They just gave away a version we have been setting everyone up for. This was run to the weak side, all of ours have been right of center. This one took advantage of one of the ways to counter the formation. If the DE on the weak side explodes along the line he can wreck the play from behind. Ronnie got caught like that from behind by SD. Anyway, the defender did what I described and Cribbs ran right past him.. beautiful design.
I think that's an advantage instead of an disadvantage Marty. Teams will have to study more of the 'Wildcat' which takes time away from the base offense. Off-topic but the UFO or stand-up defense that the Browns ran in the second quarter caught my eye. Next week we face Baltimore and I've seen them run that defense in the past to confuse the opponent. We saw Shaun Rogers as the Mike in Cleveland's UFO defense and then blitz. What I've noticed with Baltimore is that when they do this, they don't always blitz Haloti Ngata, who in this case would be the Shaun Rodgers. They have Ngata play in coverage, about five or so yards away from the LOS while they blitz everyone else. In the Pittsburgh game, they did this and Ngata got an interception I believe. The Baltimore defense broke down Roethlisbergers pocket and forced him into a bad throw, which ended up in Ngata's hands.
that's because the cheezburgler is a big dumb slow elephant while we have a smart cheetah in our quarterback.
The only knock on Roethlisberger I can think of is that the he holds on to the ball too long. Pennington can sometimes hold on to the ball too long but scrambles out of the pocket to make a play. In the Ravens-Steelers game, Roethlisberger was unable to scramble out of the pocket due to the pressure coming from all sides and was going to hit a WR downfield but arm got hit. If the Ravens get their quick enough, it could be result in a turnover. I also am wondering how much we go to Greg Camarillo this game. My guess is that the Ravens will have Chris McAllister on him as Camarillo is our best receiver. McAllister has played very good this year, with three interceptions and I believe eight passes batted down. He and the secondary got torched in Indianapolis but we aren't Indianapolis lol.
That sucks. I have been waiting for us to run LEFT we have not used that ourselves. When we do they will say we copied them... Oh well. I have a feeling alot of the lower ring teams will start using this formation and it will negate our teams advantage. That said we need to get better at a normal Offense as well..
I saw Carolina do it against Tampa this week also... They say immitation is the sincerest form of flattery... We must be doing something right.
I fully expect to see a take on Sunday's flea flicker later in the season; Ronnie hands to Ricky who tosses to Chad who throws back to Ronnie who throws downfield.
It's set up. Look at who's around Ronnie. No-one. Ronnie could trot out towards the opposite sideline and Ricky could run full circle with Ronnie throwing back d......wait a minute......I'm getting carried away!
Seriously though. No one is gonna cover Ronnie after he hands off to Ricky. They'd need to be lucky enough not to have Safety stay back to G the pass. My only issue is that the ball would take a while to get across field to get to Ronnie. I actually think the Browns could run the Wildcat with more variety than us since they have Cribbs. (maybe not variety, but more effective variety)
Alen.. making them spend time in practise is indeed an advantage.. personally, I would prefer to suprise them and score before they practise against it. Paul Pasqualini said we have some thoughts on what to do should we see it. I would run it against us just to see how we DO defend it.
