For those blaming Ray Lewis for why Kansas City's Jamaal Charles ran for 125 yards in the first half last Sunday, Ravens Defensive Coordinator Dean Pees encouraged them to watch the tape.
"If you watch the film, I wouldn't put a lot of that on No. 52 [Lewis]," Pees said Thursday.
And when it comes to Lewis' trimmed weight for being a factor against the run, Pees refuted that too.
"It has nothing to do [with that]," Pees said. "Absolutely nothing to do with his weight. Nothing."
Pees pointed to three things from the first half, in which Baltimore surrendered 179 net rushing yards, that "we can't allow to happen again."
First, Pees said the Ravens' pressure against quarterback Matt Cassel wasn't working because they just kept running the ball and checking away from the blitzes. Pees said the Ravens figured out Kansas City just wanted to run the ball midway through the first quarter.
Second, he explained the Ravens had "some good knowledge" on the Chiefs' running game, and "unfortunately sometimes we overplayed that knowledge." For example, if the defense knows the ball is going right and thus overflows to the right, it can leave a cutback lane to the left.
"A little bit of it is the fact that knowledge can be a good thing, and you can use it, and sometimes you can abuse it," Pees said.
Finally, the defensive coordinator said the Ravens initially tried a couple of adjustments in the first half with their defensive that did not help, and particularly hurt linebackers such as Lewis. It was allowing the Chiefs offensive linemen to get to the second level quickly to block the linebackers.
"So, a lot of times you can say whatever you want about the linebackers, it isn't going to matter if the guy is coming off and has him sealed," Pees said. "I don't care who it is. It could be Dick Butkus, it isn't going to make a difference.
"Watching that film, I didn't see anything with Ray."
