reed20fence

There are gonna be people that think "well, I don't see anyone lining up to sign Trestman to a head coaching gig anytime soon." Just remember, Caldwell became a head coach after coordinating an 8-8 team. So it's possible. Heck, we made Cameron a coordinator after being a 1-15 Head Coach of the Dolphins. It happens. We should consider ourselves lucky for some continuity for once.

Starters on the Ravens don't lose their starting spots just by virtue of getting injured. We'd don't operate that way. You also don't make a tectonic shift from a starting franchise (Super Bowl MVP) QB to a journeyman based on one performance. So all these hypotheticals about a guy replacing, or much less even giving Joe a run for his money are quite far-fetched. Mallett is a back up. He will remain a back up in 2016. There is no controversy. Period. Full stop.

Next game we'll need one of a guy nearly missing a spearhead to someone's knee.

Subcaption: Warning! Beware of James Harrison while at the Bank.

People are not thinking clearly if they think Mallett is going to cause some sort of QB controversy with Joe.

For starters you can't underestimate the complete lack of scouting tape the Steelers had on Mallett with this grouping of skilled players and in Trestman's scheme. Not to downplay Mallett's extraordinary efforts in getting up to speed and then near-flawless execution on game-day. But that's why backup QBs that come in during games can oftentimes be more dangerous than the starter.

Secondly, Mallett was squarely brought in to be the closest possible clone to Joe as possible. Same build, same weight down to the pound, same height down to the inch. This is why we let Tyrod go. You can't expect your guys to learn and be proficient in two completely different styles of offense because of their QB. There has to be continuity. That's why Schaub was brought it. He ran Kubiak's offense for years. We only got down to Clausen when it really hit the fan and you just needed someone versed in Trestman's verbiage to quickly get up to speed.

Mallett is squarely playing these games as pre-season outtings for 2016 to be an insurance policy if Joe's recovery takes longer than expected, or Lord forbid Joe goes down again.

Plus, why on earth would you want a kid like Mallett engaged in another QB controversy when it's clear that the last one stressed him out and produced a bunch a weird behavior? 

This is beating dead horse at this point, but if we could just say another word about how absolutely horrendous the refereeing has been this season. I was expecting some cursory mention of that neutral zone infraction by Upshaw in LFW and the theory that Harbaugh put out there of the center spinning and moving the ball up a bit prior to each snap will probably hold up. My gripe isn't with a bad call. I think it was a good call. I just think it was an incredibly incredibly late call.

Neutral Zone infractions are usually flagged impending the snap, and if not then, then right at the snap (blown dead to protect the QB from unabated defenders), and if not then than immediately after the snap. To have the play run, picked off, returned 100 plus yards, celebrations and jubilation, and THEN have some dufus side judge say "oh hey, yeah - I forgot to pull my flag but I think I saw a guy's foot in the neutral zone...der...let's flag I now."

Just SO incredibly frustrating. And then to go and miss the holding against Upshaw 2 plays later just adds to it.

 

Edit: Just went and rewatched the thing. The side judge did flag the infraction right away. It's not a call they blow dead.

Still though, refs suck!

Now if only someone could do America a solid and knock the Patriots completely out of the picture we could totally salvage this season.

It is funny ... the times we've faced the Steelers without Ben and barely won or even lost. This time, they got to lose to our back up QB ... and under such critical circumstances. Ha!

Exactly. This was our revenge for all the hoopla over the Charlie Batch win. And we knocked them outta the playoffs to boot!

To channel my inner Brian Billick here... "I've got an article here [http://www.si.com/nfl/2015/12/07/nfl-week-13-steelers-colts-antonio-brown-deangelo-williams] that says the Steelers are the most dangerous offense in football... that may be true... BUT NOT TODAY."

Yeah, no.

Ain't no way we winning against anybody with the current patchwork roster. This is the weakest team in football folks. Not anyones fault per se. But still undeniably the weakest team.

I've been just as down and agitated as any Ravens fan these last few days, but there's just something so calming and reassuring reading Joe's words in his voice in your mind. Like everything is gonna be ok.

As long as we got Flacco, we got a shot.

Being the best at your position doesn't mean you're the most popular at your position. Fan voting is literally a popularity contest.

I think I speak for most Ravens fans when I say, whoopdi freaking' do.

Secondary or pass rusher. 

To me, just feels like a draft where we go defensive heavy early on.

I agree that it should be defense heavy. Offensively it looks like we may need to target a WR if SSS does retire, but I don't see us relying on the draft to find a starter. That need will probably be addressed in free agency or lesser likely via trade, as has been the case historically.

The wild card right now is what we do about Osemele. Even if we stretch and sign him, we still need a G or T. Not sure if they're comfertable with Urschel as the starter at G. I just don't see Osemele happening. It's tied to Joe's contract and likely some other cuts and retirements and yeah, you get a decent player, but you're breaking even on the cap and virtual non-factors in free agency as a result.

When it comes to the Ravens picking this high in the draft is a rarity. I can't see us investing that precious a pick to quadruple down on a position like RB when we've got Forsett under contract, LT on the 3rd year of his rookie deal, and Buck Allen proving that he can be a workhorse if called upon.

RMC, what do you see as the most pressing need/most likely possibility for the 1st round pick?

I see the patriots have a similar number of players on ir. How come their record is so much better? Same with steelers. No. There is something else wrong. Not sure whether it is coaching, schedule or whatever. How many games were decided by our own penalties? Lack of execution is another factor. Dropped passes, poor passes, interceptions. Who is in charge of teaching these fundamentals? Why don't our players attach the ball more often? Why the large give away yardage we give other team's wide receivers? "Keep the ball in front of you" when you can tackle on initial contact. Who's teaching those fundamentals? I could go on....

Let's look at that argument and compare apples to apples and see what the Patriots look like if the equivalent level of players were hurt on their roster:

Flacco --- take away Brady

Suggs --- take away chandler Jones

SSS/Pitta --- take away Edelman/Gronk 

Forsett -- they just lost Blount last week

Taliafero -- they had lost Dion Lewis so that's fair

Perriman - take away Lefell

Camp -- I guess the closest is Amendola

Zuttah -- take away Stork

Munroe -- take away Vollmer

Now what do the Patriots look like?

It's one thing to have a buncha no-names in IR. It's another to have the key players on your franchise on IR.

WHAT?!??!? Eugene MONROE and PITTA are taking up all that CAP SPACE?!!?!? MONROE!!?!?! REALLY??!?!?!?

Well, I mean here is the article Mink posted announcing Munroe's contract in March of last year. As you can see, not a single commenter was complaining about the signing back then. So is it really fair to blame Ozzie for his inability to predict that the guy would spend half of the next two seasons on the sideline with injuries?

It's not always about the number of guys on IR. Sometimes it's about the QUALITY of guys on IR. Like Sarah says, last year we ended with 19 guys on IR but were still 4 points away from an AFC Championship. That's because a crap ton of those guys were practice squad cornerbacks from other teams that we cycled through during the year trying to fill the void that Jimmy's lisfranc and Webby's chronic back issues left when they were out.

This year it's not just mediocre guys that fill roles that are hurt. It's guys that are the bedrock of our offensive and defensive schemes that are on IR. QB1, RB1, RB2, WR1, WR2, WR3, TE1, C1, LT1.. and of course, Sizzle.

It is definitely concerning however that the loss of just one starter on Defense, even if it is a former DPOY, caused the whole house to come tumbling down. At the start of the season Suggs was even hinting that he's pondering wrapping up his career, so we've got some really really serious work to do to find guys that can create pressure using just the front 4.

The issue is injuries. Period. Full stop. All this hooplah about Harbs being a bad coach or us sucking in the draft and blah blah blah is irrelevant. Sergio Kindle and Matt Elam are the only two high-end draft busts in the Harbaugh era, both were Ozzie's calls, and we made the playoffs with both on the roster anyway. We planned to replace Torrey with a guy that was bigger and faster and he got hurt. We lost a top 5 pass rusher week 1. We lost our top receptions target. We lost our franchise qb. We lost our starting and backup rb.

All this and yet somehow Harbaugh is still supposed to find some miraculous way to will us into the playoffs? You all know there's such a thing as a salary cap, right?

I swear sometimes it feels like the fans will never be satisfied unless all 22 starters are pro bowlers, and all of those guys' backups are also probowlers. Anything less and it's all "Ozzie is losing it," and "Harbaugh is no Billick," and "our scouts are terrible."

Grow up people. Harbs is right, sometimes life just sucks and you can't do anything about it. But I disagree with Harbs on one point. You can do one thing, not over-react. Don't gut what is essentially a good operation that fate just won't allow to work at this particular time.

Our real test is to see how patient and wise we are as a franchise in realizing this.

reed20fence - Why would you want to compare with the cheating atmosphere of NE.

Exactly. You don't want to compare to them. But that's the common refrain from a lot of casual fans when you mention a teams struggles being rooted in injuries or having to re-stock a lineup of older players. "Well the Patriots still manage to win," they argue.

Granted, yes, Belichick is a great coach and Brady is a great QB. But they also have no boundaries when it comes to winning. They're willing to stoop to all manners of lowness and shadiness to gain an advantage. It's not dignified.

I've learned that drafts yielding zero current probowl players and ranking number 6 for dead money roster combined with two top paid cornerbacks that yield the 29th most effective passing attack and a well paid LT whose performance or absence injures my top paid player well BAM thats a good combination for Vince Lombardi to have a losing season.

There's certainly truth to what you've said, though we should take a deeper dive and be fair. Mosley was a pro-bowler last year. And right now there's a sentiment amongst the fans that we don't have any pro bowlers because we suck as a team, but the objective truth is that Brandon Williams is playing like a pro-bowler. Yanda is a pro bowl fixture and Osemele could make a case as well. We've also got Suggs, SSS and Forsett on IR that are pro bowl potentials had they been healthy. And if Suggs is in, Dumervil is likely a pro bowler.

This offense, in spite of losing our first round pick, was still churning at a pretty hectic pace. Joe was on track to top 4k for the first time in his career. SSS was going to top 100 receptions.

On defense, due to the loss of Suggs, we rank 20th overall in sacks with 28, whereas last year we were tied for 2nd with 49. Our interception total suffered last year because we were bit by the injury bug and this year the lack of pressure up front explains the terrible time they're having covering the back end- much less getting turnovers. 

Football at a professional level is a team game of complex interdependence. The broadcast camera fixates on the ball carriers so when they don't succeed they get blamed, but never mind the fact that their blockers were getting manhandled all game. The QB gets blamed for taking too long to dissect a defense and get rid of the ball, but the camera doesn't show that WRs off of the screen are jogging around and not getting any separation down field. 

On defense we see huge chunk plays given up on 'blown coverages' and blame shoddy secondary play, but don't consider that our corners and safeties on average have to keep up with their assignments a full second or 2 longer than the average NFL secondary. Why? Because they lack pass pressure up front. 

I've learned that it's a mistake to compare ourselves to the Patriots all the time. There are a lot of things we don't have in common, and we shouldn't want to have in common.

Naturally our franchise aims to be in the upper tier of the NFL in terms of success and consistency, but we should compare ourselves to teams like the Giants and Packers and Steelers. Franchises that have done well in playoffs, try to do things the right way (yes, I mean not cheating and constantly looking for grey areas and loopholes), and have also struggled to off-load older players and on-board younger players while struggling to stay relevant.

OVERRATED SPOILED FANBASE ??? Overrated?-Not in a million years. Loyal is more like it. Trust me, I (and many others on here) have witnessed first hand how loyal the Raven fanbase really is. Go to an away game and look around. All you will see is a sea of Purple. Loyal fans whose team is 3-7 or 4-7 at the time ,yet still travel out of state to see them play. Overrated? I thimk not.

Yeah, that "loyalty" was on full display at the Bank in the 3rd quarter on Sunday.

You're basically saying what we're saying except in an upbeat tone instead of our depressing tone.

I've travelled to multiple road games this year and you're right, we do travel well to certain cities.

But when we're not playing well and don't have a chance, people disappear like relatives that owe you money. 

There are people that comment on BR.com that were basically begging to get flexed out of a nationally televised Prime Time game because they're convinced that Steelers fans will vastly outnumber Ravens fans in our own stadium.

So that should tell you about our loyalty.

OVERRATED SPOILED FANBASE

See, the old me would get upset and jump to defend the honor of fellow Ravens Fans, but now? After reading what I've read? No sir.

Yes, we are overrated. Yes, we are spoiled. Yes, we are fair-weathered.

We lose one blowout loss with a decimated roster after playing close games all season and the stadium empties out and me, watching on TV half way across the country can hear Seahawks fans chanting in our own stadium?

If you ask me we're nowhere even close in honor to the fans of Cleveland. That franchise has been an appalling disaster for more than a decade and their fans still show up to watch.

We are garbage.

"We're celebrating the best fans in the NFL! Today's giveaway is $300 to @GiantFood and Ravens swag. RT to enter. pic.twitter.com/OfFMdUyLBt 

Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) December 15, 2015

LOL. maybe the people that run the twitter account should read some of the things fans have said since the loss to the Seahawks. In the last 72 hours fans have begged to be flexed out of Prime Time and defended an empty stadium.

I don't think I've been as ashamed to be a Ravens fan as I have been the last couple of days.

I agree with fellow posters like RMC and Crusader et al. It's all just random feel-good bafoonery in our heads.

Ravens fans have proven to be no more or less loyal than any run-of-the-mill fan base in any sport.

Just sad.

Excited to retain Osemele as our franchise LT. If we part with Munroe (I like the guy, but it isn't working out) we take a 6.6mm hit in dead money each of the next 2 seasons but we free up 1.1mm in cap space. Top flight left tackles cost about $10mm a year. If we can lock him in for 9-10 mm that'd be aces!

In fact, heck, sit Joe Linta down and let him know that Joe's cap reduction has a direct correlation with tying down the guy that'll protect his client's blind side for the foreseeable future.