An offense like Kansas City’s can make a defense overthink its strategy. Teams assume that they have show Mahomes and Andy Reid something they haven’t seen before and do something extra. The Ravens, however, took the opposite approach by becoming not something else, but rather, more of what they already were.
Fire zone blitzing. Most blitzes have man coverage behind them. The idea is the blitz will force the quarterback to throw quickly, and so defenders should be up on their receiver immediately. The Ravens, however, often play zone structures behind their blitzes. Being a predominantly one-deep safety defense, Baltimore’s fire zones have three defenders deep and three underneath.