birdseye

cbrook1862, u mean to tell me that because Flacco has pressure coming at him that he cant zip a ball 6 YARDS on a line while fading away? I can do that, and I'm mediocre at best when it comes to throwing a football. Watch the highlight on NFL.com and tell me that Flacco HAD to lob it... nonsense, if he would have thrown a bullet pass to Gillmore thats a TD or an incomplete pass... throwing the lob pass is such an unnecessary risk to take with two downs left. Not Flacco's fault we lost at all, just wish he would get rid of that move

whats up with this stupid lob ball? NOBODY else in the league trys that garbage. And yes, there is a signifcant difference in a fade route lob as compared to Flacco's goofy, basketball alley oop crap. Flacco has to have world class touch just to get it close to the right spot. Just plant off your back foot and zip one high and hard... the size advantage is the fact that he is 50 LBS heavier and has so much body mass that theres no way the safety should be able to reach around Gillmore to make a play. lobbing the ball just lets every single defender in the area get in position to make a play. Worst case scenario flacco throws the ball through the hands of gillmore and everybody else and were sitting at third and goal not game losing INT, again...

Do referees not get the same images that we see on tv when they go under the booth? If not, why the hell don't they, I think the NFL can afford the technology to make that happen. When watching the game live ESPN aired at least 2 or 3 high definition DEFINITIVE pictures of Ross' knee on the ground and the ball secured in his hands. Its like, I know we can't say the Ref's lost us the game, but dude, if we dont fumble that punt, and if we get a touchdown after the Urschel play, I'm pretty comfortable in saying I think we would have won that game. Anything can happen but to say that these refs didn't have a direct impact on the outcome is just as much a load of BS as saying that they didn't lose us the game. as a side-note, we cant underestimate the power of momentum, just remember our superbowl if you need an example.... in this game the refs made sure the ravens never had any and when they did get it the refs took it right away... not the cardinals, the refs took our momentum with terrible calls... In any other high stakes work like this such a crucial error would cost that person their job, seems fitting

refs definitely knew that they blew a bunch of calls against the ravens in the first half, they started giving us make-up calls like the holding penalty on Gresham that wasn't even close. Like most fans on here I hate to say the refs lost us this game but in a league where the margin of error is so small, they made two gamechanging mistakes that cost the ravens two scores... Its just seems like this year was meant to happen... We will turn it around next year, I have faith

Hold the phone: Garrett Downing just classified Jeremy Ross as a playmaker... You mean the career special teams player who couldn't stay on a roster and was forced into a playing role through injuries to our already garbage receiving corps? If this is how the Ravens find playmakers were in for a long decade.

Williams is a tank, has a chance to be better than Haloti, though his name might not ever be recognized as such. Jernigan is starting to play like he did last year, and can be a pro-bowl caliber player. Add in C Davis with a year in the weight room and a year in our system, we wont need to touch our defensive line for the next 5 years and they can dominate.... Our offensive line is going to be very good for the next 3-5 years if we leave it in tact. We have the foundation to be great, you build a team inside first... go out and spend some newfound cap money to bring in a few playmaking vets, draft one or two more playmakers and we will recover in no time. In Purple and Black I believe.

Interesting thought popped into my head last night, kind of interested to hear what other Ravens fans think of it. This year we've been historically bad on defense. From what I've read, there are two sides to the argument, either Peas or the talent level is the cause. At first I was leaning towards the talent on defense being sub par. But after watching the Steelers defense improve every week, with FAR less talent than we have I'm starting to think its Peas. I've heard numerous local and national reporters saying that they've seen a defensive coordinator that is trying everything, being creative in his play calls yet we dont see any results. But is it just me or does it seem like Dean Peas is one step behind the offensive coordinator every week. They run a screen pass, so the next play we line up press man, they beat us on a double move over the top. They run the ball in the A gap B gap 2, 3 times, so Peas calls a MLB blitz up the middle and they bootleg out of it for a wide open completion. So many times we get teams in third downs and they play call that the offense runs produces a wide open player for a first down. Is it because he is being to preditcable, not letting go of tendenceies, or just not able to motivate our players to play their hearts out for him? Maybe I'm just trying to rationalize our failures or reaching for excuses but all I know Pitt is getting WAY MORE out of their garbage defense then Peas is out of ours.

Flacco has sucked this year, bottom line.... He hasn't been good in any stat category, and not in the win cateogry that every ravens fans uses as the basis for the Elite conversation. Dont give me the no weapons excuse. SSS is a legit #1 wideout, no matter his age. Crockett is a very good tight end. Our O-line and Forsett have been very good. Flacco has not been very good, or even a little bit good this year. Him and Trestman dont have the chemistry Kubs and Joe did obviously. I don't know who is more to blame

Were having a down season... Every single franchise or team in the history of competition or sports goes through up and downs... If you don't have a elite quarterback you cant maintain consistency every year. Its an absolute miracle that the Ravens have been so good for so long without a top 5 quarterback. Look at the other top five teams over the past decade. Colts, Steelers, Patriots, Ravens, Green Bay... Notice that were the only team in that group that doesn't have a hall of fame caliber quarterback... That is not a coincidence. WIth 20% of our cap tied up in Ray Rice and Haloti Ngata (those two occurences are also interrelated), a FEW bad front office decisions, coupled with the ridiculous amount of injuries the past two years, I can accept one down season. If we dont show major improvement next year, then I'll start worrying about the direction of our franchise. If 'fans' are going to start cheering for other teams because we haven't won a super bowl in 3 years than go away, nobody wants you here, I'll take your PSL's and you can take yo A$$ down 95 to cheer for a franchise that has real issues. BTW, go read an article from somebody who knows football before you call for Dean Peas head. Russell street report and baltimore sun had good articles on how its talent, not scheme... Hell, listen to Dean Peas after the browns game last Monday, he spells out perfectly clearly why our defense is garbage.

just another contract to get out of the way before we re-do the big mans deal... if we can lock up KO I'll be incredibly impressed.

Dante Fowler and Kevin White, according to Ravens fans logic, are the two biggest busts in NFL history. at least Perriman has a chance to play, those two are already on IR, therefore their careers have been decided.

RavensAllDay1987 you couldn't have been more correct. Ray Rice and Haloti Ngata are taking up like 20 million in dead cap space this year. I'm not sure on the math but thats got to be around at least 15% of the entire team's cap room. Hard to get quality depth with little funds. Ravens fans are spoiled. That being said the fans were much more involved in this game then they were against the Bengals. We tried to rally the troops on defense but they let us down play after play, third down after third down.. When u convert on long third downs multiple times in drives it takes the fans out of the game, thats just the nature of the beast. so props to the browns for making plays. But the overall outlook for the next 5-7 years is going to be awesome. I cant find it, but MMQB (I think it was one of Peter Kings staffers) wrote an article about how the ravens have a very positive outlook for the next decade based on our reputation, leadership, and franchise stability. Ravens fans calling for Newsomes head dont know jack [profanity deleted] about football, I support my team Ravens no matter what! Hargreaves III or Ramsey please!

Throughout training camp we heard of the receiver 'competition' and the conrnerback 'competition' as if we almost had too much talent to choose who to keep and who to let go. Obviously our conerbacks and receivers are so bad, that they actually make each other look good in practice, and that has fooled the raven's coaches and player personnel into thinking that meant that they were talented. When clearly, SSS is the only remotely talented receiver we have, and Jimmy Smith is the only capable corner we have (im hoping his off season surgery is lingering and not his skills diminishing). The rest of them are a bunch of nobodys or has-beens and scheming only does so much. This is a front office problem that unfortunately is too late to fix (as if replacing defensive coordinators is even an option). Who are we going to bring in, a new coordinator to teach a whole new defense mid season? Monachino? what proof does anybody have that our in house replacements will be any better? Little bit scheme, mostly personnel and execution. no excuse for a confusion about man or zone coverage in two minute at the end of the game. Thats on the players

From Eisneberg: "It’s no excuse for losing, of course. Let’s be clear on that. As Bill Parcells said, you are what your record is. The Ravens are winless because their defense can’t protect late leads and their offense is experiencing periodic blackouts, not because of their schedule. If they were good enough, they would have one or two wins by now." This is the only part of this article worth reading. And did I just hear him try to justify our loss to the Raiders by saying that they've improved under Jack Del Rio? WRONG! the raiders are garbage and real teams, like the bengals, anhilliate their trash team because they not talented. Del Rio didn't turn around 20 years of player personnel decisions in 2 years and make them a good team.

I'm glad Downing has officially declared that "the problems in the secondary can be fixed" in the subtitle, NOW i feel better. This staff has talked up the ravens so much this summer that I can't take anything they say serious. Mink every year thinks Flacco will become Tom Brady, they never point out how flacco has missed TON's of opportunities to win us games already! I forget which one (either Mink or Downing) said Kendrick Lewis was the best free ranging safety we've had since Ed Reed. He also could've phrased that sentence: Kendrick Lewis is very mediocre football player, but the ravens secondary has been filled with mediocrity since Reed left, so he will continue the trend of allowing big plays in the most crucial times. This staff has pretty much successfully brainwashed readers of this site (myself included) into thinking that the Ravens never mess up. They are employees so its not surprising but what kind of reporting world do we wlive in where reporters are scared to ask the tough questions and aren't allowed to write articles that point out the mistakes made by this team. Let me just go down the list:

- Cut Jacoby Jones: didn't save a lot of money anyways, and now we dont have a returner.or a speed WR to stretch defenses, Yeah he dropped a lot of passes but at least he could physically get open, something our WR's 2-7 cant do.

- Add Kendrick Lewis: Darian Stewart has looked like Ronnie Lott compared to Lewis this season, Lewis has been pretty bad all around.

- Add Kyle Arrington: Bring in a defender, The savior of our cornerback corps, who was just benched by the Patriots and then cut even after they released their 2 best cornerbacks. He hasn't provided any noticeable difference

- Draft Perriman: Apparently the other teams in the draft took him off their board because he has a pretty bad case of recurring osgood schlatters disease (he re-aggravated his knee in non-contact WARM-UPs this weekend) and our track record of drafting receivers indicates that this will also be a bust.

I praise Ozzie to no end when I feel he did good work, and I'll rip him when he fails. He FAILED this off season. I'm a little worried about the future. Next year we lose SSS, probably either KO or Yanda, potentially Suggs too. Our secondary is what it is... not good enough. We have a lot of holes in this roster that were supposed to be rock solid. Hope Ozzie can regain his form next offseason. I'm not throwing in the towel, I'll continue to scream until i'm blue in the face on sundays mondays and thursdays but I'm also going to be realistic. Lets just worry about playing better in general; we look like a bad team with talent that can't get out of their own way.

finally some good news out of the castle... now he needs to get his butt in redunkulous shape so he can run Torrey Smiths all day long.

I like the positivity I'm reading on here, restoring some faith in ravens nation. People outside the NFl really underestimate the advantage of playing at home vs traveling across the country to play. Just look at home vs away records throughout the history of the NFL and the #'s are staggering. Even if we lose two more road games we can still split on the road, which is all you really need. With the home field advantage we have at the Bank its not a stretch to say we will win at least 6 of 8 games at home. Let me do the math. 6 4 = 10 = playoffs.... yet somehow according to some of ravens unfaithful were eliminated.

Couple points: Why is it so difficult for analysts to understand that just because you dont generate pressure doens't mean its only the pass rushes fault. What the raiders did to us is exactly what the Bengals have done to us since Hue Jackson became their coordinator. The patriots do it to us every year. The Steelers seemingly figured it out last year too. When a quarterback gets rid of the ball on average at about 2 seconds there is no player in the world who can get to the quarterback. the raiders knew they stood no chance, even without going against Suggs, if they're making Carr do 5 and 7 step drops every pass play... There's not really a 'gameplan' to stop these types of finesse offenses. What does stop them, and Harbaugh said it in the press conference, is executing and playing funadmentally sound football. It comes down to tackling and knowing your assignment. The people who are blaming Dean Peas are just lacking very basic football intelligence. First off, he is one of the most respected defensive coordinators in the league (who would know better than any of us). Second, he just stiffed Peyton Manning last week, a much more impressive task where it was him vs Kubiak/Manning, the greatest offensive coordinator ever(referring to Manning). Bottom line is our defense didn't execute. Both the players and coaches will admit that. Missed tackles and blown coverage's along with stupid and untimely penalties (IM CALLING YOU OUT JERNIGAN, YOU FOOL!) lost us the game NOT DEAN PEAS. Lastly, I think we made a huge mistake staying out West in between games. When I heard our coaches and player whining about being in Philly too long I thought this was the wrong move. The players clearly didn't react well to it, as we were not ready to play AT ALL.

If we can hold a Gary Kubiak run game to 69 yards and a Peyton Manning passing attack with 0 TD's and under 200 yards is ridiculous. Everybody is talking about how dominant the Denver defense was. They were good but clearly the Ravens defense was better. I mean they had no ground game and Dean Pee's dialed up a masterful game plan. People expected denver to come in and have their way with our D, nobody thought the ravens O was going to go there and beat up the Bronco's.

ATTN ravens fans.

dont panick about the offense yet. It would have been a huge mistake to assume that our offense with a new coordinator, and one of our top playmakers out, would go into Denver, one of the most difficult stadiums to play in, against a Top 5 defense, on opening day, and push them around. Trestman did what he could. There is no play call for your second string left tackle getting beat before joe has a chance to go through his first read. Yeah we can chip and max protect but our receivers aren't talented enough to beat two top 10 cornerbacks one on one so if were keeping guys in to protect Joe will continue to have zero options to throw too. That being said, our offense will face maybe 1 more situation like that the rest of the year (AZ has a great home D). Tough task for the offense to start the season. I'll start to panic if we can't open any running lanes against the Raiders

I also believe Denver will be a loss, really tough environment and team to prepare for week 1. I think more than anything in week one I'll be happy if we have noticeably improved secondary play, and continued success on the ground. If we can slow a peyton manning passing attack and run of the Bronco's defense that bodes well for us in the long run. Of course I want the W as well but if we lose, lets hope that at least those two facets of the game look good. If our secondary is improved we have a possible top 5 defense, and if our running game produces you know our offense will be effective enough to make the tourney and just talented enough to ignite in the playoffs per usual

I respectfully disagree fusuymada, we can't stay away from certain players because they got injured during their recruiting season or in their college career. First, Its quite rare that we would find a healthy, impact player that can contribute year 1 in the later parts of the draft or as an UFA (albeit the ravens are very good at finding such gems compared to the league as a whole) . Second, pending our picks on players that have a lot of upside but might be have to take a redshirt year is most definitely worth it. Its impossible to gauge whether a player will be injury prone in the NFL, the speed and force of collisions and the wear and tear on the body is tenfold what college football is. Lastly, Injuries are out of our control. What we can control is how detailed our scouting is and our interpretation of the tape. We draft the best player available, that is the foundation of our team, we accumulate picks and spend them on the most talented players we have on our board. Side Note: If teams stayed away from players with injuries in their history the NFL wouldn't exist.

Fusuymada I think that playing against the eagles in the preseason puts the opponent at a distinct disadvantage. Without even watching tape of or game-planning for a spread offense like that there is nothing a BASE defense can do to stop it because its less about winning one on one matchups and more of staying disciplined (i'll speak more on the lackthereof later).

You also probably noticed on the first series that our defense looked gassed and didn't know assignments at the start of the plays. Well when your phone line is down and the players cant get the call it hurts execution. That is magnified 10 fold when playing a team like the Eagles where they're already trying to run so fast so the defense doesn't have time to line up and get assignments corrected. Our offensive struggles is a more justifiable point but I'll add this in as a caveat, if our injury riddled line can generate as much movement and push as they showed on the first series of run plays, then our offense with a healthy line will at least be an efficient, ball control offense if Flacco avoids turnovers.

All that being said I thought we went into that game with the completely wrong mindset. Harbs even mentioned pregame that their team broke the locker room huddle with "lets get the hell out of here". Clearly the ravens were tired of being on the road, weren't prepared physically or mentally for that game, and it showed. I doubt Harbs will allow that mindset to creep in when games start counting. Again, you're never as good as you think and you're never as bad as it seems, we will find out soon if this team is contenders or pretenders

sprain is a term doctors use when theres nothing wrong structurally with the ligament but there is swelling and inflamation. A sprain can be an injury that recovers in a couple of hours or if its serious like a high ankle sprain it can take months. When people read PCL sprain they get their panites in a bunch because it sounds scary.

WOOOSAH ravens fans, WOOSAH!!! the media gets us all in a stir speculating and speculating because they need stories to write. Take a deep breath and enjoy the buttkicking were about to lay down on Washington, Breshad will be back soon enough and in 3 years were going to be celebrating the first WR we drafted in R1 that actually panned out. Remember friends, Harbaugh said Breshad was the 14th best player on their board, and they've said he is exactly what they thought they saw on film... I trust their evaluation

Writing the guy off for an injury during his first training camp? I expected better from the Ravens faithful. A handful of the injuries that guys are missing time for wouldn't even be on the injury report come regular season. most of the other ones wouldn't be nearly severe enough to keep our starters out of games. They're all very aware of the expectations we have for this year. Internally, judging from the comments people in the organization have said over the summer, I dont think the team is shying away from a super bowl or bust mentality this year. Flacco has finally stepped up as the leader of this team and he basically came out and said were shooting for 11 or 12 wins this year. Not gonna have little nagging injuries that land you on the injury report in august keeping webb or wagner or KO out during crunch time.

I thinks its urgent that we get as many deals as possible done this year, ESPECIALLY YANDA. for one, Flacco's cap jumps to 28 mil and he expects to be paid in the 20-21 mil a year range, so the more deals we get done this year, the clearer our cap picture is and the easier it will be to negotiate Joe's deal. 2, Yanda is the best interior OL in the game no question, 3 he is an unquestioned locker room leader, and 4 Osemele has had nagging injuries throughout his career, Yanda is a brick [crap]house and refuses to be injured, he plays, hard as hell, all the time. (knock on wood)