reed20fence

There are much worse backup QBs than Schaub in this league. Not all of them would go so long throwing pick 6s every game. So all that tells me is that the guy is a decent QB, but he's stuck in some fluky, jinxy, rut that a fan base that's more mature than Houston's can be patient about while he digs himself out of it. Until that time all we can do is smile about the strange alignment of stars that're causing this freakish streak and say things like "welp, there's that customary pick 6 for the game, now let's play ball."

Defense is getting better. We need stability back in the secondary so these guys can continue to develop chemistry. Valiant effort all around.

I've heard the "human error is just a part of the game" argument from several people now. But the human error should come from the athletes, not those administering a fair competition. A RB picking the wrong hole is innate error. A QB making a wrong and hasty read under pressure is innate human limitation (It's what differentiates a Manning from a Leaf). But you can't have refs out there at a Hall of Fame level and some that just can't hang it. Not when your duty is to ensure clean and just competition. And if there is no such thing as a perfect ref, then we need to start arming these folks with the tools to administer the game properly. It's the flippin' 21st century and a Hundred Thousand fans in the stadium along with the teams are watching an HD jumbotron that shows a blatant foul or no foul but the refs aren't allowed to look up? Cmon.

I'm not sure how often this happens and maybe it's just a norm but it truly was a special sight to see not just the players and coaches but Dick Cass and Chad Steele and Kev Byrne on the sideline jumping and hollering as Will Hill streaked past them to win the game. It's not just the roster, this entire franchise is all in every-single-game, every-single-season.

Just throwing a hypothetical out there. Most of us are still peeved about the simple loss to Jacksonville at the moment. But imagine if we somehow manage to finish 9-7 or even 8-8 and come up one game shy of the final playoff slot. What happens then? The playoff fate of a team would have been determined by a no-call that the NFL saw fit to admit the refs got wrong... one they unequivocally admit would have altered the outcome of the game.

The premise is true. Fans complain as part of homerism. No denying it. They also complain when teams they don't like benefit from calls or lack thereof. I think the new territory we're entering however where the NFL and Blandino are coming back the day after a game and admitting the win/loss outcome should have been different is interesting. And the next step down the ladder is penalties that aren't necessarily on the final plays of games but near the end of games that significantly alter down and distance or put teams into or out of field goal range. We've seen both this year. Change is dependent on critical mass. If enough owners feel that that the fate of games and thus playoff fates are being impacted, change will happen. If on the other hand a majority of them don't care, or feel that the cost of negotiating larger broadcast slots with the networks or employing the refs full time (never really understood this one and why it matters) isn't worth it, change won't happen. It's a business decision.

I think the CFL just expanded the ability to challenge Pass Interference in 2014. The outcome of their League Championship was dependent on that simple rule change. If you read the Official League description of challenges they're very humble about their reasoning. The game is just too fast moving to expect a human being at field level to make an accurate judgment 100% of the time. The NCAA allows reviews to determine if helmet-to-helmet contact was made or to monitor for blocking violations on onside kick attempts. Clearly the League is taking it seriously if committees are being formed or announced mid-season and Blandino is being publicly defensive to a ridiculous degree, which shows that it's striking a nerve. Just let coaches challenge penalties using the 2 that they get. Make it a part of their strategy of rationing their opportunities.

Though the part that I'm still hazy on is that both OTC and Spotrac show our salary figures hovering around ~145 million for 2016 as is. I guess he's implying that the remaining $10 million gets eaten away by rookie reserve and ERFA/RFA contracts? That would make sense. So basically the name of the game will be the same next offseason. Restructure veteran contracts to raise money and part ways with vets that have sizable discrepancies between their dead money vs. cap figures.

Regarding Brian McFarland's tweet, I'm gonna go ahead and apologize since I was one of the folks peddling this "dead money off the books will be our saving grace in 2016" -myth. He's absolutely right, just looking at the top 25 guys on the roster alone shows rising cap figures of over $45 million added to the cap. Our dead money is only $23 million.

Few people make it out of the poverty and circumstances Buck comes from. Fewer still make it to a prestigious University as athletes. Not all of those athletes care to commit themselves to actually earning a degree. A miniscule amount of college athletes ever realize the dream of making it to the NFL. So what does this kid do when he reaches paydirt for the first time in a moment that sits on an altar built with years worth of blood, sweat and tears? He pauses to honor a friend and his memory with his first celebration. This guy is a Raven, and we're honored to have him.

The main reason we'd entertain the possibilty of Mallett in spite of his recent issues in Houston is the constant underthrowing of passes to our speed WRs who are managing to get behind coverage. For some reason Joe's technique (backfoot passing) regressed this year and Schaub's interception issues are significantly impacted by his throwing power (or lack thereof). Everyone saw how hard Givens worked to beat coverage time in and time out only to be underthrown by Joe and in Cleveland, Matt. With Mallet's frame and arm strength the deep game with Givens and Clay's straightline speed can be reintroduced as a signifcant threat.

I'm sure a 3-7 record plays into the calculus to go for it at that stage as well. Not much to lose. I loved Gruden's commentary on the night. "Does this look like a 3-7 team to you, Mike? Credit John Harbaugh, he's got these guys flying around the field like they're in the AFC Championship."

We can laugh at their misery all we want but one thing human beings can say and no one will accuse them of lying or bandwagoning is "I'm a Browns fan." After what that fanbase has been dragged through for the last few decades, anyone still remaining who willfully dons those colors and pays money to be at those ballgames should be honored, not ridiculed. Those fans are the very definition of loyalty.

*Jaguars. Unless you think the NFL was lying when it admitted we should have won that game? It's a 4 game winning streak.

Say what you will about the 2015 Ravens, but after the midseason bye week our team is on a 4 game winning streak. Kudos for not opening the gates and inviting bad karma through the front door by deliberately sucking for high draft picks. You do that and you deserve a crappy draft class filled with busts. Play with honor and dignity and the draft will take care of itself.

This season was managable when training camp came. Then Perriman went down. It was the equivalent of Torrey going down had we signed him. Then it starts and Suggs goes down and a Super Bowl appearence became more of a miracle possibility rather than an expectation. Then the secondary completely capsized due to lack of any pressure on QBs up front in Oakland. Down 0-2 it broke a few psychological backs. Then the issue of key veteran role players and playmakers like Webb, Munroe and Canty being perrenially ginger kicked in. Then the SSS injury right as the Secondary started to shore itself up. Now Joe and Forsett. It's a game played by humans so coaching errors and execution errors are inevitable. But when you throw in blunderous penalty calls or missed calls to a team that's already trying to hang on tooth and nail due to a talent and cash defecit, what can you expect? 3-7 with a bunch of close calls seems pretty reasonable.

We signed Chris Matthews of Seattle fame from last year's playoff run. Big guy, big play ability.

Much ado about nothing in my mind. Joe will be fine. Contract talks will proceed as scheduled. Worst thing we can do is overreact to fabricated problems by investing valuable picks or dollars on a non issue.

Let's get some stout RBs and revert back to that old AFC North style of smash mouth football. Let the North know... winter is coming.

This game is so subtly interconnected that removing one part or player without succesfully finding a way to replace his talents can oftentimes cause the entire house to come crumbling down. Usually it's the QB position. On defense, without a doubt, the edge presence Suggs brings caused us to totally unravel at every level. No blindside pressure means no double teams. No double teams means hat on a hat blocking or doubling at the other edge of Doom. Nullifying front 4 pressure means added coverage time for secondary. Manufacturing pressure with LBs means expanded zones of coverage or completely abandoned zones as part of high risk high reward blitzing.All because of the absence of one guy.

FWIW, Flacco was on track to top 4000 yards for the first time in his career. And it's simply not true to chalk that up to trailing all the time. On the contrary we've entered several 4th quarters with the lead. It's poetic that we're 3-7 in spite of that little-discussed fact. It just goes to show that with the era of the dink-and-dunk QBs and all the rules favoring WRs and the passing game and the pathological obsession with catering professional football via its rules to the big business of fantasy stats, you still need a dangerous running game in order to seriously compete. You ask Joe himself or even Harbs whether they'd sacrifice 1000 passing yards off of Joe's tally for a couple more wins and they'd both agree.If our defense can keep a grip on the 20 plus yard plays and continue to hunt the ball up front we can eek out some close, low scoring, field position style of games. It's what has been dubbed 'AFC North' football.

Schaub is a technician. What he may lack in the arm strength and zip that Joe had he makes up for in the sound fundamentals of running a west-coast, run-to-pass offense. You get some patient, savvy one-cut RBs behind him, establish the run early, and your tightends disguise their blocks identically with their block-and-release patterns and you're in business. The way he ran that 2012 Houston Texans offense was a thing of beauty. And the main reason we got him was because Kubiak left town. Schaub was the next best thing when it came to continuity in film study. We can't forget that backup QBs are dangerous people in their first outings because no one has recent tape on them with their current personnel to study. He should be interesting to watch against Cleveland especially considering we have a long week to prepare around him. After that it's just a matter of waiting and watching.

There are decades of irrelevance waiting for that franchise and its fans.

Agree 100%. Greg Hardy is the man America made Lil Ray out to be. Difference is that Ray knew his wife since their youth, is married to her, has children with her, went through extensive rehab, and is an outspoken advocate for open dialogue and change. And the Ravens now need a runningback. So wudya say Front Office? Can we stand with the guy and weather the storm of criticism to give a good guy that made a mistake a shot again? No one is better placed to know the reality of Ray Rice's character, and therefore willing to give him another shot, than our Baltimore Ravens.

So around this time last year with a completely ravaged secondary many fans were saying that if Harbaugh and his staff somehow managed to lead the team and eek into the playoffs they were the real deal. Not only did they do that but they won in Pittsburgh, and were a couple of plays away from another AFC Championship What would be fair expectations this time around? Keep in mind that we’ve got $39,343,202 on IR. We’ve got another $22,667,880 in dead money. That’s $62,011,082 in all, which is 43.75% of our salary cap. We’ve now lost to IR our starting QB, starting RB, 2nd string RB, starting TE, starting C, both starting WRs (one being the 2015 1st round pick), slot WR/KR/PR, starting edge rusher, and an underperforming 1st round pick SS from 2013. All that said, at best we can still go 9-7. I don’t think that’s a fair standard, however. If we want yet another litmus test that the roots of this tree (our coaching staff) are still alive and can regenerate fruitful seasons in the future, I think it’s whether we can avoid double-digit losses. If we’re not going to tank this season for draft picks, as it appears a Harbaugh-coached team will never do, can we somehow still manage to eek out 7-9? If we can do that, Ravens Nation should rejoice. There isn’t a sane fan in Ravens Nation or any football fan really, that knowing what this team has lost, can reasonably expect anything more than a team to play with a sense of dignity and professionalism. We can take a miserable season and depending on how we all handle it, make it into a season that the franchise and its fans can be proud of.