reed20fence

We need to figure out what the deal is with these really slow starts on offense. 38 total yards in the first half at Denver. 0 points in the first half at home versus Cincy.

The difference I note is one of fear. Because Oakland lost several starters in the secondary we felt more comfortable opening it up early. With the others it seems like we get bogged down in our commitment to stay balanced early. But 'balance' thus far has meant 'incredibly predictable.'

If we pass of first and don't connect, you can guarantee it'll be a run on 2nd. If we run on 1st, the line isn't getting push and we'll gain a couple of yards only to run again on 2nd so we don't get stuck in the dreaded 3rd and long.

Imagine a day where as Ravens fans we can watch a game and not be terrified of failure on offense, and instead be excited in anticipation of success.

ESPN, CBS and the Baltimore Sun noted that Perriman was hobbled during pregame. Thousands of fans were present when he pulled up on routes in pregame. He hasn’t practiced all week after slowly being reintegrated into practice last week.

So when our coach is asked about his re-injury, what do you think the answer is going to be?

Harbs: “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

When the question is rephrased and asked again differently?

Harbs: “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

This has become comical.

SMH.

Maybe the proper question to ask is “why are you being so weird about this, coach?”

My advice to every receiver not named SSS this week. How about showing up ticked off and aggressive like Old Man Smitty one game, ready to wreck any corner or safety that gets in your way? Even if you aren't as mercurial as Smith, just fake it til you make it for one game and see where it takes you.

Seriously, just IR the kid at this point and sign a kick returner to run 9 routes instead. No shame in an unpreventable injury. Kevin White is out all year too.

People say Jimmy was visibly shaken up after the game. I mean the guy was only tasked with shutting down Demariyus Thomas, the first overall WR taken in this year's draft in Amari Cooper, AJ Green, and now the "Jack Rabbit" Antonio Brown in the first 4 weeks.

I know he's supposed to be an elite shut down guy, but cmon, let's be honest, being seeded against those guys is a pretty crappy way to have to start your season as a CB, I don't care if you're Revis, Sherman, or Jimmy.

Keep your chin up Jimmy and keep grinding. You're still our guy.

*incidentally Thomas and Green were also the first overall WRs taken in their respective drafts. Interesting factoid.

Defense with Ray Lewis, Ed Reed, Terrell Suggs, and Haloti Ngata: "Bend and twist them until they break."

Defense after: "Let them bend you and pray to God that you don't break."

Whoever tells you that the NFL has changed too much and blah blah blah. The truth still holds. Successful teams even now build defenses to hunt the offense aggressively, bait QBs into errors, and bully WRs at the LOS.

Unsuccessful defenses build themselves with loser mentalities like "mitigating losses" and "controlling the damage" and "bend but don't break."

Football is either a game of primal aggression, or it is nothing.

Honestly, the Green 80 yarder was a colossal blunder. You could literally have left the rest of the receivers on the field wide open to score and not gotten as much flak as you're liable to get letting AJ Green score from 80 yards out when you're winning the game late in the 4th. The number of people that texted me basically saying "again?" or "seriously, THAT guy?" is crazy.

When Dalton and Green themselves are pointing out after the game that they saw Green wasn't jammed on the line, and was covered by a safety, you know that a terrible coverage was called.

We don't have the corners to play tight man. We don't have the corners to play soft man. When they play zone the pre-snap communication (really miscommunication) between the safeties and LBs leaves massive gaps. Cover 1 has thus far proven to be a disaster as two games in a row now the WR running a seam to the side the safety isn't shading after the snap has basically walked into the end zone.

And all of this is before we even scratch the surface of how susceptible our VETERAN STARTING corner backs (and I literally shake my head while typing this) are to double moves, regardless of whether they are in man or zone coverage.

The secondary will play amazing at times, and then later in the same game it's like they revert back to rookie mistakes.

Maybe we just need to hire a guy to walk up and down the sidelines screaming "60 minutes, 60 minutes" all game long to keep people focused? Ray Lewis used to provide that service to us for free.

PS. How on earth do you lose track of AJ Green in the 4th quarter? I mean how does that happen? Every single player on defense should be pointing to him before the snap. Pees should be screaming into Darryl Smith's ear to draw attention to AJ Green. SMH.

Oh my G...what has to ch.... are you kidding me? How many times do we gotta spell it out?

Abolish Bend But Don't Break from our vocabulary.

Thus far the combined record of our opponents is 8-1. 2 of them are 3-0. Every single one of those games weren't lost until the final 2 possessions of the game within the last 2 minutes. So you tell me -- are we capable of being a 13-3 team?

These are the times when fans show up for a team. Criticizing your team and clamoring for improvements only shows that we care, not that we’re fair-weathered. If we were fair-weathered fans we would just check out and not even bother.

A reminder to myself first and then to Ravens Nation, it’s times like these that add genuineness to moments of greatness. When Bisciotti is up on that Super Bowl stage being handed the Lombardi and he starts by thanking the greatest fans in the world, he’s not thanking us for being around when all is hunky dory. What makes fans great is that they stay connected, stay concerned, but above all, stay supportive of their guys when things look their darkest. True support isn't always praising people. Genuine support means being honest when things need to change.

We’re not a team that’s getting blown out. We’re a competitive team that needs to make some adjustments to finish on the right side of games that are all coming down to the last few minutes and seconds of the 4^th quarter.

To anyone that’s part of the organization reading this, the fans are still here. Just keep trying your best.

And this dumb cherade that Harbs has about not knowing any details about Perriman is getting old. I mean it's only your first round pick in a year where you started 0-3. Coach, you think maybe it's time you took a stroll down to the trainers room to ask some questions? Cmon man!

One wonders if getting Perriman back in enough time to still compete for the playoffs can serve as that last "hump" we need to edge out these close games (or perhaps not be in close games to start with).

Though it is concerning that he retweaked his knee injury during warmups while running full speed.

Totally agree with this assessment. I wonder how Belichick does it year after year?

Brady.

While we've been consistently going to the playoffs for the better part of a decade, the majority of the NFL has not. This also means we've consistently been drafting at the bottom of each round year in and year out, which is why we keep needing to stack mid round picks to draft serviceable foundation pieces. But those coveted athlete-freaks at the top of the drafts have evaded us.

Also, being consistently good means we have aging playmakers who have sizable cap dollars committed to them. Unfortunately a lot of them have suffered repeated injuries. If we take a step back and see the big picture, it's a frustrating time yes, but a somewhat predictable and understandable one. We need to let the front office figure this thing out.

Fortunately we start next year with a crap ton of cap dollars to go shopping in Free Agency. And if the season rides out the way it's started, we could be staring at a top 15 pick, which Ozzie doesn't miss on.

We all, the fans, and franchise, need to ride this thing out and try to stay toghether.

1. Repeatedly failing to clamp down in 2 and 4 minutes defense scenarios spanning over multiple seasons now isn't just a player execution issue anymore. Either the coaching on defense isn't getting through to the players, or there's something wrong with the play calling itself. All signs are pointing at the defensive coordinator.

2. The "Flacco needs more playmakers" refrain is getting old. They went and got him SSS. They invested in Gilmore. They invested a coveted 1st round pick in Perriman, after having hoped Pitta's injury issues were over and investing in a new contract for him before the second injury. They re-signed Forsett after a solid rushing year. That's 2 WRs, a TE and starting RB. They brought the same o-line back which is a rarity these days in the NFL. He's thown for 400 in the last two games and Denver wasn't an anomaly cuz their defense is shutting everyone down.

3. We need a new D-Coordinator who can get through to the players and whose playcalling isn't predictable by your average Madden-playing couch potato. "Bend but don't break" is a soul-destroying, fear-rooted, cowards game plan. I don't care what the historical statistics say.

4. We've seen that in this age of the NFL, your front 4 need to generate pressure. We need to invest in fresh, young, versatile, edge rushers because the future of our AFC North opposition is Dalton and his young weapons.

5. We keep losing close, which means we're competitive. Losing close comes down to a handful of playcalls and play executions. The roster is what it is with the exception of Perriman's return. The only thing we can do is change the playcallers in Pees and hope it provides enough "umph" to carry us over the edge in these close games.

I vote Monachino.

I mean it's no big deal. He's only their best player by their own admission. So what if he's killed us repeatedly in the past in close games in the 4th quarter? It's totally excusable to call plays that don't bracket coverage on him and assign your best coverage options to him when the game is on the line. NOT!

Let's also not forgot that we cycled through 3 different CB2 options this game. Webby already got demoted as expected after blowing 2 coverages last week against Crabtree. Melvin got the start and got manhandled by Marvin Jones twice. Arrington was assigned as the 3rd option to stop the bleeding and Webby was shifted to nickle.

What happened to scouting good talent and developing players?

Two things are killing this franchise:

1. The success of the first 7 years of the Harbaugh era and drafting late in the early rounds year in and year out is catching up to us;

2. Tying up large cap dollars in players that have proven to be injury prone.

I'd caution people from getting confused about our outting against Manning and holding him without a TD. If you go back and watch that tape you can see that he had chances deep and even made the right reads, but had his arm not been spent he wouldn't have floated some of those passes that could have gone for touchdowns.

So really what we have is a matter of coaching not getting through to players during the week, and playcalling that shows an apalling lack of situational awareness on game days.

I've defended Dean Pees up until now, but right is right. It's time to move on. Maybe hand the reigns to Monachino.

I don't envy br.com's job right now. Good luck putting lipstick on this pig for another 14 weeks. Seasons like this are why you get paid for your job.

No brainer here. Fire Pees.

Harbs post game presser seemed like he was saying this was on Pees without openly saying it.

That's because even if individual players get technique wrong or lose awareness in critical moments, not realizing who the playmakers are or what the situation is and what to watch out for, that's on coaching. We've had consecutuve games now where guys are entirely unaware of the situation and just let the opponent back into games.

3 years in a row late in games the go to guy has been Green. All day long Green was shadowed by Jimmy. You don't think it's curious that when the chips are down the Bengals are searching for any creative way to get Jimmy off of coverage from Green by sticking Green in the slot and calling a seam where the safeties take over?

That's bad coaching of situational awareness.

Pees' demotion or firing will probably be announced tomorrow morning.

Team sports can be strange at times. I remember Ray Lewis describing some of the games during 2012 where we just came out flat. Tackles were missed. Coverages were blown. Passes were dropped. Runningbacks kept picking wrong holes. And we couldn't string toghether a win. But the very next week everything "clicked" and we won. The same 2012 squad that won a championship got blown out by the Texans and embarassed at home by Peyton -- only to turn around and outgun and play solid defense when it mattered against both Mannings, Luck, Brady, and Kaepernick when they were burning hot.

Lewis just said "that's just sports, you move on that quickly." So I guess all we can do is recapture the focus, keep grinding, believe in the team, and claw our way back inch by inch.

The 12th defender in Raven Nation will be behind you full throat.

This news alone feels like we won a game. Someone should tell this kid how much hope Ravens Nation has in him.

Any channce we can push Ed Reed's induction up to next week and get Ray Lewis and Sizzle to come out to our sidelines as well? If we can't haveum on the field let's atleast go all hands on deck on the sidelines.

0-3 may not technically mean we're down for the count, but emotionally it'll be a body blow.