frozen joe flacco fan

Right on! Your "buddies" on this blog site suffer from the three Ds --- that is denial, delusion and delirium. They are Joe Flacco doubters and detractors who relish in using him as cannon fodder. So, "The Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz" has fixed the defense. Well, "Roll Tide!" What has he done to fix the offense and help Joe to "play better". The answer is Nada as in zero. His strategy to fix the offense is addition by subtraction, that is trying to do more with less. Eugene Monroe and Jeremy Zuttah were experiments that failed. Good riddance! Hurst "The Worst" doesn't deserve a roster spot. Our FB, Kyle Juscyk, got a huge check and so did our RT, Rick Wagner. Our best? RB is suspende for the 1st quarter of the season. Frankly, IDK who our #1 WR will be and perhaps we should have picked OJ Howard to give us at least one healthy TE. Aiken was another experiment that failed. He had ample chances to prove himself worthy of a starting job and he may finally get one this year --- with another team. On a team with solid WRs and rugged, wide-bodied TEs and an O-line that isn't as porous as swiss cheese, Joe would be the gunslinger he likes to be, not just a game-manager whose job is solely not to lose the game. Like him or not, January Joe Flacco is one of the best in the business regardless of which foot he throws from. Wake up and smell the roses, you giddy, defensive, Raven fanatics! Unless the Wizard pulls a "complementary WR" out of his ____________ sleeve, Justin Tucker will set an all-time record for FG attempts in the NFL and it will be another long and vapid season. AND you can take that to the M&T bank!

Bingo! Support begets support! Je has a tendency to throw to receivers who are dependable. That being said, I loved the way he threw a first down pass to Waller last year after Waller had just dropped a pass on the previous play. That tends to instill confidence in a young receiver.

We'll just have to wait and see, I guess, but as my dad was fond of sayin "Wait broke the wagon down, son!" Thanks for the good feedback, RayRay! You're probably right that I was too generous for my grade on the defensive draft picks. I hope you're wrong about Humphry ' cause Matt Elam has been a bust. We need to get rid of him and Hurst the Worst.

You nailed it! The FO's stance on the offense is simple... they've just got to play better. That's so easy to say. I am sure OC Marty will be relieved to hear it. Let's see. He has Wallace, Waller, Moore, Perriman, Matthews, Campanero and now Woodhead. Of the entire bunch, only two have proven they are starters - Wallace and Woodhead. The others have some potential but that's the worse thing you can say about an athlete. I would like to see Q come back to Bmore for an encore but don't count on it after the way the FO treated him after the SB. Ask yourself why Waller is a WR and not a TE. Get Perriman to make the routine chain-moving catches a pro is supposed to make for his QB instead of an occasional circus catch. Keep Campanero healthy for a whole season. Good luck, Marty! If we go into the season with Wallace, Perriman and Moore as the top 3 WRs, you are in serious trouble unless you can get them to "just play better". But what the heck, it will give the Flacco doubters and detractors some more cannon fodder. Not drafting a WR in this draft is symptomatic of a FO in denial, delusion or delirium. That's what is simple. In fact, its so simple its offensive (pun intended).

You're very generous! Giving the FO the benefit of the doubt, I'd give them a C at best. The defense certainly needed to be revamped and the draft picks we chose should certainly help turn around the D. Having said that, giving the FO a grade higher than a C is questionable, considering the woeful O-line that Joe has to rely upon. It is absolutely unbelievable that James Worst (I mean Hurst is still on our roster). I'm glad Zuttah was sent packing but our O-line has had no continuity since way back in 2012. The run blocking is marginally adequate and the pass-blocking is woefully inadequate. It takes a great O-line to set up long deep pass patterns and Joe simply does not have enough protection to throw a deep ball to a wide open receiver. It is disingenuous and ludicrous for the FO to say that in order for the Ravens to be more successful Joe Flacco needs to play better and yet to have failed so miserably to draft anybody of any noteworthiness on the offensive side. Two lower round O-linemen, neither of whom is a center, just doesn't make it appear that the FO gives a hoot about giving Joe the weapons he needs to be successful. For those uninformed fans who think Ryan Mallett can run the offense better than Joe, think again. When Mallett beat the Steelers, that game was absolutely a gift from the Steelers. In the 2017 draft, four offensive players were drafted after our pick number 78 and before pick 85 and two or three were wide receivers. It is obvious that Ozzie had no intention of trying to help Joe "play better". This draft definitely exposed three things about our FO - its apparent tunnel vision, its lack of objectivity and a draconian change in philosophy. Its time for the Wizard to get in his hot air balloon and return to Kansas before he wears out his welcome in the City of Charm. With arguably the best defense of all time in the 2000 Super Bowl year, Trent Dilfer had more dependable weapons than Joe Flacco has. They were Shannon Sharpe, Brandon Stokely, Jamaal Lewis, among others, as well as a pretty good return specialist, named Jermaine Lewis. We also had some stellar coaching on both sides of the ball in Brian Billick and Marvin Lewis. Our only hope is that the FO knows something that we don't know when it comes to signing some more players who are in the twilight of their careers but still have some gas left in the tank. Its a bandaid approach at best but its the only chance we have to be a contender this year. So, the grade for the FO should be as follows: Defense - A Offense - E Average - C

Your wisdom is surpassed only by your total lack of knowledge of football and your non-logical thought process.

How ridiculous does this sound now???????????? The surest recipe for success is to score at least 20 ppg while holding your opposition to less than 20. The revamped defense should be able to do the latter. Will our depleted offense be able to score at least 20 ppg? Someone made a great point. We scored 10 last year against the Redskins at home. As you have stated so eloquently, it will hurt losing those low scoring games and easily blaming the offense. That will be a recipe for disaster and your quote will be prophetic because that is what will happen. Marty and his band of merry-making men will become the scapegoats once again.

And unless we score some points, the Ravens defense can be so good it holds all of its opponents to 3 points a game and we still lose each game by three points. Who will score the points? Who are our best weapons? Who will be on the O-line when we open against the Bengals? We just lost our best receiver, our right tackle and said adios amigo to our center, remember? I think you and many others on this blog are in total denial. But wait, here's an even better scenario. We score three points a game and hold the opposition to zero points a game. The highly-touted elite defense that the NFL is sleeping on will pitch 16 consecutive shutouts. If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you in Arizona. What talent have we added to a sluggish offense via free agency and the draft. I really want to hear your honest opinion about the FO's abysmal failure to draft any weapons for Joe going forward and how they expect to protect our franchise QB with an O-line that has more holes in it than a slice of swiss cheese. I am sure your response will be edifying. The game of football has passed by Ozzie and he has lost his status as the Wizard. Both Joe Flacco and Mike Wallace say they don't need any more weapons. C'mon man! Do you honestly believe that company line? And, what would you expect two proud professionals to say? Some genius in an earlier post stated that if this happens and that happens, we'll have a standout year. Well, if If's and Buts were candy and nuts, what a Merry Christmas it would be. Show me the beef on offense. I wanna believe but I think the FO just screwed the pooch so to speak!!!!

QUOTE 1) Hmmmmm? That's interesting! There were three WRs taken right after our 78th pick by Pick 84. An offensive lineman was taken with pick 85. Wake up and smell the roses. The FO clearly has a bias for drafting defensive players, preferably from Alabama for some unknown reason. Oh, that's right, it is Oz's alma mater. Maybe the FO has plans to start Keenan Reynolds at QB and convert Joe Flacco to a TE! Its a novel idea and who knows? It might just work! Marty will just need to devise a new game plan. Have the newly revamped defense hold our opponents to zero points like the first time we won the SB and allowed only 165 points in 16 games and then bring in Tucker to kick the game-winning FGs from 80 yards 'cause we will never get to the red zone without an offensive line and some reliable WRs and TEs. I do agree with your belief that we can field a competitive team this year and contend in 2018. We are in a serious rebuilding mode, no doubt 'bout it. QUOTE 2) Everything you have stated is true. We were a much different team when Jimmy Smith was on the field. That being said, the loss of one key player should not have caused the meltdown that occurred when he was absent from the lineup. So, I get it. The Ravens have just invested a bunch on a hunch --- that is, the notion that offense sells tickets but defense wins games. Also, defensive draft picks are more likely to become immediate impact players because defense is a streetcar named desire. What is bothersome is your last statement. It would be indefensible (no pun intended) to argue that next season's defense could be as elite as the defense was in our first SB year. Even with that elite defense, our offense had more weapons than this team currently has and it still had trouble scoring points. Playmakers like Jamaal Lewis, Jermaine Lewis, Shannon Sharpe and Brandon Stokely come to mind, just to name a few. Your post speaks volumes in what you do not say about this year's draft - a conspicuous absence of any early round offensive draft picks. So far, the strategy of the FO,as it relates to offense, has been addition by subtraction, unless you think that the acquisition of Danny Woodhead is a panacea for our offensive woes. Frankly, I don't. We need a dominant center, a right tackle, a dependable deep threat WR, a complementary WR to replace SSS and a chain-moving & blocking TE. And, for goodness sake, get rid of James Hurst in keeping with the addition by subtraction philosophy. Yep, we are in a rebuilding mode and it will take awhile for this team to return to its former shade of purple glory.

All seriousness aside, at this point it seems as though the top criteria for a draft pick should be a defensive player, preferably from Alabama for some reason. It almost seems that drafting a weapon to improve the offense is considered offensive by our FO. Didn't Forrest Gump play for the Crimson Tide in the movie by the same name. In deference to The Raven, stupid is as stupid does.

Your vapidness is showing! This sounds like deja vue all over again. Call, call, call seth The Raven!

And you would do what with the QB? Unless you draft a QB who can be converted into a WR, I would not be inclined to follow your advice with all due respect for your sage-like wisdom. There is a precedent in the NFL for drafting QBs and converting them to receivers. I that's what you mean, I'm on board with that idea but something tells me you want to convert Joe Flacco into a WR. Which is it? BTW, didn't we draft a QB from Navy last year?

LOL. That's interesting! I think your reply to my post is vapidly vague. If you're able to read between the lines, U would see that I agreed with your analysis in part. As far as the absence of actual thought is concerned, I thought (get it?) my observations about the Packers and the Redskins of old were pretty spot on. I'll try to avoid the use of any clichés here because U obviously have an aversion to them and quoting one would just be like deja vue all over again. It would be like waving a red flag in front of a bull. I find your treatise on over-valuing receptions vapid. I'm sure that many of Pitta's receptions were the result of Joe going through his progressions and finding nobody as in nada body open. He was the safety valve. It is gratifying that U can at least acknowledge that we may not be a better team w/o Dennis. After all, he did lead the team in receptions. Of all things a receiver is supposed to do, consistently catching the football is one of the most important things he does. One of the main problems we had last year was that the throws to Dennis were far too predictable because there were no decoys on the field other than SSS. I would agree that the total number of receptions a receiver has is not as important as the number of catches he makes for first downs and TD catches in or out of the red zone. In this area, Dennis did not excel but, then again, who did? I have seen too many would be TDs thrown by Joe Flacco only to be dropped by the likes of Waller, Gilmore, Lee Evans and Breshad Perriman to last a lifetime. BTW, its not a cliché that Raymond Berry only dropped three passes in his entire Balmer career, is it? That's 'cause its a documented fact! I have said tongue in cheek before that Justin Tucker is one of the best receivers we now have on the roster based on his performance in practice warming up for the Pro Bowl. However, its not too far fetched albeit Pittiful (pun intended). So, after Day 1 in the draft our offense has not been improved. What do you think we should do to improve it? Get rid of Pitta and replace him with a player to be named in the next draft? OR, maybe we should adopt a different strategy altogether for our game plans this year. How 'bout if we hold the opposition to Zero points with a revamped defense and rely on the NFL's best kicker and arguably our best receiver so far to win every game by the identical score of 3 to 0 since we clearly have no red zone threats yet. If nothing else, at least the games would be more rapid and vapid but I guess "vapid is as vapid does", huh?

Sounds like you're the one who needs the doctor, dude!

No. My opinion was based upon watching Joe in all 16 games last year. I saw more dropped passes by some of our "elite" group of receivers than misreads by Joe. To be fair, some of his interceptions, and there were too many, were the result of balls that shoulda been caught or rushed throws he made due to some P-poor blocking by our "elite" group of blockers. Be careful how you use the word heart around your buddy The Raven. He's overly sensitive to clichés. I do agree with him on one thing though. Our myriad of problems last year had more to do with the talent thing and less to do with the play-calling. In an admittedly different era of the NFL, the Green Bay Packers won consistently with some pretty basic plays, which they executed to near perfection. The Washington Redskins also beat a Don Shula coached Miami team in a Super Bowl with a basic play that the Dolphins couldn't stop. To make a long story short, we need more playmakers on both sides of the ball. I'm glad we're returning to smash mouth football to use your words but it will all be for naught if Oz does not land at least a starting offensive lineman and an immediate impact wide receiver.

Actually, the "heart of a lion" mindless cliché came right from Coach Harbaugh, but far be it for me to question the greatness of your coaches. At the risk of disagreeing with their innate wisdom and yours, I would call the guy that never played a down but got the crap kicked out of him in practice someone who should have tried out for the debate club. BTW, where did you dream up that one? Were you watching Rudy again for some inspiration? Let's see...... Of all our TEs, including Watson, Waller, Williams, Boyle and Happy Gilmore, Dennis performed better than all of them combined. Quit your complaining and find someone else other than Joe and Dennis to blame for the ineptness of our offense last year. I'm not sure why Dennis did not win the comeback player of the year award but he certainly deserved it.

To the OP: The title of your post is Wide Reciever (sic) Depth. By way of clarification, the spelling rule is "I before E except after C or when sounding like A as in neighbor or weigh." IMO, our problem is not that we lack WR depth. Rather, it is that we lack a marquee #1WR like Julio, Dez, Jordy, Odell, Antonio, A.J. or facsimile thereof. The same could be said for our TE group. There is plenty of depth but no premier standout like Dennis (pre-injuries), Todd Heap or Shannon Sharpe. I think the FO had pinned their hopes on Maxx Williams but that has been a big bust so far.

Talent issue or not, there's are reasons Joe threw to Dennis a lot in clutch situations. The two most obvious reasons are: 10 He was, next to Steve Smith, Sr. our most reliable "Go To" hands guy AND 2) he got separation by finding a dead spot in the zone coverages we faced a lot. I'd say they are both assets. More importantly, he has another asset that exceeds the other two, which is, he has the heart of a lion. They don't pay him to block or run deep patterns. They pay him to catch passes and he did that better than anyone else n the team. BUT, you got 1 out of 3 right. Speed is not his asset. His size, i.e., height, and his ability to get separation are assets. The very reason Joe had to dump off so many passes to his RBs and his FB was due to the inability of Aiken, Moore, Waller (a converted TE), Perriman and Wallace to get separation. You could count the number of open reads Joe missed during the season on one hand.

1) Hurst is the wurst OL in the NFL. Get rid of him & replace him with somebody, anybody, a warm body! 2) Insert Justin Tucker into the game as a WR. He's the best receiver we have. 3) Adjust your coaching style to match the special skill sets of the players rather than expecting them to adjust to your style; that includes the afore-mentioned zone blocking schemes which work well with certain offensive linemen but not others. 4) Find a center who can pull & block as well as hike the ball. 5) Find a way to use Keenan Reynolds in some running plays, e.g., the wildcat formation. 6) Ban John Harbaugh from making any 4th down calls. He is an excellent cheerleader but just an average, ego-centric coach who knows very little about offensive coordination. 7) If we get a sizeable lead, run the ball, run the ball and then run the ball. If that doesn't work, tell Sam Koch to punt the ball. 8) In the red zone, don't throw the ball into double, high low coverage near the goal line. Run the ball and if that doesn't work let the NFL's most accurate FG kicker & most-talented opera singer to kick the game-clinching FG. 9) Give Breshad Perriman his own personal juggs machine and require him to catch 100 balls a day after each practice while you distract him with a foam noodle. 10) Deploy a formation with Campanero, Wallace, Perriman and Woodhead as receivers with Boyle in the backfield as the blocking back/ 5th receiver all at the same time and dare a defensive backfield to cover it. 11) Go to Charm City to see The Wizard of Oz and ask him for a brain, a heart and some courage to coach the offense this year. You're gonna need it. So far, all The Wizard has done to help you is "addition by subtraction". Although I must admit, sometimes you need to get rid of the deadwood before you can bring in new lumber and getting rid of Zuttah was one step in the right direction. Hopefully, The Wizard of Oz can use some of his wizardry to draft a "Dream-Team" of draft picks. Put more simply, just try to be a little bit more creative with your play-calling (no more vanilla ice-cream play-calling, thank you very much), leave your ego at home where it belongs and be a whole lot less predictable than you were last year. Otherwise, you and Coach Harbaugh will be job-searching again by season's end. Oh, and most of all, don't be like Kyle Shanahan and try to put your foot on your opponent's throat when you get a lead. Remember, your sole objective as a coordinator is to WIN, not to try to embarrass the other team. In other words, pigs get fat but hogs get slaughtered. Take what the defense will give you. Don't get greedy! Like some other bloggers have already stated, there's a reason why so many NFL QBs are throwing short passes that aren't long enough to get a first down w/o YAC. The defense is crowding that yardage marker with defenders. HINT: Obviously, some of the free advice offered above is sarcastic in nature although some of it is very subtle. I'll leave it to the local intelligencia to figure out which items are satirical and which ones are serious.

To rebuild or to reload; that is the question. I would like to think we are reloading rather than rebuilding but those Ravens fans naïve enough to think our team is one or two players away from being a legitimate SB contender are simply fooling themselves and sailing down the Denial River. Our O-line is as porous as swiss cheese, we still do not have a stud #1 WR, we enter the season with a big question mark when it comes to who will be our RB, we need an ILB to replace Zach Orr and an OLB now that Elvis has left the house and the TE position is up for grabs, we're not sure whether Reynolds can return a punt, our only proven pass rusher is Terrell Suggs and we have enough players recovering from injuries to fill a hospital ward. BUT, other than that, everything is hunky-dory. So, the pressure is really on the FO to hit a grand slam in the draft and also to steal a starting center and a WR thru FA in order to say we are reloading for another SB run and not rebuilding. After all, it has only taken us five years to resolve the secondary woes we had if this group can do what their predecessors since 2012 could not do. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, its a duck. So, I'd say we are rebuilding.

Bingo! The premise of the OP is wrong. Everyone knows we have ZERO depth at WR. The real question is who will be our #1 WR, our #2 WR and our #3 WR. Obviously, we need another starting caliber WR and the draft will probably not fill that need. That being said, it is important that we draft a stud WR and obtain a veteran legitimate deep threat thru free agency. With all due respect to Wallace, there is nobody on our current roster who fills that role unless Perriman matures into the role.

Nobody but Todd and Jesus can feel Todd's pain or understand it, but we all share in his sorrow. May God comfort the entire Heap family at this time of unimaginable loss. Keep the faith, Todd!

Interesting points but not very astute. Have you ever heard of the Green Bay Packers? That organization listens to its fans. They own the team. Your post sounds like Dan Snyder who certainly does not give a rat's tail about what his fans think. I hope Steve Bisciotti does. If so, he would disagree with your non-astute opinion. Either fans count or they don't. AND, as far as your friends are concerned, how do you know how their loyalty rates versus those of us who are loyal bloggers? You must have extra-sensory perception. If you've ever been to the new Cowboys stadium in Dallas, you would see a stadium that was built by someone who cares about the fans. It includes a mezzanine level where fans can purchase SRO tickets to view a football game. So, go on and spin your story to someone who does not know that this website exists. Do they not have a computer? How ridiculous can U be?

I agree with what you said. I believe luck always plays a part in the draft and I believe that Oz and DeCosta have lost their edge when it comes to drafting immediate impact playmakers. Hoarding lower round draft picks is of limited value if they aren't filling the needs with the highest priorities for the team. For instance, drafting a QB right now because he is the "best player available" would be foolish if we could draft another player who might not be the BPA but who would be a starter on this year's team.

I will not miss the trolls and the Flacco haters. What I will miss is the intellectual discourse among some very knowledgeable football fans. I would like to believe the Ravens FO and players read some of these posts and learn something but maybe that's wishful thinking on my part. When you're a billionaire owner or a multi-millionaire player, perhaps this blog isn't that important. I was surprised and disappointed to learn the blog will be closing but that's life in Charm City, I guess. As I have said before, there's no such thing as the status quo. An organization is either getting better or its getting worse. I have a distinct feeling the reason this blog is closing has less to do with the tenor of some of the posted comments and more to do with the criticism of the FO, players and coaching staff. Steve gets a pass here. If you can't stand the heat, then get out of the kitchen. When a team stops listening to its loyal fanbase, its not getting better IMHO. I also appreciate the work of the Mods who have had a thankless job trying to ride herd on this many cats. Kudos to each of you, ladies and gents, for your guidance, genius and constructive comments (for the most part)!