"Turning Point" this week had a good take on the Jones play as well. They focused a lot on the Ravens playing more tight man underneath with deep safety coverage, and how that kept Peyton from trying to stretch the field much. That's exactly how I think the Ravens should ALWAYS play guys like Manning and Brady by the way.On the Jones TD, knowing the Ravens had big chunks of yardage to pick up, the Broncos fatally played more of a zone, and didn't really run with the receivers. They all more or less released down field.
If you look at the play right around the time Flacco releases the ball, the Ravens actually had decent numbers on the back end. Del Rio is getting ignored in all of this, but that's something the D.C. has to take an arrow for too. It's honestly not like the Broncos were playing a lot of guys deep and the ball just happened to find one guy who was snoozing... had Flacco thrown long to any of the other two long targets who kept pressing deep, the CBs had already let them go and they'd have been counting on a safety to slide over in time. He could have gone to any of three options and POSSIBLY found a similar result. Jones was the best option of the three because of the angles. It worked out. And the fact that Jones slowed down his route, then picked it up again, helped to flatten out Moore's angle too. When Jones sort of shut it down for a few strides, so did Moore. When he picked it up again, Moore didn't react in time and Jones got by him.
I think the Broncos (and Del Rio) just flat out didn't expect Joe to try to go for the big shot at that point. They seemed to be expecting the Ravens to look for Rice, Pitta, and maybe Boldin to try to grab maybe 30 yards on two plays for set up something from midfield or in over the final few seconds. They all kept using the word "shock" in the post-game interviews... I think they were as shocked that Joe took the "over-the-top" chance on that down as they were with the result. 3rd-and-3, they really seemed to be betting on the Ravens going with a "get the first down here, stop the clock, and then take shots" philosophy.
As much adoration as Dick LeBeau gets, Joe and company beat the Steelers on the road in PIT two years in a row... in situations where the Ravens had the ball in the final minute, needing a TD to win. Both times, on the Housh TD in '10 and the Smith TD in '11, Polamalu was caught up on the play either blitzing or cheating to Ray Rice. In my world, when you're playing to keep an opponent out of the endzone to win the game in the final seconds... I'm lining three or four safeties up at the goal line pre-snap.
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Originally Posted by NCBirdfan
