The Ravens need a strong pass rush to win the Super Bowl. Enter ‘guru’ Chuck Smith. – The Denver Post

The late Al Davis, the former coach and then owner of the Raiders, once said that “the other team’s quarterback must go down, and he must go down hard.” It was a simple and theatrical proclamation from the Hall of Famer and one of the game’s great innovators, but also a mantra that has spanned decades in the NFL.

Case in point: Last season’s Super Bowl participants, the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs, were first and second in the league in sacks with 70 and 55, respectively, as well as quarterback pressures, with 178 and 168.

They were hardly outliers. In 2021, the Los Angeles Rams were third in sacks, while the Cincinnati Bengals ranked seventh in pressures. The year before, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were fourth in sacks and second in pressures. And in 2019, the San Francisco 49ers had the fifth-most sacks and sixth-most pressures. All of them reached the Super Bowl.

As for the Ravens, they weren’t far behind last season with 48 sacks, good for fourth-most in the NFL (though they were 20th in pressures).

Much of the Ravens’ success getting to the quarterback in 2022 came from Justin Houston and Calais Campbell, with the duo combining for 15 sacks and 40 pressures. But neither veteran is on the roster now — Campbell, 36, signed with the Atlanta Falcons, and Houston, 34, is a free agent. That means Baltimore will have to look elsewhere to replace their production if it is going to again have one of the league’s best defenses.

Enter Chuck Smith.

The 53-year-old former defensive end who recorded 58 1/2 career sacks in eight seasons with the Atlanta Falcons is now charged with bestowing his wisdom on the Ravens’ young pass-rushing corps after Baltimore hired him as outside linebackers coach in March.

He filled the void left by Rob Leonard, who left to become the defensive line coach of the Las Vegas Raiders, and brings with him more than 20 years of coaching experience that has focused largely on one thing: getting to the quarterback. It’s Smith’s second stint with the Ravens after he served as a training camp consultant in 2008, but his role this time is much more significant.

Smith is at the nexus of teaching the skills needed to create the chaos and confusion second-year defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald craves.

“It’s a great place to be,” Smith said last week during organized team activities. “The transition has been easy because I know a lot of people here. … If there was a perfect place for me to come and start really to kick off my first year again, it was the Baltimore Ravens.”

The cupboard isn’t completely bare, though it does have question marks.

While Houston is a free agent, there’s still a chance he could return. Expectations are also high for 2021 first-round pick Odafe Oweh and 2022 second-round pick David Ojabo, who missed most of last season after suffering a torn Achilles tendon during his pro day at Michigan.

Meanwhile, other contributors under Smith’s tutelage include seventh-year veteran Tyus Bowser, who two seasons ago had a career-high seven sacks, along with rookie Tavius Robinson, a fourth-round pick out of Ole Miss.

But it’s the two former New Jersey high school teammates, Ojabo and Oweh, who the Ravens will need to produce as well as Smith, who three times had at least 10 sacks in a season. Last year, Oweh had just three sacks and 16 pressures, down from five and 27 his rookie year. Ojabo, meanwhile, didn’t play until late in the season and recorded just one sack and one pressure on 21 defensive snaps across two games.

It’s early in the offseason, but already the two have shown improvement and flashes of their abilities.

During Tuesday’s media viewing portion of practice, Ojabo created a strong push on several plays, which included at one point beating left tackle Patrick Mekari inside to get a clear path to the quarterback. Oweh, meanwhile, easily got by right tackle Morgan Moses on another play with a nifty inside spin move.

“He’s everything I thought he was when he was at Michigan,” Smith said of Ojabo. “He’s quick, he’s confident, he’s twitchy. He has a high pass-rush IQ, and he has mastered a lot of different moves, and they’re learning how to do it.

“Dude is ready, and he’s going to have an impact.”

He was also complimentary of Oweh’s progress.

“The all-time greats who get sacks and are productive use moves,” Smith said. “After this year, when you see Odafe, you’re going to know his signature pass rush move.”

As for the outside linebackers’ perspective on working with their new position coach, Ojabo referred to Smith last month as a “guru” who knows how to get the best out of him. Oweh added that he’s getting the kind of tidbits he hasn’t received in the past, including how to turn speed into power and having a plan of attack rather than trying to react on the fly.

“A lot of times I would get off the block, but I was kind of off balance, so when I got to the QB, I wasn’t taking a straight-line shot,” Oweh said. “Then also [using my] up-field shoulder; there were a lot of times where I missed because of the up-field shoulder, too. [It’s] little things like that.”

It’s those little things that will need to add up, to sacks and quarterback pressures — particularly in a conference filled with superstar quarterbacks, including Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow, Josh Allen and Justin Herbert.

Of course, sacks and pressures alone don’t always draw a straight line to a championship. In 2000, just nine teams had fewer sacks than the Ravens’ 35. Baltimore’s defense was, however, historically dominant in other ways and set an NFL record for fewest points (165) and fewest rushing yards (970) allowed in a 16-game season en route to winning the Super Bowl. In 2012, the Ravens were just middle of the pack in the NFL in sacks but again won the title.

Still, they go a long way.

From 2017 through 2019 teams that pressured the quarterback at least once per drive forced their opponent to punt 5.7% more often, according to ESPN’s Stats & Information Group and NFL NextGen stats. When a drive included at least one sack, that number climbed to 18%. The latter in turn led to touchdown passes occurring 10.9% less and fumbles happening 5.4% more often.

“The big prize is try to win a Super Bowl,” Smith said, “and pass rush, for us to get there, that’s going to have to be a part of it.”

Or as Davis stated all those years ago: The other team’s quarterback must go down.

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