callahan09

This is an absolutely astonishing conclusion to me. Joe play faked to the left, and then he rolls out and to the right. He didn't know there was a free rusher coming through because his back was to that side of the field while play faking left. By the time he gets to his roll-out in the other direction, that's when he sees the defender coming right at him, unblocked, and with blocker anywhere on the field to pick him up even if he did evade him once. He evades him once, there's a good chance the defender just comes up on him from behind. It's not like once Joe moves a little bit out of the defender's trajectory that the defender just disappears or falls on his face or something, he's going to adjust and keep pursuit because there was no-one to pick up the block. Joe decided that it was essentially a lost play with the pass rusher coming straight for him and so he back-pedaled and threw the ball away to Aiken's direction. It is a judgment call to decide that the play is dead and to throw it away to live for the field goal, or to think "Hey, maybe I can evade this guy" and try to hold onto the ball an extra couple of seconds. The problem with your judgment of him is that first of all, it's not always an easy decision in the moment with a pass rusher coming right at you with no-one to block him, and second, he did choose the SAFEST play, because choosing to try to evade the pass rusher and hold onto the football opens him up to being sacked anyway, and especially a higher chance of it being a strip-sack because he's opening the hit up to come at him from behind and potentially while he might be loading up to throw the ball. If he'd done that and been stripped of the football, then we don't get the field goal and we lose the game then and there. You cant just say he didn't have a pass rusher in his face because some QBs, under some situations, SOMETIMES evade such a pass rusher. The pass rusher was coming right at him unblocked. That's literally what happened. He chose to throw the ball away rather than risk a turnover. That's not a bad football decision or play on his part. It's the safe one.

You can't say that it's entirely the QB's fault because he didn't avoid a free pass rusher in his face. Sometimes QBs can avoid a free pass rusher in their face, but no QB avoids it every time. Sometimes when you try to avoid it, you end up fumbling the ball. We just saw Aaron Rodgers fumble the ball in in his previous game trying to do that. In this particularly situation, it's more important to NOT take a sack, not risk the fumble, get rid of the ball, and live to kick the field goal, because without the field goal, we lose the game right then and there. I'm not sure where he was supposed to step up anyway. Like I said he could have maybe tried to evade him, but there was still nobody there to block him, he was not going to get picked up by the pocket, he was just going to come right back around from behind him if he sidestepped him, and then he probably gets strip-sacked. And then you'd be yelling about how stupid Flacco is for not throwing away the football because we really just needed to keep ball security there and kick a field goal at the worst.

You can't turn a WR into a superstar. You can't turn "chicken poop into chicken salad". The offense is a system that has a lot of moving parts, and all 11 players on the field contribute to how it runs on every play. To say that it's the QB's job to turn WRs into superstars completely ignores the fact that WRs are players with their own skills and abilities, and that they they have control over their own destiny as playmakers. WRs aren't made into superstars by their QBs. That is such an atrocious and silly argument that I am so sick of seeing. It totally discounts the WR himself, and makes it as if any old roleplayer would be a superstar if they had been asked to replace Calvin Johnson in Detroit, for instance, because it's obviously Stafford who makes Johnson look good, and has nothing to do with Johnson's own ability. Right. The fact is, a WR has to make himself a superstar.

That Aiken play sums up the passing game in the second half pretty darn well... whenever someone was open, the pass rush was getting massive pressure on Flacco, whenever Flacco had time there was nobody getting open.

I once turned down a 20% raise to go work for a competitor because I didn't like the leadership at that company. It turned out to be a great decision because when the company I work for got wind of their offer, they actually decided to give me a 20% raise to match what the competitor offered me. And now that competitor is out of business. But at the time I turned it down, it was just a gut thing, I just didn't feel like it was a good move despite a lot more money.

I posted this info in one of the news threads, but I present it here as well: We scored 30 points. We didn't turn the ball over at all. We had over 125 rushing yards. We were AT HOME. And yet we lost the game. In the past 10 seasons, there have been 136 such games. Exactly TWO of them have been losses: The Ravens game on Sunday against the Browns. And the Ravens game last year against the Chargers. Outside of our LAST TWO SUCH GAMES, the NFL is 134-0 in these kind of offensive performances at home over the past decade. We're the only team that can manage to lose these games, and we've done it twice in a row now, and that's because the defense isn't doing their job.

Are you serious? You're putting this on the offense and have no problem with the way this defense has been giving away games since last season? We scored 30 points. We didn't turn the ball over at all. We had over 125 rushing yards. We were AT HOME. The reason we lost such a game is because of the defense, it's really not up for debate. Do you realize that in the past 10 seasons, there have been 136 such games. Exactly TWO of them have been losses. The Ravens game on Sunday against the Browns. And the Ravens game last year against the Chargers. Outside of our LAST TWO SUCH GAMES, the NFL is 134-0 in these kind of offensive performances at home. We're the only team that can seem to lose these games, and we've done it twice in a row now, and that's because the defense isn't doing their job.

This seems like a ridiculous assessment. You can't lay this loss equally at the feet of offense & defense. It wasn't a loss "on both sides." Do you know what giving up "13 unanswered points is"? It's giving up a touchdown on back to back drives when the offense doesn't score on the drive in between. The only reason it wasn't 14 (or, as the case might have been, 15) unanswered is because they went for 2 and didn't convert. We have exactly 1 drive in the span of those 13 unanswered points. You simply can't expect the offense to score on EVERY DRIVE.

This year so far there have been 37 occurrences where a team scored 30+ points. Those teams are 29-6. 2 of those 6 losses belong to the Ravens. The Ravens are the only team with multiple 30+ point performances that didn't win any of them. Since 2008, teams are 825-110-2 in 30+ point peformances. That's an .882 win percentage.

This must be what Falcons fans were feeling like the past 2 years with no defense. Matt Ryan is a good QB, as is Joe, but without some help from the defense you aren't going to win many games. Hell, Matt Ryan at least had an elite corps of pass catchers to help him out, Joe doesn't even have that but we're still putting up points that ought to be enough to win.

I'm seeing a lot of criticism of Flacco today, and even ESPN's made-up stat gives him a bad grade for today. I don't really understand what more you want from him? He played pretty well. He made some great audibles to big run plays and another for a deep connection with Aiken. He made a lot of tough throws. Some of those throws were pinpoint accurate, threading the needle between defenders, especially one to Nick Boyle. In the 2nd half our receivers were not getting open on almost any plays, so the pass rush was getting through because of the coverage. There were some throws where Flacco had to roll across to one side of the field and the only open receiver was on the opposite side of the field, and he either didn't attempt the throw or essentially had to throw it away. What more do you ask of your QB? I'm so sick of everybody expecting absolute 100% perfection on every play from Joe. He's made a ton of plays this year, including this game, but the fact is he has to either swallow throws, throw it away, run for his life, or force things A LOT because he doesn't have a legit arsenal of weapons at his disposal. This was the saddest arsenal of pass catching talent that was on the field in the NFL today, and it wasn't even close. And yet we still made plays and scored 30 and had multiple late leads for the defense to squander. Joe did more with less talent today than a lot of other QBs who won today, including Peyton, Dalton, Ryan, etc. A defense is important. Today was *ALL* about the defense.

I like his attitude about all this. I'm cautiously optimistic he can be a real difference maker on this team where, for some reason, it wasn't working for him in St Louis.

In an odd sort of way, I believe Steve Smith Sr is a big factor in WHY Joe has made so many mistakes this season. Steve has been by far the best player on offense for this team this year. And as a result of the relative weakness of everyone else that Joe could throw the ball to, Steve has commanded by far the most attention. And defenses have been making Joe pay for the fact that Sr has to be the first read on every single play. It enables defenses to play packages that set traps when we try to get the ball to Sr, and we have had little choice but to try to get the ball to Sr, so we've fallen into that trap too many times this year. They don't have to do much to take away our other receivers, so when Joe has to try to get the ball to the same player on every play, it creates a very high possibility for the defense to make a play since they basically know what's coming. In an odd way, not having that dominant receiver on the field that becomes the magnet for the football will help spread the ball around, which will prevent defenses from being able to hone in on the predictable throws we've had to force all year. Granted, these guys all have to step up and make plays for that to work. But it was working after Steve left the game in Pittsburgh, the offense was moving the ball really well and Flacco was making good throws and completing a lot of passes set up the game tying and game winning drives, along with the running game working like a well oiled machine. The only thing I don't get is... if they can't get open when the defenses aren't even really trying to take them away because Sr is on the field, why was it working when he wasn't on the field? Was it just that the play-calling for Sr being on the field didn't afford those guys god opportunities to get open? Or was it that Joe wasn't trusting the other guys for whatever reason and so he wasn't looking to them soon enough in the progress to where he could unload it before the O line gave way (the O line has been trash protecting Joe this year)? I dunno. I just hope it works for us on Sunday!

This conversation makes me laugh. Rodgers is arguably the best QB of all time in terms of pure skill and performance on the field, all variables considered. Not-so-arguably the best working today. What difference does it make if Rodgers is better than Flacco? There's only one Rodgers, and 31 teams don't have him.

Really cool for Crockett to wear that Sr shirt. It's cool that our young guys can show proper respect for the great players that we have that can mentor them.

A 7th round pick who has already contributed to this team with key plays in some games, and who has provided important competition in camp and practice where he has motivated other players we've brought in to have to work hard to make this roster. It's really silly to call that a "bust" as a 7th rounder. Most of those guys never do a single thing for the team that drafts them.

"He'll have one week to get on the same page with newly acquired wide receiver Chris Givens, who joined the Ravens via trade after putting up 12 catches so far in 2015." --- Actually, he only has 1 catch so far in 2015. He has 12 catches since the start of the 2014 season.

Technically with Pitta injured we're actually missing our two top TEs as well. What other QB has to play a game without his top 2 WRs, top 2 TEs, and without his LT? That's a lot of key pieces of the puzzle missing.

Not every bad play is a sign that the player is bad, you know. Aaron Rodgers had a bad fumble this past Monday as well. When you're running for your life, sometimes you fumble, it's not like some unheard of thing that good QBs never fumble. It was Flacco's first lost fumble in over 20 games, if I recall what I read correctly. And it was unlucky, to boot, that ball 9 times out of 10 just goes out of bounds, it was miraculous for the Steelers that they were able to recover that in-bounds. The INT was in no way "awful". If that was an awful INT then EVERY INT is an "awful INT", but if that's the case then why even call it "awful"? It was just an INT. That was a really smart defensive scheme on that play, they disguised the blitz on one side, making it look like it was coming to one side then actually dropping back and blitzing from the other side, then they covered the #2 making it look like the #1 was open, and then jump the route. That was a look that was never seen on film before, they couldn't have anticipated it. Just a great defensive play. Sometimes that's what it comes down to.

Really nice job explaining it. Hey, just as a side note, why don't you have an icon for your username? You're one of the most prolific posters on this board, but you just keep that question mark next to your posts, would be nice if we had an icon to identify your posts easier haha.

Flacco had a very up-and-down game. Some truly great throws, a lot of smart plays, and there were a few dropped passes from his scrub receivers as well. There were also a few bad plays, especially the fumble. But really both turnovers were more about bad luck and great defensive play than they were about Flacco's decision-making. The INT was definitely a result of a tricky defensive play that's designed to fool the QB. The fumble is 90% of the time going to go out of bounds, it was amazing that the defender was able to recover it with feet in-bounds. The 4th down sack was primarily an issue of nobody being open AT ALL, what good is throwing the ball away? Throwing an INT? Throwing and not getting the first down? You need the damn first down, so you just trust your O line and wait for a man to come open. Roethlisberger has been doing that his entire career, hold the ball long enough and someone will eventually come open. That's what Joe needed, the only positive result on that play was to hold the ball until someone comes open, and nobody ever came open and then the O line gave way to the sack, it's not that big of a deal! So like I said, ups and downs, a lot of bad luck. The O line absolutely sucked protecting him this game, and he was down to 3 WRs, two undrafted and one rookie 6th rounder, and 2 rookie TEs, for his ENTIRE RECEIVING CORPS. And he was still delivering strikes when we needed them most, getting hit as he threw, and getting us in position to win this game despite some of those strikes not being caught by his underwhelming cast of receivers. You can criticize Joe, he isn't perfect, but I get so sick of people expecting and demanding utter perfection when his surrounding situation is arguably the worst in the entire NFL between his receiving corps and pass protection, and a lot of his mistakes are a function of that situation, great defensive play, and bad luck. I mean, look at Vick, he threw a few shoulda-been-INTs last night, but our defenders didn't complete the catch on any of them. It seems like every time Flacco throws a pass that COULD be intercepted, it IS intercepted. For some reason I get the sense that every defender magically grows great hands and footwork and ball-hawking skills when they're playing against him.

UnBELIEVEABLE effort by Camp!! WOW!

Nice to see Forsett get a couple of really nice gains there!

Either we stink at tackling, or they have an entire team of REALLY elusive dudes. I'm leaning towards the former.

The fact remains that there is only one WR on the team right now that was drafted in the 5th round or higher, and that's Steve Smith Sr. Brown, Campanaro, and Waller were all 6th round or later, and they're all given a chance by being on the roster. Trust me, if one of these guys was Antonio Brown, they'd be showing it during games. They're seeing snaps. They're there in practice. They're on the roster. They HAVE been given a chance. They have no competition outside of Steve Smith Sr, so if none of them can prove that they should be starting over the others, none of them can make a play on the field, that's on them, that's not because they haven't been given a chance. How many 6th/7th rounders and undrafted WRs are there on other team's active rosters right now? Is there another team in the entire NFL that has as many as the Ravens have?