Throwing short of the 1st down marker on 3rd down.

[757RavensFan]

This is a common complaint by forum members in the game day thread.  While this happened a lot over the years, it seems like its very common this season.  At times you have to trust the receiver to make a play and beat his man in a 1:1 situation to get the 1st down.  However, it seems as though we don't have the right plays called for success in 1:1 situations.    I watched a couple of games today and we're not the only team that throws short of the 1st, other teams are just better at executing than we are.  Prime example, Seahawks threw short of the 1st down on many occasions, but they had the right matchups/play called to be successful. 

Edited November 21, 2016 by 757RavensFan

[K-Dog]

It drives me crazy.  I simply do not understand. 

[Moderator 3]

You throw it short because that is what the defense "gives you". The receiver has to make a play, something we're not good at.

[rmcjacket23]

3 minutes ago, Moderator 3 said:

You throw it short because that is what the defense "gives you". The receiver has to make a play, something we're not good at.

Pretty much this. Defenses are going to defend the sticks. You start throwing at the sticks every time and you'll see a lot of incompletions and even some interceptions... you're basically throwing into traffic at that point.

I just watched GB do the same thing on back to back 3rd downs. The completion is made 2 yards or so short of the 1st down marker, and the receiver adds some yards after the catch for the 1st down.

I think sometimes we are using check down options where the receiver isn't being led properly or the route design sort of prohibits enough YAC, and that's a design/execution problem, so I agree with some on that. 

[Militant X 1]

36 minutes ago, Moderator 3 said:

You throw it short because that is what the defense "gives you". The receiver has to make a play, something we're not good at.

Either the coaching and game planning is piss poor or our players just aren't as good as we'd like them to be or think that they are.

Cause to me...needing 15 yrds and throwing for 11 and "expecting" the receiver to beat the defender(s) for the remaining 4 yards (when teams actually punt on 4th & 1) is ridiculous.  

[January J]

Depends on where we're at in the game. If we're down by multiple scores in the fourth quarter and we're still throwing short of the sticks and not taking some chances then its a problem. It does get aggravating but like it was said- our players have to find a way to get more YAC and fight for every inch instead of going down so easily. Flacco also has to do a better job leading the receiver.

[Tru11]

8 hours ago, Militant X 1 said:

Either the coaching and game planning is piss poor or our players just aren't as good as we'd like them to be or think that they are.

Cause to me...needing 15 yrds and throwing for 11 and "expecting" the receiver to beat the defender(s) for the remaining 4 yards (when teams actually punt on 4th & 1) is ridiculous.  

hitting them in stride goes a long way to getting those YAC.
anything other then that you wont make it unless you go SS like smitty and break a few tackles lol.

what this team seems to miss at this point is a guy like rice who could take a checkdown and then make the first defender miss and pick up extra yards.

teams will take away the deep and intermediate routes on 3rd and long which leaves short routes and checkdowns as the option.
you either need to hit the guy running the short route in stride or you need a checkdown back who is elusive and create plays by himself.

[The Raven]

11 hours ago, Militant X 1 said:

Either the coaching and game planning is piss poor or our players just aren't as good as we'd like them to be or think that they are.

Cause to me...needing 15 yrds and throwing for 11 and "expecting" the receiver to beat the defender(s) for the remaining 4 yards (when teams actually punt on 4th & 1) is ridiculous.  

You might think it's ridiculous, but it's what good offenses do.

I mean, Dallas did it to us repeatedly.

[Militant X 1]

3 minutes ago, The Raven said:

You might think it's ridiculous, but it's what good offenses do.

I mean, Dallas did it to us repeatedly.

That's my point man.

The Ravens aren't a good enough offense.

 

[rmcjacket23]

3 minutes ago, Militant X 1 said:

That's my point man.

The Ravens aren't a good enough offense.

 

If our offense isn't good enough to get 2-3 yards after a catch in order to get a 1st down, why would we think they are good enough to make tough catches in very small spaces at the sticks with multiple defenders around them?

 

[Willbacker]

I'm more peeved by throwing it short when we need 2 scores at the end of the game.

[Willbacker]

1 minute ago, Militant X 1 said:

First, you have never seen me say "throw to the sticks".  I'm speaking in the general sense based upon what I perceive to be ineffective with our offense.  To throw 5 yards when you need 10....and "expecting" the receiver to beat the defender(s) for the next 5 doesn't work well for the Ravens offense for some reason like it does for others.  Now...why is that?  That's the real question to me.

That's the real problem they throw too short of the sticks and want them to gain 5-6 yds and then a lot of times they dump it to Juice expecting him to wiggle and dance.

[Tru11]

2 minutes ago, Militant X 1 said:

First, you have never seen me say "throw to the sticks".  I'm speaking in the general sense based upon what I perceive to be ineffective with our offense.  To throw 5 yards when you need 10....and "expecting" the receiver to beat the defender(s) for the next 5 doesn't work well for the Ravens offense for some reason like it does for others.  Now...why is that?  That's the real question to me.

passes not hitting receivers in stride which makes them losing momentum.
passes hitting receivers in stride but their butter fingers make them juggle it losing momentum.
blocking not allowing the QB to set his feet when passing leading to inaccurate throws.
QB simply for no reason throwing a bad pass.
receivers most likely not being where they where expected to be.
defenders closing passing lanes.
defenders tipping passes at LOS.

tbh could be a lot of things.

TBH other then steve smith we dont really have playmakers that can make something out of nothing on their own.

[rmcjacket23]

5 minutes ago, Militant X 1 said:

First, you have never seen me say "throw to the sticks".  I'm speaking in the general sense based upon what I perceive to be ineffective with our offense.  To throw 5 yards when you need 10....and "expecting" the receiver to beat the defender(s) for the next 5 doesn't work well for the Ravens offense for some reason like it does for others.  Now...why is that?  That's the real question to me.

That's not really the part of the offense we should be looking at anyway. The REAL question is... why do you consistently see this team needing to convert 8-10 yards on 3rd down?

The answer... because we're not effective enough on 1st and 2nd down. 

Against us, playing defense on 3rd and 10 is quite frankly pretty easy. You rush maybe 4-5 guys, and you flood the intermediate passing areas with bodies. Our offensive line doesn't hold up frequently enough to let us take shots down field in this spot, so we have to throw intermediate. And because there are no openings in the intermediate space to throw to, we throw shorter so we at least give ourselves a chance.

[Tank 92]

If were just that easy to just "throw to the sticks".  When will people realize that the other team is on the field too and trying to win. 

[Militant X 1]

5 minutes ago, Tru11 said:

passes not hitting receivers in stride which makes them losing momentum.
passes hitting receivers in stride but their butter fingers make them juggle it losing momentum.
blocking not allowing the QB to set his feet when passing leading to inaccurate throws.
QB simply for no reason throwing a bad pass.
receivers most likely not being where they where expected to be.
defenders closing passing lanes.
defenders tipping passes at LOS.

tbh could be a lot of things.

TBH other then steve smith we dont really have playmakers that can make something out of nothing on their own.

 

3 minutes ago, rmcjacket23 said:

That's not really the part of the offense we should be looking at anyway. The REAL question is... why do you consistently see this team needing to convert 8-10 yards on 3rd down?

The answer... because we're not effective enough on 1st and 2nd down. 

Against us, playing defense on 3rd and 10 is quite frankly pretty easy. You rush maybe 4-5 guys, and you flood the intermediate passing areas with bodies. Our offensive line doesn't hold up frequently enough to let us take shots down field in this spot, so we have to throw intermediate. And because there are no openings in the intermediate space to throw to, we throw shorter so we at least give ourselves a chance.

Great points guys.  You both hit on some things that I have been pondering.

[rmcjacket23]

3 minutes ago, Militant X 1 said:

 

Great points guys.  You both hit on some things that I have been pondering.

Fun facts from yesterday's game...

On the two TD drives we had, we had a grand total of ONE third down. We had a 3rd and 12 in FG range in the 4th quarter that we didn't actually convert, but a defensive penalty gave us a 1st down. The first TD drive we never even attempted a 3rd down.

 

[Militant X 1]

4 minutes ago, rmcjacket23 said:

Fun facts from yesterday's game...

On the two TD drives we had, we had a grand total of ONE third down. We had a 3rd and 12 in FG range in the 4th quarter that we didn't actually convert, but a defensive penalty gave us a 1st down. The first TD drive we never even attempted a 3rd down.

 

Unbelievable!  How come our offense can't seem to do that more consistently from game to game? 

[PurpleCity5]

They were playing a cover 2 zone defending the sticks on a back-to-back play. We burned them on a slant route by Mike Wallace the previous series, did it again and they anticipated it. My only criticism would be going back to the same play but in that situation you go with the short pass and make your WR get the YAC. 

[Tank 92]

12 minutes ago, rmcjacket23 said:

Fun facts from yesterday's game...

On the two TD drives we had, we had a grand total of ONE third down. We had a 3rd and 12 in FG range in the 4th quarter that we didn't actually convert, but a defensive penalty gave us a 1st down. The first TD drive we never even attempted a 3rd down.

 

Yeah, seems they are headed in the right direction.  I thought the play calling was the best it's been since Kubiak and the O line was phenomenal on the first drive. If not for all of the penalties I think they would have sustained a few more drives similar to those. 

[rmcjacket23]

Dug into this a little bit deeper...

I looked at every single offensive drive where the Ravens scored a TD this season.

In total, those drives had 111 plays. 17 of those 111 plays were 3rd down plays, so only about 15% of plays were 3rd down on TD scoring drives.

15 of those 17 plays we converted successfully, though the one against Dallas yesterday was based on penalty. So we actually converted 14 of 17 3rd downs on TD scoring drives without defensive penalty assistance. That's a very good clip.

One noticeable trend... the longest conversion was 3rd and 7 (if you exclude the 3rd and 12 "conversion" from yesterday due to penalty). So in terms of actual offensive conversion without defensive assistance, if we have a 3rd and 8 or longer, we're not scoring a TD on that drive.

In fact, we hadn't converted anything over 5 yards on 3rd down on a TD drive until the Browns game last week, where we converted a 3rd and 6 and a 3rd and 7.

Pretty simple really... get ahead on the down and distance and this offense is just fine on 3rd down. 

[RaineV1]

I think the idea of those plays are fine. It's a trick that a lot of teams do from time to time. Use some receivers to go deep to give underneath guys room to run with the ball. However, Ravens seem to do it a bit too much. Other teams that study tape likely know to really look out for underneath passes on third down when playing against us. It's okay that we do that sometimes, but the Ravens need to mix it up a bit more on 3rd down. It's just been too predictable.

[rmcjacket23]

7 minutes ago, RaineV1 said:

I think the idea of those plays are fine. It's a trick that a lot of teams do from time to time. Use some receivers to go deep to give underneath guys room to run with the ball. However, Ravens seem to do it a bit too much. Other teams that study tape likely know to really look out for underneath passes on third down when playing against us. It's okay that we do that sometimes, but the Ravens need to mix it up a bit more on 3rd down. It's just been too predictable.

Don't think it matters. There's not much creativity to an offense on 3rd and long. If you're needing 8-10 yards for a first down on every drive, there really isn't a play call in the book that a defense hasn't seen and couldn't stop. Every team in the league knows to watch for screens on like 3rd and 10+, play action or bootlegs don't work because no defense is threatened by the run, and there's only so many routes you can run, particularly when defenses can just pin their ears back and bring pressure. Many DC's are sending 5 or 6 man pressures in that spot, so having more than 1 receiver run a deep route to even attempt to clear out the defense is a waste, because you'll never get the time to make the throw.

The solution to solving 3rd down "woes" is to be better on 1st and especially 2nd down. 

Edited November 21, 2016 by rmcjacket23

[Deflated Football]

5 hours ago, Militant X 1 said:

Unbelievable!  How come our offense can't seem to do that more consistently from game to game? 

This. We only turn it on when we're down with time running out. I wish we could be high powered and dominate throughout an entire game, and not just against good teams. We have all of the pieces to succeed, but we just can't get it done for some reason. 

[Tru11]

its sad when a 3 & 5 is already considered an impossible task to overcome for the offense.

 

[Tiznut]

19 hours ago, K-Dog said:

It drives me crazy.  I simply do not understand. 

It's because the defense either blitzes and prevents the qb from having time to look deep or the defenses covers everything deep and only allows the short stuff. This is also why WRs are paid to break tackles after the catch 

[ThatsMyJoeTerback]

There were two play where they threw the same drag route to Mike Wallace on second and third down. Everyone knew it was coming on the third down, and we failed to convert a 4th and medium. The playcalling is what is driving me nuts.

[arnie_uk]

1 hour ago, Tru11 said:

its sad when a 3 & 5 is already considered an impossible task to overcome for the offense.

 

Has to be play design. Surely someone would get open some of the time otherwise. Surely the oline could block long enough to let them get open some of the time. Surely flacco could hit them some of the time. 

Happens to regularly to be anything else.

[Militant X 1]

1 hour ago, Deflated Football said:

This. We only turn it on when we're down with time running out. I wish we could be high powered and dominate throughout an entire game, and not just against good teams. We have all of the pieces to succeed, but we just can't get it done for some reason. 

Perhaps that stems from a lackadaisical mindset and a lack of "player-coaches" on the field DF?  Whatever it is, I can't stand it man! 

[Deflated Football]

7 minutes ago, Militant X 1 said:

Perhaps that stems from a lackadaisical mindset and a lack of "player-coaches" on the field DF?  Whatever it is, I can't stand it man! 

I can't either. It gets so old. From play design to execution, something is very wrong. Wish we still had Kubiak