RavensBaltimore

I agree with all of that, but Downing said that he had impressed THIS OFFSEASON, leading into last night's game. When he said the Ravens were impressed with him, he wasn't talking about the previous seasons or last night's game.

Yes.

He never said the Ravens were impressed with him at left tackle. He was talking about his performance throughout training camp, and the Ravens have been impressed with that, and so have some reporters. Last night, he was playing out of position, and he struggled, and Downing mentioned that.

Getting Perriman and Campanaro back should help tremendously. I listened to the game, and after SSS went out, Q. Ismail mentioned several times that our receivers were having trouble getting separation against man coverage. Our first team offense was great, but we can't be relying on a 36 year old all year. This offense could be dominant if they can get and stay healthy.

The MRI was apparently "normal", so at this point, I don't think there's much reason to worry that there is something fundamentally wrong with his knee. When Jacoby sprained his knee, the original timetable for his return was 4-6 weeks, and that turned out to be accurate. When Flacco sprained his knee, he still needed his brace a couple weeks later, and he clearly wasn't even close to being able to move the same. For Perriman, it's been about 4 weeks, so at this point, it's pretty consistent with a normal timetable for a knee sprain. I know they initially said it was a bruise, but when you look at it as a sprain, which is what it is, what would make you worry that it's something more than that? I don't see anything so far that's been inconsistent with a typical knee sprain.

I agree that it's probably not a fictitious injury, but I wouldn't say Camp needs as many reps as possible between now and Denver, other than to prove that he can stay healthy. He missed a lot of time last year, as a rookie, but the coaches still had enough confidence in him to put him on the field in the playoffs, even on the final drive with the season on the line, where he converted a 1st down despite getting hammered. He would obviously benefit from more reps, but if he didn't play again until week 1, I would be confident that he could still make plays. Whether or not he can actually stay on the field remains to be seen.

In many cases, muscle strains and tears have nothing to do with poor joint support. They are often caused by muscle imbalances, such as the quad being much stronger than the hamstring, which causes uneven pull and torque, which can lead to strains and tears. A lack of flexibility or stiffness in the muscle can cause that as well. But I see what you're saying as far as one being about issues with the body and another being about taking a bad hit or falling awkwardly. The problem is, we don't even know if he does just have a contusion. "Soft tissue" injury could mean almost anything, and it scares me a little that Harbaugh is being so vague about it, and I'm surprised the media hasn't tried to get him to be a little more specific.

How long was Jacoby out in 2013 when he sprained his knee? Wasn't it somewhere around 4-6 weeks? That's a normal timetable for a knee sprain, and they heal at their own pace, so they can be hard to predict. I think the misdiagnosis of a "bruise" when it first happened is what's causing so much worry from fans. If they would have said it was an MCL sprain to begin with, we would have expected him to miss at least a month, and I think there would be much less panic.

WR looked like one of our deepest, strongest, positions going into camp, but now it seems like a concern. After SSS, I think that Perriman and Campanaro are our most talented receivers. I am confident that Perriman can still be great in the long run, but with his lingering injury, he may not be in football shape at the beginning of the year. Camp continues to get hurt on a regular basis. Aiken hasn't been as great as he was early in camp, and I'm not sure he can be a consistent starter. Marlon didn't impress early in camp and OTAs, and he's been dealing with multiple injuries. Butler's great practices haven't transferred to the games. Waller seems to be the lone bright spot right now, but he's still raw, and I'm not sure he's ready to be a starter. Right now, if teams want to stack the box or blitz us, we really don't have anyone that will scare defenses out of going with single man coverage. Let's hope that we are just getting the injuries out of the way in the preseason and we will be ready to go in a couple weeks. We could still have a great receiving corps, but they need to get healthy and get on the field.

You can convert deep passes without getting behind the defender, but besides Waller, who may not be ready to play a significant # of snaps, we don't have anyone who is good at winning jump balls either. Also, those types of throws, as well as back shoulder throws, aren't going to draw a deep safety if they don't respect the WR's speed. So the answer to the question is no one, unless Waller can develop earlier than expected. Hopefully Perriman will be back by Week 1, but if not, we're going to have to rely on short and intermediate passes, and we'll have to do it without anyone drawing much double coverage. Torrey missed pretty much the whole Dolphins game last year, and we scored 4 TDs, so it can be done.

I don't think it was hyperbole at all. Preseason games are LITERALLY meaningless. They don't count at all, and history has shown that no matter how good or bad a team is in the preseason, it gives no indication to what is going to happen in the games that count. If a 4-0 preseason team can go 0-16, how can you possibly think preseason games matter? The Ravens were 4-0 in their first preseason, then went 4-12. I could go on all day, but I think the point is clear.

The Ravens have had 2 home playoff games in that span, which isn't bad in the AFC North. We had a 12-4 and an 11-5 season where we didn't get any home playoff games. If we were in the AFC East, we'd be getting them every year. What matters is that we get in and win on an annual basis. This team's ability to "blow off losses" has been a huge factor in their success. We got embarrassed by Denver at home in 2012, then beat them at their place on the way to the SB. We were blown out in Pitts last year, then destroyed them in the postseason. And it's been proven over and over that preseason performance does not necessarily carry over into the regular season. As someone else mentioned, the winless Lions team went 4-0 in the preseason. It's just a time to evaluate bubble players and shake off rust.

That was my point. "Soft tissue" is extremely vague. I wonder why we haven't heard anything more specific.

None of his prior injuries in the NFL were ligament/joint related. They were all muscle related. It's kind of weird that they're being so vague this time by just saying "soft tissue".

Coming into camp, the WR competition was probably the most crowded, but I think it's much clearer now. I think we'll keep Smith, Perriman, Camp, Aiken, Brown, and Waller. The competition is probably still open for Butler to take that final spot from Waller, but Waller, who presumably has a higher ceiling, is trending up while Butler has been trending down. Marlon Brown has been mentioned as a "lock", but if Butler and Waller both play lights out and Marlon doesn't get it going, there may be a small chance he is the odd man out, but I think the most likely scenario is that we keep the six that I mentioned.

"As he scrambled to his right, it appeared Flacco was going to throw the ball out of bounds. Instead, he slung a 20-yard pass across his body" That brings me back to a certain Super Bowl play.

I think Joe is better out of the shotgun. The stats are skewed because he ran it so much in 2013, when our o-line and receiving corps were decimated with injuries, and our starting TE was a 37 year old who shouldn't have been in the league anymore. Combining last year and 2012, when he had a relatively healthy offense around him, his qb rating is higher in the shotgun than under center. 2013 should never be used as a reference to see what works, because nothing had a chance of working that year, because literally every position group on offense was decimated by injuries.

I agree with everything you said, but there seems to be some type of intangible affect when players have some type of extra sentiment to rally around. No one is actually going to work harder or physically do anything different because of it, but it seems to strengthen the team's bond and help players stay in the mindset of playing for one another and not just themselves. Not that the Ravens don't do that already, but this just gives them one more thing that the whole team can get behind and believe in, and that's probably a good thing.

The Colts would be a terrible bet. Last year, they won an easy division, beat an injury depleted Bengals team, led by Andy Dalton, then beat a broken down Peyton Manning who couldn't get anything on his throws, then got embarrassed by the only healthy team they faced, showing that they didn't belong there. I'm not sure they fixed their defense, and Luck turned it over a lot last year when asked to carry the team. We have a much better defense, a much better run game, a much better postseason qb, and if our young WRs/TEs can make a quick impact, our offense could be at least as good as theirs overall. Yet their odds are 3.25/1 and ours are 11/1? That shows you how brainwashed people are by media hype.

The NFL is not a "wait your turn" type of league. It's a "best players play" league. If Perriman comes back soon, he will have a chance to win a starting spot, and he was already getting a lot of 1st team reps and making a lot of big plays before his injury. I'm pretty sure the Ravens are expecting him to be a starter week 1 if his injury doesn't linger too much longer.

First of all, the league did punish the Patriots for this. In Troy Vincent's statement about the Pats' penalty, he said there was strong evidence that this has been going on for a long time, and the Patriots got a much harsher penalty than a team that deflated footballs for one game would. Also, you're talking about how much someone cares about the data and what initiated the investigation. You didn't refute any of the facts that the data showed, because you obviously can't. Second, one coincidence, without evidence of cheating, is very suspicious, but it doesn't really prove anything. Once they find evidence of cheating, and it perfectly explains the coincidence, scientifically, statistically, and based on the timeline, and there is a lack of any other conceivable cause, and the odds of all that just happening are literally astronomical, then you have proof, or at least proof beyond a reasonable doubt. I have seen murder trials where they used a correlation between statistical data, a timeline, and common sense to get a conviction. The Patriots didn't do anything criminal, and they did get harshly punished for what they did, which is probably why they haven't made a bigger deal about it than they have, but again, it most likely did play a role in their punishment. You can criticize the data with generalizations all you want, but you can't point to anything specific that is wrong with it. Again, just use common sense. It is allowed.

I have no problem with you not caring. I was just looking at the facts. Whether or not someone cares is their own personal business. I also watch sports for entertainment, but I do care when someone gets a significant advantage by cheating. I used to be a huge MLB fan, but finding out about all the steroid use was a major reason why I lost interest. It's not because I was "outraged". It's because competition is not entertaining to me when it has no integrity. Watching a game between two of the best teams on the planet, seeing who comes out on top, is exciting. When the competition is rigged, it ruins the excitement, because you're not going to get to see a legit outcome. It's like seeing an awesome picture, then realizing it's photoshopped. At first, it seems amazing, then when you find out it's photoshopped, it's like, eh, whatever, it's fake. That's how I felt about the homerun records in the 90's, and that's how I feel about the Patriots, and every other cheater. I don't stop watching football because I don't have reason to believe my team cheats, nor do I have reason to believe it's a league wide problem, so for the most part, the competition seems legit, and when we beat a team that had an unfair advantage, it makes it that much better. Also, public perception does matter to a lot of people. Just look at all the debate between who's the best ever, who's elite, who's a HOFer, etc. If someone got their status by cheating, it affects all of that. You keep mentioning "outrage", but to me, it's not about that at all. It's just a relevant thing that plays a role in judging players and teams, and anyone who wants to see a real competition with a legit winner doesn't want to see cheating involved in the sport. You may not care about any of that, but I would think you can understand where everyone else is coming from.

There is definitely some truth to that. You could name some players whose practice performance didn't carry over into the games, but you could also name a lot of players whose practice performance did carry over into the games. So, I agree that practice isn't going to be the only determining factor in whether or not someone makes the team, but I wouldn't say it's insignificant, either. Practicing well does increase the chances of playing well in games, but it doesn't guarantee it.

Just because deflategate caused people to look into it doesn't mean that people start with a conclusion. Police often get a tip that causes them to investigate something, but that doesn't mean that they still don't let the facts determine their conclusion. What initiated the investigation is 100% irrelevant to the facts of the investigation, and the facts all overwhelmingly point in one direction. I never said it was a fact that the Patriots stopped fumbling because they used deflated footballs. I said the actual facts blatantly lead us to that conclusion. It technically wasn't a fact that Aaron Hernandez was guilty. The jury looked at all the facts they did have, and they all blatantly pointed to one conclusion, so they connected the dots with common sense, something that you're refusing to do. These are the undisputed facts: From 2000-2006, the Patriots fumbled once every 42 touches. The league leader was 1/56. From 2007-2014, the Patriots fumbled once every 74 touches. The next team was still at 1/56. An article DEFENDING the Patriots said that there was less than a 0.5% chance that something like that would randomly happen. Another mathematician said there was a 1 in 16,000 chance it would happen. In 2006, Brady, who has publicly stated that he likes less air in the footballs, successfully lobbied for teams to be able to bring their own footballs to every game. Scientists have stated that having less air in the football makes them easier to catch, hold onto, and grip. Of the 32 teams in the league, the Patriots are the one and only other team that even came close to having such a drastic change during a 15 year sample size. True, correlation doesn't equal causation, but we have so much more than just a simple correlation here. We have multiple correlations that are extremely improbable by themselves, let alone together. And the most important thing you're leaving out is a complete and utter lack of any other variable that could cause such a thing. Any time I've used the "correlation doesn't equal causation" argument, I've been able to provide some other reason for causation, but you don't have one, and neither does anyone else. We have all kinds of circumstantial evidence, scientific evidence, statistical evidence, a huge sample size, and a perfectly fitting timeline, and it all strongly points to one conclusion. You are obviously the one who is starting with a conclusion. You assumed the deflated balls didn't affect the game from the beginning, and you're refusing to acknowledge the overwhelming evidence. If you let the FACTS determine your conclusion, there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that deflating the footballs played a significant role in the dropoff in the Pats' fumble rate. When you add up all the evidence, it is a FACT that there is only a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of a chance that it didn't.

If they don't fumble because "they just don't fumble" then why did they fumble for Belichick's first 7 years on the team, before they were able to use their own footballs in each game? This has nothing to do with starting with a conclusion and working your way backwards. It's about looking at the evidence and using common sense. The evidence only points to one conclusion, and in order to believe it just happened, you'd have to believe that several extremely improbable coincidences perfectly lined up together. That doesn't sound realistic, especially if you're not an X-Files guy. Again, even in the article defending the Patriots, where they made every assumption and every calculation to benefit them, they still said there was a 1 in 300 chance it would have just happened for no reason, and that doesn't account for the fact that the timing perfectly lined up with Brady's successful proposal of a rule change. It sounds to me like you are ignoring the facts and believing what you want to believe. And what difference does it make how long it took for people to bring it up? It happened. That much is a fact. You're just reaching for more excuses instead of using common sense. You can't negate facts with, "it just happened because it happened".