about our D is that we adjusted.

When they beat us with a certain look or play, we made the proper adjustments and didnt let it beat us again. That sweep shady ran in the 1st half that went for like 13 yards... the strong side over pursued inside and let Shady get the edge with ease. Tried the same play with Bush a couple plays later and we completely swallow him up, forced the cut back right into several tacklers.

Early on Watkins was getting Jimmy with that 10-12 yard come back as Jimmy was giving too much respect to the deep ball (which he should ahve since he rarely had safety help, and Watkins if  a serious deep threat) but then started to adjust and notice the cues as to when Watkins was going to cut the route off. Brilliantly displayed on the 4th qtr pass break up where Watkins got the ball in his hands but Jimmy was in position to knock the ball out.

Its a huge difference from last year where we'd consistently allow certain things to beat us. The things that worked for them only seemed to work once... and then we were all over it from there on.

[GrimCoconut]

6 minutes ago, JoeyFlex5 said:

Mccoy, watkins, woods, and tyrod are no slouches together, it's a dynamic unit, BUT we have a primary weakness that this unit doesnt test. We got good pressure without doom and Taylor was contained very well, pees dialed up a great blitz all game long, I didn't like The slack he allowed in the middle of the game but it could've been his little chess match. The difference between a pees defense with and without quality safeties is ridiculous. We also sniffed out screens at an elite level which we struggled with last year.

We will get a very good test against barnidge next week. And we will need another test against a dink and dunk offense. For now some of Our problems look improved but it wasn't a proper test to see if we're for real. We need to see how we cover the middle of the field and quick release offenses.

I truly believe that we wanted to contain Taylor and prevent him from beating us with his legs rather than his arm. I am reluctant to say this defense is great yet because we know Tyrod probably better than any other QB we may face since he was here for so long. I think that yes, we sacrificed a pass rush for containment and we've done that before against other QB who can run the ball. 

3 minutes ago, RaineV1 said:

Yeah, when we face the Jags and Raiders back to back, we'll really know how good the defense is.

Absolutely. I think we will really know this defense after the Raiders. I would even say we will know the offense then, too. We won't really know them, however, because a team doesn't really get an identity until a little later in the season, but you get the idea. These will be our first real tests. 

Just now, BOLDnPurPnBlacK said:

The one thing I really really liked about our D is that we adjusted.

When they beat us with a certain look or play, we made the proper adjustments and didnt let it beat us again. That sweep shady ran in the 1st half that went for like 13 yards... the strong side over pursued inside and let Shady get the edge with ease. Tried the same play with Bush a couple plays later and we completely swallow him up, forced the cut back right into several tacklers.

Early on Watkins was getting Jimmy with that 10-12 yard come back as Jimmy was giving too much respect to the deep ball (which he should ahve since he rarely had safety help, and Watkins if  a serious deep threat) but then started to adjust and notice the cues as to when Watkins was going to cut the route off. Brilliantly displayed on the 4th qtr pass break up where Watkins got the ball in his hands but Jimmy was in position to knock the ball out.

Its a huge difference from last year where we'd consistently allow certain things to beat us. The things that worked for them only seemed to work once... and then we were all over it from there on.

Adjustments were good. I wouldn't agree that Watkins was getting Jimmy. I think the idea was to stay back and give Watkins the cushion to prevent the deep play. We have a focus on preventing deep plays this year, it would seem. 

[ERey]

I think it's fair to say they are better than last year. Weddle and Webb is a pretty big upgrade. No one seemed out of position. It will be interesting to see if Shareece Wright can bring it like that every game. The pass rush needs to improve, but they at least have young guys on the team that can help in Judon and Correa. Obviously no one expects the 2000 defense or even the 2006/2008 defense. But top 10 seems attainable.

[BOLDnPurPnBlacK]

1 minute ago, GrimCoconut said:

 Adjustments were good. I wouldn't agree that Watkins was getting Jimmy. I think the idea was to stay back and give Watkins the cushion to prevent the deep play. We have a focus on preventing deep plays this year, it would seem. 

Yea i didnt mean it in that Watkins was getting the better of Jimmy. Smith clearly won the match up.

But, the only thing Watkins was getting on Smith at any point was that come back. I think 3 of his 4 catches were on that route, with a crossing route being the other.

Just pointing out, that after he got Jimmy with it... he even shut that down to where Watkins could do nothing at all. I think 3 of 4 of Watkins catches came on one or two drives with the same route. Jimmy adjusted and looked for it, and then never got beat with it again.

[757RavensFan]

There's definitely a different dynamic from what we're used to seeing. I need a much bigger sample size to say the defense is a top 5/top 10 defense. But I have to admit that I love what I saw yesterday.  Heck, a saw a few safety blitzes from Webb (too bad he missed) which made me think that we haven't seen that since Reed was playing back there.   It was definitely nice reading Suggs' comments about his praise for Pees' playcalling and scheme.  

That being said, they CANNOT let up on the Browns.  They always play us close. 

[Purple_City39]

Lowest amount of yards allowed in 5 years.  If that's a fluke it's one hellava fluke.  The difference between this defensive performance and the one last season is the overall complete play, to me anyway.  Last year we had the pick 6 to help influence the perception.  Peyton's arm wasn't even capable of a solid deep passing game either (although we didn't fully know that at the time).  This year we had no turnovers but still got consistent enough pressure as well as seeing improvement in play as the game went on.  Someone brought it up before but things that worked against us early didn't later.

And then there's just the speed the defense played.  Swarming like that isn't a fluke.  We still need to see more, but I've got a good feeling about the defense this season

[ERey]

Let's not forget that the offense ran the 4 minute drill to perfection. Trestman called the Wallace end-around at the perfect moment. The D never had to get back onto the field and be tested in the final 2 minutes.

[berad]

I was very impressed outside of that one long drive Buffalo put together. But, again, as people said, they did great week 1 last year as well before a historically bad season.

I'm very hopeful and they looked great yesterday.

[AsianRice]

strange that noone mentioned that Dean Pees was on the sideline making calls; I think that's a big plus cuz he can interact and get inputs from our players, so he can make appropriate adjustment...

[jazz1988]

1 hour ago, 52liveforever said:

In fairness if the defense can't find life without Suggs I don't have the warm and fuzzies.

I think Weddle is another key piece as well but Terrell Suggs is the leader of the defense right now. I don't know if The Ravens have any young future leaders once Suggs retires but right now Suggs is what JJ Watt,Von Miller, Richard Sherman,and more are for their defense . I know Suggs isn't in his 20's any more but at this moment he's the general and  the guy that keep the players going  .

Players feed off his energy and I think Eric Weddle is another guy players look up to as well. 

 

[berad]

15 minutes ago, AsianRice said:

strange that noone mentioned that Dean Pees was on the sideline making calls; I think that's a big plus cuz he can interact and get inputs from our players, so he can make appropriate adjustment...

I'm glad he's down there for the sole reason that he can't sit up in the box all game then come down post-game and comment on the players' physical efforts. Defense, more so than offense, has so much rooted in motivation and effort over gameplan.

He's responsible for his unit and if he feels they're not giving full effort, he should be down there telling them so rather than drinking Coke through a Twizzler or whatever he was doing before.

[Deflated Football]

21 minutes ago, AsianRice said:

strange that noone mentioned that Dean Pees was on the sideline making calls; I think that's a big plus cuz he can interact and get inputs from our players, so he can make appropriate adjustment...

I noticed that. He probably realizes now that he's not entitled to his job anymore. 

[PurpleCity5]

Bills were a good offense last year, maybe great considering this: They were the number one rushing attack in the entire league and a top 5 best deep passing team. We contained the run and didn't allow a big play all day. 

 

I know last years defense was discouraging but I really think this defense is flat out better. Best part is, we still have Doom to add back and Jimmy Smith looks to be returning to form. He's honestly the type of guy who gets better as the season goes on. 

Edited September 12, 2016 by PurpleCity5

[Sami84]

17 minutes ago, PurpleCity5 said:

Bills were a good offense last year, maybe great considering this: They were the number one rushing attack in the entire league and a top 5 best deep passing team. We contained the run and didn't allow a big play all day. 

 

I know last years defense was discouraging but I really think this defense is flat out better. Best part is, we still have Doom to add back and Jimmy Smith looks to be returning to form. He's honestly the type of guy who gets better as the season goes on. 

 

apparantly sammy watkins was in severe pain all game yesterday..just a caveat..