Tracking Flacco's Progress

[3-4ravdef509]

I wanted to devote a discussion to weekly observations of Flacco as he continues to put time between him and his injury.

If you want to reference a throw, this video should be helpful: http://www.baltimoreravens.com/videos/videos/NFLN-Every-Joe-Flacco-Throw-From-Week-1/aaef4892-3aa4-44c0-887c-03e108d8ad52

My observations? There were some classic Joe Flacco moments and throws. What wasn't there was a willingness to throw to tightly covered receivers. Joe's always been one to try and thread the needle, sometimes too often. In Sundays game he did a great job at identifying the open receiver and going through his reads. But when no one was open he didn't take many chances, opting often to throw it away or take the sack.

There are pros to this. On one hand, he didn't really have any near interceptions except for the miscommunication between him and Steve Smith on one play. He was smart in how he took hits and protecting the ball. As usual, no turnovers usually leads to a win. 

On the other hand, what makes Joe special is making those tightly contested throws. Giving your receiver a chance to make a play. A lot could have gone into why he didn't take chances in this game though. For one, our defense was balling out, so it might have been a joint decision with the coaches that there wasn't a need to really push the ball offensively through the air. The ability of the Bills secondary also might have influenced it. Or perhaps Joe himself is responsible for not taking many chances, just wanting to avoid mistakes and still getting comfortable with playing with new players on a repaired knee, he isn't ready to make those kinds of throws yet. Hopefully, whatever the case, sometime by mid season Joe is ready to be more aggressive with the football, but taking a more conservative, ball protecting mentality with him into proper situations. 

 

Other than that, Joe was mostly accurate but there were quite a few shoestring catches from receivers, a result of Joe not stepping into some of his throws. Hard to say if this is just injury recovery jitters, or a trend of Joe that's been occurring more frequently in past years. Until there is more game film (more games played), it's hard to say. This is something I hope to see improvements on in week 2.

 

Mobility isn't a shocker. He did move around a little bit, but on a repaired knee both consciously and subconsciously he's going to be more tentative about running around for at least a little while longer.

 

There was enough good to give me some optimism about moving forward, but when we get to the Steelers after the bye hopefully some of these patterns have dissolved away. Certainly he's fought a long way back from his injury and it's encouraging to see him out there in purple again.

[GrimCoconut]

When I played DB in high school and college and I was in zone, I loved it when QBs tried to "thread the needle" and make a tight throw because when you play off man and zone, you can see that and make a jump on the ball. It's easier to throw those tight balls, IMO, when the DB is in press or tight man coverage because the ability to intercept isn't as easy. Flacco has also had issues against zone coverage before and I am pretty sure without looking it up that most of his interceptions are against zone than man. Probably true of most QBs, actually. 

[3-4ravdef509]

That works as far as the ability of the defender to read the quarterback's eyes, and the ability of the receiver and the ball placement of the quarterback goes. Joe has at times in his career shredded defenses by throwing back shoulder throws or high/low throws into zone coverage. But Joe has also had games where the defense embarrassed him. I believe the key is to find balance, and know when to be aggressive and when not to be. Sunday against the Bills Joe played well but not very aggressively compared to his play in the past. While there is good with that I would hate to see him give up on that facet of his play entirely. 

 

I will agree about zone vs man but just because it's zone doesn't mean you can't be aggressive at times with a good quarterback and on key receivers 

[OLD SCHOOL SMASH BALL]

If we can get the running game going, and I mean committing to the run, like pound it up the gut, not this sideways crap, it will set Joe up bigtime for some play action. 

What I want to see, is Joe to sell the play action better. He does a half hearted sell job normally, so the safeties dont bite as hard as they would like on other Qb's play action. 

[Filmstudy]

5 hours ago, 3-4ravdef509 said:

 

My observations? There were some classic Joe Flacco moments and throws. What wasn't there was a willingness to throw to tightly covered receivers. Joe's always been one to try and thread the needle, sometimes too often. In Sundays game he did a great job at identifying the open receiver and going through his reads. But when no one was open he didn't take many chances, opting often to throw it away or take the sack.

 

I'd echo the bolded point.  Joe was not well protected, but he made good decisions that were related to the situation.  For example, the 2 sacks he took on the last FG drive were both good decisions where he maintained the option to throw as long as possible, because he knew the team would be in FG position.

I've got some notes/analysis of his time and space in the pocket here:

http://russellstreetreport.com/2016/09/13/filmstudy/offensive-line-grades-notes-buffalo/

The high points:

• The Bills schemed for pressure well and had a varied pass rush by numbers and organization.
• The Bills created a poor opportunity set for Joe's passes, and Joe exceeded expectations in terms of YPP and did so without a turnover.
• I'm highly encouraged by the deep balls he threw.  The throw to Wallace goes on his career highlight reel, but the more I look at the throw to Perriman, I see a ball dropped in the bucket where only Perriman could make a play on it.  It was a good catch, but also a great throw.

[jdynamite]

It's a mixed bag to me in week 1. 

Many positives early on as Flacco hit something like 7 different targets in his first 10 completions, he was accurate.  Had that perfectly placed ball to Perriman, and Perriman did what he was suppose to do and attacked the ball in the air. 

He's returning from injury, naturally he'd be hesitant to scramble and really run like he used.  Didn't help matters that Zuttah had a terrible game. Pressure coming up the middle collapses the pocket fast, prevents QB from stepping into passes. 1 or 2 of the sacks he could have got the ball out of his hands at least a throw away.

 

I felt like the run game was never established, sure there was some nice gains early on, but you could tell there was no commitment to the run.  So the bills defense began to bring the pressure up the middle. 

o

[OUravensfan]

The Flacco thread!

[OUravensfan]

14 hours ago, 3-4ravdef509 said:

I wanted to devote a discussion to weekly observations of Flacco as he continues to put time between him and his injury.

If you want to reference a throw, this video should be helpful: http://www.baltimoreravens.com/videos/videos/NFLN-Every-Joe-Flacco-Throw-From-Week-1/aaef4892-3aa4-44c0-887c-03e108d8ad52

My observations? There were some classic Joe Flacco moments and throws. What wasn't there was a willingness to throw to tightly covered receivers. Joe's always been one to try and thread the needle, sometimes too often. In Sundays game he did a great job at identifying the open receiver and going through his reads. But when no one was open he didn't take many chances, opting often to throw it away or take the sack.

There are pros to this. On one hand, he didn't really have any near interceptions except for the miscommunication between him and Steve Smith on one play. He was smart in how he took hits and protecting the ball. As usual, no turnovers usually leads to a win. 

On the other hand, what makes Joe special is making those tightly contested throws. Giving your receiver a chance to make a play. A lot could have gone into why he didn't take chances in this game though. For one, our defense was balling out, so it might have been a joint decision with the coaches that there wasn't a need to really push the ball offensively through the air. The ability of the Bills secondary also might have influenced it. Or perhaps Joe himself is responsible for not taking many chances, just wanting to avoid mistakes and still getting comfortable with playing with new players on a repaired knee, he isn't ready to make those kinds of throws yet. Hopefully, whatever the case, sometime by mid season Joe is ready to be more aggressive with the football, but taking a more conservative, ball protecting mentality with him into proper situations. 

 

Other than that, Joe was mostly accurate but there were quite a few shoestring catches from receivers, a result of Joe not stepping into some of his throws. Hard to say if this is just injury recovery jitters, or a trend of Joe that's been occurring more frequently in past years. Until there is more game film (more games played), it's hard to say. This is something I hope to see improvements on in week 2.

 

Mobility isn't a shocker. He did move around a little bit, but on a repaired knee both consciously and subconsciously he's going to be more tentative about running around for at least a little while longer.

 

There was enough good to give me some optimism about moving forward, but when we get to the Steelers after the bye hopefully some of these patterns have dissolved away. Certainly he's fought a long way back from his injury and it's encouraging to see him out there in purple again.

The throw to Pitta near the end of the game was the one throw that could qualify as threading the needle into tight coverage. That play brought back memories of 2012 where him and Pitta just naturally find the open spots, that back shoulder throw was nice and a big reason we won the game.

[Edgar]

I'd say Joe made a determination pretty early as to what sort if game he was in and understood that a pick could be the difference.

In that respect, the game was reminiscent of last year's opener. 

[OUravensfan]

1 hour ago, Edgar said:

I'd say Joe made a determination pretty early as to what sort if game he was in and understood that a pick could be the difference.

In that respect, the game was reminiscent of last year's opener. 

It very much was, I think your point is very true. And my god it almost ended the same way too, thankfully that pick six was dropped. 

[ellicottraven]

17 hours ago, GrimCoconut said:

When I played DB in high school and college and I was in zone, I loved it when QBs tried to "thread the needle" and make a tight throw because when you play off man and zone, you can see that and make a jump on the ball. It's easier to throw those tight balls, IMO, when the DB is in press or tight man coverage because the ability to intercept isn't as easy. Flacco has also had issues against zone coverage before and I am pretty sure without looking it up that most of his interceptions are against zone than man. Probably true of most QBs, actually. 

Don't we play a lot of press coverage? Could that be a contributing reason for reduced interceptions the past year?

[JoeyFlex5]

I've gotten so comfortable with flacco at qb that I don't even pay attention to him anymore. But when I watched the video of all flacco, I did notice a difference between early and late game. He was so much more comfortable attacking the defense, say what you want about the protection, it wasn't perfect, but we have the speed to attack past the 10 yard mark quickly enough that the protection shouldn't matter as much as it did last year. 

Striking way downfield would've been tough to do often, but that doesn't mean you have to throw all screens and short comebacks and crosses, which is what we did For a while in that game. We got conservative, way too conservative, and flacco looked a lot less comfortable and it wasn't because of the protection, it was because of the playcalling. Joe is an attacking qb, when the defense sits on the 10 yard mark, we need to hit between the 10 and 20, with our speed the difference in time in the pocket will be unnoticeable, flacco isn't gonna hit guys in stride 5 yards upfield consistently and allow for yac to convert first downs, but he Will hit guys in the intermediate as well as most top flight qbs, and when we give the defense a short field to defend then we are making life easy on them, if we stretch the field and make the dbs turn their hips then things will go our way, even if the protection isn't holding up we aren't asking for 4 seconds or more so we can get 40 yards downfield, we're asking for less stop and go in the 5 yard range and instead getting 10-20 yards downfield and striking between the front seven and the safeties, we still just refuse to work the soft spots in coverage and try to force things that aren't there, and we see the difference when we exploit the defense rather than play conservative. 

Flacco is agreat qb but he has limitations, he's not a dink and dunk guy, we need to stop calling plays as if he is.

[JoeyFlex5]

1 hour ago, OUravensfan said:

It very much was, I think your point is very true. And my god it almost ended the same way too, thankfully that pick six was dropped. 

I like to think that Joe would disregard playcalling and audible the proper gameplan if we fell behind due to a pick six. 

I trust Joe to call his own offense when trestman is calling too conservative of a game.

[Tru11]

1 hour ago, JoeyFlex5 said:

I've gotten so comfortable with flacco at qb that I don't even pay attention to him anymore. But when I watched the video of all flacco, I did notice a difference between early and late game. He was so much more comfortable attacking the defense, say what you want about the protection, it wasn't perfect, but we have the speed to attack past the 10 yard mark quickly enough that the protection shouldn't matter as much as it did last year. 

Striking way downfield would've been tough to do often, but that doesn't mean you have to throw all screens and short comebacks and crosses, which is what we did For a while in that game. We got conservative, way too conservative, and flacco looked a lot less comfortable and it wasn't because of the protection, it was because of the playcalling. Joe is an attacking qb, when the defense sits on the 10 yard mark, we need to hit between the 10 and 20, with our speed the difference in time in the pocket will be unnoticeable, flacco isn't gonna hit guys in stride 5 yards upfield consistently and allow for yac to convert first downs, but he Will hit guys in the intermediate as well as most top flight qbs, and when we give the defense a short field to defend then we are making life easy on them, if we stretch the field and make the dbs turn their hips then things will go our way, even if the protection isn't holding up we aren't asking for 4 seconds or more so we can get 40 yards downfield, we're asking for less stop and go in the 5 yard range and instead getting 10-20 yards downfield and striking between the front seven and the safeties, we still just refuse to work the soft spots in coverage and try to force things that aren't there, and we see the difference when we exploit the defense rather than play conservative. 

Flacco is agreat qb but he has limitations, he's not a dink and dunk guy, we need to stop calling plays as if he is.

flacco has the ability to audible out of plays if he does not like them.

let that sink in for a minute....

 

[AsianRice]

When our defense were on fire, I guess Joe was just too cautious for turning the ball over; therefore, I guess he was playing it safe and not forcing anything if he didn't see it.  Rex defense was not too shabby either; he's been dialing up pressure and pass rush.

 

I think we worry too much about the FF score; our team are playing to win.  Our offense have lots of rust to shake off, and in that game, offensively we made too many mistakes on the O-line so Joe turned on "lets play mistake free game." It worked in the end that we didn't turn over the ball.....

 

PS: I'm not satisfied that we didn't move ball effectively when the Bills playing zone all day, but I'm happy Joe didn't turn the ball over and let our defense win the game when that day wasn't our offense day....The Bengals always play zone defense against Joe and beat him when he tried to force the balls into something wasn't there, so if Joe didn't turn the ball over, we should win the game in low score game....Rex knew it so he did playing zone all game long....

[Tru11]

flacco played well coming off an injury.

cant really expect anymore from him at this point.

[GrimCoconut]

5 hours ago, ellicottraven said:

Don't we play a lot of press coverage? Could that be a contributing reason for reduced interceptions the past year?

No we don't play a lot of press. We do play man, sometimes off and sometimes we go zone. We have opportunities for turnovers we just haven't capitalized on those opportunities. 

[Militant X 1]

7 hours ago, JoeyFlex5 said:

I've gotten so comfortable with flacco at qb that I don't even pay attention to him anymore. But when I watched the video of all flacco, I did notice a difference between early and late game. He was so much more comfortable attacking the defense, say what you want about the protection, it wasn't perfect, but we have the speed to attack past the 10 yard mark quickly enough that the protection shouldn't matter as much as it did last year. 

Striking way downfield would've been tough to do often, but that doesn't mean you have to throw all screens and short comebacks and crosses, which is what we did For a while in that game. We got conservative, way too conservative, and flacco looked a lot less comfortable and it wasn't because of the protection, it was because of the playcalling. Joe is an attacking qb, when the defense sits on the 10 yard mark, we need to hit between the 10 and 20, with our speed the difference in time in the pocket will be unnoticeable, flacco isn't gonna hit guys in stride 5 yards upfield consistently and allow for yac to convert first downs, but he Will hit guys in the intermediate as well as most top flight qbs, and when we give the defense a short field to defend then we are making life easy on them, if we stretch the field and make the dbs turn their hips then things will go our way, even if the protection isn't holding up we aren't asking for 4 seconds or more so we can get 40 yards downfield, we're asking for less stop and go in the 5 yard range and instead getting 10-20 yards downfield and striking between the front seven and the safeties, we still just refuse to work the soft spots in coverage and try to force things that aren't there, and we see the difference when we exploit the defense rather than play conservative. 

Flacco is agreat qb but he has limitations, he's not a dink and dunk guy, we need to stop calling plays as if he is.

I'm not there yet with him whatsoever!  I like him and just want him to be more consistent and play like a juggernaut nearly every game!  My standard for him is high cause he's my quarterback!

Let's goooo Joe!

[Tru11]

8 hours ago, GrimCoconut said:

No we don't play a lot of press. We do play man, sometimes off and sometimes we go zone. We have opportunities for turnovers we just haven't capitalized on those opportunities. 

that k.lewis drop against the jags is the prime examples on why we had less turnovers lol.

[flynismo]

On 9/14/2016 at 2:07 PM, Tru11 said:

flacco played well coming off an injury.

cant really expect anymore from him at this point.

Yep...coming off an injury, first game in nearly a year, lots of new faces and against a pretty good defense. Went as well as anyone could reasonably expect.

[flynismo]

On 9/14/2016 at 11:09 AM, JoeyFlex5 said:

I like to think that Joe would disregard playcalling and audible the proper gameplan if we fell behind due to a pick six. 

I trust Joe to call his own offense when trestman is calling too conservative of a game.

I'm sure the conversation will go well when Trestman starts noticing every play he sends in, Flacco is audibling out of...

[JoeyFlex5]

3 hours ago, flynismo said:

I'm sure the conversation will go well when Trestman starts noticing every play he sends in, Flacco is audibling out of...

I don't think Joe is worried about any conversation lol

Love the avatar btw

Edited September 17, 2016 by JoeyFlex5

[flynismo]

11 hours ago, JoeyFlex5 said:

I don't think Joe is worried about any conversation lol

Love the avatar btw

heh, yeah true, the likelihood of Trestman actually noticing anything is pretty slim...

I've been on a Chapelle binge lately

[JoeyFlex5]

3 hours ago, flynismo said:

heh, yeah true, the likelihood of Trestman actually noticing anything is pretty slim...

I've been on a Chapelle binge lately

too bad all his quotes are pretty much too racist for this website, no references would be allowed lol. 

but yea if trestman goes to harbaugh like "hey john, joe is disregarding my plays and calling his own" and john would be like "so talk to him about it"... and obviously joe would shrug it off and continue doing what works. thats how id see that conversation going lol

[OUravensfan]

On September 14, 2016 at 11:07 AM, JoeyFlex5 said:

I've gotten so comfortable with flacco at qb that I don't even pay attention to him anymore. But when I watched the video of all flacco, I did notice a difference between early and late game. He was so much more comfortable attacking the defense, say what you want about the protection, it wasn't perfect, but we have the speed to attack past the 10 yard mark quickly enough that the protection shouldn't matter as much as it did last year. 

Striking way downfield would've been tough to do often, but that doesn't mean you have to throw all screens and short comebacks and crosses, which is what we did For a while in that game. We got conservative, way too conservative, and flacco looked a lot less comfortable and it wasn't because of the protection, it was because of the playcalling. Joe is an attacking qb, when the defense sits on the 10 yard mark, we need to hit between the 10 and 20, with our speed the difference in time in the pocket will be unnoticeable, flacco isn't gonna hit guys in stride 5 yards upfield consistently and allow for yac to convert first downs, but he Will hit guys in the intermediate as well as most top flight qbs, and when we give the defense a short field to defend then we are making life easy on them, if we stretch the field and make the dbs turn their hips then things will go our way, even if the protection isn't holding up we aren't asking for 4 seconds or more so we can get 40 yards downfield, we're asking for less stop and go in the 5 yard range and instead getting 10-20 yards downfield and striking between the front seven and the safeties, we still just refuse to work the soft spots in coverage and try to force things that aren't there, and we see the difference when we exploit the defense rather than play conservative. 

Flacco is agreat qb but he has limitations, he's not a dink and dunk guy, we need to stop calling plays as if he is.

What's your opinion of rolling Joe out more? I've ALWAYS thought he's significantly better when rolling out with room to throw. I hate when we don't do this more, I wonder if they're limiting his mobility intentionally given the recoupment from injury.

And I couldn't agree more that we can't devolve Joe into a dink and dunk guy, that is not his core strength.

Edited September 17, 2016 by OUravensfan

[Rav'n Maniac]

45 minutes ago, OUravensfan said:

What's your opinion of rolling Joe out more? I've ALWAYS thought he's significantly better when rolling out with room to throw. I hate when we don't do this more, I wonder if they're limiting his mobility intentionally given the recoupment from injury.

And I couldn't agree more that we can't devolve Joe into a dink and dunk guy, that is not his core strength.

It really depends on who we are facing because that is exactly what you need to beat overly aggressive defenses. That's what Cinn. used to beat the Jets last week. A fair amount of AJ's receptions were short and he got the yac. I see us doing the same when we play them.

[Cillmatic]

Joe's like 33 years old, he's not progressing any more, lol. He's as good as he'll ever be.

Edited September 17, 2016 by Cillmatic

[balfan23]

4 minutes ago, Cillmatic said:

Joe's like 33 years old, he's not progressing any more, lol. He's as good as he'll ever be.

31, but nonetheless, you're probably right. I think it is a what you see is what you get with him at this point. Still, you can expect flashes of brilliance from him and, it seems more often than not that is in the post season when we see that (so, we just need to make it there) 

[balfan23]

1 hour ago, OUravensfan said:

What's your opinion of rolling Joe out more? I've ALWAYS thought he's significantly better when rolling out with room to throw. I hate when we don't do this more, I wonder if they're limiting his mobility intentionally given the recoupment from injury.

And I couldn't agree more that we can't devolve Joe into a dink and dunk guy, that is not his core strength.

Yeah - I think it would be nice to be able to roll him out, especially since it appeared that we had some issues in pass protection. I think we do want him to go deep more than we saw this past weekend, but if he doesn't get the time, it isn't going to work. However, as you say that's an iffy proposition at the moment because I would think Joe's already limited mobility is further limited as he tries to get to 100%. 

[JoeyFlex5]

1 hour ago, OUravensfan said:

What's your opinion of rolling Joe out more? I've ALWAYS thought he's significantly better when rolling out with room to throw. I hate when we don't do this more, I wonder if they're limiting his mobility intentionally given the recoupment from injury.

And I couldn't agree more that we can't devolve Joe into a dink and dunk guy, that is not his core strength.

i dont think you need to roll out to keep joe from being a dink and dunk guy, joe isnt a deisgned rollout guy imo, he plays well out of the pocket because when he stand in the pocket, avoids pressure, then rolls out, it means the wr's have more time to get open deep, which happens to be where joe plays his best. 

designed rollouts are a different story, it cuts the playing field in half and doesnt give you the same advantage as rolling out to escape pressure because it happens as soon as the ball is snapped. throwing back across your body while rolling out is a nono, the throwing lanes are misleading and a lot of throws that the qb thinks are open can end up being picked easily.