Yes, we all know that Jason is the “Pillar” of our Run Stopping Defense, and no I am not being sarcastic. So the question is, what can we expect without our pillar? I will try to answer by looking at stats from our past…the last 5 games to be exact… I went into the NFL.COM "Play by Play," page to perform my analysis... From the start of the season (Jest), through the Houston game are the numbers that we will look at...it will be painless (I promise). Now I can honestly say that Jason was not in every running play our opponents ran, so the stats can be skewed. The main issue, is this is what we had with Ferguson in the starting line-up, and I am not going through all 5 game films, to ensure that he was on the field for each and every one of these run plays. So let’s look at what we can testify to… There have been 117 rushing attempts for a total of 416 yards, by opponent running backs up till Jason left the field in the middle of the Raven’s 1st drive last Sunday. That leads to a great 3.5 yards per attempt average… Now, out of those attempts (117), 50 of them were for 4 yards or longer...that is an average of almost 43% of the total attempts. Or you can say that 57% of those attempts were for no more than 4 yards. Another way to look at it is 1 out of every 2.34 attempts were for at least 4 yards… Now this is with Jason Ferguson in the starting line-up… Without warning, Randy Starks now gets the starting nod at Nose-Tackle against the Ravens and our other Defensive Line-men get more extensive playing time. Were any adjustments made during the game? I don’t know, but here is how they fared… There were 29 rushing attempts for a total of 123 yards, by opponent running backs after Jason left the field last Sunday. That led to a mediocre 4.2 yards per attempt average… Now out of those attempts (29), 10 of them were for 4 yards or longer…that is an average of 34% of the total attempts. Or you can say that 66% of those attempts were for no more than 4 yards. Another way to look at it is 1 out of every 2.9 attempts were for at least 4 yards… Wow, looking at numbers we seemed to have fared better in reducing the amount of big plays, but it also seemed that some of those fewer big plays led to more yardages… funny huh…though the Ravens are # 1 in Most Rushing Attempts per Game…they keep chugging away with their great OL and they will break a few big runs… Looking at the Ravens past 5 games, they have had their share of big runs of 17 and 16 yards also… Can we handle the Run without Ferguson??? Well, There still hope yet… EDITED- To add Stats... The Ravens RB have made at least 4 or more yards in 48% of their run plays...
Thanks, Dis. I wish I had the patienece to go through the play-by-play transcripts from every game and match them to game film to see what the exact Ferg on the field vs off the field rushing stats are, but as you said, it'd take forever. I'll gladly take your stats as the closest thing any sane person will bother doing. lol. I think that the Bills offer a lot more threat in the passing game than the Ravens, and this will present some real problems for us, as they can kill us run or pass. That 4+ yard average per carry stat would ALREADY be enough to lose the game (as Sparano has said, any play that goes for 4 yards in the NFL is efficient and good).... I think that with the Bills receivers and Trent Edwards passing, we will see even less safety support and be looser of the LOS both at CB (bigger cusion to guys like Lee Evans to respect his speed), and at LB. That less compact defense will mean the 4 yard average could look more like a 4.5 or 4.7 yard average to go with a 12-14 yard per catch average for the Bills. The only hope, as you put it, would be if Paul Soliai does something he has never done before: plays a the bulk of snaps in the game and *consistently* performs well on all of them. I expect their offense to give us fits unless the LB corps has an AMAZING day, or the offense OWNS the T.O.P. by a wide margin to keep the Bills O off the field. And, to be honest... I am MOST worried about their kick and punt returns against our bad coverage units. We just match up terribly on paper.
Yeah, they have a well-balanced offense and a great special teams unit. Honestly, it depends on which Dolphins team shows up! The 2 wins showed a fired-up team looking to be physical and a lot of heart. The team that played the Ravens was overconfident and lackidasicle. Against the Jets they were trying to be competitive. Being a division game as well they should be fired up, we could end up 2-1 in the division which would be a very good spot to be in!
