teddyw

I respectfully and completely disagree. The defense playing poorly all day is the prime reason that taking away the other teams 2 mins warning and final timeout were a necessity on that final drive. Even a screen play with a high prob completion if you are worried about the blitz and "running into it". Come on man. They scored a TD with 26 seconds left in the game. I absolutely think that if we would have kicked that FG with 1:55 left on the clock and zero timeouts or 2 mins warning for Oakland that we could have taken away the sidelines and held them to a field goal due to running out of time. I know that is playing for overtime but it's certainly better than playing for a loss. I have to completely disagree with you on this and agree with the original commenter. Coaching lost that game in the end. The players lost it up to that point, but poor decision making is what got us in the end on the play calling.

You forgot one point Eisenberg. The final drive we could have taken the 2 minute warning and Oaklands final timeout away from them by running the football 2 more times. That is the worst case. Best case we could have run for 6 yards and gotten another first down and the game is virtually over (in our favor). How can you overlook this in your five thoughts? Coaching, coaching, coaching.

First, I agree with all of the commentary regarding the players and the play on the field. I have said all along since prior to opening kickoff a week ago that this teams problem is depth. The starters on this team are excellent, we lack depth. Never before in this Harbaugh era has a Ravens team lacked the depth that we now lack. Our 2nd string players on Oline, Dline and skill positions are at best practice squad players on most NFL teams based on their performance. That is a major problem. Second, and why we are probably in this boat (in part) -- Ozzie -- Please stop drafting skills players. They are a risk and they are not working out. Draft Oline, DLine and Linebackers, please. Stick to that. Acquire and build those players through the draft and do so with depth. I won't name any names but the skill players in the last few drafts have not worked out, so far. And as a result, we are light in other areas because it is inevitable that line guys will get banged up and you will lose a few now and then due to cap casualty and the market. Drafting unlucky has hurt us. Mosley is the only exception to that in recent years. Last, I put this loss on the coaching staff. As bad as the players were, there are two major problems. One on each side of the ball. Pees doesn't know how to scheme and blitz properly. The game against Denver was false hope. Denver's offense is terrible and they should have lost by two touchdowns to the Chiefs if not for ill timed fumbles. Pees schemes are not good. Know your personnel, modify your game plan, please. The other issue is that we win that game with proper play calling on our final drive. We could have run the ball twice versus throwing two incomplete passes. What would have happened if we'd run the ball twice? Worst case, Oakland gets the ball back with about 1:55 on the clock and zero timeouts or two mins warning. Play prevent defense and guard the sidelines and the best they can probably do is kick of field goal and we at least go to overtime. Best case we run twice and get the 5 or 6 yards we needed to pick up just one more first down and the ballgame is over as we kick a FG with about 25 seconds left on the clock and Oakland having zero timeouts left. Either way, the scenario would have been much better. Trestman made the wrong play calls. Harbs, take control. In the end, this falls directly on your shoulders bud.