Hesitation.
It’s “lethal,” says former Ravens head coach Brian Billick. It’s lethal across the board – in running backs, quarterbacks or play callers.
But hesitation is exactly what Jamal Lewis sees when he watches the Ravens run game.
The former Ravens’ back, who rumbled for more than 2,000 yards in 2003 and helped establish the smash-mouth running style in Baltimore, admitted that he had a few different years when he played with hesitation.
So he knows it when he sees it. But he also knows what it takes to correct it, and believes the Ravens are capable of doing so.
“I’ve watched [Ray] Rice and I’ve watched [Bernard] Pierce and you can [see] their hesitation,” Lewis told WNST. “It’s more of one of those things, do you have confidence in the system? Do you have confidence in your offensive line? Do you have confidence in yourself that you know where everyone is supposed to be?”
Lewis said that during the times he hesitated when he got the ball, it was a result of not trusting that a hole would open up where it was supposed to. But when a back starts to hesitate, he starts to hurt himself because he’ll miss holes even when they are open.
It became a mental hurdle that is difficult to overcome.
“You’re not sure in your line’s capability in blocking the scheme,” he said. “Is your line too light for the scheme that you’re running? When you do that and let it sink in, it’s a mental thing and it can really hurt you and you’ll never get on track. … You just can’t have that hesitation because, hey, you’re going to have hesitation and the hole’s going to be wide open and you’re going to miss it by the time you get there and it’s going to be closed.”
from baltimoreravens.com
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