The Baltimore Ravens offense may be deceptively explosive this season:
The Baltimore Ravens have more offensive fire power than you might think. Jeremy Maclin, Mike Wallace and Breshad Perriman may not be the top wide receiver trio in the NFL, but they’re certainly the fastest. Joe Flacco has a rocket arm. A quarterback with a cannon and three speedy receivers, on face value the Ravens actually have something starting to shape up there.
The Ravens also have guys who they can turn to on big third downs. Danny Woodhead has made his career by being a third down running back who is quite capable as a receiver. Nick Boyle is a big bodied target over the middle of the field and Ben Watson is a speedy tight end that the Ravens can stretch the field with. If Marty Mornhinweg uses all these pieces correctly (which is as big of an if as you get) the Ravens offense could be a big play machine.
The trouble for the Ravens offense is going to be consistency. They could be an offense that struggles to tread water without the big play. If the Ravens live by the deep bomb, they’ll die by it too. Defensive coordinators will make sure to play plenty of cover 3 and cover 4, almost daring Flacco to chip away at their defense slowly.
While that is something that would work for Mornhinweg, who is a west coast offensive coordinator, it doesn’t work for Flacco. Flacco is not a successful dink and dunk quarterback. Flacco is best when he’s aggressive, when he gets rolling out of the pocket and he believes in his arm. None of these things are going to happen in a timing based offense with short passes.
It takes a running game:
Ultimately it boils down to the running game. If the Ravens can run the football, this problem kind of takes care of itself. The Ravens can be a running based offense and they can use a legitimized play-action to get deep balls to their three speedy weapons. Baltimore has three of the best deep threats in the game but they can’t just have Flacco chuck it 60 yards on every play.
The key is to replicate what Gary Kubiak did in 2014 ( I know I’ve been screaming that for a while). It’s like Field of Dreams if you build the right scenario, big plays will come. If the Ravens can get to 4.0 yards per carry on a regular basis, they can lean on their running game. If the Ravens lean on the running game, everything becomes a possibility.
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When the Baltimore Ravens offense gets going, they have some talent to work with. While we shouldn’t expect much in the beginning because of Flacco being rusty and all the injuries, we shouldn’t give them that excuse for the entire season. The offense should start to at least be functional and capable of game changing plays.