Post 4 - 2014-15 Raven's Season Review

Hello! And welcome to Cabache’s Corner!

The 2014-2015 NFL Season is over. 7 months without regular season football is ahead of us, 7 months for us to reminisce yet another great year in the NFL.

The Ravens bounced back from a disappointing 2013-2014 season (8-8 record), finishing the season 10-6 and booking themselves a trip back to the playoffs, their 6th trip in 7 years. They marched into Pittsburgh and beat the AFC North Champs, then lost a gut-wrencher to the eventual Superbowl Champs, the New England Patriots.

As the records would suggest, the Ravens improved on a lot of the flaws from last year. On offense the Ravens had 50 more first downs, they converted on 41% of their 3rd downs compared to 36% last season, 50% of 4th downs compared to 37.5% last season. They had 920 yards of total offense with most of that improvement coming in the ground game, they ran for 691 more yards at 4.5 yards per carry (1.4 YPC more than last year), they averaged 1.2 yards more per play (4.5 YPP – 5.7 YPP). Furthermore, they gave up 29 less sacks and they had a turner ratio of +2 which is 7 better than last year. But, perhaps the biggest improvement was the 17 extra touchdowns that we scored on offense (26 – 43).

This was all largely due to the arrival of Gary Kubiak. His system, despite its doubters, fit Flacco brilliantly, his stats were better for him, and the team, in every way. His completion % went up from 59% to 62.1%, his yards went up from 3912 to 3986 (career high), his touchdowns went up from 19 to 27 (career high), his picks went down from 22 to 12, his yards per attempt went from 6.3 to 7.2 and his passer rating went from 73.1 to 91. Justin Forsett was also key, he ran the ball 235 times at 5.4 YPC for 1266 yards and 8 TD’s, compared to Ray Rice who ran for just 660 yards on 214 carries, a measly 3.1 yards per attempt, and 4 TD’s. All of this falls on the offensive line. Zuttah was an upgrade at center, Osemele and Yanda were solid, and Wagner did a very good job in his first year starting.

However, the defence didn't show much difference. They were not consistently better in every area like the offense, but, they were still better overall. In terms of yards allowed they were as near as makes no difference, it was the types of yards that was the difference. Last year they gave up 105.4 rushing yards per game, but just 88.2 this year. In the passing game, the difference was for the worse. Last year they gave up 230.1 yards per game, this year it was 248.7 yards per game. Although this doesn’t seem like a lot of yards, it was noticeable and it made a difference. A lot of the games we lost (the Steelers, Chargers and Bengals stand out) were due to big plays through the air. Along with that, we had 5 less interceptions, and the fact that a defensive lineman and line-backer were tied on 2 interceptions, leading the team, was not reassuring.

Looking forward to next year, I think the secondary is certainly our main position of need. Followed by WR and RB in my eyes. Those two positions will largely depend on whether Forsett and/or Torrey Smith stay during free agency.


Overall, this season was just about what I expected. Looking at the schedule at the beginning of the year, with the players we had and how we played last year, I think 10-6 and a playoff berth can be called a success. With free agency and the draft still to come, I think this team is well worth paying attention to.

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