Entering Sunday’s matchup between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens, things don’t look how they usually do in the heated rivalry.
Granted, both teams are powerhouses in the AFC, have clear identities and play a physical brand of football. There’s just something missing though. That would be the defense of the Baltimore Ravens, which has the NFL’s worst pass defense — by far — this season.
The Ravens are allowing 294.9 passing yards per game, which is 30 yards more than the next closest defense in football, that being Tampa Bay at 264.1 yards per game allowed through the air.
Baltimore will have its hands full against a new-look Steelers offense that pushes the ball down the field with Russell Wilson under center and likes to give wide receivers George Pickens, Calvin Austin III and new acquisition Mike Williams chances to win downfield for explosive plays.
So far this season, the Ravens haven’t had an answer in pass coverage. For ESPN’s Ben Solak, the simple answer for the Ravens’ defense against the Steelers is to blitz, and blitz quite a bit to try and disrupt Wilson’s timing and potentially get the Steelers away from play-action and deep shots.
“So to me, the key for the Ravens in this game, I want to blitz. I want to send a lot of guys at Russ because if I’m going to give up explosives anyway, let’s take advantage of that 3.3 second time to throw. Let’s take advantage of that late 30s quarterback who doesn’t move the way he used to, right?” Solak said, according to video via The Mina Kimes Show on Youtube. “If I’m already going to be giving up big catches to George Pickens against Brandon Stephens, what’s the point of dropping seven?
“You should still do it sometimes, but I wanna ratchet up the blitz rate and I wanna send Malik Harrisons and I wanna send my Trenton Simpsons and my long, fast outside backers. I wanna send my ArDarius Washingtons and some of the guys I wanna hide in coverage. I wanna send those guys at Russ.”
Generating pressure via the blitz could help the Ravens get control on stuff in the secondary where they have been gashed for big play after big play.
By blitzing and forcing quicker throws, it might help the secondary keep a lid on things, assuming the Ravens can tackle well at the catch point and avoid explosive YAC plays. There’s always a risk in that. The more bodies you send at the quarterback, the less bodies you have in coverage.
But it might be worth the trade-off if you’re the Ravens. They haven’t generated much pressure rushing just four or five defenders and haven’t covered all that well even dropping seven and eight defenders into coverage.
We’ll see what the Ravens’ plan is under defensive coordinator Zach Orr against Pittsburgh’s explosive offense because staying with the status quo as they have throughout the first half of the season simply isn’t the answer.
