The Ravens and 49ers are the one-seeds in the playoffs, and they both have defenses without specific tendencies. That’s not a coincidence.
It’s probably not a coincidence that the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers — the two one-seeds in the 2023 NFL playoffs — have defenses without a specific coverage type. In today’s NFL, with more formational and schematic concepts on offense, if you go out on the field without some things to mess up the opposing quarterback with different things, you’re left with an execution-based defense, and there’s very little margin for error if that’s the case.
The Cleveland Browns discovered that in their wild-card loss to the Houston Texans. In that 45-14 Houston win, the Browns stuck with their usual plan, to their direct detriment. C.J. Stroud had demolished single-high coverage all season long, and the Browns had run a higher rate of single-high in the regular season than any other defense. Cleveland decided to stay there in this game, and Stroud completed 12 of 16 passes for both of his touchdowns. On none of those 16 attempts did the Browns throw any kind of late movement at Stroud. It was line ’em up, and let’s go.
Browns’ refusal to adapt on defense cost them dearly against C.J. Stroud
When the Texans face the Baltimore Ravens on Saturday in the divisional round, Stroud will be tested in ways he certainly wasn’t last week. The Ravens do not have a specific coverage type. This season, they’ve run single-high coverage on 46.4% of their snaps, and two-high on 53.3% of their snaps. It’s been Cover-3, Cover-4, Cover-1, and Cover-6 in that order. You don’t know what you’re going to get from snap to snap, they do all of it well, and they’re very adept with coverage switches.
The Ravens have made it very clear that the Stroud they’re dealing with now is a much more evolved than the Stroud that tried to navigate it all in his regular-season debut. The best way to counter that evolution is to make Stroud work through different coverage concepts. Mike Macdonald’s defense has no problem with that.
The Ravens know they’re dealing with a different C.J. Stroud this time around
On this deep incompletion against the Ravens in Week 1, Stroud had to manage a couple of things. First, Baltimore threw a six-man blitz at him with defensive back Kyle Hamilton off the edge, edge defender Odafe Oweh dropping into coverage, and linebacker Roquan Smith coming from the second level. And pre-snap, the Ravens showed a defined single-high look before moving to Cover-2. Brandon Stephens joined safety Marcus Williams as the second two-high defender. The combination of pressure and coverage must have made Stroud feel as if he had 13 or 14 defenders arrayed against him, and a near-interception was the result.
The 49ers, who play the Green Bay Packers on Sunday, are another amorphous coverage defense.They’ve played 50% single-high this season, and two-high 50% of the time. It’s Cover-3, Cover-4, Cover-1, and Cover-2 in that order. The 49ers flip to a bit more single-high on third down, but as is the case with the Ravens, they play what works for them and they don’t change a lot from a systemic point in a situational sense.
Packers quarterback Jordan Love has been as good as anybody playing his position in the second half of the season, but even the best quarterbacks can be made uncomfortable when faced with the right concepts in concert. In Week 2 against the Los Angeles Rams and Matthew Stafford, the 49ers got an interception by disguising their intentions. Stafford is a 15-year NFL veteran with as developed a sense of what defenses will do as any quarterback you’ll ever meet, but here, Steve Wilks’ defense won the day.
Stafford would have 2-Man coverage to deal with post-snap, but that wasn’t the look pre-snap. With a single-high safety, and linebacker Fred Warner and Dre Greenlaw close to the line of scrimmage, Stafford probably thought he’d have something easy over the middle of the field. This was a four-man rush in which the 49ers plastered Stafford’s receivers all over the field, and cornerback Deommodore Lenoir jumped Stafford’s backside slant for the pick.
No matter the quarterback you’re facing, you have a better chance of beating him if your defense is creative enough to throw as many different looks at him as possible, with the discipline to have everyone together on their assignments. The Ravens and 49ers each have this on lock, and again, it’s probably not a coincidence that the two best overall teams in the Final Eight can say that about themselves.
In this week’s “Xs and Os with Greg Cosell and Doug Farrar,” the guys get into both defenses, and how they’re able to switch things up at such a high level.
You can watch this week’s episode of “The Xs and Os,” featuring all the most important matchups of the divisional round, right here:
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