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Ravens win, Vikings lose but both teams headed in opposite direction

Adrian Peterson will lead the Vikings in 2016. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast, File)
Roar Guru
23rd November, 2015
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Super Bowl XLVII was played between the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers.

Two relatively young teams with outstanding coaches who just happened to be brothers, the sides were expected to maintain their place among the upper echelon of NFL teams over the coming years.

Just three seasons later the two teams are a combined 6-14 and have more problems than answers. On Monday the Baltimore Ravens recorded just their third win of the season in what would become a pyric victory. Quarterback Joe Flacco tore his ACL in the final minute of the game while running back Justin Forsett broke his arm in the first quarter.

In reality, however, this was already a lost season. The formerly dominant defence is now a shadow of the Ray Lewis days and the secondary would struggle against a high school team. With the Bengals sitting at 8-2 the Ravens have absolutely no chance of winning the AFC North and a wildcard spot is now out of the question given they’d have to finish the season undefeated just to finish 9-7. That’s not happening with Matt Schaub at quarterback.

So where did things go so wrong for a team that should have defeated the eventual Super Bowl-winning Patriots in the playoffs last year? To figure that out it’s helpful to go back to the 2013 season. The Ravens had a shocker that year, finishing 8-8 after losing eight players who started in Super Bowl XLVII. That team was ranked 23rd in DVOA.

Last season the team jumped up to fifth in DVOA. Such a large leap is not unheard of but it is incredibly difficult to maintain. The Ravens improved further than they should have and thus it was likely they would regress this season. However other advanced metrics suggested they should have actually improved this year.

The 2014 Ravens underperformed according to Pythagorean win expectation and they struggled in games decided by less than seven points, going 2-4. Both of these suggest that an improvement is coming in the following season. This has not happened. The Ravens have actually gone backwards in this stat, currently sitting at 3-6 with a seventh loss by eight points.

The Ravens were lucky enough to face the two worst divisions in football last season, the NFC and AFC South divisions. Six of their ten wins came against these eight teams. This year the Ravens were tasked with facing the NFC and AFC West divisions, two somewhat tougher divisions.

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The Baltimore defence has been picked apart by almost all opposing quarterbacks they have faced. Even a completely rattled Colin Kaepernick torched them for 340 yards. Jimmy Smith has looked completely lost at right cornerback all season while safeties Will Hill III and Kendrick Lewis have offered very little help to their cornerbacks.

Much of the blame has been placed on defensive coordinator Dean Pees who has seen the defence regress considerably since taking over from Chuck Pagano in 2012. Don’t let the Super Bowl victory deceive you, the defence was bad in 2012 as well, ranked 19th in DFOA. It would be incredibly shocking if Pees still has a job once the season ends, especially given the defence has allowed at least 335 yards a game in each of the four years Pees has been in charge.

While the defence has rightfully copped plenty of criticism, Joe Flacco must also face criticism for his poor performances. Flacco has recorded the worst quarterback rating of his career and is currently ranked 28th in the league. He has not been as poor as in that woeful 2013 season but many of his numbers are the second worst in his career.

Part of Flacco’s problems lie with the wretched injury luck his team has faced. His only wide receiver is 36 and tore his Achilles two weeks ago. Four other wideouts have suffered season-ending injuries. Tight end Dennis Pitta is out for the season. Numerous offensive linemen are battling injuries.

This season has turned into a lost season for the Baltimore Ravens. Hopefully they will be able to lose their way to a high draft pick, draft a defensive player, sign a new defensive coordinator, hope Flacco returns to full health and they will contend for the playoffs next season. If this doesn’t happen they could be in for a long couple of years.

Like the Ravens, the Minnesota Vikings also wear purple jerseys but that is where the similarities between the two teams end. The Vikings suffered just their third defeat of the season on Monday, going down to the Packers at home in a vital NFC North divisional game.

Despite sitting at 7-3 all the advanced stats suggest Minnesota are average at best. Entering week eleven the team had faced the league’s second easiest schedule, based on average DVOA of opponents. Using the same methodology, the team faces the toughest finish to the season in the league. Additionally the Vikings have recovered over 70 per cent of fumbles in their ten games played thus far. In the long run, fumble recoveries are an almost completely random aspect of a game. It should be expected that the Vikings fumble recovery rate regresses towards 50 per cent in the second half of the season.

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Finally, the Vikings Pythagorean win expectancy, through ten games, sits at 5.8. This means that effectively they have over performed by just over one win. If we look closely at the Vikings’ season, that win can be identified as the victory over Kansas City in week six. In this match the Chiefs outgained the Vikings by over one yard per play. It may not sound like much, but over the course of a full match it’s a fairly considerable margin.

So, the Vikings have been lucky against bad teams and won some games they should have lost, but as the season continues they should be expected to be unlucky against stronger opposition. That does not bode well for Minnesota.

However, the Vikings possess the best running back in the game. After a year spent on the sideline due to a suspension, Adrian Peterson has returned to his dominant best. The only running back to pass 1000 yards thus far, Peterson is averaging over a hundred yards a game. His fumble issues have persisted this season and while they haven’t hurt his team yet, sooner or later the opposition will start recovering them, as Green Bay did this weekend.

Despite this, the Vikings aren’t going to stop handing Peterson the ball. They’d be mad not to, even if he is fumbling a touch over once every two games, he’s collecting over one hundred yards and playing an important role in the passing and blocking schemes. If the Vikings hope to make a run for the playoffs the team needs Peterson to continue his strong form and help out quarterback Teddy Bridgewater as much as possible.

Bridgewater is a quarterback now in his second season in the league that was expected to continue to develop this season. Overall, year on year, his numbers have improved. His intercept rate has decreased and his quarterback rating has increased. However, when you split his 12 starts in his rookie season into two, he has actually regressed slightly since the second half of last season. His rating is lower, his completion percentage has dropped and yards per attempt have dropped off.

Numbers don’t always tell the full story however. Bridgewater was playing in a very conservative offensive scheme last season. As he has developed, offensive coordinator Norv Turner has opened up the offense for Bridgewater. He is allowing him to take more risks, allowing him to attempt more deep throws. As the risks increase, it is normal to expect the stats to drop off at least a little bit.

Bridgewater has shown considerable improvement in throwing against zone defences. He has shown an ability to read the zone, identify which defenders are going where and then target the holes. Despite being slightly inconsistent, he has been able to get the ball into tight windows most of the time. Where he has got himself into trouble is when he’s missed these windows and with little margin for error a slightly under or overthrown ball can easily be picked off.

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Overall Bridgewater and Peterson have combined well to lead the Vikings offence despite a poor offensive line and so-so wide receiver corps. The Vikings are in prime position heading into the final six weeks of the season, however they have a tough stretch of games ahead of them and with a number of teams in the wildcard race, they could fall out of the playoffs altogether.

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