As an act of prostest against the very sloppy Ravens vs. Jets game on Sunday night, By the Numbers has decided to ‘Suit Up‘ for a formal Week Four Review. This week we’ll discuss the game in the context of the advanced metric Win Probability Added (WPA). An explanation of WPA starts with the definition on Win Probability (WP). WP is the probability that a team wins the game given the current score, field position, down and distance. For example, at the start of the 2nd quarter, a team down by 3 points with 1st and 10 at midfield will win 46% of the time, a 0.46 WP. WPA is the difference in win probability (WP) between the start of the play and the end of the play. That difference is then credited/debited to the two teams. Because the chance of one team winning the game is directly related to the opponent’s chance of winning, the WP of the two teams always adds to 1.0. Thus, at the end of the game the winning team has a WP of 1.0 and the losing team has a WP of 0.0. The graph below shows WPA plotted as a function of time for the Ravens game against the Jets. The graph is taken from the excellent website, Advanced NFL Stats. The annotations are my own and are explained in the table below the graph. A fully interactive version of the graph is available here.
A quarter of the way in, Ray Rice’s 2011 season may not look like much at first glance. The 24 year-old Raven running back is averaging 74.3 yards per game on the ground. In his three seasons as a full-time starter, this is actually his worst rushing average on a per-game basis. Forget what the numbers show at first glance, 2011 is, and is going to be Rice’s best season as a pro. Oh by the way, his contract is up.
When you look at Rice’s rushing yards per game, or even his respectable yards per carry (4.5), you find him in the upper-middle echelon of runners this season. Darren McFadden, Maurice Jones-Drew, Adrian Peterson, and even Fred Jackson have thrown up more impressive mileage in the ground game thus far. If you go beyond the basic metrics, neither of Football Outsiders‘ advanced running back metrics (DVOA and DYAR) have Rice in their top five. READ MORE >>>
Mark Sanchez got thrown around by the Ravens all night. Haloti Ngata gave him a shot that in slow motion made him look like a crash test dummy. I can’t help but grin a little while writing about it.
Jets head coach Rex Ryan understood that Sanchez struggled in front of a national audience saying, “it wasn’t his best day, that’s for sure.” Ryan added “We got it handed to us.”
During last night’s Ravens/Jets game, Mark Sanchez took a beating all night from the Ravens defense. Here’s video from the 2nd quarter shot that Haloti Ngata put on Sanchez that forced a fumble and a touchdown for the Ravens.
I can already tell that Cam Cameron has that look in his eye. That crazed ‘I know what it will take for this offense to succeed, but let’s see how fancy we can look on national t.v.’ look. …Yeah, Cam’s look has a long name.
Reports out at the Castle in Owings Mills have indicated that Cam squared has been giving Terrell Suggs reps on the offense. Suggs was the league’s week one DEFENSIVE player of the week. Defense. He plays against the offense.
Jeff Zrebiec of The Sun reports that Suggs has been in as a fullback in Baltimore’s offense in what he’s calling “The Suggs Package.” Clever.
Cam put the blame on Sizzle saying it was all his idea. ”I guess he got tired of asking to be a tight end, so we’ll stick him in there at fullback,” Cameron told The Sun’s Ed Lee. I’ve never been a big fan of the Ngata package so needless to say, I’m not overly excited about seeing Suggs lineup behind Joe Flacco.
Isn’t that why the Ravens went out and got Vonta Leach?
Get used to this Baltimore. You’ll be seeing a lot of it over the next five years.
To cap off an already dominant performance by the Ravens defense, Ray Lewis stripped Rams quarterback Sam Bradford and Haloti Ngata picked up the ball and took it to the house.
How’s that for a rebound? The Ravens stormed into St. Louis looking to prove that they’re the week one, not the week (or weak) two Ravens and did just that with a dominant 37-7 win over the Rams. The Ravens controlled the game from the get go by pounding the Rams defense in the air and on the ground and by putting serious pressure on the second year quarterback Sam Bradford.
Here are my thoughts on the Ravens week three win against the Rams.
Offensive juggernaut – It was a highlight reel type day for the Ravens offense. Joe Flacco threw for 389 yards and found Torrey Smith in the end zone three times. Ray Rice rushed for 79 yards on eight carries and caught five passes for 83 yards. The Ravens netted a franchise record of 553 yards on offense, 406 of which were recorded in the first half.
Nice to meet you Torrey Smith – Reports were that Torrey Smith, who entered Sunday’s game without a catch, was coming off a rough week of practices. If that’s true it didn’t show on the field as Smith’s first three receptions were touchdown passes from Joe Flacco. Smith’s first reception was the longest touchdown pass Flacco had ever thrown. His first three were a part of a quarter in which the Ravens scored 21 points, a franchise record.
As I’m sure you’ve already heard, the Baltimore Ravens re-signed defensive tackle Haloti Ngata to a blockbuster new five year contract. We’ve mentioned the details of Ngata’s new deal, but in short he’s going to be paid very well for continuing to wreak havoc on offensive lines, running backs and quarterbacks.
Signing Ngata is a large piece in the puzzle that is the Ravens future. And no, that’s not because he’s 6′ 4″, 330 pounds.
As the Ravens continue to build towards the post-Ray Lewis/Ed Reed future, the next big contracts to be handed out will go to running back Ray Rice and quarterback Joe Flacco. Baltimore’s success under John Harbaugh can be attributed to the development of these two players. Flacco and Harbaugh are often mentioned as a tandem and their careers seemed to be measured together.
When asked about Haloti Ngata’s new contract on Wednesday, Flacco hinted that he’s ready for an extension himself. “Hopefully in the future, all of us are going to get a new deal,” Flacco told Aaron Wilson of the Carroll County Times. “I am not going to think about it. I’m just glad for Haloti.”
I’ve got to give Ozzie Newsome and the Ravens credit, they got signed Haloti Ngata to a five year deal just before the deadline yesterday after reports indicated that the team hadn’t talked to Ngata’s agents in close to a month. I can admit when I get something wrong. I bought into the stories being reported by the NFL analysts, but I should have known not to believe everything published by the experts.
The Ravens and Ngata agreed to a five-year, $61 million contract with $40 million over the first two seasons. Ngata will remain a Raven until 2015. He also received a $25 million signing bones with a $2 million base salary in 2011 according to Aaron Wilson of the Carroll County Times.
Ngata told reporters after the deal was struck that he hopes to retire a Raven. ”You rarely see players around the league play with one team their entire career,” he said according to Mike Duffy of BaltimoreRavens.com. ”For me to be here another five years is great, and I’m thankful for the opportunity the Ravens have provided me. Hopefully, I can retire here.”
I have to give Ravens general manager Ozzie Newsome credit, he’s typically a good evaluator of talent. No matter what I think of his risky draft picks in recent years, Newsome knows when a guy’s talent has run out and when a replacement is ready for primetime. Just look at the Ravens tight end scenario this year. Nothing against Todd Heap, he was a great Raven, but his time had come and gone and Dennis Pitta and Ed Dickson were ready to step up to the replace him.
But now I’m done patting Ozzie on the back. It’s time to be a little more critical. Tuesday’s deadline to sign defensive tackle Haloti Ngata is expected to pass. This means that the Ravens won’t be able to negotiate with their franchise player until after the season. That’s not good. READ MORE >>>
“Ain’t nobody trying to deliberately hurt nobody out here,” Terrell Suggs told Aaron Wilson of the Carroll County Times. ”We’re all athletes. We’re all in the same league. Nobody tried to hurt him. He can get that out of his head.”
Ravens defensive tackle Haloti Ngata gave a more candid response to Johnson’s quotes, saying that he was “happy” that Johnson left the game. “He did really well in that first half, and I think it’s a good thing he went down, because he probably would have had more yards.”
Ngata credited jealousy as the reason for Johnson’s accusations. “I think they’re just upset they lost, really.” He added that the Titans are “just trying to make excuses.”
After the Ravens steamrolled through the Pittsburgh Steelers in week one, they look to prove just how good they are on the road against the Tennessee Titans in week two. Here are five things to watch for in their game on Sunday. READ MORE >>>
Its a casual Thursday here at By The Numbers. To celebrate we’ll review Week 1 via bullet points:
The Pittsburgh Steelers gave up one 20+ yard run in 2010, and that one run went only 24 yards. On their first run play of 2011, they gave up a 36-yarder to Ray Rice. In the third quarter Ricky Williams rushed for a 26-yarder. Both plays running plays went to the left where new tackle Bryant McKinnie has been installed. It would appear that the Ravens running game has recovered from a down year in 2010 and father time has caught up to the Pittsburgh defense.
Ray Rice and Ricky Williams split carries at about a 2:1 rate and both ran extremely effectively (5.8 and 5.3 yards per carry). The team would be wise to continue to deploy them this way. For as much as ‘The Curse of 370′ sounds like an urban legend, it is very real. On average, running backs with 300 to 369 carries will see their total rushing yardage decline by 15 percent the following year and their yards per carry decline by two percent. However, the average running back with 370 or more regular-season carries will see their rushing yardage decline by 35 percent, and their yards per carry decline by eight percent. Rice is obviously part of the Ravens future plans, so as long as Williams is healthy there is no excuse to let Rice end the 2011 regular season with more than 370 carries.
You’ve got to hand it to the Ravens training staff, they took a 400 pound Bryant McKinnie and put him in game shape at 372 pounds in two weeks. McKinnie was dominant against the Steelers on Sunday though many expected him to be part of the reason that Pittsburgh would control that game.
“I was out of shape and overweight,” Cody told Worgo. ”That’s what kind of slowed me down.”
Cody credits extra motivation from Ravens general manager Ozzie Newsome for the weight loss and overall improvements. ”It was like a big wake-up call,” he said. ”That was a motivator to be ready to play.”
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