Arif Reviews the Baltimore Ravens Game - With GIFs!

It's a hefty read.

There are a few more GIFs I didn't tweet out that go with it, incidentally:

Audie Cole is a little late to react again

The Vikings moved away from zone blocking and one-cut running to a power/man blocking scheme. More effective in slippery conditions

At any rate, it's the first time I've done a story using this feature of Storify, and I was wondering what you thought of it. Overall, I thought the defense was generally very sound in the first three quarters—remarkably so, given the state of the roster and who the Vikings have been forced to play in a number of positions.

There are some players I didn't get to discussing. The ones I have an opinion on based on what I watched:

• Sharrif Floyd is handicapped by not having a nose tackle in a way that Kevin Williams is not. It's not a knock on Floyd, but it does demonstrate that:
  • He's not versatile enough at the moment to move to 1-technique
  • Kevin Williams is still a special talent
  • Teams respect Floyd enough that they're willing to double-team him on routine plays
• Chad Greenway was very up-and-down, but I would argue this was a much better game than it was worse. The interception in some ways was to his credit and he shouldn't be penalized for the pass interference penalty, but I'm also not sure what he was trying to do when he did get called.
• Greenway did a good job setting the edge in the run when the defensive ends were asked to play inside. At times he plays like an old-school SAM linebacker playing 6- or 9-technique against the run. It's fun to see and he has a good understanding of how to keep leverage.
• As you would expect, Greenway's mistakes rarely seem to be because of recognition, despite that odd example in the GIF above, where he flies clear out of his gap.
• I think it is time for him to go.
• I think the same thing of Jared Allen. Some impressive plays, but too quiet for too long. And certainly not popping out as a pass-rusher.
• Brian Robison has been good this season, but like Allen had too quiet a game for me to be content with how he and the defensive line in general performed
• Fred Evans did have a good game, but he didn't often perform a typical nose tackle role as he would line up as a 1-technique but didn't really get double-teamed. A lot of good pressure and explosiveness, and he's usually the first off the line.
• Marcus Sherels has some lowlights up there for sure, but he also had some great coverage at times, too. His mistakes were huge but his good play was good.
• Blanton should not remain a corner and he should move back to safety (where he was moved to from corner last year). This is obviously due to injuries and not because the Vikings were just messing around with CBs, but I wanted to be clear on that.
• On offense, my wishlist: I want Matt Kalil back, Joe Webb to get open more, and for Jeff Baca to take the next step so he can replace Charlie Johnson