The big news around the Ravens defense this week has been about injuries.
Cornerback Lardarius Webb and linebacker Ray Lewis are gone for all or most of the season because of them, linebacker Terrell Suggs is trying to make it back from one and safety Ed Reed has one that didn’t make it onto the injury report. That’s a lot for any one week, but it isn’t the only story about the Ravens defense.
The other one is about a performance that’s not quite up to the standards of past seasons. They’ve given up more than 200 rushing yards in each of their last two games and rank near the bottom of the league in yards allowed. Safety Bernard Pollard vowed that things are going to change on defense and that it is up to the players to put that change into action.
“Don’t blame the coach. Don’t blame the coach because the coach doesn’t play. Dean has made great calls. It’s about us going out there and executing. We have not been executing,” Pollard said, via Josh Land of MASNSports.com. “We are tough and physical. Nobody can question the abilities that we have. We get pressure in the backfield. We had guys in the backfield numerous times, we just did not tackle, we did not execute. I think for us, like I said, we take that personally. “
The good news, in addition to their 5-1 record, for the Ravens is that they are still allowing under 20 points per game so all those yards haven’t resulted in many points. You can thank the Chiefs for that, but the Ravens should still be concerned about the breakdowns over the last two weeks.