Drinking The Purple Kool Aid

Week 1: Ravens at Jets September 10, 2010

Every defense can be beaten. Ravens fans know this best of all, watching in 2001 as Brett Favre lit up Baltimore a year after the unit was the greatest of all time. Granted, ‘beating’ that defense was relative because there was little to fear from Jason Brookins at running back and Cowardly Elvis under center. The ’85 Bears were unbeatable in ’86 too, but were taken out by Jay Schroeder and the Redskins. Coordinator Buddy Ryan assembled a killer defense in Philadelphia, but won zero playoff games.

Now his son has himself a killer D.

Let’s get this out of the way: paper aside, we all know first-hand how good Rex Ryan’s defense can be. It’s The OC (Organized Chaos) and it features the true Defensive Player of 2009 in Darrelle Revis (how that award goes to Charles Woodson just baffles me). Sure, he may have missed camp, but even at 50%, he’s a better cover corner than anyone the Ravens have. The Ravens defense vs the Jets offense is a sideshow: Jets fans have convinced themselves somehow that Mark Sanchez is ready to take on real-deal defenses and Ravens fans have convinced themselves that their secondary is banged up enough to be potentially exploited. Let’s call that a wash. The real game is the Ravens offense vs last year’s Number 1 defense.

Luckily, Baltimore knows what to do about it because they’ve lost games (not many, but more than one) using the exact same scheme.

Thinking back through last season and the preseason, when is Joe Flacco his most comfortable? When does he complete the most passes, read defenses the clearest, and  call the most precise audibles? Stay tuned for the answer.

Now to the OC. What Ryan does so well is create complex and occasionally bizarre personnel groupings that could all be coming after the quarterback on any given play. We’ve all seen games with Kelly Gregg as the lone down lineman, Haloti Ngata at middle linebacker, and the infamous instance of 270 pound Adalius Thomas covering Chad Johnson on the outside. They’re so unpredictably good because there’s no base. Revis is covering a guy one on one and the rest could be anything. What’s the best way to counter that?

Don’t let them do it.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the teams and quarterbacks that gave the Ravens the most fits while under The Rex were the ones in a no-huddle. Personnel groups would get trapped out there and gassed, fast. For a defense based on speed and confusion, that’s certain death.

It’s a gigantic game for both teams on Monday, as Baltimore beat only a handful of playoff teams last year and the Jets have a lot of words to back up. But the whole game could come down to this one simple strategy. The question is whether Flacco is up to the task.

I mean, it worked for Jay Schroeder.