HC Candidate Mike MacDonald impresses in Ravens playoff win
Evaluating how head coach candidate Mike MacDonald performed in the Ravens playoff victory over the Texans
This week I’ve been looking at how potential head coach candidates for the Commanders have been performing in the playoffs. I’ve broken down how Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson stood out in both of their playoff wins against the Rams and then the Buccaneers, but another very impressive coordinator performance came from Ravens defensive coordinator Mike MacDonald. MacDonald and the Ravens faced a Texans offense led by rookie quarterback C.J. Stroud and offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik, a Shanahan disciple.
The Shanahan coaching tree has been incredibly successful and is spreading around the league rapidly, with Slowik the latest name to be running that system. When you watch the way those offenses perform, it’s easy to see why those coaches are in demand as the vast majority of defenses struggle to consistently stop them. One defense that has kept that offense in check is MacDonald’s Ravens unit, which when you look at the season they’ve had stands out as incredibly impressive.
They’ve taken on Bobby Slowik and the Texans, Zac Taylor and the Bengals (twice), Shane Waldron and the Seahawks, Mike McDaniel and the Dolphins, Kyle Shanahan and the 49ers and Sean McVay’s Rams. All of those guys have links to the Shanahan system and run their own versions of it, and all of them lost to the Ravens. Only McVay’s Rams managed to put up 30 points, the rest all failing to pass 20. It’s a remarkable record against one of the toughest and most popular systems in the league.
So it should come as no surprise then that when MacDonald faced the Texans again in the playoffs, his Ravens’ defense was once again able to shut down that Shanahan system run by Slowik. The Texans managed just one touchdown and one field goal throughout the game, with Stroud completing less than 58% of his passes and just 175 yards passing. The run game was shut down too, with the Texans picking up a total of just 38 yards on 14 carries, an average of less than three yards per carry.
So how did MacDonald and the Ravens manage it? Let’s take a closer look.
The foundation of the Shanahan system has always been the zone run scheme. This is one of the first attempts from the Texans to run the wide zone scheme in this game. They work out of 12 personnel with one running back and two tight ends. Both tight ends align to the right of the formation and the Texans look to run this zone scheme to the weak side, hoping that they can get some more double teams up front. MacDonald and the Ravens respond with their base 3-4 defense. The base 3-4 scheme has traditionally been very hard to run against, especially with zone run schemes, and that’s what MacDonald relies on here.
The Ravens have three big bodies along that defensive line. The defensive end over the right side of the line is Travis Jones, listed at 338 pounds. At nose tackle, they have Broderick Washington, listed at 315 pounds. Justin Madubuike is the third defensive lineman, lining up over the left tackle. By running this to the weak side, the Texans hope they can generate some double teams up front and displace those big defensive lineman. They do manage to get significant movement on Jones and Washington initially gets driven back, but he does eventually break through the double team.
Most importantly though, the downside of running to the weak side is that the left tackle and left guard have to block one-on-one. Madubuike does a great job stunting inside to beat the left guard with quickness while Jadeveon Clowney is strong on the edge against the left tackle. This prevents the running back from working outside and forces him to cut his run inside quickly. Once he makes that cut, Madubuike sheds his blocker and makes the play, assisted by Washington who had also broken free of his double team.
In my profile of Texans offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik, I pointed out how the Texans don’t necessarily have the best personnel to run the zone scheme and some of their offensive lineman are more suited to running gap scheme concepts. Slowik has done a nice job managing that all season, despite a lot of changes up front due to various injuries. He attempted to call some gap scheme runs too, but the Ravens were just as quick to shut that down.
On this play, the Texans look to run a power scheme to their left. The fullback is asked to kick out the edge defender while the right guard pulls and wraps around for the first linebacker. There’s not anything necessarily special about what MacDonald calls here from a scheme perspective, but you can see just how well coached the unit is on this play, so I thought it was worth highlighting. Madubuike stunts inside to try and disrupt things but the Texans are blocking down inside anyway so that gets taken care of. Where the issue arises for the Texans is with Clowney on the edge.
The tight end attempts to block down on Clowney, but Clowney reads the block and adjusts, shoving the tight end inside. The fullback then appears and wants to kick out the edge defender, but Clowney has already squeezed down the line of scrimmage which moves his target. Clowney not only occupies the fullback as the fullback attempts to adjust, but the pulling guard then gets caught up in the traffic too.
While all of this is happening, all three linebackers on the second level read the play perfectly and they all flow very quickly to the left side of the line to fill their gaps. Patrick Queen re-establishes the edge after Clowney worked inside and ends up taking on the pulling guard. Roquan Smith follows suit and sorts through the traffic to take on the fullback and work to the running back, while Malik Harrison works across from the back side as the free defender to clog the lane. A combination of Harrison, Smith and Clowney all end up getting their hands on the running back and making the tackle to shut the run down.
This was all pretty consistent throughout the game. Whatever the Texans tried, the Ravens were able to shut it down and keep the run game in check. The run game is a big part of the Shanahan system as it leads into the play-action. A huge part of what has made Slowik and Stroud so successful this year is their ability to set up the play-action shots, but they just weren’t able to get into those looks because the run game was consistently shut down by the Ravens. Without being able to access their play-action game, the Texans had to try and come up with other ideas via the drop back passing game. This is where MacDonald’s defense really took over.
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