by Vince Verhei

The Baltimore Ravens lost four games out of five to close out the regular season, but they've turned things around in the playoffs with two wins in a row to reach the AFC championship game. That two-game win streak coincides with Ray Lewis' return to the Baltimore lineup, and considering that Baltimore started hot this year with Lewis on the field, it seems that the Ravens' fortunes hang simply on the presence (or absence) of their future Hall of Fame linebacker. A closer look at the numbers shows that Lewis makes a real impact on the Baltimore defense, and that he has been one of the best players in the league this postseason. However, there is a hole in his game, and that weakness could cost the Ravens dearly against New England.

Lewis played in each of Baltimore's first six games, five of them wins. However, he tore his triceps late in the Week 6 win over Dallas and missed the rest of the regular season, with fourth-year man Dannell Ellerbe taking over most of his snaps. Including the playoffs, the Ravens have gone 7-1 with Lewis on the field, but just 5-5 in the ten games he missed. That's clearly a huge dropoff, from near-perfect to perfectly average, but you can't attribute that difference entirely to Lewis. In some ways, the defense actually played better without him. With Lewis on the field, the Ravens gave up an average of 20.3 points, 399 total yards and 137 rushing yards per game. (These numbers include the two playoff wins, but they barely change if we look only at Lewis' regular-season games.) In his absence, they actually cut their total yards and rushing yards allowed, to 324 and 115 yards per game respectively, although they let opponents score 22.6 points per game.

Football Outsiders' advanced statistics tell a similar story. With Lewis, the Ravens defense has posted a DVOA (explained here) of -3.4%. Without him, it's only a little higher, 1.2%. Those numbers, though, look at a team's overall defense, which is a little unfair when discussing an inside linebacker. Lewis' primary responsibility is to stop the run, and there's no question that it's tougher to run against Baltimore when Lewis is around. With Lewis, the Ravens fare much better in yards per carry (from 4.30 without Lewis to 3.98 with him), rush defense DVOA (4.6% DVOA to -5.0%) and running back Success Rate (54 percent to 48 percent).

Even there, though, rush defense is a team effort, not a one-man game. What do Lewis' individual numbers look like? At Football Outsiders, we judge defenders in three categories: Plays (any tackle, pass defensed or intercepted, or fumble forced or recovered), Successes (any play that holds an offense to a short gain), and Defeats (any play that causes a loss of yardage, a turnover, or a stop on third or fourth down.) In his six games in the regular season, Lewis averaged 9.7 Plays, 4.3 Successes, and 0.5 Defeats per game. For comparison's sake, Carolina's Luke Kuechly led all players in Plays (10.8 per game) and Successes (6.1) this season. Lewis looks respectable in those categories, but not in Defeats, where Philadelphia's DeMeco Ryans led all inside linebackers with 1.9 per game. Way back in 1999, Lewis himself once produced 45 total Defeats (2.8 per game), the best year of any player in our records until this season, when Houston's J.J. Watt had an stunning 56. Frankly, three Defeats in six games is a pretty impotent total for a starting linebacker. And two of those came in one game, as Lewis limited Andrew Hawkins to a 6-yard gain on third-and-10 and also recorded a sack-fumble in Week 1 against Cincinnati. It seemed that Lewis was finally slowing down when he was injured.

And then the playoffs started, and Lewis was reborn. Lewis leads all defenders this postseason with 24 Plays and five Defeats, and he's second with 10 Successes. Obviously, it helps that he has played two games, but even on a per-game basis he's first in Plays and among the top ten in the other two categories.

It is remarkable that Lewis has more Defeats in two playoff games than he did in six games in the regular season. Here's how those five plays break down:

In the first quarter against Indianapolis, he stuffed Vick Ballard for a 1-yard loss.

In the same quarter, he tackled a scrambling Andrew Luck for a 3-yard gain on third-and-7.

In the second quarter of that game, Luck completed a pass to Coby Fleener, and Lewis tackled Fleener for a 7-yard gain on third-and-14.

In the third quarter of Sunday's game, Denver had a third-and-5 near midfield. They handed off to Jacob Hester, and Lewis made the tackle after a gain of 2 yards.

Finally, Ronnie Hillman tried a run around left end in that same quarter, and Lewis met him behind the line of scrimmage for a loss of 3 yards.

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With all that said, there is one area where the Ravens have clearly played better without Lewis, and that is in pass coverage. When Lewis has played this season, opposing running backs have caught 70 percent of the passes thrown their way, and averaged 5.6 yards per target. Those numbers are a little lower than the average for running backs. In his absence, though, that catch rate fell to 62 percent, and the average gain to 3.9 yards.

That might not matter against some teams, but against the Patriots it could be a fatal flaw. To a large degree, New England is a running team (only Seattle had more carries in the regular season), and that means Lewis' performance on early downs will be crucial. However, the Patriots' running backs are also dangerous receivers. New England averaged 8.1 yards per pass when throwing to their running backs (mostly Danny Woodhead, but also Shane Vereen, Stevan Ridley, and Brandon Bolden) this year, highest of any team in the league. Vereen might have been the MVP of New England's playoff win over Houston, catching five passes in six targets for 83 yards and two touchdowns. Obviously, if the Pats split Vereen out wide against Baltimore like they did against the Texans, Lewis won't be vacating the middle to cover him. However, Lewis will be in charge of covering receivers out of the backfield, and that could be a serious problem. If Baltimore wants to win one more for Ray, they'll need to help him out on passing downs.

Quarterbacks Rk Player Team CP/AT Yds TD INT Total

DYAR Pass

DYAR Rush

DYAR 1. Russell Wilson SEA 24/36 385 2 1 265 237 28 In a losing effort, Wilson breaks his own record for best total DYAR for a rookie quarterback in a single game. (With updated opponent adjustments, his Week 13 game against Chicago now stands at 214 total DYAR.) We'll start with what he did as as a rusher. His first four carries each produced first downs and a total of 45 yards. His fifth carry was a 1-yard touchdown. His last two carries were 9- and 5-yard gains on first-and-10. That's a 100 percent Success Rate on seven runs. As a passer, his first half was up-and-down, as he went just 10-of-17 for 144 yards with one very crucial sack. In four third-down dropbacks, he had one conversion (for 4 yards on third-and-1), two incompletions, and the sack. And then came the second half. On his first three drives, each of which came with a deficit of at least 13 points, Wilson went 10-of-10 for 185 yards with one sack. Nine of those completions led to first downs or touchdowns; the tenth was a 7-yard gain on first-and-10. Each of those three drives ended with a Wilson score via pass or run. His next drive was a three-and-out with three incompletions in a row, but on the next drive, needing a touchdown to take the lead in the final minute, he went 4-of-5 for 56 yards and three first downs. His final pass, an interception on a Hail Mary, is treated as an incomplete pass for DYAR/DVOA purposes. On deep balls alone, he went 8-of-13 for 195 yards and a touchdown. 2. Tom Brady NE 25/40 344 3 0 224 224 0 Brady was a little erratic (for Tom Brady, anyway) towards his own end of the field, but when he neared midfield he was scary. Inside the New England 40-yard line, he went 12-of-22 for 113 yards with only five first downs and a sack. Beyond that point, he went 13-of-18 for 231 yards with 10 first downs, including three touchdowns. Those touchdowns came on gains of 8, 5, and 33 yards, and all came on first down. 3. Joe Flacco BAL 18/34 331 3 0 203 201 2 Throwing to his right (where the bulk of the Torrey Smith vs. Champ Bailey action took place), Flacco went 11-of-17 for 261 yards with three touchdowns and seven other first downs, plus a 25-yard DPI. If we limit that to deep right passes, he went 4-of-7 for 185 yards with three touchdowns, plus the DPI. That's 146 DYAR on those eight plays alone. Flacco didn't throw a single pass in the red zone, mainly because he went right past it. However, the Broncos pinned him deep at the other end of the field quite often, but he was able to escape pretty easily. Inside his own 20, he went 4-of-6 for 55 yards, with every completion gaining a first down, plus that DPI. 4. Colin Kaepernick SF 17/31 263 2 1 150 87 63 Kaepernick had four total touchdowns and a quarterback rushing record and still ranks fourth this week. That's partly because it was a REALLY good week for quarterbacks. Joe Flacco was the top-ranked quarterback of the wild card round, and he only had 129 DYAR that week against Indianapolis. Looking back over the regular season, when there are four times as many quarterbacks fighting for spots each week, 150 DYAR would usually get a quarterback in the top three. It would have been first overall in Week 2 and Week 10. Kaepernick also had an interception and a fumble, and while he was explosive, at times he struggled to keep drives going. On third downs as a passer, he went 5-of-7 for 90 yards, but only three of those plays went for first downs. He did much better running on third downs, gaining 75 yards and four first downs (including a 20-yard touchdown) on third downs. His only third-down run that did not pick up a first down gained 9 yards on third-and-10. And speaking of rushing numbers, Kaepernick finished with 14 carries for 183 yards and seven first downs, including two touchdowns. That's 63 rushing DYAR, which is the fourth-highest total for a quarterback since 1991. (We talked about this in Week 6 when Robert Griffin ran for 140 yards.) However, there's a bit of an asterisk with that. On second-and-9 in the middle of the second quarter, 49ers center Jonathan Goodwin snapped the ball early. It bounced off Kaepernick's knee, and he picked it up and scrambled for no gain. Looking back at the play, it's clear that the mistake is on Goodwin. The 49ers' receivers and linemen just stand around watching. Take that play away and Kaepernick had 78 DYAR rushing, and that would be second only to Michael Vick's 173-yard day against Minnesota in 2002 (82 DYAR). 5. Aaron Rodgers GB 26/39 257 2 1 128 133 -6 Rodgers ranked above Colin Kaepernick in the ESPN version of Quick Reads, but that was due to a spreadsheet error that was giving him positive value (a lot of it, actually) for his interception. Further poking around revealed that the error involves "just as good as a punt" deep interceptions on third down, and about a half-dozen plays each season will need to be fixed in our data for quarterbacks when things slow down after the Super Bowl. (The error doesn't exist in the team numbers, thankfully.) Rodgers also padded his overall numbers with a meaningless fourth-quarter touchdown drive that still left Green Bay down by 14 points with a minute to go. On that drive, he went 8-of-10 for 63 yards, plus a 12-yard DPI, for a touchdown and four other first downs. That's 72 DYAR that did nothing to help Green Bay win the game. 6. Matt Ryan ATL 24/35 250 3 2 113 110 3 Ryan had significantly more plays in Seattle's half of the field than in his own, and he played better there too. On his side of the 50, he went 10-of-14 for 94 yards with seven first downs and an interception. Across the 50, he went 14-of-21 for 156 yards and nine first downs, including three touchdowns, with another interception. 7. Peyton Manning DEN 28/43 290 3 2 -9 -9 0 For 17 weeks, Manning was one of the best two or three quarterbacks in the NFL. In the eighteenth week, he wasn't, going 28-of-43 for 290 yards with three touchdowns and two interceptions, including a pick-six. He was also sacked three times, fumbling twice, with Baltimore recovering both balls. He struggled particularly badly on third downs, going 4-of-7 for 56 yards, and while each of those completions produced a first down (including a 15-yard touchdown to Brandon Stokley), he also gave up an interception (the pick-six), two sacks and a fumble. 8. Matt Schaub HOU 34/51 343 2 1 -15 -11 -3 Schaub spent a lot of time trying and failing to throw short passes over the middle, going 11-of-18 for 98 yards with only four first downs and one interception to that area of the field. Meanwhile, on deep passes, he went 4-of-6 for 87 yards and a touchdown. Schaub failed to convert his first six third-down plays, and didn't pick up his first conversion until Houston was down by 11 points in the third quarter. His next third-down pass afte that was intercepted. Popular belief during Houston's late-season slide was that Schaub's play-action skills made him effective when playing with a lead, but he was so deficient otherwise that he was useless in a comeback situation. So let's check the numbers. During the regular season, Schaub's DVOA when ahead in the second half was 41.2%. Out of 25 quarterbacks with at least 50 passes in that situation, only Aaron Rodgers (49.1%) was better. When behind in the second half, though, his DVOA fell to -15.6%, 24th out of 38 qualifying passers. Sorry Texans fans. The public perception in this case is pretty accurate.

Five most valuable running backs Rk Player Team Rush

Yds Rush

TD Rec

Yds Rec

TD Total

DYAR Rush

DYAR Rec

DYAR 1. Shane Vereen NE 41 1 83 2 95 34 61 In 62 runs and 13 pass targets in the regular season, Vereen had two plays for 20 yards or more, and one of those came on a defensive pass interference foul. He had three 20-yard plays against Houston, and there were no referees involved. First came a 25-yard catch in the first quarter, then a 22-yard run in the second, followed by a 33-yard catch for a touchdown in the fourth. His final numbers: Seven carries for 41 yards, one touchdown, and two other first downs, with five catches in six targets for 83 yards, two touchdowns, and one other first down. 2. Frank Gore SF 119 1 48 0 63 41 23 Gore was stuffed just twice in 23 carries, with three runs for 10 yards or more. He finished with five first downs on the ground, including a 2-yard touchdown. The 49ers threw him two passes, both on third-and-long. One of those was a meaningless short gain, but the other turned into a 45-yarder. 3. Arian Foster HOU 90 1 63 1 50 31 20 Foster was stuffed four times in 22 carries, with two runs of 10 yards or more. He had a touchdown and four other first downs, three of which came with 1 yard to go. Foster caught seven passes in nine targets for 63 yards, with one touchdown (also with 1 yard to go) and three gains of 10 yards or more. In the 16 regular season games, Foster caught 40 passes for 217 yards. In two playoff games, he caught 15 for 97. 4. Stevan Ridley NE 82 1 13 0 48 42 6 Ridley was stuffed three times in 15 carries, with one touchdown and four other first downs, including two runs of 10 yards or more. He only caught one pass, but that one pass was a 13-yard gain on second-and-12. 5. Michael Turner ATL 98 0 0 0 40 40 0 Each of Turner's 14 carries gained at least one yard, five of them gained first downs, and three of them gained at least 10 yards. While we're here, let's discuss Turner's teammate, Jacquizz Rodgers. Rodgers finished with 64 yards on only 10 carries, but 45 of those yards came on one play. Only one other time did he gain successful yardage, and on three second-down carries (with 3, 5, and 8 yards to go), he gained a total of 1 yard.

Least valuable running back Rk Player Team Rush

Yds Rush

TD Rec

Yds Rec

TD Total

DYAR Rush

DYAR Rec

DYAR 1. Jacob Hester DEN 11 0 7 0 -21 -22 2 None of Hester's eight carries gained more than 2 yards. He did pick up two first downs, but he failed on three other third- or fourth-down runs. He was also thrown two passes. One was caught for 7 yards on first-and-10, the other was incomplete on third-and-8. That's an average of 1.8 yards in ten plays, and the fact that Jacob Hester was involved in six third-down plays is probably a big reason why Denver's season has come to an end. OTHER BACKS OF LITTLE VALUE: Ronnie Hillman, DEN (22 carries for 83 yards; three catches in four targets for 20 yards); Bernard Pierce, BAL (five carries for 14 yards); Ray Rice, BAL (30 carries for 121 yards, but only four first downs; no catches in two targets).

Five most valuable wide receivers and tight ends Rk Player Team Rec Att Yds Avg TD Total

DYAR 1. Michael Crabtree SF 9 11 119 13.2 2 69 The 49ers threw Crabtree five passes on second and third downs. All were complete, for a total of 71 yards. Two went for touchdowns, and two others went for first downs. The fifth was a 14-yard gain on third-and-15. 2. Zach Miller SEA 8 9 142 17.8 1 64 Miller had at least 685 yards receiving in each of his last three seasons in Oakland, but gained 629 yards, total, in two seasons after signing with Seattle in free agency. He only went over 40 yards four times in those two years, but he gained 48 yards on four catches in six targets in the wild card win over Washington, and then he exploded for eight catches and 142 yards and a touchdown in the loss to Atlanta. He had one touchdown and five other first downs on Sunday, including four plays of 20 yards or more. Is this two-game surge a random numerical fluke, or a sign that Russell Wilson is developing and learning to use all his receivers? Guess we'll have to wait until September to find out. 3. Golden Tate SEA 6 8 103 17.2 1 59 Each of Tate's receptions produced a first down or touchdown. On deep routes, he caught four out of five balls for 88 yards. 4. Torrey Smith BAL 3 6 98 32.7 2 49 In addition to the numbers shown above, Smith picked up a 9-yard DPI call on third-and-4. His 59- and 32-yard touchdowns were worth 55 DYAR between them. 5. James Jones GB 4 6 87 21.8 1 43 Jones did most of his damage when the game was still close. In three first-half passes, he had one incompletion, one 44-yard gain on third-and-5, and a 20-yard touchdown.