Ravens News 10/8: Reconfiguring the secondary, ineffective blitzing and more

Defensive Notes vs Steelers 10/6/19 - Ken McKusick

Pass Rush

The Ravens allowed ATS to Rudolph/Hodges on just 11 of 32 (34%) pass plays, but also allowed 9 other passes where the ball was out quickly, but the pocket did not appear as if it would have held up for 3 full seconds.

For the season, the Ravens have been more effective rushing numbers, but the trend was reversed versus the Steelers, who beat the Ravens 6+ man rushes for 9.5 yards per play (76 yards on 8 plays). In the first 4 weeks, the Ravens allowed just 3.8 YPP when rushing 6+ (72 yards on 19 plays).

In terms of deceptive elements, Martindale called 18 individual blitzes from off the line of scrimmage, 4 stunts, and had 2 or more drop to coverage on 5 occasions. Of the Steelers 32 pass plays, Martindale ran 7 deceptive rushes which tells me not only that he preferred to create forced errors from Rudolph/Hodges, but also that he was not confident in the Ravens ability to get home with vanilla schemes.

Ravens must reconfigure backfield after losing Jefferson - David Ginsburg

“It’s not ideal. It’s not what we would have chosen,” Harbaugh said. “Tony Jefferson obviously is the heart and soul of us. He’s a leader, he’s a great player. Just a high-energy player. He’s a guy that flies around, makes plays. He’s a communicator for us in the back end. So those are going to be challenging things (to replace).”

The void will be filled by a pair of former sixth-round draft picks, Chuck Clark and DeShon Elliott. The coaching staff will also need to find someone else to wear the headset through which the play calls are relayed from the sideline.

Ravens Add Former Colts Defensive Lineman to 53-Man Roster - Clifton Brown

With a roster spot to fill following safety Tony Jefferson’s season-ending knee injury, the Ravens have signed former Indianapolis Colts defensive tackle Jihad Ward to their 53-man roster.

Listed at 6-foot-5, 290 pounds, Ward is only 25 years old and has 36 tackles, four sacks and one fumble recovery in 27 career NFL games.

With another game-winner, Ravens’ Justin Tucker aiming for ‘legendary’ status - Jamison Hensley

Tucker, meanwhile, is the most accurate kicker of all-time, converting 90.4 percent of his field-goal attempts (247-of-273). Since Tucker entered the NFL, the average success rate is 84.4 percent (with minimum of 100 tries). At Heinz Field, Tucker has made 24-of-25 (96 percent) of his field goals while visiting kickers have a mediocre 79.3 percent success rate there since it was built in 2001.

“There’s always nerves, butterflies, whatever you want to call it,” Tucker said. “I’d go so far to say, in the smallest bit of time there, terror. But at the end of the day, none of that matters. You can be equal parts nervous, scared, confident, excited and none of it really matters, if that makes sense. All that matters is those 1.3 second between the snap, the hold and when the ball leaves my foot -- just doing our jobs.”