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Matchups: Offense vs Colts · Filmstudy - Baltimore Ravens Talk

• 0:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hi folks.
• 0:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to the episode of Film Study.
• 0:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is Ken Beccusi, and it's time for our second matchup show of the week, this one on the offense.
• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: As they face the Indianapolis Coltson week one, joining me as always is my co-host Frazier to far.
• 0:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Frazier, how you doing?
• 0:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Doing good, Ken, glad to be back on for the offensive show.
• 0:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Had a great defensive show really going over the Ravens linebackers and seeing how they can do in the run game and in the past game.
• 0:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Trying to keep up how with the streak to have last year with Broke Juan and Trent and Simpson just trying to keep double-met him going.
• 0:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then really trying to see if there's some pressure and situational past rush.
• 0:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: can get to the colds veteran pass protection really strong offensive lines.
• 0:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: So trying to see if all the training and different mastermind techniques that just the memory brings to the table can be effective on week one.
• 0:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.
• 0:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's certainly a very talented set of receivers that the Ravens are dealing with.
• 0:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: This will be an interesting week for a lot of reasons to see a lot of things that we don't know, scheme wise about both the offense and the defense, but on the defensive side of the ball, one of them is going to be a cornerbacks travel because this seems to be an ideal week for it with Wiggins for peers and Humphrey for an older veteran receiver like Keenan Allen's would seem to make a lot of sense.
• 1:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if they'll do it, but it'll be interesting, and of course, how they deal with the offensive line and the run game will be key as well.
• 1:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: But let's turn it to the offense now, and I'll start us off with the first, which is Declan Deweil versus Lou Hennerumo.
• 1:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: So these guys, you know,
• 1:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Luena Rumo is well-known by the Ravens in general, not necessarily by the Ravens' coaches now that they've had the big changes, but Declan Doyle gets a chance with a veteran defensive coordinator here.
• 1:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: One thing about this defense is that the Colts front line players are quite talented.
• 1:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're top two past wrestlers and they're in divorce Buckner and
• 1:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: the Grover Stewart are very talented.
• 2:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Their second line players are not particularly good.
• 2:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't mean they're level two players, because they've good second area as well.
• 2:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean that they don't really have a lot of depth on defense.
• 2:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: So one of the things I want to see the Ravens do is win snap count to leverage fatigue in this game.
• 2:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's something the Ravens failed to do in 2025.
• 2:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: They had an offense which was really more hunting for explosive plays and they were perfectly fine at that.
• 2:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: short yardage situations, they had some barbelled results that led us in bad early down plays that put them in a hole, and they're also a little a lot more willing to Go for a big play on first down and on first down and on second and short to medium is where you make a lot of your decisions about how lengthy you want your drive to be
• 2:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do you really want to hunt explosives then, or do you want to try and grind out first downs and get the defense huffin and puffin and hands on hips and whatnot in a way I really love to say?
• 2:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: One thing that really helps with that is if you have aggressiveness on fourth down.
• 3:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you think back to that 2019 team, they went for it a lot on fourth down.
• 3:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: They were also very successful at it.
• 3:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: But anytime you can extend drives like that, a fourth down itself is one more defense
• 3:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: defensive log in terms of difficulty maintaining their wind, so you really want to have some good fourth down gambles and oftentimes the plays may be even worth more than the fractional points.
• 3:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to say it's worth more than three points that's silly, but is it worth more than the fractional point, one say a point expectation you might lose from something it might be.
• 3:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: that the extra plays are really worth more than that.
• 3:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: They need to make you a spacing and the weapons they have to grind out first downs on the plays underneath, I think, in particular, and that also includes play action, so I'm not talking about just underneath the linebackers.
• 3:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm also talking underneath the safeties between that L2L3 spot where a lot of play action throws go, leveraged the Lamar Henry mesh point, and
• 4:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: and bring a high level of deception back to the Raven's offense via it.
• 4:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: So they want to, you know, you want to keep them guessing run our pass every play.
• 4:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: You want to keep them guessing keep or give every play and hopefully Lamar can have the kind of game and have the kind of impact on the game that he's had in past years.
• 4:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the other thing you need to do that's very important is Luena Rumo is a guy who tried to crowd the light of Scrimmage against the Ravens multiple times before he's with the Bengals and they need to have a way to combat that when that shows up.
• 4:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's what it's like a critical thing.
• 4:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: We talked about, you know, easy reads for Lamar came up and camp a lot from Declan Doyle.
• 4:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and given the easy first reads and then he can still extend the play.
• 4:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to take that away from him, but those easy first reads, those easy hot reads.
• 4:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: when Lamar has a crowded line of scrimmage critically important to making sure and a rumo can't just, you know, said the dogs after and play after play with, you know, seven or eight guys at the line of scrimmage and give Lamar a very hard time that way.
• 5:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I think really I'm curious to see how they do balance that explosive attack approach and then grind it out in that your regular game script.
• 5:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's going to be tough in terms of how Declan's going to approach it, only because not saying that his age is going to be a factor,
• 5:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Usually younger coaches are going to be more aggressive in their approach in terms of how they're going to see the game.
• 5:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I could see him really trying to take his shots on first in 10 near the midline, which he should be doing or right before the 40.
• 5:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Those kind of things can cause the snap count to be skewed one way towards the other team.
• 5:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: We've seen that in the years past with this really explosive offense that we've usually had.
• 6:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: But again, I think how do you, it's just for me, where can they build upon what they saw in Minnesota from, um,
• 6:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: What's his name?
• 6:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: The great for us.
• 6:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 6:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: How can they build upon the pressure they saw with him and bringing into this game with Anna Rumo who does show not the same, but pretty much he bought a line of scrimmage and dropping out and being able to decipher who's coming and who's not.
• 6:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, and the, sorry, next point, I have the Ravens new starting offensive line versus the
• 6:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: really the biggest matchup we're going to see on the offense this week.
• 6:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know we want to see the past countries and things in nature, but it doesn't do mean anything unless we see how the offensive line operates and he's first couple of drives.
• 6:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're going to see how.
• 7:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: You want to can handle a forced-like buckner, a formidable NFL D-line, then whose multi-proboller, I think he's been an all-pro before, he's going to be able to get into the work early, Jervon Gwyn, as well.
• 7:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Those two have to be able to be in unison.
• 7:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Then John Simpson, can we see him prove that from years past, can we at least get?
• 7:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: no penalties this game.
• 7:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that would be a good benchmark for him.
• 7:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then obviously Stanley and Rosa Garden, trying to see if they can continue last year's success, but trying to sustain some improvement as well.
• 7:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Really looking for a bigger step from
• 7:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Roger Rosengarten in terms of just him being a third year, getting more weight on him, more grow men strength and should be more capable of being able to cover up that edge and really don't want to see drop off from Stanley that we're hoping for, hoping he can continue to stay stable for this year at least.
• 8:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I would agree.
• 8:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the any surprise we get from Ronnie Stanley is probably going to be a bad one.
• 8:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we don't want to surprise us of any sort and this is this is going to be a fascinating game.
• 8:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, for I don't think the Ravens have ever been more zone focused than they will be this year with with, you know, what they do with leadford and it's going to be very interesting to see exactly how he.
• 8:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: schemes up the run game and how these, you know, offensive linemen deliver on it is very, very in your face, loud, coach and different in a lot of ways from Joe D, but but also similar in the sense that they watch individual reps and they're very much into specific technical focus.
• 8:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: And led for, is very impressive as, as a coach and I hope he, he brings something really new.
• 9:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: and it spent a lot of Steve Bishotti's money to bring in here.
• 9:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think it should pay off, and it's already kind of got a dividend being paid off with the fact that Javanque win is going to start game one at center.
• 9:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I think that's the real indicator that A, they probably didn't want him to go in down, but they have real good tendency, and someone who's growing up in his system, and those had to run his system, and the line calls and everything that's
• 9:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like the reports out of Minnesota weren't the best in terms of the pressure coming in and they have a great defense as well.
• 9:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I just I'm hoping that this game they can really just Show us that they're in a good spot and then we don't have to potentially do some shopping before deadline.
• 9:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I was it was certainly a problem.
• 9:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: early in the Minnesota game.
• 9:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think you're probably talking about the joint practice, but exactly yeah, but early in the Minnesota game, uh, Minnesota still had a couple of their guys in there.
• 10:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: They, they, uh, uh, we're getting a lot of pressure on Huntley and Huntley did a great job of running for his life and, uh, again, you know,
• 10:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: All right, I'll move on to my next point.
• 10:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's that the Ravens, the Mar Henry Mesh point versus the Colts inside linebackers.
• 10:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: And this is a matter of creating the level two opportunities, both first contact is important, and also throws over the underneath defenders.
• 10:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: I talked about it briefly in the other part, but the Colts inside linebacker group is potentially
• 10:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: not very good.
• 10:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let's put it that way.
• 10:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: They flush the toilet on a very weak group from last year.
• 10:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: They have three new off-ball line backers as well.
• 10:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean by that.
• 10:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: A team Davis Gator, we know fairly well from the division, but he was in Arizona last year.
• 10:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: We had a lot of 8.6 yards per target in coverage and he remains a fairly mediocre tackle.
• 10:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: In a lot of ways, he was a guy that was brought in
• 11:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: stop Lamar Jackson, but that really hasn't come through it is to create a guy who definitely can be exploited, both with the run and with the pass.
• 11:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's often will take an extra read step and Lamar needs to try and figure out how to take advantage of that.
• 11:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Brace Betcher is a 24-year-old rookie round four 135 at Oregon who allowed just a four and a half yards per target in his final college season.
• 11:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's terrific.
• 11:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: He had an uninspiring 3.3 to one stops to miss tackle ratio, just 36 to 11.
• 11:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: A slow on the stops, the miss tackles are not terrible, but they're also not what I would expect from a
• 11:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: pro-bound college inside linebacker, particularly a draftable one.
• 11:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: And just I would not expect him to show up like he really is ready to play pro ball in this first NFL game.
• 11:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then Mike, they have CJ Allen, there's another rookie round two, number 53 out of Georgia.
• 11:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: He does have an exceptional stop to Miss Tackle Ratio, his ability to stop the run at the pro level, which will be tested in this very first game against Derek Henry, is going to be one of the big telling points in this game, but he's also about 8.0 yards per target in his career.
• 12:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, that Lamar Henry Mesh Point,
• 12:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: causes inside linebackers to step additionally downhill for multiple reasons.
• 12:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: They may be stepping to stop Lamar and we've seen a lot of teams, particularly the NFC teams, make a lot of mistakes versus Lamar, because they they run themselves out of position.
• 12:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: That was true that entire NFCE did that 2020 season in particular did a lot of that.
• 12:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then I think also play action should be effective against this group.
• 12:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: A couple of rookies are in there.
• 12:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure they're going to try and run from under center affair amount.
• 12:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: They don't even have to run their play action that way.
• 12:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: They can run it through the mesh point and throw Which the Ravens have occasionally done at times they usually don't go all the way out of the mesh point They just flash it to the mesh point and even that should be effective.
• 13:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: I would take against a couple of rookie and so I'd line backers And that's one of the things I'm hoping a matchup that the Ravens can win in this game
• 13:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I think like he said, that mesh point can really exploit middle of the defense and up the play action fake game didn't really Go case mark Andrews and I think we're going to see a lot of
• 13:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: If we are in a pistol or in the eye formation under center, uh, we could see Smith, who could be the quote, don't clearly block her for Henry, and we could see a lot of those, go routes from that spot, that full back spot, causing more issue for linebackers in that case.
• 13:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: So really excited to see what's what's in the bag for Doyle and that aspect with the mesh point.
• 13:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And there is a theory that
• 13:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: we do want to attack with read option as much as we can in the beginning just to let the league know that it is in the in the bag in terms of we can go to it still an option but continue to build on what we want new for the offense moving forward.
• 14:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
• 14:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, there's there's going to be people who will either consider this a referendum on Lamar Jackson running the football.
• 14:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: It is not, okay?
• 14:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: The cults largely dictate whether or not Lamar Jackson is going to run the football in two ways.
• 14:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: First of all, how they line up pre-snap, in which case Lamar may see easier ways to burn the defense and take them.
• 14:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: And second of all, out of the mesh point, if the end is really more concerned about Lamar Jackson and hitting him, Lamar Jackson's going to give the ball a lot, and people because, well, Lamar,
• 14:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: that it's just a choice of the opposing team really.
• 14:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's not a passing pass, probably made up for those running stats and same breath.
• 14:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Alright, so moving on to my next point, I have the Ravens schedules, I'm sorry, Ravens on schedule past game versus the Colts past average.
• 15:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Really emphasis this summer, even by the more himself is that they just want to be on schedule talking about how his footwork is.
• 15:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Got better in terms of just working with the offense, able to get to the reads, not just sitting on his back foot.
• 15:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that was the issue.
• 15:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Really since 2019, after 2019, 2020, and beyond, he would come into the year, new footwork set, being able to bring in what he learned for the off season, and then the offensive line kind of lets him down the beginning of the year, any of those goes back to those old habits that are able to save him at the end of the day.
• 15:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: The only year since then is probably 23, where he's been under less arrest
• 15:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: consistently stay poised in the pocket all year with a good footwork, but ever since then he hasn't been able to stay in on that aspect of his game all year.
• 16:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: So really hoping that the offensive line can give him confidence in the beginning of the year all the way through.
• 16:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we can see him at his best during football and that starts with on schedule looking for Rashad bait and specifically whether it's in the slot, which we're probably going to see a lot this year.
• 16:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's made a note that his outside usage was probably overdue in terms of not being moved in and out of the lineup.
• 16:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then really looking for Jacobi Lane to be a big threat over
• 16:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I really, obviously, continuation is a game.
• 16:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: The number one guy that we're paying 140 now.
• 16:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then seeing if handers can still be the guy for the middle that we need.
• 16:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: I want to go back to Lamar's footwork for a minute because this has been a real topic of interest this summer.
• 16:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: They've changed Lamar and Israel Woolfork is his new quarterback's coach, extremely impressive guy at the podium, by the way, and he's changed Jackson to be a left-footed quarterback.
• 17:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: What that means is when Jackson is in the shotgun and look for this against the cults, because if they've abandoned it, it's going to be really interesting.
• 17:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: His left foot should be forward.
• 17:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now what that means is, and he's typically been a right-footed guy, right-foot
• 17:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: what the tip is no right or wrong way.
• 17:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's been great quarterbacks who've been left foot of guys and right foot of guys.
• 17:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: But the the quicker passing game is generally favored by the left footed guys because you can you can make an adjustment and more quickly get you throw off with the the left footed guys also give away less to cornerbacks who know what to look for.
• 17:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: At least that's the general
• 17:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: thought process here that right-footed guys often they'll take a bigs first step back or a big Step back that gives away their throw more when they're right-footed So it's interesting and I I just not something I knew anything, but I've done a fair amount of reading on it since and it's It's out there on a fair number of sources.
• 18:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'd encourage people to take a look at it But Lamar is a left-footed quarterback is definitely gonna be something I'm looking for a game one
• 18:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and really just see how it works for the run game to with the handoffs, the how if his exchange with Henry is a continue to be smooth and that aspect as well.
• 18:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's interesting because he may give away something about the possibility of not being RPO with his footwork in fact, which would be interesting, but they'll have to they'll have to I'm sure be be cognizant of that.
• 18:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yep, you guys can reach me on Twitter slash x at f underscore rave eight.
• 18:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's f underscore r a v eight.
• 18:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: All right, all right.
• 18:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: The folks out there, please use film study mail bag at gmail.com for your questions.
• 18:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: We had a ton come in.
• 18:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're thinking of probably having a weekly show just for questions.
• 18:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you'd like that, we may do it live at some point this year, but we really appreciate the questions in any case.
• 19:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're the fuel for for that kind of activity and and honestly,
• 19:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: makes me feel really good about the work we do that people care enough with questions to send that in.
• 19:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I appreciate you a lot.
• 19:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Frazier and I will be back every week.
• 19:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to try and do the match-up show a little bit earlier in the week and push the know your foe show to a little later in the week.
• 19:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because I think that's the kind of the order that Ravens fans care about, at least that shows up really in the lessons from last years.
• 19:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think we're going to do it that way this year.
• 19:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate you, but please look for both shows as well as all the others on filmstudyballdemore.com or your favorite podcast platform.
• 19:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: For a Frazier to part, this is Ken Bikusik's Angabe.
• 19:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: We'll talk to you next time.
• 19:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: on matchups.