Ravensfan23

Yes that's very true but people wanna be so quick to call for Harbs head. As much as Shanahan is my guy, it's not not we've been in a bidding war for him. How many other teams wanted Shanny? So what if he's not the right guy and was "the right choice" by most fans opinions, do you then call for MR. B's head or say he should never have input again? Also what passes as the right or wrong choice? I'm willing to say that 80% of ours struggles this past year came as a result of our oline not playing well. That isn't on Caldwell or Hostler, but many will swear it was. So if our oline improves and we convert in the red zone under Hostler, and the offense ranks around 12-13th was he still the wrong choice? What if Flacco struggles to pick up Shanny's system, we have 2-3 major injuries on offense and we still can't score in the redzone, would people not still call for Harbs head despite Shanny being many of our favorites?

I don't think that's necessarily true in Hostler's case. I felt the system was starting to change last year our players just didn't take to it well for various reasons. I feel no matter who the choice, the offensive system will change. I think it's a matter of what change fits this team best and who has the better ideas behind the change. I felt like if we were gonna stick to the same system then 1 of two things would have happened. We would have just promoted Hostler to OC last year and never bothered with the changes Caldwell wanted to make or we would have gone after Norv or Linehan harder, as both run the sytle of offense we've run since 2008 but with different styles then Cam. Also another thought is that I feel it's MR. B who has wanted to see this offense built around Flacco for some time, because as a fan first he sees the way of the NFL now and we aren't keeping pace. He might not make the final decisions, but he definitely carries a big voice and after years of seeing our franchise QB get used like a game manager, things will certainly revolve around Joe much more.

Yes Kyle did impress and that goes over glowingly in the personality department imo. While Hoss has gotten endorsements from former players and has a strong relationship with current players, Shanahan has been endorsed by current NFL HC and at least 2 of them has had to game plan against his offense the last 4 years in the NFC East. That says a lot for him imo because you are talking about coaches who know what it's like to gameplan and how tough it was for them going against his offense, not just players who liked playing for a players coach. I strongly feel the Ravens want to have a complete shift in offensive system, but continue to keep our philosphy. I honestly think Shanahan was the first choice, but then Hoss probably had some great ideas, plus the history of us being comfortable promoting within, made confidence in him grow within the organization. I think this was a legit OC search and tough decision for the Ravens to make. Unless you think Kevin Byrne is a liar, I find it hard to believe that Harbs has spent so much time interviewing candidates, scouts, organization members and putting calls into coaches from other teams, only to just say Hoss is the guy because he's my friend. He's been given a fair shot at OC and this is probably his final season with the Ravens, because if we have a great offensive year and our WRs play well, someone will probably look to hire him next season just because we strongly soncidered him this year.

I've figured this was the date for a while now. Despite popular opinion that Harbs controls all, the Ravens have always been a FO that takes the input of many people to come to a collective decision, now of course Harbs has the final say i'd assume. With that said, I've picked Monday as decision day because the Senior bowl would be over and Ozzie, Eric and the scouts would all be back at the Castle. I think the decision was made yesterday, it just wasn't annouced yet. The decision to move awayy from Linehan and Wilson happened very quickly. I honestly think the reason it's taken so long was just to give Hoss every opportunity to land the job, because Harbs and many others have faith in him, but I think Kyle is the guy.

This opinion is probably different from everyone else, but I think the long time it's taking to make a decision is a good thing. Imo it means both guys have really good ideas on how to move the offense forward. I know most think the only horse Hoss has in the race is Harbs, but everytime someone inside of the Castle speaks about the guy it's with tons of confidence. He's getting ringing endorsment from former players and Dilfer made a strong point of how the talent just wasn't there in SF and he was the QB. Hoss isn't my choice but I think he'll be able to move this offense away from the low percentage pass game we're used to and he's probably just as willing to build a offense around Flacco and our weapons. As I said before, our offense showed signs of change and improvement early in the season and I feel without the injuries, lack of confidence in the oline scheme and just getting comfortable with the change, the offense would have been much better. I don't know how much input Hoss had, but I do know things weren't as bad as the numbers suggest. Shanahan has been my pick since finding out that hee interviewed. I just think his offense is a perfect fit for not only Joe but for this organization the way we draft offensive players. I also love his creativity and play calling. Is it perfect? No, but what is? I love his aggressive nature in games to keep his foot on the gas. Far to often our defense gives up 4th quarter leads(not just this year) and one of the biggest reasons to that is because our offense typically gets conservative with even the sligthest lead, despite Flacco consistently asking to be more aggressive and attack defenses more. I think Shanahan will help in this area. I also think he'll help just by bringing this offense to the organization, because it'll allow us to keep it long term even if Shanahan gets a HC gig. We bring this offense in and have success with it, which I have no doubts, it's much easier to find a young OC who can just build on what Shanahan started and help the offense evolve even more. I don't worry about his personality meshing with our organization, because above all else he's a hard worker who is very detailed in his preparation and I'm sure Harbs loves that. All in all I think these are two good choices with Shanahan being the better of the 2.

And we know that how exactly? Other then this notion based on no facts whatsoever that Harbs will hire his friends at all cost?

Flacco's accuracy is greatly affected by the low percentage offense he plays in. The one thing I can say with certainty is that Flacco rarely misses open WRs especially when he gets in a groove. I think it's fair to question if he'd suceed in Shanny's offense because of his performaces over the last 2 years. But I feel he is plenty accurate enough, especially if he's allowed to work with the typpe of spacing that Shanny's offense provides. People talk about Flacco not being accurate enough for the WCO, but actually the offense we just came from called for him to be much more accurate then the WCO will ever ask for. There were no high percentage passes, no drive starters and we rarely schemed WRs open. Flacco had to be very accurate with his placement because we just didn't get much separation on offense. Shanahan doesn't just run a traditional WCO which also helps. Shanahan would be the aboslute best choice for Flacco and this offense.

Ok and the players had a different view of Harbs last year with the mutiny, what's the point? How do you go by body of work but disregard what he does as a WR coach? You don't like the guy I get, you have good reason not to like the guy, but that doesn't mean he isn't qualified or he'll only get the job as a Harbuddy. Also not one player came out and said they didn't like Castillo despite what most fans think. The disconnect was they didn't feels things should change. Even when McKinnie departed, as much as he didn't like the direction of the oline he had nothing but praise for Castillo. Can you provide proof of players having a diffferent view of Castillo then Harbs?

OCs don't typically build a coaching staff anyway. You guys are putting far too much into the Castillo is Harbs buddy thing. In case you guys forgot every DC we've had since Harbs were put in place with position coaches already in place. They didn't "build" a staff, now this situation will be a bit different but not much. You keep good coaches in place, that's just what you do. Wade Herman as our TE coach even after Billick was fire, as was CB because they were good coaches. Castillo is being kept because he's a good coach. OCs generally only suggest the hire of lower level coaches like assistant oline coach, or offensive assistant and things like that. The OL, QB, TE and WR coach is generally selected by the HC not the OC. So the talk about building around Castillo is kind of moot, the OC will have to build his offense around a philosphy that the Ravens already have in place and if they can't do so then they won't be considered. This is probably why Linehan isn't getting a 2nd interview. His views probably didn't match the philosphy the Ravens are looking for.

You have no arguements from me there. Shanny is my guy and I think the fact that he was the first to get a 2nd interview says a lot. I'm willing to bet if Shanny did a great job today, he'll probably be offered the position.

Yea that's the thing about having a unknown, us fans just don't know enough. You'd think he'd put a heavy emphasis on the run, but he might actually feel that you gotta win with the QB, bring in a QB coach that can help him coordinate the pass game and produce an explosive balanced offensive attack. I like the fact that he's so well respected and he's a teacher of football. He's never been a OC at any level, so I wonder if the Ravens liked what Hostler brought to the table as a game planer last year and might actually have him work with Wilson much the same this year?

Sources say it's gonna be Hos now sources indicate that Wilson is the only one to get a 2nd interview so far. I don't expect to hear nothing official until about Tuesday. The Senior Bowl will be over, all the season in review meetings will be over, and we should be ready to make a decision and get geared up to move forward.

And the fact that you used words like might and could makes my point of us just not knowing. People keep throwing the fact that a couple of players spoke out against him as some kind of daming blow or indication that he won't be good. Truth is we just don't know. For all we know the players in SF never meshed well with him to begin with and if you don't have confidence in the play caller the offense won't work. So if they never had confidence in him and things went bad over the first 5 games, those guys probably gave up. We don't know.

And Derrick Mason said he's a great coach and would make a heck of an OC, what's your point exactly. Someone has a negative opinion of him from 7 years ago, but his more recent and current players have a positive view of him. What does it all mean?

That's exactly what I'm saying. I seriously don't think Hos is the guy though. I feel if he were the guy he'd already be named. I'd be interested to know what role Hos is taking at the Senior Bowl. Is he just strickly looking at WRs or is he looking at all offensive players

It means a lot depending on how you look at it. You and others seem to be missing the point that "imo" and this is jmo, but the offense struggled last year because of injury and having to rely on guys who just shouldn't be relied on heavily. If we had Pitta, Stokley, KO and others healthy all season we would have been much better. What allowed us to have success last year was the interior oline being so good, this year it wasn't. If your oline is bad and you are trying to install a new scheme and you have to deal with new players, chances are you aren't gonna have much success I don't care who you are or what system you have. Was Rex Ryan a poor DC in 2007 when he was forced to rely on guys like Derrick Martin, Ronnie Purude, David Pittman, Jamie Winborne and Corey Ivy when our starters went down? No he just didn't have the talent to run his defense. I saw a lot of that with the offense this past season. Players usually have a much better idea of what caused the problems that lead to issues then we fans do. I'm not saying because players like him he'll be good, I'm simply pointing out that they like him for a reason. I feel like I'm leading the Hostler bandwagon or something lol

My only issue with that is, we need scheme because our current players are good enough to win the isolation game consistnetly. He'd continue that low percentage vertical pass game, but he also brings creativity along with it which makes it a little better imo. With Sanahan you'd allow our WRs to work in a system that really suits them. We continually add those catch and run WRs(can't wait to see Mellette in Shanny's offense) so why not allow them to operate in a system that suits them? I think Shanny gives us the best shot to be strong in all areas of our offense.

Oh I get it no doubt and I'm not a fan of the move. My thing is, how do we know Hostler will bring more of the same? How do we know how much of a role Hostler played in helping put together the offense last year and if we are gonna give him blame for those terrible offense last year, don't we have to give him credit for the Super Bowl offense? Also I personally find it hard to believe that a guy who isn't afraid to speak his mind even against the FO in Flacco would be so in favor of guy who is supposed to be so terrible. If Hostler had as much input as many sugguest, why do the players like him so much? Now again none of this stuff means anything imo because we don't know what "his" offense will look like exactly. Then I think we have to be able to pinpoint exactly what went wrong with the offense last year. I seem to be in the minority on this, but I saw a lot of change to the offense early this season, but injuries forced use to move away from it imo. Our offense was much more unpredictable and creative early. We focused on a lot more short to immediate routes, but our biggest issue was dropped passes and lack of chemistry imo. We were moving away from that same old offense we had before. We wanted more Zone runs, we wanted more uptempo, we wanted Flacco to run the offense from the LOS, but with so much change and poor play we seemd to revert back to how things were. I strongly feel if Pitta never got hurt and Stokley or Doss was able to be an consistent chain mover this offense would have been really good. Remember, before the last two games, our biggest issue wasn't being good enough on offense, we moved the ball very well over the last 5-6 games, it was being good enough to score in the red zone and turn FGs to TDs. I thought the change to the offense was good, we just weren't talented enough on offense. We couldn't run the ball and our passing game wasn't good enough to survive being one deminsional. Again I'm not a huge fan of him being OC, especially if the changes I saw were all Caldwell and he wants to move back to the pervious offense. But if he is the choice I think it comes from a place other then Harbs simply saying you're my buddy.

The thing about Harbs is that if you listen to him and follow his actions, he's the exact opposite of what people accuse him of being. He gives full controll to his Coordinators to do their job and that was the biggest issue with Cam and early on with Castillo. Those two guys had a my way or the highway type approach and didn't take much input from others. Cam moreso then Castillo from what I've heard. Harbs is the exactly opposite of what Cam was and even what Pees is. Harbs wants to be aggressive way more then the conservative sytles of Pees and Cam were and Harbs has publicly stated a couple times how he doesn't agree with those approaches, but they've worked enough for him to not step in and force a change.My biggest hang up with Harbs is that he doesn't have more of an input. I find it funny that people are so quick to put a tag on a coach as a certain type of system guy based on where he's coached. But look at Harbs and say this conservative run first system is his style. There was nothing conservative about phily when he was there, beit Ried on offense or Jimmy Johnson on defense. Often times when you've seen us move away from the run it's been Harbs that made the call to do so. Harbs is a structure guy and that's what's hurting us the most. He wants to stick to the same system but have different approaches based on the guy running the system, much like we see in NE. That is exactly what we've done on defense, same system different styles. Our issue with that is our personnel on offense hasn't been matching up to the system. In 2010 all we needed was a quality WR to take the top off the defense and create space and this offense would have been good to go. But we added Torrey and Evans in 2011 and let all the route runners go. So the offense turned into a less effiecient low percentage one. Imo if it was strictly up to Harbs, we'd be offensive team that resembles the Pats and I still think we want to be that in some ways, but the identify of the Ravens has always be a rough and tough smash mouth team and it's hard to kind of open things up for the QB, without going away from your identity. That's our biggest challenge right now imo.

.How about we make a little gentleman's agreement. For the people who would absolutely hate the Hostler(if it even happens) and feel Harbs should be fired because of it, how about you guys boycott the team for a whole year by staying away from the messageboard. Why should you guys have to be subjected to such mediorce and Harbs clear intention to drive this team into the ground. I think you guys would make a loud statement by boycotting this board for a full year. What'ya say? Note: I'm clearly joking.

You clearly didn't watch much of LSU, because they were a vertical offense just like we've been under Cam. The biggest difference was despite playing in the SEC, those are still college defenses. That offense wasn't creative, they have a power run game and Beckham and Landry were asked to win one on one battles(which is why I like both in the draft). The same thing was true in SD with a power run game and Jackson and Gates being a mismatch one on one. Just because Hostler had "input" doesn't mean it was his playbook we used. He just tried to make tweaks and adjustments to the playbook that was already installed. The "playbook" didn't change last year we just tried to scheme it better. But I guess I'm foolish for being able to look past the dreadful results of having so many injuries and change. What was I thinking.

I can definitely understand that. I want a guy that I can look back on for the last few years and say ok, this is what our offense could look like. Case and point Flacco putting ups Schuab type numbers, Torrey putting up Garcon type numbers and Rice putting up big numbers again has me down right giddy for Shanahan, so I definitely get that. But again there are benefits to promoting Hos and i'd hope it's not simply to keep things the same. I would hope that Hos has always had plans on ways to improve the offense and take it to another level much like Rex did for years waiting his turn to be DC. I would hope that the ways we saw Torrey, Brown and Doss used early in the season would be the way we see them used all season. I would hope seeing Thompson used out of the backfield is something of Hostler's doing. I would hope that the decision to use Boldin in the slot more doing the SB run was a decision Hos sugguested. I would hope that the few WR screens we did see last year, although poorly executed would be used a lot more this year. I though Clark, Dickson and Stokley were all used well, but just weren't good enough. I would hope that a upgrade to those guys would mean improved production from those position. Unlike most, I actually saw changes and improvements within the offense but thought that injuries and lack of chemistry prevented the offense from being good. So i'd hope that Hos was a big part of that change and he'd continue to change things. If this is the case, I can live with Hos. I guess for me it's a matter of I saw positive signs and change last season and if we continue down that path then great, but if the plan is to revert back to relying heavily on the verticial game then I don't like it.

I definitely get that and agree. We don't know what Hostler would do, but I don't think we should immediately assume that's a bad thing and I know you aren't, I'm just saying. So many people are saying if he's fired it's a death sentence for Harbs, or implying that the decision wouldn't have been made for the betterment of the team but just for Harbs to keep a friend in good standing. That's flat out stupid and I usually don't like to use that term towards people but a spade is a spade. Now anyone who has followed this thread since Caldwell left can clearly see that I'm not Hostler fan, mainly for the exact reason you gave and I'm even less of a fan for sticking with that same vertical type low percentage offense. However if Hostler is bringing a system or even just focusing on getting the ball out to WRs quicker and he uses the WRs to their strenghts much like we saw earlier this season then I'm definitely willing to give the guy a shot. Joe is said to have a great relationship with Hos and who knows the WRs better? Flacco has been asking for a more spread, uptempo/ no huddle style of offense for years and of all the OC candidates Hos might be the only one who's actually willing to give Flacco that type of control. Who knows? I definitely agree that if he's named the OC that a good QB coach should and would be hired. I think we definitely need a QB even if we hire a former QB coach as the OC. QBs need someone who can focus solely on them and not have to worry about the full offense. With all this said, Kyle Shanahan is still my first choice for OC

The philosophy is one thing. The "Ravens" have a philosophy and a vision of how they want to play offense in the AFC North. Accusing a coach of just hiring his friends to keep control over something is completely different. It doesn't matter who the new OC will be, we are not gonna turn into a 50 pass a game type team. The new OC no matter if it's Shanahan or Hostler will have to continue to have our offense be physical, down hill running and aggressive. My common sense tells me it's been that way even before Billick become HC, so tell me again how this is Harbs offense again? I didn't realize that when I was watching the 2004 Ravens it was the philosphy of some coach in philly that we were adopting. I'm glad you cleared that up for me. Common sense tells me a philosophy and system is two different things. But maybe my sense isn't so common.

At some point this whole Harbs and friends thing goes from funny to down right sad. Please tell me one coach in the last 10 years that has been hired as a HC and didn't surround himself with other coaches heMs worked with and are familar with. Did you ever think that Caldwell was promoted mid season with the hopes of actually winning this thing called the Super Bowl and it probably wouldn't have bee a smart idea to make wholesale changes with only 4 games left in a season? I mean if your goal is to win a Super Bowl, why force your players to learn a entirely new system Lastly why would Harbs look to control the offense when he has absolutely no experience there, but allow the defensive coach to have full control? At least he spend some time as a DB coach.