The 2024 season opener game featuring the Chiefs and the Ravens is days away and both teams are busily devising strategies to pin the other team’s big players. Ravens’ linebacker Roquan Smith revealed a strange strategy that could be used to contain Patrick Mahomes.
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While talking to the media, Smith elaborated his defensive strategy to turn the Chiefs into a ‘one-dimensional team’, giving the Ravens an upper hand against the Chiefs’ offense:
“Yeah, I think first and foremost eliminate the run, making the guys one-dimensional just like any other game. And once you make a team one dimensional and knowing exactly what they’ll do.”
He added that if the Ravens can stop the Chiefs from rushing and Mahomes is forced to play a passing game his team’s defense would “do exactly what we would like to do.”
In the last two years, Smith has recorded 244 tackles, 3.5 sacks, and two interceptions in the 25 games he played. He scored 16 tackles in last year’s AFC championship game, where he tested his theory and tackled a rushing attempt by Mahomes in the 2nd quarter.
As predicted Mahomes went to throw a pass in the very next play and Smith might try to replicate this in the upcoming season.
Mahomes is known for his dual ability to pass as well as run to exploit any gaps in the defense. He covered 1936 rushing yards over his career scoring 12 touchdowns. But his passing game is where he truly shines, he had 28424 passing yards with an average passer score of 103.5, one of the highest of all times.
And a plan to force Mahomes to throw more might not work as expected, despite the Chiefs facing troubles with its wide receiver.
Mahomes carried the team to victory in 26 games when he had to throw 40+ passes. He gave his career-best performance in 2022 against the Titans, where he threw a record 68 passes and scored 1 touchdown to carry the team to a victory.
Roquan Smith gets advice from the internet
Jason Dunn discussed Smith’s strategy on the Chiefs’ weekly podcast and claimed that Smith might be on to something. According to him, a pass-intense game could indeed put pressure on Isiah Pacheco giving the opponents a chance to target him.
However, fans disagreed and offered their take on the plan. Joining them was Geiff Schwartz, who played for the Chiefs in 2013 had a word of advice to Smith.
For what feels like the 100th time I will explain the best way to stop the Chiefs. For starters you should score more points than them. That’s always the best way. But anyways … It’s forcing the Chiefs to work slowly down the field. You actually want them to run the ball
— Geoff Schwartz (@geoffschwartz) September 3, 2024
One fan cited last year’s AFC game performance to claim that the problem was with the Ravens’ offense. He said:
They held them to 17 points 7 months ago and the majority of that defense is back including their 3 best players (Madibuke, Roquan, Hamilton). The offense was the problem. He was just giving a canned answer.
— Zachary Ament (@zach13090) September 3, 2024
The Chiefs and the Ravens are two of the strongest teams in the AFC and the winner of the match-up could end up becoming this season’s champions. But will Smith’s strategy work or is Mahomes to savvy to fall for the same trick twice?
