by Vince Verhei

Congratulations, Baltimore Ravens! It wasn't the prettiest game anyone's ever seen, but you made enough big plays this weekend to defeat the Indianapolis Colts 24-9 and advance in the playoffs. Your reward? A flight to Denver and a game against the 13-3 Broncos, champions of their division, top seed in the conference, and owners of an 11-game winning streak. And while Peyton Manning holds many records and MVP awards, the Broncos are just as fearsome on the other side of the ball. If the Ravens are going to take the next step in the playoffs, they'll need to overcome the mighty Denver pass rush.

Whether you prefer conventional statistics or Football Outsiders' advanced metrics, the Broncos come out on top of the heap. They finished the regular season with 52 sacks, tied with St. Louis for best in the league, and their 8.7 percent Adjusted Sack Rate was best in football. It won't be easy for the Ravens to keep Joe Flacco upright under all that pressure -- their offense was 14th in ASR -- but there is a three-step plan for stifling that pass rush. Following that plan will be easier said than done, but it will be necessary if the Ravens are going to move on to the AFC Championship game.

Step One: Stop Von Miller

Admittedly, this first step is not particularly insightful. It doesn't take an expert to point out that Miller, whose 18.5 sacks led the Broncos and ranked third in the league, is the key to the Denver defense. However, numbers from the Football Outsiders game charting project show that Miller has been even more dominant than his sack numbers suggest. Our project is not quite complete (we're still charting and processing four halves for Denver and five for Baltimore), but so far we've already credited Miller with 40.5 pressures. That's as many pressures as Kansas City's Tamba Hali had in all of 2011, and that was enough to lead the league. Adding Miller's sacks and pressures gives us 59 quarterback "incidents," nearly one-third of Denver's team total.

While many pass rushers play on the right side of the defense, Miller spends most of his time on the left side. That usually leaves him matched up with the offense's right tackle. No player gave up more "incidents" to Miller this season than Jeromey Clary, who plays right tackle for the San Diego Chargers. That leads us to a potential key mismatch in next week's playoff game, and to Baltimore's second step to success.

Step Two: Help Michael Oher

Between sacks and holding penalties, we've counted a dozen blown blocks for Baltimore's right tackle. That would have placed in the top five last season. Oher can't be counted on to block defensive ends week in and week out, and he certainly can't be counted on to block a defensive MVP-type like Von Miller by himself. As long as Miller is lining up on Oher's side, the Ravens will need to keep a running back or tight end (or both) to that side of the formation to chip Miller before releasing for a pass route, or just forget about the pass route entirely and leave an extra blocker in to help with Miller until Flacco can find a different target. Every time the Broncos are able to isolate Miller on Oher will be a win for Denver.

Step Three: Avoid passing situations

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This is perhaps the most important step in Baltimore's game plan. The more obvious the passing situation, the more likely it is that a quarterback will be sacked before he has a chance to pass. That's true of all teams, but it's especially true for the Baltimore offense and the Denver defense. For example:

The average offense this season has a sack rate of 5.7 percent with two or fewer wide receivers on the field, a number that climbs to 6.3 percent with three or more wideouts. For the Baltimore offense, that number moves from 3.2 percent to 8.1 percent. For the Denver defense, it bumps from 6.5 percent to 9.6 percent.

On first and second down, the average sack rate is 5.2 percent, but on third and fourth downs, it's 8.0 percent. For the Baltimore offense, the numbers are 4.6 and 9.7 percent; for the Denver defense, 5.4 and 15.4 percent.

Those splits are even more obvious if we remove short-yardage third- and fourth-down plays. With 4 or more yards needed for a conversion, the average offense gives up a sack 8.8 percent of the time, compared to 11.1 percent for the Baltimore offense and a whopping 17.7 percent for the Denver defense.

The point of all these numbers is to show that if the Ravens want to protect Flacco, they'll need to open up their playbook and be unpredictable. If they wait until third down to pass, Flacco might not finish the game. Better to pass on first or second down and try to catch Denver by surprise. And speaking of catching Denver by surprise, the Ravens should rely heavily on two-receiver sets and try to keep Denver in their base defense. Remarkably, the Broncos had only three sacks in 156 passing plays with four or fewer defensive backs on the field, but 42 sacks in 451 dropbacks in nickel and dime sets. (The remaining seven sacks have not been charted yet.) Finally, since the Ravens don't seem likely to have a lot of third-down conversions, and probably won't have a lot of long drives, they'll need to hit some big plays downfield to get on the scoreboard. That's something the Ravens do quite often anyway, but it will be critical that they actually hit a good chunk of those throws against Denver. Flacco threw 126 deep passes (more than 15 yards past the line of scrimmage) this season, fourth-most in the league, but his average success rate on those throws was 42.9 percent, just a few decimal points more than average.

This is not to say that Baltimore should discard the running game. A healthy diet of draws and screen passes might stop Denver from blitzing, which is when they're at their best. (The Broncos have a 10 percent sack rate when sending five or more pass rushers, and 12 percent when sending six or more.) And frankly, no team with Ray Rice should turn away from the running game too often.

Eventually, though, no matter what Baltimore does to protect him, Flacco is going to need to make some plays. Just three weeks ago, the Broncos handily beat Baltimore 34-17, and they didn't need a bunch of sacks to do it. Oh, they got to Flacco three times that day, but all three came with the Ravens trailing by 17 points in the fourth quarter. The key play in that game was an interception thrown by Flacco and returned by Chris Harris 98 yards for a touchdown. The pick-six came just before halfime, as Baltimore was about to cut into a 10-0 score, and it effectively ended the game. If Flacco plays like that again this weekend, then no game plan in the world will be enough to get Baltimore a win.

Quarterbacks Rk Player Team CP/AT Yds TD INT Total

DYAR Pass

DYAR Rush

DYAR 1. Joe Flacco BAL 12/23 282 2 0 129 129 0 Flacco gets a big boost from playing the Chicago Bears, whose defense -- whoops. Sorry. Force of habit. Flacco actually finished atop the leaderboard this week despite a pretty stiff penalty (about -30 DYAR) for playing the Colts. As discussed in the essay, Flacco likes to throw deep, and he was very effective with the long ball against Indianapolis. On deep passes, he went 5-of-7 for 157 yards and a touchdown. As a result, he had a pretty top-heavy day, in the sense that a lot of his value came on a small number of plays. Flacco's five biggest plays (touchdowns of 18 and 20 yards, plus three plays that gained 46 to 50 yards, one of those a conversion on third-and-19) were worth 139 DYAR by themselves, meaning he was below replacement level the rest of the day. His five worst plays (one sack, four incompletions) were worth -54 DYAR. 2. Matt Schaub HOU 29/36 262 0 1 84 89 -4 As you can tell from his raw stats, Schaub did a lot of checking down against Cincinnati. On second down, Schaub went 12-of-12 for 86 yards, plus an 11-yard DPI. Only four of those plays went for first downs, but nine of them met FO's standards for a successful play. He also had some interesting splits on his 13 third-down plays. Five of them were completions for first downs, and a total gain of 53 yards. Four of them were completions short of the sticks, for a total of 30 yards. And four of them were incomplete, one of those a pick-six. 3. Aaron Rodgers GB 23/33 274 1 0 79 75 4 As Aaron (Schatz) noted in his DVOA commentary, Aaron (Rodgers) and the rest of the Packers were pretty clearly not trying at the end of this game. Rodgers' 9-yard touchdown to John Kuhn late in the third quarter put Green Bay ahead 21-3. Up to that point, Rodgers was 19-of-25 for 260 yards and 15 first downs (including the scoring play), with two sacks. After that, he went 4-of-8 for 14 yards and one first down, with a sack. 4. Russell Wilson SEA 15/26 187 1 0 25 24 2 Outside the red zone: 13-of-18 for 178 yards with eight first downs and five sacks. He also had five runs for 56 yards and three more first downs, plus a fumble. Inside the Washington 20, he went 2-of-8 for 9 yards, and while one of those completions was a 4-yard touchdown, the other was a 5-yard gain on third-and-7. His only run in the red zone was an 11-yard gain on first-and-10 from the 16. 5. Robert Griffin WAS 10/19 84 2 1 0 -9 9 First two drives: 6-of-9 for 68 yards with six first downs, including two touchdowns. He also had three runs for 12 yards and two more first downs in that span. After that, he went 4-of-10 for 16 yards with one first down, one interception, two sacks, one hard-to-watch fumbled snap, and one run for 9 yards. 6. Kirk Cousins WAS 3/10 31 0 0 -33 -33 0 Cousins hit two of his first three passe for 27 yards and a pair of first downs. Then he fumbled a snap. Then he threw five incompletions in a row, then completed a pass for 4 yards on third-and-10, then incomplete on fourth down, and that was that. 7. Joe Webb MIN 12/29 180 1 1 -54 -78 23 The Vikings originally drafted Webb thinking they could turn the Alabama-Birmingham quarterback into an NFL receiver, but somewhere along the way those plans were scrapped. Perhaps it's time to go back to that idea. Webb's raw numbers don't really reflect how unsuccessful he was against Green Bay. His last four passes, each thrown while down by at least 14 points in the fourth quarter, were all completed for 119 yards with one touchdown and three other first downs. Those were his four longest completions of the day. Up to that point, he had gone 7-of-24 for 61 yards with two first downs, one interception, one intentional grounding penalty, one fumble, and three sacks. He also gained 68 rushing yards on seven carries. 8. Andy Dalton CIN 14/30 127 0 1 -64 -65 1 You probably know about Dalton's horrible first half (4-of-10 for 3 yards, three of those completions gaining 1 yard or less, with one first down and one sack), but his third- and fourth-down numbers may have been even worse: 2-of-8 for 15 yards with a sack and no first downs. His only successful third-down conversion was an 11-yard DPI call, and it took him 55 minutes to even get that. 9. Andrew Luck IND 29/54 288 0 1 -83 -94 11 On Baltimore's half of the field, Luck went 7-of-19 for 63 yards with three first downs, two sacks, one fumble, one intentional grounding, and one interception. On the day, he had four runs, all on third downs, for 35 yards and three first downs. That's nothing new for Luck. Half of his 42 rushes came on third or fourth downs, as did 15 of his 23 first downs on the ground.

Five most valuable running backs Rk Player Team Rush

Yds Rush

TD Rec

Yds Rec

TD Total

DYAR Rush

DYAR Rec

DYAR 1. DuJuan Harris GB 47 1 53 0 28 11 18 Harris had a career-high 17 carries against Minnesota, and though he averaged only 2.8 yards per rush, he gets enough credit for his touchdown and his consistency (nine of his carries gained 4 yards or more) that he had positive value as a rusher. He was the most valuable running back of the week, though, because of what he did in the passing game: five catches in six targets for 53 yards, including four first downs. 2. Alfred Morris WAS 80 0 0 0 25 25 0 In rushing DYAR alone, Morris was the most valuable back this week, but the Redskins didn't throw him a single pass. Only three of his 16 carries went for first downs, but nine of them gained 5 yards or more. Like the rest of the Washington offense, he did most of his damage early. First two drives: eight carries, 49 yards, one first down. Rest of the game: eight carries, 31 yards, two first downs. 3. Marshawn Lynch SEA 132 1 9 0 24 18 6 Lynch's fumble at the goal-line was worth -27 DYAR, and is the only reason he isn't No. 1 in these rankings by a wide margin. In 20 carries, he ran for six first downs (only Adrian Peterson had more this week), with four runs of 10 yards or more (only Arian Foster had more), and he was the only player this week with multiple 20-yard runs. Meanwhile, he was stuffed for a loss just twice. However, like everyone else on his team, Lynch struggled in the red zone. He had a 15-yard gain from the Washington 17, but his other six red-zone runs netted 4 yards, including both stuffs and the fumble. Finally, Lynch caught the only pass thrown his way for a 9-yard gain on first-and-10. 4. Adrian Peterson MIN 99 0 8 0 17 21 -4 Peterson rushed for seven first downs in 22 carries, and was only stuffed twice. He had three runs for 10 or more yards. Like the rest of the Vikings, there was an air of "too little, too late" to Peterson's day. Two of his longest carries, runs for 18 and 11 yards, came on his last two runs of the day. (He also had an 11-yarder in the first quarter.) The Vikings threw him three passes, all on first-and-10, and he caught just one of them for 8 yards. 5. Bernard Pierce BAL 103 0 0 0 12 12 0 Without opponent adjustments, Pierce would have been the most valuable running back of the week. He gained 103 yards on only 13 carries, three of them gains of 10 yards or more, including a 13-yard gain on third-and-6 and a 43-yarder on third-and-1. He was stuffed only twice.

Least valuable running back Rk Player Team Rush

Yds Rush

TD Rec

Yds Rec

TD Total

DYAR Rush

DYAR Rec

DYAR 1. Ray Rice BAL 70 0 47 0 -36 -49 13 Rice had two fumbles in 15 carries. That's the biggest reason he's this low, but not the only one. Although he averaged 4.7 yards per carry, only three of his runs were worth positive DYAR: a 13-yard gain on second-and-5 and two 5-yard gains on first-and-10. He also had an 18-yard gain that would have been positive, but it ended in a fumble. He also caught just one of the four passes thrown his way (although that one went for a 47-yard gain). OTHER BACKS OF LITTLE VALUE: BenJarvus Green-Ellis, CIN (11 carries for 63 yards; two catches in two targets for -9 yards); Robert Turbin, SEA (eight carries for 22 yards; one catch in one target for 6 yards); Ryan Grant, GB (seven carries for 7 yards; one catch in one target for 16 yards).

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

DYAR 1. Anquan Boldin BAL 5 7 145 29.0 1 64 First half: two targets, no catches. Second half: five targets, five catches, five first downs (including a touchdown), 145 yards, including gains of 46 and 50 yards. 2. Michael Jenkins MIN 3 5 96 32.0 1 42 First 55 minutes: two targets, no catches. Last five minutes, all while trailing by at least 14 points: three targets, three catches, three first downs (including a touchdown), 96 yards, including gains of 30 and 50 yards. 3. Owen Daniels HOU 9 11 91 10.1 0 28 In seven seasons and 95 games with the Texans, Daniels only caught nine passes in a game twice, and only surpassed 90 yards receiving eight times. He hit both those thresholds against Cincinnati, and that doesn't include the 11-yard defensive pass interference penalty he drew. Daniels had five first downs on the day, including conversions on third-and-4 and third-and-9. 4. James Jones GB 4 4 51 12.8 0 23 Four plays, all in the second and third quarters: 20-yard gain on first-and-10, 3-yard gain on second-and-8, 9-yard gain on third-and-2, 19-yard gain on third-and-4. 5. Kyle Rudolph MIN 3 3 42 14.0 0 19 Blah blah second half blah blah stats padding. His three plays: 6-yard gain on second-and-8 in the second quarter, 13-yard gain on first-and-10 in the third, 23-yard gain on second-and-10 in the fourth on the last play of the game.