Tag: ravens trade yannick Ngakoue

Yannick Ngakoue trade continues and defines Ravens’ new defensive paradigm

The Ravens have been the NFL’s blitzingest team. Now, they’re looking to create pass rush with personnel over scheme.

In both the 2018 and 2019 seasons, no NFL defense blitzed more than the Baltimore Ravens defense, led by defensive coordinator Don Martindale. In 2018, Baltimore sent extra rushers on 39.6% of their defensive snaps, per Pro Football Reference. In 2019, they upped the ante by blitzing on 54.9% of their snaps. It was as definitive a statement as a defense could make: We trust our secondary to do what it needs to do with the spacing issues that blitzes can create, and we need to create pass rush through scheme as opposed to the personnel we have.

But in the 2020 offseason, the trade to the Jaguars for defensive lineman Calais Campbell showed a bit of a bow in the other direction. Campbell has been one of the better multi-gap defensive linemen in the NFL for a very long time, and that’s worked out pretty well. Against the Eagles’ depleted offensive line last Sunday, Campbell notched three sacks and eight quarterback pressures, earning him the nod as the AFC Defensive Player of the Week.

With Campbell on board, the Ravens aren’t blitzing as much — they’re down a bit back to 46.1%, and a lot of those pressures are coming from defensive back blitzes. This was the case against the Bengals in Week 5, when five defensive backs — safeties Chuck Clark and DeShon Elliott, and cornerbacks Marcus Peters, Jimmy Smith, and Marlon Humphrey — all had quarterback takedowns.

But without Earl Thomas, who split with the team following some locker room issues before the 2020 season, the Ravens aren’t quite as staunch in coverage. That predicates a new paradigm on defense, and the Ravens addressed this with the Thursday trade for Vikings and former Jaguars pass-rusher Yannick Ngakoue. A former teammate of Campbell’s in Jacksonville, Ngakoue adds the kind of pass-rush technique and grit that matches a defense that wants to blitz less and cover more soundly.

Ngakoue adds a devastating combination of quickness off the ball and some of the best snap-to-whistle effort pressures you’ll see.

This first came to my attention with this takedown of Andrew Luck in 2018.

Fast-forward to Week 15 of the 2019 season against the Raiders, and here’s Ngakoue doing a similar thing, pinballing his way through multiple blocks. If you don’t finish Ngakoue through the entire rep, he will be a constant thorn in your side.

And when it comes to quickness and acceleration? Against the Jets in Week 8, Ngakoue re-confirmed what has already been made apparent — you have no margin for error, or slowness off the snap, against this guy.

Add in the pressure packages the Jaguars used to run with Campbell and Ngakoue on the same side of the formation, which you can be sure Martindale and his staff will be happy to dial up, and this is an absolute win for a defense looking to redefine itself with the ideal combinations of scheme and personnel.