The Ravens ran their most extreme offensive game plan of the season, with consistent use of a 6-man offensive line, commonly unbalanced, and had a number of 2 and 3-man patterns designed to simplify the passing game and keep Joe Flacco upright.  The alignments kept James Harrison a non-factor, but Aaron Smith and Travis Kirschke had big games.  For a 2nd consecutive game, Flacco threw poorly on the plays where he had good time.

The offensive line had a good overall game, but that comes with the caveat that they were assigning an eligible receiver to play as a 6th OL for a number of plays.  On a positive note, the Ravens did not suffer a single loss on a running play, and allowed only 2 sacks and 2 QHs vs. one of the league’s best pass rushes.

Individual Notes:

Gaither:  Continues to play well.  Whoever lined up as the far left man on the offensive line had Harrison as an assignment and consistently did a fine job of riding him to the ground or directing him around Flacco.  Gaither had 4 level 2 blocks and is showing no effects from the shoulder injury.  Scoring: 57/61 blocks, 4 missed, 57 points (.93 per play).

Grubbs:  Ben was selected by PFW to their All-Pro team.  Harbaugh has been similarly complimentary when describing his play this season.  I don’t watch any other team’s guards with the same level of scrutiny, but while he is agile and has a solid upside, he’s the Ravens 3rd best lineman, behind both Brown and Gaither.  If I were to list his strengths and weaknesses, I’d say:

Strengths:  Mobile.  Pulls very well with good field vision and is effective getting to, and finding a target in, level 2.  Good pass blocker, who does not give ground easily, but needs to identify assignment shifts better.

Weaknesses:  Misses too often at the point of attack.  Run push is only average.

He’s still playing just his 2nd season and should improve his technique issues.  My scoring system is particularly poor at identifying the quality of run blocks, but it does identify the misses and it’s good for pass blocking.  It also forces me to watch every play several times and form some subjective judgments.  His average scores haven’t been as good as Gaither, nor nearly as good as Jason Brown, but most of the difference is due to some truly bad games (10/12, 11/2. 11/9).  Another site with rankings for other guards is profootballfocus.com.  If you look there by position, you’ll see Ben is actually ranked as one of the worst run blockers among all guards. 

Assuming the line can be kept together next season, this is a group that will have tremendous depth with 2 right-side spots in play between Chester, Yanda, Anderson, and Terry.  Grubbs found a block on 9 of 11 pulls but made just 1 block in level 2.  Scoring:  53/61 blocks, 8 missed, 1 QH, 49 points (.80 per play)

Brown:  Willie Anderson was called for a false start when the entire line jumped (Q3,8:02), but from the look of it (in particular, the fact that Anderson jumped at the exact same instant as the rest of the linemen), Brown forgot the snap count, so I have assigned the penalty to him for scoring purposes.  Brown and Chester both did a good job moving Hampton, but I counted only 1 level 2 block for Brown, well below his norm, so I’d say he was very focused on staying with his blocks on #98.  Scoring 57/61 blocks, 4 missed, 1 false start, 54 points (.89 per play).

Chester:  Chester pulled just 4 times, finding a block on 3, which is amazing considering the fact that the Ravens lined up unbalanced to the left side 20 (twenty!) times with either 5 or 6 linemen and those plays frequently include an additional pull left or right.  He led the team with 5 level 2 blocks.  Scoring:  56/61 blocks, 1 false start, ½ sack, 49 points (.80 per play).

Anderson:  Willie lined up on the left side on a large number of plays Sunday.  It’s no wonder he “was confused” as Coleman mentioned when the illegal formation was considered.  Anderson was a major contributor to the control of Harrison.  He had a level 2 block and for the 2nd straight week, he may have got away with a chop block (Q4, 14:15).  Scoring: 59/61, 2 missed, 1 false start, ½ sack, 53 points (.87 per play).

Terry:  Played well in 6-man line formations and helped in the containment of Harrison.  Made 19 of 20 blocks without other serious errors (.95 per play).

Other Notes:

·         Ngata did not see action on offense.  

·         The Ravens ran a 6-man or unbalanced line 27 times broken down as follows:

·         5-Man Unbalanced Left:  6 plays, 16 yards

·         5-Man Unbalanced Right:  1 play, 5 yards

·         6-Man:  20 plays, 76 yards.  This included 7 pass plays (1 a sack for -11)

·         I did not charge 1 of the Steelers 2 sacks to the offensive line (Q4, 4:28).  McGahee missed the block on Timmons, but he did recover Flacco’s fumble.