callahan09

That's what I thought he meant, yeah. Sorry for misunderstanding.

You weren't exactly clear with your meaning, then, but OK, I guess I misunderstood what you meant. You're saying that you meant "It's a crapshoot... we either get Flacco, or we get Boller. Don't want to play those odds"? If so, then I agree with you. The way you worded it made it sound like you were saying we could draft someone who is like another "Flacco or Boller" (putting the two in the same category).

So now Flacco is a Boller in your eyes? Come on, man.

Other teams are paying big money contracts to their QBs and still able to surround them with talent and a decent (or in some cases excellent) defense. Matt Ryan, Cam Newton, Aaron Rodgers, Ben Roethlisberger, these guys all have contracts that are more money per year than Joe's. So why are they surrounded by talent and/or have excellent defenses? Flacco's money isn't the reason this team is screwed up, you can blame the front office for that. We could afford to pay Flacco's salary and still field a competitive team, but we have mismanaged the cap, drafted poorly, suffered due to a ton of injuries to key players, paid the wrong players bad contracts or had bad luck with contracts (Suggs, Rice, Pitta, Ngata eating up something like a third of our salary cap and not even playing for this team right now), and the front office made the decision to back-end Joe's contract, which they didn't have to do. We had 3 years of GREAT cap hits for Flacco, and totally squandered the opportunity to field a good team and surround him with talent during those 3 years. That's not Flacco's fault. We could have afforded to field a great team these past 3 years. And we failed to do so for a variety of reasons. We might as well not have back-ended Flacco's contract, but that was another bad decision by the front office. Flacco didn't want to have a back-ended contract that will force a restructure or extension by year 3, but they *agreed to it*, and they had to, because that's what our front office stupidly wanted to do with him, rather than just give him 20 million a year every year, which would have made a whole lot more sense than 15, 15, 15, 30, 30, 30 or whatever assinine back-ending they decided to do. Might have worked out well for us for 3 years if we used the low cap hit seasons to field a great team, but we mismanaged the hell out of that.

It's a last play of the game interception in the end zone on a play that was fraught with issues from the start due to communication issues, a really poor effort by Crockett Gillmore, and not helped by the fact that Jefferson pushed off Gillmore for an obvious defensive pass interference (without which he never would have intercepted that ball) and that these absolutely USELESS refs didn't throw a flag on (they were screwing us on calls all game long anyway, so why start getting it right on the last play of the game?). It's not like it's that big of an issue that this play happened to occur, Flacco was playing an excellent game up until that play and that play is not indicative in any way of a problem with Flacco.

Worst officiated game I've ever seen. Refs weren't calling ANYTHING on the Cards all night, but called everything they could possibly muster against us, and then all the calls mentioned in this article. An egregious one for me is that Tony Jefferson CLEARLY pushed Crockett Gillmore in the back for a defensive pass interference, and never would have caught that interception if not for that, and these useless refs didn't throw the flag! On the game-sealing play, obvious pass interference, and they just let it happen? I feel like the fix was in on this game, everything the refs could possibly do to ensure the Cardinals get the win was done. It was absurd.

I love Steve Smith Sr. Not even two full seasons with this guy yet and he's already one of my favorite Ravens ever. I wish we could have had him for more than 2 years, but I'll take what I can get from him.

An odd thing to say in the midst of a rather lengthy conversation going on in this thread defending Cam's numbers because of the receivers he is working with (someone even called him an MVP candidate despite having number that are ranked near the bottom across the board).

Cam Newton's numbers aren't even any better than Flacco's as far as I'm concerned. They're both sitting at low 80's in passer rating, but Flacco is putting up a lot more yards (but Newton puts up more on the ground). The only difference between these two QBs right now is that one has a defense and the other doesn't.

I get your point and I can see where you're coming from, but for me, the whole enjoyment I get out of watching is watching them win. Every single time I turn on the TV to watch this team play, I'll take a win and I'll like it! That's all I'm saying. And I really don't think that the difference in draft position that we get by losing more games is going to have that much of an impact on how well we do next year. This team will either be healthy and be well coached and win lots of games... or we won't be healthy or we'll have a lot of coaching issues, and we won't get much better than we are this year. I think either way we'll do a fine enough job with the draft to replenish the team and fill holes, whether we earn the #1 or the #32 pick. We built a good team for many years always picking low, and we can field a competitive team with a low pick, we just need to not get hit hard by the injury bug and make sure the coaches put the team in position to succeed.

I don't want the #1 pick. I would HATE for us to have the #1 pick. I want us to win every game we possibly can. I want us to go 11-5 and make the playoffs. Barring that, I'd be happy with 10-6, or 9-7. I'd even be OK with 8-8. I'd be disappointed with 7-9, but I'd sure take that before I'd take 6-10, and I'd rather win 6 games than 5, or 4, or 3, or 2, or 1. I'd rather win 3 games than 2 even if it meant dropping a few draft positions. I just want wins. As many as possible.

I thought this article and discussion were about the late-game speed and the failed final drive? What you're talking about has nothing to do with that. My comment above was in response to all the talk from Ravens fans across the internet who are calling out Flacco for not being a leader or being in control or being prepared or WHATEVER because of what they saw on that final drive. The fact is that all those complains are nitpicks, because teams almost never succeed on those kind of drives anyway! You're trying to move the goal posts by talking about the rest of the game and not that 2 minute offense. It doesn't matter that there were two turnovers earlier in the game, that has nothing to do with the 2 minute drill (well, it was really a 1 minute drill in this case) at the end of the game.

We had the ball at our own 20 yard line with 1:06 to play, no timeouts, and needed a TD. Tom Brady is 0 for 4 in situations where he gets the ball within his own 20 yard line, within 2 minutes, and needing a TD. In fact, he had more than 1:06 on all but one of those, and often had timeouts as well. Here is the rundown of his: @ MIA (2013), 1:15 remaining, 3 timeouts. FAILED. @ CAR (2013), 0:59 remaining, 3 timeouts. FAILED. @ SDG (2002), 1:51 remaining, 1 timeout. FAILED. @ NYJ (2009), 1:48 remaining. FAILED. Big Ben is also 0 for 4 in these situations in his career. So the two guys you named as being in control and I guess should be capable of this 2 minute offense to win a game... are a combined 0-8 in those situations for their careers. Flacco actually has one of the very few SUCCESSES in NFL history in these situations, the MIN game from 2013. He's 1-7 for his career, so he's actually doing better than Big Ben + Brady combined. The bottom line is that you can nitpick and criticize the sequence of events all you want and try to make statements about what it means for our coach or our QB, but the BOTTOM LINE is that teams VERY RARELY, no matter who they have at QB, succeed at winning the game in the situation that we were in on Sunday evening.

That article doesn't make any sense. They didn't count "starts missed" for a lot of our players. Matt Elam and Will Davis going to IR doesn't count towards their tally? They didn't even mention Dennis Pitta. They also don't take into consideration players playing banged up. They don't take into consideration that we've had to move our entire roster around all over the place because we have had such a high QUANTITY of injuries that we can't even field a team unless we release or IR players that otherwise wouldn't need it but we can't afford them to take up the roster spot for a single week while they recover!

Our defense is allowing the following stats vs how those opponent offenses are doing against other teams: Points Scored: 27th ... 27.0 per game / 22.5 per game Overall Yards: 27th ... 380.7 per game / 346.1 per game Passing Yards: 27th ... 286.2 per game / 238.2 per game QB Rating: 27th ... 101.7 / 89.8 Percent of Drives Ending in a Score: 29th ... 43.8% / 34.5% Percent of Drives Ending in a Turnover: 30th ... 5.5% / 13.0% Penalties: 29th ... 8.3 per game / Unknown 1st Downs Due to Penalty: T-28th ... 2.8 per game / 1.8 per game 3rd Down Conversions: 32nd ... 7.3 per game / 5.2 per game 3rd Down Percentage: 31st ... 47.8% / 39.5% The numbers after the slash symbol are the stats for how the opponents we faced are doing against the other defenses they've faced. So as you can see, we're allowing them WAY more than other defenses they're facing are. The worst things in my opinion are those 3 that I underlined & bolded. We aren't getting turnovers, we're allowing the opponent to score WAY too often, and we're not getting off the field on third downs. Our opponents are scoring about 2.6 times for every turnover, but we're allowing opponents to score 8 times for every takeaway. NOT GOOD how much worse we are than the other defenses that our opponents are facing.

A balanced schedule is better than this one. It's NOT an advantage to have all the home games at the end of the season, because the chances of getting to that point of the schedule with your record in a good position are really bad. The beginning of the season is when it's toughest to gel, especially for a team that has seen coaching turnover like we had, because the unit has to learn to cohere and work together and get in rhythm, and having to go from the east coast to the west coast FOUR TIMES in the first 7 games of the season, in addition to only having 2 games at home, both division games which are the toughest kind of game you can ask for? I mean, come on. The front portion of this schedule is really hard to succeed through. I complained about the schedule before we ever played a game, and even if we had won every game, I'd still think it's a ridiculous schedule. Get the facts straight: NO OTHER TEAM HAS TO DEAL WITH A SCHEDULE THIS UNBALANCED. And not only is it 5 road games in the first 7 games, but once again, I repeat, we are in the unfortunate situation of having to go to the west coast 4 times this season, which is rare as it is, and among those first 5 road games, ALL FOUR of the west coast games are in this front loaded part of the schedule. No other team has ever had to deal with this kind of schedule. That's just a fact.

Joe's stats were bad in game 1, they've been pretty good since then interestingly enough. His stats since game 1 have been favorable compared to this career averages... Passer Rating: 86.3 vs 84.5 career Completion Percentage: 63.3% vs 60.6% career Interception Rate: 2.33% vs 2.48% career Touchdown Rate: 3.72% vs 3.99% career TD/INT Ratio: 1.60 vs 1.61 (essentially equal to his career average) Yards Per Attempt: 6.92 vs 6.95 career Yards Per Game: 297.6 vs 230.0 career The touchdown rate could be a whole lot better if his receivers got in the habit of catching passes in the end zone, because there's been a bunch of passes already this year that most NFL receivers are expected to catch and his guys are letting him down on. The interception rate is really not bad over these past 5 games. He's been throwing the ball a TON, to a poor wide receiver corps. He leads the league in pass attempts over the past 5 games! With this receiving corps? Come on, man. The real problem here is the defense is letting the opponent score in on over 43% of their drives, and they're giving up damn near 50% of third down conversions. Our offense isn't on the field enough because the defense can't get off the field, and then we're always playing from behind because the defense lets the opponent score way too often and we haven't had a damn takeaway in 3 games and we rank 30th in takeaways per opponent drive at just about 1 takeaway per 20 opponent drives. Joe Flacco really and truly has not been the problem in any facet, and his mistakes are more or less a symptom of the problems we have, and only seem bad because we're not winning, but the REASONS for it all are the horrible defense, playing from behind so no running game, and a bad wide receiver corps. It's not a recipe for QB success, and yet these past 5 games Flacco is actually putting up better than his career numbers in nearly all passing stats and that's with tons of dropped passes (most of which in the damn end zone that should have been TDs).

"In the past 16 years, just 2 NFL teams have opened a season w/ 5 of their first 7 games on the road: 2000 Ravens & 2015 Ravens" Just ridiculous. I said when the schedule was unveiled that it was unfair, but nobody agreed. I still think it's unfair. No excuse for our record, but it's obvious that between this schedule and our injuries we've had a lot riding against us to start the year, unfortunately.

That Forsett to Flacco to Forsett flea flicker yesterday was a fun play to watch. There have been fun and exciting moments in EVERY GAME this year. That's actually pretty great from an entertainment perspective, too bad about all of them (but one) ending in a losing effort though.

I saw this article from Jamison Hensley on the subject: http://espn.go.com/blog/baltimore-ravens/post/_/id/22733/justin-tuckers-home-field-disadvantage-in-baltimore And my immediate reaction was: Well, most of Tucker's misses are from 50+ yards, so maybe he just tries more 50+ yarders at home than on the road? And maybe opposing kickers attempt fewer, and that's why they have a higher kicking percentage at M&T than Tucker does? Well... I couldn't have been more wrong. So to add on to the things that Hensley wrote, I put this info together on Tucker: He is only 1/8 in his career from 50+ at home (misses from 50, 50, 51, 54, 54, 55, and 57). He is 47/50 from <50 at home (misses from 37, 44 and 47). He is 15/16 from 50+ on the road (with the only miss being a 64 yard attempt). He is 45/47 from <50 on the road (misses from 41 and 45). So he is about equally as good on the road vs at home from under 50, although his shortest miss was at home and he is 96% on the road vs 94% at home from under 50 yards, so while it's very close, he is actually slightly better on the road for shorter kicks as well as for longer kicks... But he is abysmal at home from 50+. His longest made kick at home is 53 yards. His longest on the road was 61 yards! And he has attempted exactly TWICE AS MANY 50+ yard kicks on the road as at home, but has only MADE ONE at home, and only MISSED ONE on the road. Also his home field goal percentage is the worst in the NFL since he entered the league among qualifying kickers, and visiting kickers have a higher field goal percentage at M&T than Tucker does in that span, including being 8/10 from 50+ yards (misses from 51 and 57). So Tucker is not only significantly worse at home than on the road, but other kickers are significantly better than him at M&T than he is as well. So it really is a jarring set of statistics showing that he is just really bad at home. What gives? That's some really weird stuff. Highly unexpected. ON THE BRIGHT SIDE: He is easily the greatest NFL kicker of all time on the road, and by significant margins, including from 50+ yards, and we happen to often need those field goals more on the road than we need them at home. Although that missed field goal would have been super nice to make against the Browns. The miss gave the Browns great field position at the end of the half and they managed to convert it into a field goal of their own, a 6-point swing that if Tucker had made that kick, I believe 100% we would have won that game. But, if Darren Waller didn't commit a costly 3rd down penalty that ultimately resulted in the kick being a 51-yarder instead of a 36-yarder, we wouldn't be having this conversation I'm sure. OR if the coaches were on the ball and aware that Tucker is extremely unlikely to make a 51-yard field goal at M&T, maybe they would have been smart and ran the ball on 3rd-and-forever to pick up a couple yards and make it an easier kick. Instead, they opted to try throwing for a long first down, resulting in an incomplete pass and so the 51-yard distance for that kick was stuck. LOTS of blame to go around for that particular sequence of events that I believe played a significant factor in us losing this game (but NOT NEARLY as big of a factor as the defense's atrocious performance in the second half).

Ya know, when I look back at our defensive performance throughout the season, I can point to a number of key defensive plays that should have been interceptions but weren't and if we had just gotten the big play there, it would have probably contributed to us winning instead of losing. In the Denver game, two different Manning passes were right in the hands of our defenders and they dropped the easy INTs. Either one of those is an INT instead of just an incomplete pass and we're probably looking at a different ball-game. In Oakland, we had an INT called back due to a penalty. Against Cleveland, we have an INT called back due to a penalty. I don't really remember if there was one in the Cincinnati game, but there have been a lot of almost-big-plays from the D this year that get negated due to a lack of focus and penalties, etc. And that butt-catch, that was a good defensive play as well, just a total fluke. It makes the scheme look worse than it might be because a lot of our defensive big plays are just not happening or getting wiped out due to penalties from the players.

Update from Rotoworld re: Vernon Davis... I laughed out loud. I expect Davis to have a career resurgence game, and for that matter Garrett Celek to have a career performance against us.

They aren't "doing it". Those guys just happen to be playing well by their own capability. Just because a player wasn't a 1st round pick doesn't mean he can't be a good player. And also a good deal of it is coaching and offensive system, but not the QB who makes the receiver. Do you really think Antonio Brown or Gronk or Randall Cobb wouldn't be any good if they were playing in the same system but had the backup QB throwing to them?

The fact is (as I see it) that SanFran has Torrey Smith and Anquan Boldin. This secondary really struggles against good, physical receivers who play the ball well and have good hands (that's Boldin), and they struggly possibly even more against speed (that's Torrey). Unless Kaepernick just COMPLETELY lost his ability to throw the ball, we're against a very very bad matchup for our defense and the only thing that can save us is if those guys get a case of the drops or if Kaepernick is just so off-target that he probably will get benched. Unfortunately, I don't think Kaepernick has regressed quite that much, and we tend to bring out the A-game in opposing QBs (near-40-year old Manning not-withstanding).

He came open after Joe was already in the process of the throwing the ball away.