View topic - Keisel at OLB?

[oldschoolhunkie Profile]

With three of four LBs out for Ravens, seems they should ponder Keisel lining up at OLB, and Lil' Ironhead into the game.

And for everyone who has bagged on Foote the last few years - thank f'in God we have him.

[PSUPERCY Profile]

Why don't you put Casey Hampton at wideout while you are at it? Kiesel would get abused at OLB. It may be a blessing in disguise to have those younger legs out there to keep up with Ray Rice. I do agree with you on having Foote back though.

[oldschoolhunkie Profile]

Why don't you put Casey Hampton at wideout while you are at it?

Good line, but obviously no comparison... I think they are gonna get tricky with formations and Keisel in hybrid OLB is going to be one look....from my understanding, they almost made him an OLB anyhow and he moves around quite a bit. I think they will go 6 DB often, as well as some 4-2-5...Troy will be up at ILB type position and more. It's gonna be more creative than plug the rookie LBs in.... too many at once.

[PSUPERCY Profile]

Yeah, they almost made him an OLB 12+ years ago. Don't take offense, just talking football. Keisel does move well, but he wont do anything but drop into the flat every so often. I wouldn't call that a hybrid OLB anymore than I would call Hampton a hybrid ILB when he drops into the middle on a stunt.

How much pressure will they generate from the 4-2-5 with Kiesel at OLB? What would you do about these TEs as hot-reads when the blitz doesn't get there?

Someone has to spy Rice...esp in shotgun, who do you think should do that? Foote is not an option in my mind because he would get tooled. Mundy is big enough to take him down and agile enough to not not be abused by that jump-cutting midget.

Would you put Ike on Torrey Smith or Boldin (Gay can keep up with Torrey Smith but he cannot press Boldin)?

[isfry Profile]

Frankly, finding LB help from the D-Line is exactly what MT said we might do. Not the craziest idea to go a sort of 4-3 look, or mix in some DL's at LB, keeping in mind that the Ravens dont have the multiple TE's with hands and route running skill the Cheats had. As for Ray Rice, I watched the replay of the Cheatriots game (more than once) and really liked it when Pola was spying the HB from way back and still getting up to make the play. Rice, admittedly, has better wheels than Faulk did even in his prime (which is long gone) but the concept can remain similar with variations in placement for Troy. I also think we are gonna have to figure out a way to run the ball a little more. The whole "short passing is just like a running game" thing works until you're inside the ten and there's nowhere to run passing routes. A couple of the 3rd downs we failed to convert in the redzone you could see more than one WR occupying the same space, which makes for easy coverage.

[oldschoolhunkie Profile]

PSU - As isfry noted, Tomlin did say in his presser (after my initial post - I was just guessing) that they might do something like this... I don't take that too seriously, though. I think his main point was we will work with what we have and not look to sign someone off the scrap heap. I think they are going to move pieces around. i think last week they already showed they are ready, willing and able to make adjustments on the fly, based on both who's available and opponents' strengths.

My guess would be Ike on Boldin, Lewis or Gay on smith, Timmons or Pola spying Rice, depending on who's playing where... But it all boils down to my fave Tomlin quote: the standard is the standard. Heat on Flacco has to come from somewhere... not expecting Wood to pl;ay so we'll see how easy those sacks really are to come by.

[isfry Profile]

Time to bring a Worilds of hurt on Flak-O.