Tru11

I agree with your implication but you have to factor that Upshaw was drafted in a higher position than Johnson and, therefore, had higher expectations to begin with.

 

I think Courtney's very underrated and the coaches and players heap praise on him for doing 'the dirty work', calling adjustments, his strength, etc. He has a great grasp on all the fundamentals of the role he's asked to play. The next step is his development is consistently making those splash plays. Blowing up a runner, planting Roethlisberger in the turf... we've seen it before but I'd like to see it more.

thats true but on the ravens the best player plays regardless of where they where drafted.

if upshaw wasent good he would not start in his rookie season nor would they trust him to run the defense.

JJ hardly took the field during that time.

that says enough doesn't it...

Being from over seas has nothing to do with this.

Im from over seas and i rarely share his/her opinion....

sure lets compare JJ prime to upshaw first 3 years in the league.

that seems fair.

lets forget he was drafted in 2003 and only became the full time starter in 2007.

JJ 2003-2006

in 4 years he had: 1 int, 1 FF, 1 FR, 3 sacks, 59 tackles , 29 assist and 7 pass defended

play offs: nothing

upshaw 2012-2014

in 3 years regular season he had  : 0 int, 1 FF, 2 FR, 3 sacks, 81 tackles, 51 assist and 5 pass defended.

play offs :  1 FF, 1 sack  10 tackles and 3 assist.

if upshaw was mediocre that what was JJ in his first 4 years?

oh ok -my bad dude I didn't catch the sarcasm, I can be slow at times. And I would have no idea that English wasn't your first language- props for speaking/understanding it so well.

its all good .

we all can be slow at times.

at least we dont take everything super serious like some here     

alot of ppl have problems with spelling and i just dont see how anybody other than boldin would fit with what he said...unless i just vastly misunderstood.

 

you never know how old a user is- i imagine there are some posters on here that might be ten years old or some where english isnt there first language- thats why i usually try to give everybody the benefit of the doubt and try to be polite.

everyone knows he meant boldin.

its quite normal to link any WR on the ravens to him.

im just having some fun cause he spelled his name wrong.

Also since english aint my first language i know all to well how hard it can be to grammar and spelling right but we are talking about a players name here though.

a very popular ex ravens player at that...

or Boldin... 

nah if he meant boldin he would have spelled it right.

the I and E are miles apart and i find it hard to believe ravens fans dont know how to spell boldin name since he has been a hot topic from the day he arrived and still years after he got traded.

heck any WR linked to the ravens gets auto linked to boldin by the fans lol.

So what they are saying is basically Perriman will be no Bolden! O yes I did go there!!

you talking about bolden the broncos CB or bolden who is 1 of the pats RBs?

Play offs at least.

people seem to forget upshaw was the guy aligning the defense after ray lewis went out in our SB season and he kept that job even when ray came back.

pretty good for a rookie TBH.

its because we got daryl smith the team decided to let him do the alignment since its better for the ILB to do it.

dude is 1 of the best edge setters in the NFL.

he can play every lb position.

he can play dline in sub packages.

he can drop in coverage better then most olb

he can make the calls to line up the defense properly.

he did alot of the dirty work to made guys like kruger , doom and mcphee get the sacks and stay fresh.

neither of them have shown to be 3 down olb who can stop the run or drop in coverage.

he doesent get the gaudy stats or highlight plays but he is a key piece to the defense.

i sure hope we can keep him.

brown had a promising rookie season and would have been the starter with smith last year.

then the draft happened and mosley fell in our lap and we took him.

then we smith and mosley playing at a pro bowl level and also staying injury free.

because both are also 3 down lbers there was simply little chance for brown to see the field.

this season it will also depend on how injury free both guys are and if they both can still play at a high level.

smith is getting up there in age and there is always the sophomore slump that can happen.

its possible smith will loose a step and might be subbed out on passing down for brown or he might come up for a snap or 2 so the team can keep him fresh.

By bringing the Seahawks up as having injuries and using that as a reason for their play for against Brady, you're comparing the situations, even if it isn't directly. 

I did not bring them up the person I replied to did.

I did not compare them , the person I replied to did.

All I did was give the person i replied to extra info.

I told you all of this after you replied to me.

nice try though .

And I agreed that they were not healthy, but that does not make it a comparable situation to the Ravens and that the Seahawks were still in a better position than the Ravens. How did you miss that?

I did not compare them.

so there was nothing for me to miss.

if you want to compare them then do it with someone else.

TE at the moment since we will rely on a rookie and 2nd year player Gilmore who played limited snaps last year.

all other positions we have a veteran presence except here.

unless pitta ofcourse is ready to go week 1 which I doubt btw.

Then instead of saying, "You don't get what I'm saying," and allowing people to misconstrue your words, just say it

so did the seahawks  had injuries or not?

 

im simply pointing out they where far from a healthy defense and brady did the same thing he did to us:

picking on the weakest link.

 

some fans think the hawks where healthy apparently.

 

if you wanna compare both units toe to toe then feel free to do just that but I have no intention to argue with you about it since I never suggested the intention to do so.

my first reply to you in this thread.

2nd sentence cleary explains the thoughts by my reply.

3rd sentence says the reason why I wrote my reply in the first place.

4th sentence im telling you I don't want to compare both units and I never suggested or intended to do so.

How you are able to misunderstand this and still decide to compare both units and their situation is beyond me.

Also I tried to explain the time of when an injury occurs  does indeed have a big effect on the performance of a player.

lets take flacco and schaub for an example.

if flacco goes down now then the team and schaub would have trainings camp and pre season to build a game plan around schaub strengths and schaub would have enough reps with the starters to have some chemistry heading into week 1,

if flacco goes down in week 1, schaub will have to come in having only practiced with the back ups so no chemistry with the starters and thus we will be forced to adjust the game plan on the fly cause some plays that worked for flacco most likely wont work for schaub.

I cant explain it any easier then this so....

the premise of what you're saying is that it's better to lose a guy before the game because then the backup has time to prepare to play, but if you're in the NFL and not preparing to play every week, there's something wrong. Let's also not forget that Tharold Simon saw time in 10 games during the regular season and bad five starts. He got significant time against Carolina in the playoffs.

In no way is the Ravens situation comparable to the Seahawks

I never compared the situations.

that's the point you are missing.

I merely said the hawks had injuries.

Some had the idea the hawks where healthy and complete.

Also you still don't get what im talking about.

You're talking about losing one guy who in the game and replacing him with the fourth string corner who has practiced for 20 weeks with the team and has played in sub packages, but I'm the one underestimating the practice and game time value. Yeah, okay

im not talking about that ,  try again.

That's not a very good point because it's not like the Ravens lost one guy like the Seahawks did. The Ravens literally lost their one, three, four, and five and were pulling players off of another teams practice squad to be a starter. They had little to no tape on him outside of preseason games and college footage, which was at that point two years old. 

If you asked a team would they rather lose their one, three, four, and five for an extended period of time or lose their nickel back in game, but retain their one two, and both starting safeties who happen to be some of the best at their positions, they would pick the latter. 

It's night and day difference in terms of situation.

im not arguing about who they lost.

im arguing when they lost their players.

ravens lost their players well before the played the pats.

heck Melvin started against the jags which was 4 weeks before they played the pats.

that's 5 weeks of practice and 4 games worth of experience.

that beats losing a guy in the actual game.

you are seriously underestimating how valuable practice with the starters , being part of the game plan and actually playing games with the starters is comparing to going into the line up in the middle of the game without neither of the before mentioned.

I'm just saying that there is a major inherent difference and the fact that the Ravens were able to do about as well as the Seahawks secondary is very impressive. Sure, they had injuries, just like every single team in the NFL. There's were admittedly some bigger injuries than you're likely to hear about on a normal basis, but it's not like they missed tons of games and then came back just for the Super Bowl. These injuries did not hold any of them back.

okay tnx for telling what I already knew months ago I guess...

BTW you missed a very crucial point though.

The ravens injuries occurred a few weeks prior to the pats match up.

This means they had more then enough time to deal with this and thus be better prepared.

our secondary actually played a few games together and they did pretty well against the steelers the week prior.

I might be wrong but im pretty we did not loose any player against the pats.

the hawks however lost their nickel corner during the actually game on top of already had other players banged up going into the game.

call me crazy but its probably much harder to deal with an injury during the game itself rather then having some time to prepare to play with out the injured player(s).

Thomas and Sherman played all 19 games and Pete Carrol described Chancellor's injury as not limiting at all and said that the likelihood was that he had just had continuos damage from a previous knee injury. Didn't Thomas even come back into the Green Bay game after suffering his injury? I mean, this is the NFL and no players are ever 100% and players will frequently play with some sort of damage to their body. If they can be on the field and play, especially given how they didn't seem to have major limitations, then they're good to go. Pretty sure Sherman and Chancellor even avoided surgery, so it wasn't anything debilitating. 

Still, even an injured Sherman, Chancellor, and Thomas is better than the rotation of Stewart/Elam, Melvin, and Levine. So to compare, the Seahawks are fielding their first, second (Maxwell never left), and fourth corners, but we think that's on the same level as the Ravens second (oft injured), sixth, and seventh string corners. Jimmy (first string), Asa Jackson (third string), Danny Gorrer (fourth string), and Chykie Brown (fifth string) were all at one point options that were considered over Melvin and Levine, two undrafted players and one of whom was a converted safety. This doesn't even mention the inherent difference in talent, but we want to compare the situations?

so did the seahawks  had injuries or not?

im simply pointing out they where far from a healthy defense and brady did the same thing he did to us:

picking on the weakest link.

some fans think the hawks where healthy apparently.

if you wanna compare both units toe to toe then feel free to do just that but I have no intention to argue with you about it since I never suggested the intention to do so.

I don't understand the hate for Dean Pees. The defense under him has been very good considering what he's had to.work with.

You can't throw in all these crazy blitzes when your starting CB's are all 3rd string safeties or guys off the street.

Remember back in 07 when we had Rex? Our top 3 corners as well as Reed were all out at once at one point...yet Rex was still attacking and leaving those below average guys with no help, one on one..we were terrible.

Pees has had to be a little more conservative in his blitz packages because of all the backups or under performing players that we've had in the secondary over the last two seasons.

Look at us vs the Patriots then look at Seattle vs the Patriots

In the Super Bowl, the nfl's "best defense" gave up 57 rushing yards, 328 passing yds and Brady threw 4td's.

In the divisional game, in Foxboro...our defense gave up a whopping 14 rushing yds while Brady threw for 367 and 3 TD's.

Very Comparable stats...even more so considering that the Seahawks have a STACKED secondary on paper and we had a few scrubs out there.

If Webb and Smith can stay healthy all year..and the rest of the D stays relatively healthy..this defense is going to be lights out. Pees is a good DC, let's get off his back a little.

actually Thomas , Sherman and chancellor where all playing injured and probably had no bussines being on the field.

they also lost their 2nd and 3rd corner during the game lol.

their 3rd corner lane got injured when he picked off brady and before that Maxwell left the game .

smh. 2012 SB defense had pretty much double the turnovers and sacks to any other defense in the play offs. from the colts game all the way to when the lights went out in the SB they where a suffocating defense that limited luck , manning and brady with the latter 2 coming in away games. heck the niners where not doing anything until the lights went out and momentum was lost and things got worse when ngata went out. rice fumbling did not help them either nor did the bad punt from the own redzone that lead to a huge return by ginn. people seriously need to look further then the final score... also im pretty pagano defense got torched way worse then pees defense in last seasons play off and I doubt the colts played with as bad as a secondary as we had. ow and last season the ravens where ranked #6 in points given up per game which is the most important stat for any defense. pretty darn good considering our secondary woes in a passing league...

You're argument is very weak.

For one, must because the national media and fan base perception is one thing, doesn't mean that's true in reality, it's just how many people perceive it.

Two, Ben has not really been statistically heads and shoulders above Joe until last year where the offense was loaded. You think Joe wouldn't light it up with Brown and Belle?

The gap might be there, and Ben might have the edge, but it's much closer than you think

please look at your own arguments...

pure pocket passing: ben can make every throw from the pocket , just as good as flacco and ben is much better at making reads.

the fact the he is much better with pressure is his face says enough.

a big part of knowing how to deal with pressure is the ability to make reads.

you yourself seem to have the perception that ben only knows how to run around in the backfield and throw on the run lol.

he knows how to extend plays but he does most of his throwing from the pocket and he did a great job this season.

now we can all agree that having 4 more years of experience should give you the ability to read defenses better but still at this point flacco isn't better then ben.

on the run: ben.

broken plays: ben

ball protection: flacco avg 12 INT  and 9 fumbles a season , ben avg 12 INT and 7 fumbles a season but apparently you give flacco the nod for some reason lol

game managing: flacco has 14 4th quarter comebacks good for 65 on the all time list, ben has 25 good for 12 on the all time list yet you give flacco the edge lol.

clutch: ben

durability: flacco

leadership: tied

other then durability flacco isn't better then ben in any category you listed if you are willing to be objective.

sure we can talk about weapons but in the same breath we cant deny the o-lines as well.

sure brown and bell are better then what we have but our o-line is miles ahead of the steelers o-line.

TBH I highly doubt joe would lit it up with bell and brown behind that steelers o-line.

Also ben has played 16 games in back to back seasons now and if he does the same next season it will 3 in a row.

for whats its worth: Ben QB rating in the last 3 seasons has ben better then the QB rating flacco posted last season.

flacco QB rating last season was the highest going back to 2010.

its really hard to argue ben not being better at this point lol.

lol at people arguing joe is better then big ben.

we all hate the steelers but come on and give credit where its due.

big ben at this point is a top 5 QB in the NFL and flacco could possibly crack the top 10 depending on who you ask and by what people are going on.

last season ben had more yards , completions , TDs , less int, higher % rate, more ypa, higher QB rating.

flacco had less fumbles , more rushing yards and 2 rushing TD to ben 0.

flacco is getting better with each season and I think next season he might be able to close the gap between them.

@cobrajet I wonder should we trade Monroe to free some room for K.O. and Yanda and put James Hurst as LT.

trading Monroe doesn't free cap...