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When Jake Arietta was on the Orioles staff it was pretty obvious that he had filthy stuff. Yet for some reason, he couldn’t put it all together and eventually the Orioles brass ran out of patience and traded him to the Chicago Cubs.
The rest as they say is history.
Yet I always wondered if Arietta was somehow tipping his pitches. How could a nasty slider that dropped in out of the sweet zone be hit with such authority?
What does this have to do with the Ravens?
I’m wondering why the team suddenly can’t run the football.
They have the same personnel, the same offensive line coach and yet the results are vastly different. In 2014 they averaged 126.2 rushing yards per game (ranked 8th) and 4.5 yards per carry (ranked 6th). So far in 2015 the Ravens are averaging 72.7 rushing yards per game (ranked 27th) and 3.3 yards per carry (ranked 28th).
Is Joe Flacco tipping the run somehow through his cadence or the way he waves his arms pre-snap? Are the linemen positioned or set differently during run plays. Or is it a combination of poor execution and high caliber competition?
It’s something to watch but given the consistency in personnel a 42.4% drop off in rushing yards per game is tough to explain.
