CAN MARK ANDREWS & ISAIAH LIKELY HELP THE RAVENS CONFUSE KANSAS CITY? - RAVENS/CHIEFS PREVIEW #2

[Music] this video is going to focus on the Ravens potential 12 Personnel grouping with Isaiah likeley and Mark Andrews on the field it's generated a lot of conversation as well it should Ravens fans we're looking forward to both of those guys being healthy at the same time if you look at the snap counts for Isaiah likely a lot of snaps reps and opportunity in week 1 2023 against the Texans I think he played 24 snaps somewhere around somewhere in the 20s against the Bengals in week two when Mark Andrews returned thereafter snap count was dropping dwindling if you will until Mark Andrews gets hurt in the rematch against the Bengals at home and then suddenly Isaiah LEL is 50 snaps a game we all know how he finished the year 20 catches in his last six regular season games including five touchdowns 20 those 20 catches or 21 excuse me came on 28 targets averaged over 10 yards per Target for the year including 13.7 yards per catch non Ravens fans or chiefs fans perhaps may say well Isaiah lelan had 30 catches he's not a a big factor that's absolutely categorically not true if you look at the film from when he became a starter inherited the starting position basically when Andrews went down with the injury the broken ankle like took advantage of his opportunities no he's not an eight catch per game guy maybe like Mark Andrews has been in the past he's a big play guy he's a Red Zone Target someone who can make people miss someone who can win at the catch point and can beat nickel Defenders and yes even outside corners at times I don't think he's a hybrid wide receiver like some people suspect meaning someone that we're going to line up at The X in my opinion if we're going to have two tight ends on the field and one guy's going to line up the X it's generally going to be Mark Andrews we'll go go through some film here as it relates to the Chiefs the question for the Ravens is with lerus sne gone do you want to get to their fifth DB meaning do you want to be an 11 personnel and force the chief's hand to put their nickel defense on the field or would you rather deal with their base 4 three so removing lerus sne who has since left obviously via trade removing him from the equation for the Chiefs would you rather deal with their starting two outside corners and their starting safeties of course one of those Corners includes Trent McDuffy basically anywhere you put him whether it's nickel outside corner he's going to do an amazing job so you're going to have a premier Talent on the field at out at at corner no matter what point is for me from a Todd monin and Ravens offense perspective their 12 Personnel offense was not completely integrated and installed and smooth last year at the beginning of the season in my opinion they started off with an under Center Run game eventually as the season moved on started to integrate the past game more I think the the film will show that here a little bit we're going to focus on film from 2023 obviously and the first set of plays that will go over is what I call Jet dive now this happens to be a pretty big tackle for loss by Logan Wilson week two Ravens go on the road and beat the Bengals played a pretty complete Game offensively but we certainly ran the ball a lot under Center you have the jet to one side and the Jet is moving towards the side where Andrews and likeley are located presumably those are just going to be Arc blocks where they're getting out in space and they're just taking on whoever's out there whether it be a corner dn/ outside linebacker whatever in this case the Bengals have a have a call on to utilize the outside Lineback excuse me one of the inside linebackers Pratt to create a three on three if the ball is given to Deon duet in this case it was not and then now the edge Defender theoretically is put in a little bit less conflict he could either Veer down the line of scrimmage to deal with the running back which he does not do the other drastic option would be go up field to get to the quarterback in case he keeps it or do what he does and this is Tren Trey Hendrickson excuse me kind of part for the course for him slow play it and then fold inside and get involved with the play anyway better example of it being effective this one's actually earlier in the game same form same motion du not exactly running the motion full speed again I don't think that some of the 12 Personnel stuff was completely um integrated that is not a motion that sells Jet Sweep at all Z flowers a little bit later you see a little bit more of a burst getting out of there like he might get the football but the timing is there if you ask me for the potential of the Jet Sweep these guys again Arc releasing or reach whatever you want to call it and then the jet being in the opposite direction so with Derrick Henry being brought in as free agent clearly this makes sense and we had trouble with that handoff not just on this particular play Lamar actually fumbled it or pseudo kind of tossed it in week four against the uh against the Browns on the roads we you can see he had to really get out here and it wasn't exactly a smooth uh movement there for Lamar to open to the Jet and then get out to the dive we seem to get it cleaner later on the year you will get the endzone angle of this one is this the type of stuff that you would rather do as a Ravens offense against the Chiefs if you're going to try to run the football with Derrick Henry well when you get Pat Ricard on the field you're going to get their base defense they're 4-3 if you go 22 Personnel you could get some really interesting defensive looks from the Chiefs maybe they do something like the Steelers do but in terms of the way that this will shake out for the Ravens Thursday night baitman on the outside flowers would be the the jet man in the slot obviously likel and Andrews down here it pretty much forces the Chiefs to declare their coverage so if they take an outside corner and put him over here then you pretty much know you got man if they walk out an inside linebacker push him out to play an apex position which is inside leverage four to five yards off of the number two receiver then you pretty much know you have zone so you can use it to determine coverage pre- snap not just generate yards in the Run game and potentially in a play action pass give you the endzone angle on this one I I suspect that this stuff is in it was in early last year we didn't have derck Henry obviously the offensive line maybe wasn't as much of a concern you do have a d tackle who's pretty easily been comboed up and Logan Wilson is now put on an island by himself Pratt has been moved out of there by the motion huge gain for Gus up the middle things that Derrick Henry already does well number one number two with the Zone schemes you're at least letting him get to the line of scrimmage untouched with a head of steam on his tracks and make a read which is what he's done for for years I guess almost a decade at this point with the Titans and Alabama combined against the Browns this is not the one that was fumbled so this stuff is probably installed you can generally look at offensive coordinators over the course of seasons and certain things are installed earlier than others there's a progression it doesn't mean that a particular package hasn't been installed that we won't see until week six necessarily but it means that certain things have been smoothed out and this SE at least last year in 2023 for me was one that was smooth out earlier the jet dive now this is actually 11 personnel and I do wonder if it would be more effective out of 11 personnel because you could force the nickel into the boundary what I mean is ball on the left hash put your two actual wide rece or two of your three wide receivers into the boundary and then align the tight end to the field and that would make sense right because the jet is going to go from the boundary to the field and you want this tight end to be one of the guys who's reaching or arcing or whatever you want to call it out to the edge in case you do give on the jet which I think we should do in this case the Browns roll to it so roll to it they bring zero I think that's Nome back to free safety they roll up the actual free safety to the field and then this nickel safety is going to go out into the flats with flowers motion so you basically held three with two meaning Lamar I guess you could actually say you've held four Lamar on the boot is holding the edge Defender the nickel is sliding out here with Z flowers the free safety is rolling up the boundary side strong safety whatever you want to call him he was moving back rolling back to middle of the field you've held four with three so what I mean by that is z flowers Lamar and the actual guy who's getting the football those are the three I'm counting all the other stuff is OB cation if you ask me I want to see us run the jet I want to see us run the Jet and force some of the edge Defenders for the Chiefs to make a decision about what they're going to do they may get a tackle for loss early they may set themselves up for this run which I I really like I like the timing of the jet and the dive off of it I think it really lines up with derck Henry's skills does it line up with fele being our right guard on the inside Zone scheme well maybe not maybe that's not his um you know his relative strength that's absolutely possible Endzone angle for this one again this is 11 personnel I know it's a 12 Personnel video we'll get to the pass plays with two tight ends on the field later I kind of intentionally pushed that to the end to see if people would wait around you can see the timing of it from a defensive standpoint you got the quarterback's back turned out you know we can obviously see the football and some of these guys can as well because they're angle but you're creating a situation where the quarterback's back is turned for a period of time and it puts them in a little bit more conflict I think you end up getting a half a step sometimes a full step more in the direction of the running back's flow and in this case I think that bears true because Justice Hill cuts it back and he's got great burst it's actually the nickel Defender folding back inside to make the tackle different concept still 12 Personnel is pin pull and this is the reverse step pitch it's still off the jet motion I have yet to see the Ravens ever hand this off meaning only one receiver and run the jet out here to the boundary I guess theoretically you could and that's one of the reasons why you will see teams that do not roll to it notice the Bengals did not roll on this motion because they know we don't need to roll with it they're going to use an outside linebacker for it in this case it's Pratt because they don't want to lose one of these DBS in either coverage and or the pitch back to the top side and this was a huge hit by Morgan Moses obviously and then a great job of just staying on his guy by Isaiah likely up top I think that's a woozi that ends up getting taken outside out of bounds same concept little less successful Hilton plays it a little bit better he doesn't get decked by Morgan Moses also he kind of disrupts it forces um Mari to fold back you got likely out on the corner mcari is pulling to the outside and then he's going to step back inside to deal with Hilton who's going right now additional to that and I will replay this in a moment you've got DJ reader who thankfully is gone uh defeating the block or attempted block of Kevin zitler who unfortunately is gone for us and winning on the backside ends up being the first guy in contact you can see right here yes zitler trips over the foot of someone but reader has already framed him up he's already got his arms extended full extension you were not going to scoop him in this manner Hilton disrupted it and DJ reader a defensive tackle the backside defensive tackle actually runs over the top and is the first guy to make contact it's pretty ridiculous gives you indication of how good he was but 12 Personnel stuff under Center not only the Run game I'm really interested in the pass game this is an incomplete pass we don't we don't hit this one to Nelson agalar but I like the design I I believe this was second quarter I could be wrong I like the flow of offenses that condition the defense to a certain output and what I mean is input this is 22 Personnel by the way so you do have leley on the field and you do have Andrews and then Ricard as your fullback so I'm getting away with one here but I want to show what is possible and I also want to like to say we can't only run the play action with two tight ends on the field when Ricard is on the field too you know what I mean we got to do it some times when it's Andrews and likely and no Ricard hopefully I said that in a way that makes sense but I like I like conditioning the defense your input is 12 Personnel or in this case 22 personnel and the output is Run game when we go under Center condition them give them three four five examples of that and then utilize the play action to go up top or wherever you want to go with it at a at a place and time of your choosing I do like the over Concepts I would like to see like if the tight end is going to be on the right likely you know run the the vertical with him and then the receiver from the other side if it is 22 Personnel run the deeper over concept but in this case we're going up top to agalar there is a possibility to get the ball there he's not totally beat CTB clearly I me CTB is a great Corner ends up being over thr but nonetheless that's the type of concept I would like to see us shoot for occasionally especially with Derrick Henry in the backfield a little bit uh safer version of it the boot gives Lamar the option to get out to the edge um Jack Campbell I think it's Jack Campbell for the Lions plays it really poorly out here doesn't Collision Andrews at all so then Andrews is able to cross his face get out to the sideline Derek Barnes can't catch up what do you get when you go 12 Personnel well sometimes you get a team's based defense and in this case you've got three down linemen outside linebacker SL inside linebacker really Jack campell's inside linebacker and then Aiden Hutchinson outside linebacker DN Edge player whatever you want to call him two inside linebackers 34 40 years ago 50 years ago they would have called a 50 in any case it's a seven-man front and they've rolled up a strong safety to the field to the side where you have Andrews and obj well there's two tight ends so which safety do you roll up generally they're going to be to roll up the one to the field you can force teams into a one high look with Ricard I'll get to that a little bit later this week 21 personnel and 20 Personnel or you can force teams into a one high look with two tight ends on the field I think there's something to be said for that I really do the Chiefs and Steve Spagnola this is speculation he's very versatile and very multiple his teams are well trained they're going to be able to execute a ton of of of coverages and schemes across all three levels the dline the inside linebackers and nickel strong safety and then the corner and free safeties they're going to be able to execute a lot I do wonder if putting them in their base defense possibly limits some of their coverage output depending on the formation we line up in meaning can Todd monin control some of the coverages we see and thereby get us a little bit more higher percentage looks and what I mean is instead of it being a 55% look in terms of a pass play maybe he can push it to 68 or 70% which is what we're going to need to try to win the football game obviously you can still get in the shotgun because both of these guys have great receiving skills you can also get in the shotgun to run the football this is one of the more memorable runs from the shotgun I thought last year in terms of 12 Personnel you had trips down into the boundary three guys to the boundary bringing likely from the boundary into the field and then running counter back the other way look at what you've got the defense to do basically give away their coverage number one it's man number two subtract someone from the Run fit and the Browns were really lucky that this one didn't go go all the way into the end zone for Melvin Gordon it was close do wonder about Spagnola and the Chiefs how much 12 Personnel they've prepped for and can we get into can we Vass excuse me alter and change between being under Center and in the shotgun 12 Personnel to kind of put them in difficult situations meaning second and eight he's probably going to be in his nickel defense maybe we run the ball out of 12 Personnel first and 10 maybe he's in his base defense and we throw the football monin is up I think is in line for a comeback game against this defense I am quite sure that he spent the whole off season and the offensive staff the the whole entire group studying what went wrong maybe what they could have done obviously run the football now we have Derrick Henry so that shouldn't be a problem studying the chief's defense what they do when they do and perhaps why they do it are the Ravens only going to rely on 12 personel no but I've received so much in the comment section about it you know what can the Ravens accomplish can it be our base look I think last year you're talking about 9% of the plays was 12 Personnel I might be wrong there feel free to go correct me on that this is a short yardage play against the Texans obviously Andrews is not on the field it's it's third and one you got a 4-3 look by the Texans four down lineman three inside backers and by aligning up two tight ends and a receiver here you give guys the ability to combo and that's what likely and z are doing obviously Z flowers can't block a defensive end but when likely helps him for a moment just combos gets his hands on and moves up to the second guy and really check out how Kar handles it he's just cupping here on the backside it's a same side run because Gus's feet was here on the on the same side as the bunch he's just cupping on the backside looking for something to try to stunt to the inside and close it off and then once likely moves up Kar likeley and Z have handled an inside linebacker and a backside backside defensive end I think it's a great illustration of how we can get things done with 12 Personnel happen to stumble ACR upon uh this View today it wasn't one that I originally had in the playlist for this video but it's one of my favorite ones because I don't think you need to hit home runs with these tight ends on every play and certainly Mark Andrews and Isaiah likeley from a blocking standpoint are not going to hit a whole bunch of home runs where they both do most of their damage in the pass game can they be used together in combination I absolutely think they can I think that Mon's got to vary where he lines them up you can't always put one guy into the boundary or one guy into the field teams will try to match up man in particular situations this happens to be a first and 10 so you know you're not exactly looking for that type of approach from the defense meaning we're going to lock up man like a third down this is an example of the Seahawks staying in a too high look and they have a nickel defender on the field it's Jamal Adams who simp to moved on from Seattle so they're in their nickel defense against 12 personnel and Steve spag DOA may choose to do that Thursday night as well he may choose to line up in his nickel defense and say if you want to run the football against our nickel go right ahead maybe that's what Todd monin wants to see maybe that's the and I think that's the benefit of 12 Personnel is that you're going to get different answers each week and you can exploit those answers that that each team provides it everyone's not going to stay in their be base defense in this case Seattle happens to the previous play they did not they bring a corner Blitz this is an outside linebacker lined up over Z flower so from a agility and speed standpoint and Route running you got a absolute mismatch so what does that mean Seahawks are not playing man Seahawks are playing a three deep three under cuz to bring in the corner Tariq woen Corner Blitz inside linebacker down here to the boundary kind of left in no man's land with two Andrews and likely Lamar gets the ball out there quick you can predetermine coverage even in the shotgun formation putting two tight ends to the boundary and two receivers to the field I really like this formation whether we're under Center or in the shotgun if we were under Center likely would you know probably be a little B bit closer to the left tackle and Andrews would probably be moved in a little bit further like create a compressed formation to one side quick easy completions ability to for Lamar to know the coverage or know that it's not man or know that it is not Zone depending on how the defense lines up I think that'll be a big benefit for us potentially excuse me a big benefit for us Thursday night against the Chiefs because Spagnola is so good at disguising coverage coverages and using multiple looks both guys end up to the field here on the motion same formation that the Ravens used against the Lions except Lamar is not under centeres in the shotgun you're going to get likely motioning to the field very similar to what he did a big play against the Rams big touchdown against the Rams all short Concepts that would be one concern that I have is that so far out of 12 Personnel in the shotgun we've seen a lot of short Concepts we've seen a lot of snag flat slant flat stuff like that obj was really good at that in 2023 don't get me wrong I would like to see SB maybe a little bit more diverse and show some more depth of Target I guess is the is the right way to put it from an analytic standpoint this is the same play enzone angle you can see that Seahawks are in their nickel defense again wither spoon one of the safeties slot Corner nickel whatever you want to call them and then Jamal Adams left- hand side so they're in a 4-2 box but they've rolled both of those guys up Lamar great decision perfect timing obj beats Tariq woen to the inside thought he had a great game that week against the Seahawks LEL touchdown 54 yards now this is not 12 Personnel the question here is will you get this alignment and this coverage from teams like the Chiefs I would not anticipate blown coverages at all but the Ravens saw something we had run this before during the season you saw one against the Chiefs excuse me against the Seahawks where you get a wheel by likely the Rams are in their their base because that is a a DB number 43 I forget his name I think it's I think it's Johnson John Johnson or Josh Johnson um but it looks like a 34 it certainly does he's walked into the box as an inside linebacker the Ravens got no rotation out of this meaning there was no rotation of the DB core here's the fifth DB that's why I pointed him out a minute ago no rotation like we saw with the Browns one guy spinning down you know one guy running with the flats or something like that there no rotation at all no movement no respecting of the motion and the Rams clearly get a blown coverage Lamar recognizes it it won't be that easy however it does do give you an indication of the type of routes that Todd monin trusts Isaiah likely to run deep wheel routes are not typically run by tight ends at least in my experience watching NFL film occasionally it happens don't get me wrong but it's normally faster wide receivers who can get down the field quickly get on top of the route if you will things weren't as smooth earlier in the year with the passing game portion that's why I I structured this with the Run game first under Center because to me it seemed like the install was under Center jet dive first a little bit of play action you saw our one attempt to go up top to Nelson agalar out of 22 Personnel that was incomplete I showed you I don't I didn't see much of this early on in the year and it and a lot what I did see looked a little clunky like this likely's going to end up sitting down Andrews does too um Lamar ends up getting sack and we're very fortunate that we get a penalty called on the Bing point is things didn't look smooth so I wouldn't say that the entire offense is a 12 Personnel offense even though it's the it's the NFL there's only a certain amount of time for these guys to install things so can the Ravens have a 12 personel offense if you will installed with a complete package of under Center runs will they better because we have Derrick Henry and can we have a a commensurate passing game to utilize if team if the ch teams like the Chiefs on Thursday night are coming out in their base defense and we want to take advantage of them in the pass game and the receiving skills that Mark Andrews and is a likely offer yes because of the unique the unique situation we're in and that both of these guys are healthy now we don't know if they'll both be healthy in week 10 unfortunately it's going to sound terrible to say this the way the nature of football and how many games these guys play in such a short span you may not have one of them in week 10 so I think it makes sense to spend time early getting the offense installed from a 12 Personnel standpoint and force teams into different questions everybody is used to defending 11 personnel with their nickel defense their 425 structure four linemen whether they're outside linebackers DN whatever 425 is the same thing from a 34 platform it's the same thing from a 4-3 platform from the standpoint of four guys on the line of scrimmage two inside linebackers and then five DBS one of which is a nickel Defender do the Ravens want to go up against the Chiefs nickel for the large majority of Thursday night's game well then they better be an 11 personnel if the Ravens would like to be against their 4-3 for whatever reason three of the inside linebacker still being on the field as opposed to the nickel Defender then the Ravens need to be in 21 Personnel 22 personnel and some 12 Personnel early on to see what Steve spagnol was going to do my suspicion is we'll be and 12 Personnel probably two plays on the first possession whether it's a six possession drive four or whatever I think we'll be in 12 Personnel early at least twice probably ball on the right hash and ball on the left hash to see what Steve Spagnola does do you answer with your nickel defense do you answer with your base I'm not going to look at it from a simplistic standpoint oh we can throw the ball against their base defense and run the ball against their nickel if we want to run the ball successfully out of 12 Personnel Isaiah likeley and Mark Andrew's got a block and they've got a block more consistently than they have at certain times those two are both better at arcing to the outside and going to get an outside corner or a nickel or a safety or something like that they're not guys that generally block well from a combo down block situation that's not their skill set that's not the strength of their skill set excuse me I'm not saying they can't do it but it's it's not as simple to me as just to say we run against their nickel and we throw against their BAS defense we're going to have to execute uphill sometimes against the better look that teams can provide on their defense and we got to try to avoid third and six clearly derck Henry should give us the opportunity to do that these two if if you ask me give the Ravens a real trump card to deal with the defense especially with the Chiefs in my opinion what are the what how are they going to line up nickel or 4-3 and coverage wise can we force them in a situation if they go basee 4-3 where they're limited to the two receiver side talking about the formation where we line up two tight ends to one side two receivers to The Far Side the opposite side of the field and we basically give Lamar a lot of Intel pre- snap about what he's going to see and possibly limit the chief's ability to Blitz us as well appreciate you guys time man if you enjoyed the video and how I speculated on the Ravens could use Andrews and LEL tried to use film to justify it as well I think those two guys can be an integral part of this game Thursday night and I look for them to increase the Ravens offensive efficiency level no matter how the Chiefs respond appreciate you guys time