Week 6: Ravens at Vikings

[wwharton]

Quote: Originally Posted by chadskee

How is your offensive line? It's not impossible to contain him as long as your O-Line is decent.

That's the point. Gaither, the starting LT is hurt. That means a rookie will be lining up a bit out of position in his young career (usually starts at RT) and across from Allen. Take a look at Flacco's stats from last game and that was against Cincy. Nothing against Cincy's D but they don't have an Allen on that team.

[chadskee]

Quote: Originally Posted by wwharton

That's the point. Gaither, the starting LT is hurt. That means a rookie will be lining up a bit out of position in his young career (usually starts at RT) and across from Allen. Take a look at Flacco's stats from last game and that was against Cincy. Nothing against Cincy's D but they don't have an Allen on that team.

Ok, I wasn't aware of that fact. Honestly Raven fans, if Gaither is out and the rookie lines up against Allen do you think you guys have a realistic chance of winning this game? My wisdom is clouded by the unfortunate pessimism that comes with being a Vikings fan.

What about Cedric Benson last game cracked your defense? And do you think your secondary can play well enough if your defense does end up stopping Peterson?

[wwharton]

Quote: Originally Posted by chadskee

Ok, I wasn't aware of that fact. Honestly Raven fans, if Gaither is out and the rookie lines up against Allen do you think you guys have a realistic chance of winning this game? My wisdom is clouded by the unfortunate pessimism that comes with being a Vikings fan. What about Cedric Benson last game cracked your defense? And do you think your secondary can play well enough if your defense does end up stopping Peterson?

Yeah they have a chance. The oline overall is better than last year, as are the QB and RBs (Flacco is much better and Rice and McGahee are both healthy at the same time for a change)... can throw in the Wrs (Clayton's healthy and Washington has been a valuable addition) and TE (Heap's healthy). Gaither's injury is definitely a blow but I think the problem last week was gameplanning around the blow. I'm not saying it'd be easy (or effective even against that great dline) but it's definitely possible.

Maybe LB can explain what helped Benson break out better than me. There was a lot of bad tackling which is just uncharacteristic. And I think the lack of a pass rush made the D adjust more than they'd want (were worried more about Palmer, Ochocinco and Henry than Benson) which may have opened things up more. With respect to some of the throws he made against the Pack, I don't think Favre is on the level of Palmer at this point, and don't see anyone being what Chad and Henry have been against the Ravens over the years. I think a good gameplan could keep him in check, but I'm honestly not sure we'll get one considering what we've had so far this year.

My keys to winning the D side of the game:

1. limit the big plays
2. get pressure on Favre

I think AP can be contained but I'm worried about him breaking a big one at a bad time (or two). I'm also worried about Harvin breaking something off a screen or quick slant... players like him give the Ravens trouble.

[Aggies7]

As much as WW is going to hate to hear this I have to go with the Vikings. However I believe it will be close.

Vikings - 21
Ravens - 17

[JayBee74]

Hope Colin Cowherd is right. He thinks the Ravens will destroy the Vikes-doesn't think the game will be close. OK, let's move on to more serious matters.

[maddenmaster34]

The Ravens can't lose 3 in a row. If they do we might have a tough time beating the Lions! Gotta see McGahee and L-train in there. Rice can't do it alone. But I guess then we'll need to run more which we need to do anyways.

[LBzrule]

It's going to be a hard fought game. As for the Ravens run defense a couple of things from the Bengals game:

1) Ngata played only 32 snaps and when he was out Benson had his biggest runs.
2) There were times where the LB's and DL did not communicate well and ended up covering the same gap, leaving lanes open. That can be corrected.

On whether it will be, we will have to wait until Sunday to see. All I know is Peterson only needs one guy to be undisciplined in his assignments and it is over, it is a TD.

[Wet Bandit]

Quote: Originally Posted by LBzrule

1) Ngata played only 32 snaps and when he was out Benson had his biggest runs.

Interesting. Childress could call some 3-wide sets to make the Ravens think pass and take Ngata out of the game, and then the Vikings could hand the ball to AP with some room to make people miss.

Who am I kidding? When the Vikings want to run, you'll be able to tell because they'll bring in at least 2 TE's and often the FB as well, ensuring that Ngata will be on the field for the majority of AP's runs. After all, that's always Childress' game plan: "There you go, AP, I've got a ton of guys in the box for you. Do one of those freaky things you do for a big play, please."