The Defensive Line Has Not Gotten Much Pressure In The Backfield In the Baltimore Ravens First Two Preseason Games:
After two preseason wins, the Baltimore Ravens have been looking pretty good. There’s a lot to be hopeful about for the 2016 season. The run game looks solid, the wide receiver corps looks good, and most of the defense has been great. The one issue the Ravens are going to need to address if they want to have success this season is the defensive interior.
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In the first two preseason games, the weakest unit on the field has been the defensive line. While they look good on paper, something obviously just isn’t gelling. When the starters were on the field, they couldn’t get any pressure on Andrew Luck this week or Cam Newton last week.
This shouldn’t be the case. Brandon Williams is one of the most underrated players in the game right now. Timmy Jernigan has all the talent in the world. Brent Urban is… well we haven’t really seen enough of a healthy Brent Urban to know exactly how good he is. He has, however, shown flashes of greatness. All together, this unit should be great, so what’s stopping them from having success?
I obviously don’t think the problem here is lack of talent. It seems more like lack of chemistry. When you watch a great defensive line, you see a bunch of different players acting as one unit. These past two preseason games, that hasn’t been the case. These guys have all of the talent and skill needed to be great, but they need to learn to work as one rather than individuals.
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Hopefully it’s just a case of vanilla defensive game planning and preseason rust. If the Ravens want to have a chance at making the playoffs this year they’re going to need to find a way to stop the run up front and get pressure on the QB.