Raven Wrap, Game 2

September 20, 2004 by Steel Phantom

Game 2, Ravens Wrap:

Raven Wrap:

The Steelers had a chance to put the Ravens down two in the AFC North race, but they spit the bit.� An index of that futility follows:

In their first possession, the Ravens were credited with an 11 play, 90 yard scoring drive but in fact, they had exactly 100 yards total offense as penalties negated some yardage. The Ravens came in a rush:� running 10 times for 89 yards with Todd Heap gathering 1 reception for 11.� That drive set the tone; the Steelers really never recovered.��

Capitalizing on Steelers turnovers, the Ravens scored two more TD.� Their O figured little in those; in fact, Baltimore needed just one yard of total offense to score14 points.� Add in FG drives of 22 and 13 yards the numbers are: 20 points for 36 yards total offense.�

On the game, the PS D allowed 259 yards so, after the Ravens� first possession, just 169.� Some may conclude from this that the PS defense generally played well.� Well maybe but bear in mind that, in possession 3, the Ravens did have a TD called back.� That was a 39-yard pass off fleaflicker play action; Kevin Johnson incurred a motion penalty that really had no bearing on the play.�� Add in a 10 play 64 yard FG drive late, and the numbers for 3 (semi-) legit scoring drives go to 17 points on 3 possessions and something between 203 and 213 yards total offense.� Not great.

In all, the PS defense could be said to have allowed 30 points and about 240 yards total offense over 6 possessions; add in McAlister�s bringback and that�s the outline of an ass-kicking.� Troy Polamalu drew praise for his play but it�s never a good thing when your SS leads the team in tackles.� Early in the week, Coach Cowher had said that Troy would play Todd Heap but here, that was discounted.� As expected, the PS played 8-in-the-box with Polamalu acting as a 5^th LB.� Then too, the Ravens� commitment to the run limited Coach LeBeau�s pressure options; against Oakland, Coach Dick frequently stacked Porter and Haggans on the Raiders� right.� In Baltimore, LeBeau left Porter to deal with Ogden all day long and unsurprisingly, the big LT got the better of that match.� A couple other notes:

Pre-season, there was a lot of talk about how teams around the league were adopting the 3-4.� Well, if pressure is a factor in that then fronts hardly mattered Sunday.� Two 3-4 teams combined for six sacks with the Ravens getting four and the Steelers two.� Of those six, four were recorded by DBs; Townsend had one, three different Raven DBs the others.�

In Week 1, the PS D limited the weak-running Raiders to 61 yards rushing but allowed 297 through the air.� In Week 2, the PS D limited the flightless Ravens to 87 yards passing but gave 172 on the ground.�� To date, they�ve yet to stop the stronger aspect of any opponents� O.� However, it is worth noting that Jamal Lewis was just 24/62.� Big plays factored in the Raven run total as Baltimore got 76 yards rushing on just 3 of 41 trips.� Cutback ace Chester Taylor had runs of 35 and 22; Boller scrambled for 17.

The Ravens rushed for 4.2 YPC; they passed for 4.3 YPA.

On the other side of the ball:

The Steelers� first 5 possessions ended with 4 punts and a missed FG; certainly, TOP factored heavily in the early going.� Field position too as, in the 1^st half, Chris Gardocki had 3 punts fielded at the Baltimore 45, 48 and 45.�� Not good as those Gardocki punts traveled 33, 32 and 35 yards.� On the day, Gardocki had a creditable 40.9 average but that�s off a 54 yarder on his last, when the Ravens� had 11 men at the LOS; probably, the ball rolled about 20 of those 54 but that�s not the point.� Gardocki�s first 6 punts traveled a total of 231 yards, or 38.4 gross; the Ravens brought those back 82 yards, or an average of 13.7.� So, Gardocki�s net was a pathetic 24.7; had the Ravens not drawn unsportsmanlike penalties for 30 yards in all (about the length of one Gardocki boomer), the Steelers� field position would have been much, much worse.�

Much was made of the Steelers� resurgent run game but so far they�ve averaged 3.4 yards per carry.� Last year, the number was 3.3.� On the plus side, Duce Staley is at 3.7, which trumps the YPC achieved by either of the 2003 Steelers� lead RB.� On the downside, the Steelers have rushed just 58 times in two games.� That�s on pace for 464 over 16 games, little improvement over last year�s 446.�

Two Steeler QB have gotten off 55 passes so quite obviously the PS are attempting something approaching a 50/50 balance.� That�s good but on the downside, the PS O-line has allowed 6 sacks to date.� That�s on pace on 48 over 16 games; more to the point, it�s a rate of 9.8%.� To put that in perspective: the league average is something around 6.4%; the dominating Steeler D of 2001 recorded 9.5%.� Small sample size for sure but the trend isn�t good.��

Ben Roethlisberger figures to start next week.� Roethlisberger had a fair debut statistically going 12 for 20 for 176 yards with 2 TD and 2 INT.� That�s a passer rating of 80.4, which isn�t bad (although it�s just a couple points higher than Maddox�s much maligned opening performance).� However, had Ed Reed held onto a very easy INT, then Ben wouldn�t have made the TD pitch to ARE and his numbers would have been: 10/19, 115 yards with 1 TD and 3 INT.� That�s a passer rating of 22.9.

In Week 1, the PS D won on the basis of 2 INT, 3 sacks and 5 FF.� Sunday, the Raven D won on the basis of 2 INT, 4 sacks and 1 FF.� That�s the way it is, that�s the way it goes.�

Steelers� performance on the prime indicators:

�

	Steeler W/L	Remarks	Predictive Value
+2 takeaways	1-1	After opening +3, the Steelers are +/- 0 on the season	2 for 2: 100%
RZ trips	1-1		2 for 2:100%
+2 sacks	0-1	Steelers were +1 in the opener, -2 in Game 2.�	1 for 1: 100%
Rushing attempts	1-1		2 for 2: 100%
YPA	1-1	Steelers limited Ravens to 4.3	0 for 2: 0%
TOP	0-2	Steelers are averaging 28:05	1 for 2: 50%
3^rd down conversions	2-0	Steelers have won this stat in both; Steeler D has allowed just 10/30 on 3^rd down but 2/2 on 4th.	1 for 2: 50%
Adjusted Total Offense	1-1	Raiders won this stat, Ravens lost.�	0 for 2: 0%

Note: Steeler W/L describes their performance with respect to that indicator, not the game.

Appendix: previous stat observations

	Years�� Observed	Composite Record	WF	Remarks
+2 takeaways	2	214-23	1.81	A killer stat with a WF translating to 14 wins in 16 games.� However, this occurs in only 46% of all games.
RZ trips	1	139-33	1.62	A function of field position, which is to say offense, takeaways and ST returns.� RZ efficiency is more frequently cited but that had a WF of just 1.30 last season
+2 sacks	1	101-28	1.57	A composite of sacks and pressures would be preferable but pressure stats aren�t kept.� Therefore, this is an approximation of the effects of overall pressure.� Occurred in about 50% of all games in 2003.
Rushing attempts	1	193-49-14	1.56	A better indicator than either total yards rushing (WF 1.40) or 100-yard rushers (WF 1.39).�
YPA	2	370-112-16	1.52	A measure of passing efficiency to include protection.�
TOP	2	352-142-2	1.42	Time of possession, misleading in that some bad offenses play slow.
3^rd down conversions	1	175-75-6	1.39
Total Offense	1	169-81-6	1.34	Not a great indicator, adjusted total yards (offense yards + return yards- penalty yards) probably is a truer test.

Note to new readers:

WF represents winning factor; it is an index figure derived by dividing the number of wins by � all games played.� Ties are counted as half a win.�� It�s clear enough then that, say, a 1.50 factor translates to 12 wins in a 16 game season (12/8 = 1.50).� That represents a dead-sure first round bye and, to the extent that SB trips are correlated with first rounds byes, that�s your number.� Or maybe 1.375 as 11/8 =1.375, with 11 wins being about the minimum for bye teams.�

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