[Blogs] ‘Vigilant’ In Avoiding Emotional Letdown

[BR News]

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In most real-life scenarios, a high-pressure situation can be immediately followed by an emotional letdown, where one can be taken off guard.

That can’t happen for the Ravens, as they move past a hard-fought win against their AFC North-rival Pittsburgh Steelers and face a battle with the scrappy Denver Broncos (2-2).

The Ravens’ coaches have drilled that fact home with their players.

“That’s something that we’ll all be very vigilant about,” said Ravens Head Coach John Harbaugh on Wednesday, the first official day of Broncos game-planning. “We talked about it this morning. We understand that as a team. Our guys get that. I’m not going to have to walk in there and tell these guys you had a big win, so you can relax. We’re playing the best passing offense in the league. We’re playing a real physical, get-after-it defense. This is a very important football game. It’s a home conference game.

“They understand that.”

Successfully moving past Sunday’s emotional victory could prove to be the difference between a top division 4-1 standing and an average 3-2 record.

In typical fashion, quarterback Joe Flacco moves quickly past the final game, no matter if he threw a game-winning touchdown pass to T.J. Houshmandzadeh with 32 seconds left last weekend.

Flacco admitted that it might have taken a night out with his buddies to get the clutch series out of his system, but he was over it by Monday.

“There’s a week between a game, just like there is every other week,” Flacco said. “If you can’t get your emotions back in check and get ready to play the game, then we’re not the team that we think we are.”

If there is any emotional charge, it might be in the fact that the Ravens finally return home to M&T Bank Stadium after playing three of their first four contests on the road.

“We got through the first quarter of the season 3-1 playing three hard games on the road,” linebacker Ray Lewis said. “Now, coming back home and having that momentum – offense, defense and special teams – now we can kind of carry that momentum coming home.

“If we have any motivation, that would be it.”

[url=http://blogs.baltimoreravens.com/2010/10/07/vigilant-in-avoiding-emotional-letdown/]View the full article[/url]

[PrizedRavenFan]

i was happy to see falcco get excited after making thAT game winning pass and not be joe cool.

I hope he can get some more presicion on his passes tho

[CampbellJr23]

we need to live in the moment because after an emotional game against the jets we laid down to the bengals. but i'm confident we move on against the broncos. go ravens!!!

[Bencivenni]

I would like to see Flacco get tough. He'll get there the more he plays. All the best Quarterbacks in the game are tough(i.e.Unitas, Favre)and last weeks game showed me that Joe Flacco is becoming that type of player.

[PurpleSteelerEater]

Confident that Joe will fire back and put the proverbial cherry on top of last week's win. Definitely Joe's time to shine. GO RAVENS!!!!!

[purple passion 1231]

The basic fact is we need to win games to make it to the playoffs and BEYOND.. We have to focus on each game like it is the one that will take us to post season..EVERY WEEK YOU HAVE TO WIN..Last game is already part of history for this SEASON and for THIS SEASON to be a success we need to win games...period

[bmorefan444]

Harbaugh wouldnt let our team "relax". Im just worried that all this Randy Moss hype has our players thinking about week 6.

[Guest Mr. Nobody]

no way we're letting this one go, we'll relax during the bye week, 6-1 up

[purple.n.black]

Yeah no need to relax anytime soon. We got two tough games ahead. After that we have the Bills, and as long as we play them like the NFL team that they are, we'll go into our bye week with another win. THEN we can take a little bring, and get pumped for the next game against our fourth and final AFC East opponent, the Dolphins, who have shown signs of life this year. And while Henne has made some mistakes, he has put up some pretty decent numbers. Beating these AFC teams is so crucial because if we're not fighting for homefield advantage, then were fighting for a Wild Card spot. And many of these teams we have coming up in the next few weeks could be competing with us.

[cjrumpf]

This definitely won't be an easy game, especially if Orten can find his weapons early on. Our secondary need to step up their already exceptional play making, and take it to the next level.

My biggest concern for Flacco was that he had too many weapons out on the field, which can almost explain why he was holding to the ball longer than usual. Flacco's first two years he only had Mason, and Heap that could be down field, or Rice when he would toss a screen. Now he has more players to scan for, and I don't think he's up to speed with that just yet. But this week I feel very confident in Flacco and he's going to air the ball out. This week we will see our offense really come to life!

Joe Flacco - 275 yards, 3 TD's

Ravens 28 - Broncos 17

[cjrumpf]

I'm very excited about this game, especially with coming off a win in Pittsburg. The home crowd will electrify the Ravens and Joe will have one of his best games of the season.

Joe Flacco - 275 yards, 3 TD's

Ravens 28 - Broncos 17

[heycuf]

GO DEFENSE!THAT'S MY DEFENSE!GO B-MORE!
4-1after sunday.ORGANIZED CHOAS IS BACK!


[i][color="#ff0000"]Mod note:[/color] Please refrain from posting in ALL CAPS. Ty.[/i]

[ravenwildman]

At home again, YES!! Bring the fire!

Sunday....just imagine that every player on the Broncos is Rex Ryan in a Hines Ward jersey...laughing at you! Score will be Ravens-49 Broncos-0

GO RAVENS!!!!!

[Blanko Flanko]

Go flacco go...... It looks good... Last game gave you lot of self confidience. you have very good receivers. Just stay possitive from inside.

[DeezBirdz]

We already had our letdown - Week 2. I'd say that's still fresh enough to be a motivator. Harbs definitely doesn't want another and I'm pretty sure neither does the team.

No worries. They're gonna get it. :)

[DeezBirdz]

Get the 'W', I mean.

[Y2J]

Should be a good win for us as long as we dont let them comeback like the browns did lol
I wish we would use our rookie TE's more. Pats are using there's to the max ha

[jaege]

What is the big push to use the rookie TEs? Use what works best to get the win.The Pats are using theirs because they do not have anyone better.

[purple.n.black]

[quote name='cjrumpf' timestamp='1286481293' post='501325']
This definitely won't be an easy game, especially if Orten can find his weapons early on. Our secondary need to step up their already exceptional play making, and take it to the next level.

My biggest concern for Flacco was that he had too many weapons out on the field, which can almost explain why he was holding to the ball longer than usual. Flacco's first two years he only had Mason, and Heap that could be down field, or Rice when he would toss a screen. Now he has more players to scan for, and I don't think he's up to speed with that just yet. But this week I feel very confident in Flacco and he's going to air the ball out. This week we will see our offense really come to life!

Joe Flacco - 275 yards, 3 TD's

Ravens 28 - Broncos 17
[/quote]
Flacco has already shown this. Him and BOldin have been on same page since week 1. And we saw last week he still remembers Mason, and Housh was gettin involved. Now I thinkk he starts figuring out how to spread the ball effectively to help our offense, not just the individuall players, have a big game and get a W. He showed a bit of it last week so it can only improve. One thing I see him doing wrong in spreading the ball is with the tight ends. I hope we see more from the tight ends, because we're going to have to look for some mismatches. Denver has a good secondary with some veterans playmakers. If we're running some double tight end or heavy WR sets, we'll be more likely to see a slower LB on one of these tight ends. Spreading the ball around definitely helps. We all love to see Boldin get 100+ yards, but those TDs and keeping the drive going are most important. And the more time we spend converting on the field, the less time Orton has to try and find mismatches in our secondary.

[metalraven]

U can't take any team lightly in the NFL. However, Denver is in the worst division, they have trouble finding the end zone despite amassing large amounts of yard, they hv no run game, obviously, and their QB is still Kyle Orton. Although I believe in the "any given sunday" cliche, I still expect a W from the Ravens. They r simply a better team. But...u never know

[fusuymada]

The Cincinnatti game could arguably fall under this category after the Jets game. Considering that a road Monday night to a road Saturday on a short week also played into that, but we do have to be cautious, we don't want to get caught again losing to a team we should beat.

[touchdownwins]

Personally,I don't believe in that "let down" theory.When you lose after a big win it's usually because the other team prepared better,wanted it more,n were out coached.Denver can't really prepare for our defense,they don't have our talent practicing against them all week.Seems like the only "let down" we've had this year is the amount of points our new n improved offense is generating.Going into this season,I was hyped up,as many of the Raven nation were,that we were going to put more scores on the board with our new players.We've played tough opponents so far,great defenses,but we are supposed to be better than last year..thank goodness for our great defense up til now.Time to take our offense to the next phase starting with Denver.

[purpleflock]

totaly agree with this forum Flacco winning the game on the last drive would give any qb confidence against a number 1 d

[purple.n.black]

[quote name='touchdownwins' timestamp='1286489470' post='501442']
Personally,I don't believe in that "let down" theory.When you lose after a big win it's usually because the other team prepared better,wanted it more,n were out coached.Denver can't really prepare for our defense,they don't have our talent practicing against them all week.Seems like the only "let down" we've had this year is the amount of points our new n improved offense is generating.Going into this season,I was hyped up,as many of the Raven nation were,that we were going to put more scores on the board with our new players.We've played tough opponents so far,great defenses,but we are supposed to be better than last year..thank goodness for our great defense up til now.Time to take our offense to the next phase starting with Denver.
[/quote]
It doesn't help when our run game has not been consistent. But other than the Browns, we have played some darn good defenses. Now that the O has started clicking a bit better, let's see how many points they put up in the future.

[coreyadams]

1st quarter I rate the Ravens with a B . Excellent playing on the road. We just need to score more points on offense to help out our defense. When you score points on offense it will motivate our denfense and the whole team. Go Ravens 4-1 looks damn good.

[Tykreis]

I'll be there this Sunday. I can't explain how excited I am!!