A Rice Heavy Diet

Something I really liked from last weekend’s extraordinary NFL Divisional Play-off Weekend was Baltimore’s play calling.

At halftime and when Baltimore trailed by 7, coach John Harbaugh mentioned he wanted to establish more run. Now this is something you don’t often hear, particularly when teams are behind and particularly in a quarterback driven league where coaches grope for any excuse to abandon the running game.

Indeed, and despite a fairly pedestrian 6 carry, 23 yard first half by Ray Rice, the Raven’s reasoned that their very best offensive weapon needed more touches if they stood a chance of upending the Broncos.

And more touches is exactly what Ray Rice got in the second half and surely contributed more than any other factor in Baltimore pulling off one of the great play-off upsets.

The Ravens continually went for Rice on offense giving him 24 second half/overtime touches and continual faith that he would break through despite often small gains.

When behind, especially to a very good team on the road and in an elimination event, a running game that’s not exactly tearing it up could have easily been set aside. But not by Baltimore.

13 of Rice’s 24 second half touches came when the Ravens looked up at the scoreboard and saw they were trailing. Yet each run continually wore down and contracted Denver’s defence opening more opportunities for large Joe Flacco gains such as the 70 yard bomb to Jacoby Jones which forced overtime. 

Baltimore knew precisely what they were doing in dialling up a very heavy Ray Rice workload. And they know the type of success it produces.

Over the last 3 seasons when Rice has had 25 touches or more (a number usually reached through a combination of runs and back-field catches) the Ravens are a staggering 21-1, with that one loss on the road to New England and thanks only to an overtime field goal.

And it’s against New England in this weekend’s AFC Conference Championship when similar Ray Rice production might be of even more importance.

What the Patriots thrive on is conducting offense on their terms while at the same time keeping their still suspect and inexperienced defence off the field.

By repeatedly taking it right to the heart of New England’s defence (as the Ravens did against Denver) by chewing up the clock, keeping the scoreboard ticking and not allowing Tom Brady the flexibility of a completely open play-book, the Ravens in Rice (in addition to brilliant coaching personnel) have a weapon which could propel them to the Super Bowl.