The Blind Spots of Eric DeCosta

Ravens Pass-Catchers Through 15 Weeks

Devin Duvernay just placed on injured reserve earlier this week, ending his season.

Let’s start at the overview. We usually look at the most recent game first, but I think a look at the season as a whole might orient us better.

 

Of the top three guys on this list, who are the Ravens’ three most productive/efficient receiving targets…

• a 36-year-old rotational player who cannot hold up to more than about 15-20 snaps-per-game of usage;
• Two players on injured reserve & out for the year.

Hall Of Famer Bill Walsh, former head coach of the 49ers and inventor of the “West Coast Offense” passing game, wrote a couple books. In his first book, he mentions that when he built the Niners, one of the things he wanted to make sure they had is “enough offense to win games easily.” He’s not talking about every game – he knows he won’t win every game – so when I quote the line, I usually add the qualifier “some.” That is, enough offense to win (some) games easily.

Walsh’s idea was this:

If you want to win the championship, you can’t afford to be in a dogfight every week. The “dogfight” games are tough, and emotionally draining. They take a lot out of your team. Think of your team’s stock of courage & focus & will & resilience like a gas tank. The tank only holds so much. Your team is going to need its reserves of will and resilience to win the toughest postseason games against the best opponents.

So don’t go spending those reserves in games against shitty opponents!

That just taxes your team unnecessarily. Instead, you gotta be able to put SOME opponents away easy. Get some easy touchdowns and blow some games open early, so that the outcome isn’t in doubt and your team can coast to a win sometimes.

Have enough offense to win (some) games easily.

The Ravens don’t have that. At least, not right now.

It’s hard to remember, but they did have enough offense to win some games easily, earlier this season. Through the first four weeks of this season, Lamar Jackson was:

• First in the league in TD passes (tied with Patrick Mahomes & Jared Goff)
• 4th in passer rating (among qualifiers)
• 5th in the advanced combo stat “Expected Points Added + Completion Pct Over Expectation” (I don’t track it, but Mina Kimes is a big fan of CPOE)
• 6th in DVOA

And that was playing tough opponents. The first four weeks were the AFC East tour. We weren’t necessarily aware of it at the time, but those were good defenses. The Patriots are second in defensive DVOA (3rd vs pass); the Jets are 6th in defensive DVOA (6th vs pass); the Bills are 5th. Miami was the worst opponent defensively of the first four; in that game the Ravens offense put up 35 points in the first three quarters.

That was this season. Lamar was up over 11 yards-per-target on throws to his WRs and the Ravens were averaging almost 30 pts a game (29.75)  Plenty of offense to win some games easily.

That’s all changed. The ceiling is lower now, because the personnel is different.

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Re-return to fourth down

Here’s the second 4th-down call of the season that I strongly disagreed with. At about the 7-minute mark of the first quarter of a scoreless tie, the Ravens faced 4th-&-1 at the Cleveland 7. Deep in the red zone. John Harbaugh chose to go for it, the Browns stone-walled the Ravens, and they wound up taking a 3-0 lead on the ensuing drive.

Here is what I don’t get.

When you KNOW you are going to be in a slobbernocker of a low-scoring game (they had already forced a Cleveland punt); when your whole plan revolves around running the ball and playing good defense; how do you turn down the opportunity to score the first points of the game??

Was it an auto call, where they had decided that any 4-&-1 situations in Cleveland territory were going to be “go’s” in this game, to maximize their chances of getting a touchdown? Maybe Harbs knew something: as it turned out, that was the closest the Ravens got to the Cleveland end zone all day. It was their best chance for a TD. (They did get down to the 15 midway through the 3rd quarter.)

The Athletic’s 4th-down bot had this as a “medium” strength go-for-it; a win probability gain of +2%:

—> BAL (0) @ CLE (0) <—
BAL has 4th & 1 at the CLE 7

Recommendation (MEDIUM): 👉 Go for it (+2 WP)
Actual play: 👉 P.Ricard right guard to CLV 7 for no gain (J.Johnson, J.Clowney). pic.twitter.com/OR3VV17KdC

— 4th down decision bot (@ben_bot_baldwin) December 17, 2022

Well, I wasn’t comfortable with it. I feel like if you’re going to play the defense-and-running game, then you also have to accept that the path to winning might be four or five Field Goals.

Take them when you can get them.

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Random note of enragement

How (TF) do you get a Delay Of Game coming out of a timeout??? (happened with 27 seconds left in the first half)

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DeCosta’s blind spots

Eric DeCosta is a smart and aggressive GM. He’s been around a long time, and knows a lot about how the league works. No one loves Ravens football more than he does, or is more personally invested in the team’s success. Not Steve Bisciotti, not John Harbaugh, not Lamar Jackson: nobody. He’s also more bold/less conservative than Ozzie Newsome.

BUT.  Sometimes his aggressiveness leads him into what looks like a rookie mistake. He exhibits a blind spot. To me, it’s an “optimism” blind spot: he gets so pleased with a Bright Idea that he fails to account for the possibility of the move not working out.

You’ll want some examples.

I got some.

2019 Inside Linebackers

In 2018-19, the Ravens seemed to discover a “hack” to the Inside Linebacker position. They would get some ex-college safeties, convert them to linebacker, and thus get a ton more speed and coverage ability on the field than usual. Remember, Brian Urlacher played safety in college. In 2018 they had Patrick Onwuasor start on the inside next to C.J. Mosley. They also had rookies Kenny Young (4th round) and Chris Board (undrafted, ex-safety). Mosley was a terrific player, but he did not have great speed in coverage. Mosley walked in free agency for big money. So in 2019 the Ravens started the season with Onwuasor & Kenny Young in the middle, with Board rotating in. You can hear the gears turning: the Ravens would get better coverage ability in the middle of their defense while simultaneously saving a ton of cap money.

It wasn’t a hit to start the season, but it didn’t become clear what a disaster it was until the Ravens faced Nick Chubb and the Cleveland Browns in Week 4. The inside linebackers didn’t know their run fits. I mean, they probably knew them in a recite-the-playbook kind of way; but they didn’t know them in their bones like someone who’d played linebacker their whole life.  Chubb ran for 165 yards on over eight yards per carry with four touchdowns.

The following week the Ravens benched Board, put Otaro Alaka on IR and cut Tim Williams. Two weeks later they traded away Kenny Young (for Marcus Peters). They signed older linebackers L.J. Fort and Josh Bynes, and went with them for the rest of the season, trading a little speed for a lot of smarts & experience in the middle.

Bright Idea: gain a market edge by using undervalued ex-safeties at Inside Linebacker, thus putting a lot of extra speed & coverage ability in the middle of your defense.

Disappointing Outcome: Ex-DBs are not as expert as career linebackers are at reading their keys and fitting their gaps.  Can’t defend the run.

(*I feel like one could cite the Ravens’ handling of their deep safeties in the 2020-21 seasons as a possible example of gambling on a novel strategy. Chuck Clark & DeShon Elliott were more “box safety” or “strong safety” types than the single-high “free” Ed Reed type (not that Ed Reed grows on trees or anything.) And the Brandon Stephens move was a bit of an experiment. But that’s probably unfair, given the Earl Thomas fiasco in the 2020 preseason and the ensuing dispute with the Players Union. So we’ll skip it with just this paragraph as a bit of an asterisk.)

2021 Left Tackle

Ronnie Stanley suffered his catastrophic ankle injury in Week 7 of the 2020 season. Orlando Brown Jr. moved to the left side, but the Ravens then had issues on the right side, with D.J. Fluker, Tyre Phillips, and Patrick Mekari all taking a turn. Brown was traded in the offseason; DeCosta signed ex-Steeler Alejandro Villanueva to stabilize the right side.

But Stanley was supposed to come back 100%. He came back for one game, aggravated his ankle, and was lost for the season again. Villanueva was done; he moved to the left side but could barely play. The right side turned into a revolving door of Phillips/Mekari /Andre Smith, with guest appearances from some undrafted free agents.

There were other issues that year, including the Running Back room getting wiped-out by injury just days before the regular season started, and injuries to the Pro Bowl cornerbacks. Not to mention the Earl Thomas debacle.

But having no Plan B for the Tackle spot was part of the season spinning out of control.

Bright Idea: The great All-Pro Left Tackle will come back from injury and everything will be fine.

Disappointing Outcome: Sometimes there are complications from injury and recovery; even great All-Pros do not always return on-time from injury. Can’t protect the quarterback.

You know what this next example is…

2022 Wide Receivers

The plan seemed to be to finally give the young WR talent the chance to show what they can do. Rashod Bateman had looked promising as hell as a rookie. Duvernay and James Proche had good offseasons…maybe it’s time to let them run and see what we have.

They extracted a 1st-round pick from the trade of Marquise Brown; high value! That created a hole in the Wide Receiver group, but they had the draft pick. Then they had the opportunity to pounce on a once-in-a-decade prospect at the Center position to shore up what had been a perennial weakness since Ryan Jensen moved on in free agency (four years ago!) Then they had the opportunity to draft a consensus top-15 edge rusher (in consecutive weeks of February, David Ojabo had been projected to go #7 overall and then #10 overall in the NFL Mock Draft database) in the second round. I can understand the can’t-turn-that-down mindset.

All three of those moves (the trade; drafting a Center; snagging Ojabo) are good moves in isolation. But at some point you have to go back and touch second; you have to backfill the hole that the Brown trade created in the roster. When the smoke cleared, the Ravens had not spent a draft pick on a Wide Receiver. That might have made sense when your WR corps was headlined by Marquise & Bateman & Duvernay – two 1st-rounders and a 3rd – but that corps was already thin before the draft (no depth behind the starters), and once the Brown trade was announced, we knew that.

This move/lack of move at Wide Receiver seems compounded by the twin facts that (1) Ojabo has done nothing for the Ravens this year (one defensive snap), while (2) the receiver they didn’t draft in the second round, George Pickens, went seven picks later to the Steelers and seems to have some Terrell Owens to his game. Not that I’m putting Pickens in the Hall of Fame yet, but he shows some of the catch-radius and the physicality after the catch that I associate with Owens.

Pickens was exactly what is missing from this Ravens roster. That was knowable on draft day. And he was there. And the Ravens didn’t draft him.

Instead he’s in, ugh, Pittsburgh.

And Ojabo has played one single snap on defense.

It chafes.

Bright Idea: Let the talented young Wide Receivers eat, while at the same time getting top-line talent to fill long-standing holes at edge and center.

Disappointing Outcome: No depth at Wide Receiver; no big-play ability in the passing game after Bateman got hurt.  Conceivable worst-case is that Baltimore becomes a less desirable place for Lamar to sign a long-term contract extension.

I don’t usually play the game “What Would Ozzie Do?”

For the most part, DeCosta has been much more opportunistic and aggressive than Ozzie ever was. One example is, I don’t think Ozzie would have made the move for Peters; not because he wouldn’t like Peters, but because he wouldn’t wanted to give up recent draft pick Young.

But the flip side is, Ozzie’s conservatism would not have let him go into the season without a veteran Inside Linebacker for the rotation, or without a backup plan for the injured All-Pro Left Tackle. Ozzie would have lined up one more veteran body for the Wide Receiver room pre-draft; not someone fans would have been excited about, but a little more depth and insurance.

DeCosta mixes in some near genius maneuvering with some rookie mistakes. Interestingly, he tends to fix them pretty decisively after the fact. The current group of Inside Linebackers is probably more talented than any the Ravens have fielded since Ray Lewis retired: Roquan Smith, Patrick Queen, Malik Harrison, Josh Bynes.

The current group of Offensive Tackles have done an AMAZING job of surmounting various injuries to Stanley, Ja’Wuan James, and Patrick Mekari. A tribute to roster-building and depth. One could say that DeCosta seems to learn his lesson, any time a mistake bites him.

That suggests we’ll probably see a fully stocked Wide Receiver room next year. Great. It’s just a shame because this year’s team would be a serious championship contender with just a little more talent at Wide Receiver.

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Just a backup…not a “good” one

Here are your receiving stats for the Browns game:

DeSean Jackson’s first game NOT leading the team in yards-per-target. Did he have a bad game? Or was Huntley unable to push the ball to him?

Demarcus Robinson’s game looks more impressive on the chart than it did on the field. I usually try to say something nice when a receiver catches everything thrown to him, but the chart doesn’t have a column to show his two fumbles (one went out of bounds, the other was recovered by the Browns).

Duvernay’s first game over 6 yards-per-target in almost two months, since the Tampa game.

Can we talk about Huntley’s arm?

Early in the second quarter, Huntley threw a pass to Mark Andrews on the left sideline. It was such a rainbow that Andrews had to stand and wait for it. That gave defender Deion Jones plenty of time to drive on the ball and slap it out of Andrews’ hands just after the catch, for an incomplete. Now, Andrews should have held onto that ball. But I want to focus on the rainbow. If that ball had gotten there quicker, Andrews would’ve had an extra half-second to turn upfield and brave for a hit.

I never heard any criticism of Huntley’s arm coming out of college. But in two years of watching him, I’ve been disappointed at the lack of zip on his ball. He seems to have a wet noodle.

There is an “advanced stat” called aDOT: Average Depth Of Target. It measures how deep the intended receiver is on every throw. Huntley throws short passes. His aDOT is 6.4 on the year. That would be tied for 31st in the league, if Huntley had enough pass attempts to qualify. He’s between Baker Mayfield and Matt Ryan, tied with Daniel Jones.

The aDOT statistic is a clumsy, unreliable tool for arm strength. A low aDOT does not necessarily imply a noodle arm; the stat does not measure arm strength. It measures how easy the throws are for the quarterback in that offense. Patrick Mahomes’ aDOT is much lower than you’d expect. Justin Herbert, who has a cannon, has a very low aDOT; the Chargers Offensive Coordinator loves the short passing game. Many offenses build a lot of Yards-After-Catch into their passing attack, so an accurate short-passer can really keep things humming. Joe Burrow has a fairly low aDOT (27th). Kyle Shanahan’s quarterback in San Francisco, whatever the year, always seems to have a low aDOT, as Shanahan is a genius for creating YAC opportunities for his skill players.

That kind of offensive design leaves statistical residue. If you look at PFR’s “advanced passing stats” page, you can see one called YAC/comp: how many yards the receivers gain after-catch per completion. Jimmy G leads the league, Mahomes is second. Burrow is just outside the top ten. All those offenses have receivers who gain a lot of yards after the catch; a lot of the receiving yardage is after-catch. Lamar is 24th on this list; the Ravens offense is not built with a lot of Yards After Catch in it. Huntley is much lower, 3.3, well below the #33 player.

Lamar is among the top 10 in aDOT this season. (On that same PFR advanced stats page, aDOT is called “Intended Air Yards per Pass Attempt” or IAY/PA.) He’s in a group with Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts and Dak Prescott. For those offenses, a lot of the receiving yardage is before the catch. Deep passes.

Lamar and Huntley are operating the same playbook and with the same personnel. If Lamar is among the leaders, and Huntley is among the last, then the difference is not offensive design. It’s ability. On the plus side, Huntley gets the ball out quick and uses the flats; he’s probably better at that than Lamar. On the minus side, Huntley does not have the arm strength to challenge the defense anywhere else.

You can see it in the box score. Of Huntley’s 30 attempted passes, all but two of them are marked “short” (and the two shots were incomplete, of course.)

And you can see it on the screen. Defenders can sit on routes; they don’t need to defend the deep shots. On rainbows to the sideline, defenders have time to recover. On the 4th-down rollout to Proche with about 9:30 left in the game, Huntley had to throw it a little farther out in front of Proche than a zippier-armed QB would’ve had to, to keep the Defensive Back from having a shot at knocking the ball away. Too far in front of Proche, it turned out.

I admire Huntley’s attitude and poise and competitive spirit.

But I think he’s too limited physically to be a good backup.

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Run/pass split

I see on Twitter that we are supposed to be outraged that Greg Roman “abandoned the run” in Saturday’s game. Eh. That’s overblown.

That Ravens had actually run more than pass when it was still a one-score game: 26 runs to 21 passes before the Browns scored their touchdown (counting two Huntley scrambles as runs rather than dropbacks). They were still at 27 runs to 23 passes at the start of the 4th quarter.

The problem was that they were down two scores in the 4th quarter, 13-3. You pretty much have to throw the ball in that situation, and the Ravens Offensive Coordinator did. In the 4th quarter the Ravens threw 12 times and ran it just once.

I don’t fault him for it. If you want to keep your run-pass balance, then don’t fall behind by two scores in the 4th quarter. If the Ravens had hit another Field Goal earlier in the game so it was 10-6 and a one-score game – or if they had hit two earlier and were down only 10-9 and a Field Goal would win it – then I’m sure we would have seen more running in the 4th quarter.  But as it was, Greg Roman needed to get a touchdown, then a stop, then a Field Goal just to get to Overtime. He had to throw it.

Let’s criticize Roman for things that are fair.

Like taking a damn Delay Of Game penalty coming out of a timeout with 30 secs left in the first half. Not for throwing when down two scores in the fourth.

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Rushers?

Yes, the state of the Ravens receiving game has gotten so dire that I have resorted to talking about rushing just to have something nice to say.

JK Dobbins had his second consecutive outstanding game:

His 125 yards is the Ravens season high. His “combo” score (yards-per-carry avg times Success Rate, see here) is the Ravens’ 7th-best on the season (min 3 rushes), just displacing his game from last week.

Over his last two games Dobbins has rushed for 8.75 yards-per-carry, which is ridiculous, and a 75% Success Rate. His decision to take two months off and have that last knee procedure seems to have been the totally right call. He looks like a different back:

 

To the extent that the Ravens have any amount of “offense to win games easily,” Dobbins is it. Well, Dobbins and Lamar.

And yet, would you believe that the Ravens still have some life in them?!?

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The Ravens have the 7th-best chance to win the Super Bowl, according to the Football Outsiders Playoff Odds; the 8th-best according to the 538 NFL Predictions. (538 thinks more highly of the Vikings than FO does.) FO still has them as the 5th best team in the league! The 11th-best offense (#13 pass, #2 rush), the 8th-best defense (#9 pass, #6 rush), and #3 spec-teams.

Why so good?!? Well, for one thing they are projecting the Ravens starting quarterback to return. For another thing, the devastating early-season losses like the Dolphins & Giants games don’t count so strongly negative against the Ravens in the FO scoring system as they do in the standings. The Ravens played well enough to build a high win-expectation in both games; FO probably regards those losses as somewhat flukey. Likewise missed Field Goals and blocked kicks are somewhat flukey: “not predictive” in the FO terminology.

I don’t know how completely I buy the Football Outsiders ranking. But (1) the Ravens were lower the year they won the Super Bowl (10th overall; 13th offense, 19th defense) and (2) it’s nice to grab onto something a little reassuring in what has turned into a tough season.

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Next Up: Back home for an “easy” game against a terrible opponent!

Psych! No game is easy anymore, and the Falcons are more mediocre than terrible. But the Falcons defense really is terrible. The one thing they do well is run the ball with Cordarrelle Patterson and Tyler Allgeier. Oh, and they have Olamide Zaccheaus. This game would be worth watching just to hear how that name is supposed to be pronounced!

Here’s wishing a wonderful, safe and happy Christmas to you & yours.