The key to this game is to stop Ray Rice. Rice contributes 35% of the entire offense. He leads the Ravens in rushing yards and is tied for the team lead in receptions and Touchdowns. We did extremely well against Rice last year in the opener and will likely look to employ some of the same tactics we used in that game. It will be crucial for us to stop Rice if we are going to have a change to go into Baltimore and come away with a win.
He is a force to be reckon with. As it is about stopping the best player on both offense and defense, which is Ray Lewis.
We held Ray Rice to about 60 total yards last year. The key to this game is on the other side of the ball.
Agreed. If we can give Sanchez adequate time to throw the ball and not have Ngata kill him. We win. Its all about our O line this game. Our defense will hold their WRs and Ray Rice in check. The only thing we have to really worry about are their tight ends. And lets face it, if stopping a tight end is your biggest problem (and that tight end isn't Gates, Davis, Clark, GronkNandez) then you shouldn't be too worried. If we can score 21 points this game I think we end up winning.
Just because we played well against Rice Last Year does not guarantee success this year. I hope we utilize the same tactics we used last year, but that doesn't mean it will work like it did last year. Either way he is still the key to the Ravens offense.
No, you're right, it doesn't. But we went into the 2010 game with the same mentality: our corners will take the receivers out of the game, so we stop Rice and get a win. I know that game was kind of fluky, but we had a stronger running game in 2010. Cody wasn't a factor last year and we had Mangold at 100%. I'm not entirely confident that the Ravens can't win this game with two scoring drives.
if revis was healthy and played on boldin the entire game last year, they might have been shutout. flacco threw for something like 160 yards and 120 went to boldin.
The Ravens struggled in general to run the ball last season (not just against us). They've got Vonta Leach now so we shouldn't assume that we'll be able to bottle Rice up as well as we did last year. On the other hand, while Rice is very good, he's not quite the perimeter runner that Darren McFadden is. A lot of those runs by McFadden that hurt us last week were on the outside. Ray Rice is typically more of an inside runner, which we seem to be more equipped to defend against (although he can still hurt us on screens). In the end, I think our defense matches up very well against the Ravens offense. Lock down their outside receivers (Boldin and Smith) and we should be able to focus on stopping Rice. The X factor(s) for the Ravens on offense, in my opinion, are the tight ends. Ed Dickson and Dennis Pitta are both potential threats since our struggles at covering the tight end position are well documented. In the end, I expect a low scoring game.
We stopped Ray Rice last season and we still lost. It would be nice if we can score on there defense.
The defense has been inconsistent but it's the OLine I worry about. The defense is many of the same pieces that contributed to our top 5 defenses last two years. Hunter, Slauson, and Baxter worry me.
Lets beat these fuckers, we had them beat last year until Shonne Greene fumbled it, then Braylon ran into the kicker.....
Nope. The Ravens best player is Haloti Ngata, and it's not even that close. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that Ngata is the best defensive lineman in football. The key to this game is offensive line play. If the Jets can find a way to move the ball on the ground and control the clock, then they will force the Ravens to throw the ball and I like our matchups against Boldin and Smith. Even more importantly, we have to find a way to give Sanchez some time to throw. If #6 spends all night running for his life from Ngata and Suggs, we are not going to win this game.
My prediction today, Pats get slaughtered by Oakland while the Jets keep Flacco guessing all night and win a close game with a time running out field goal.
