After-Game Thoughts

[Borris]

Guys who impressed: Pitta had a great catch and some solid blocks. Pollard thought he was going to be solid backup but I can now see him possibly starting. Ellerbe had a non-stop motor and didn't miss a tackle, don't know why he wasn't starting. C. Williams looked good in coverage and made the necessary open field tackle. Justin Boren looked like the most solid backup in the interior line, a bright spot in the second half. Laquan Williams certainly made a stronge case to be a raven this year.

Guys who need to improve: Doss caught everything thrown his way, good return, but would like a better preformance as a gunner on st. T. Taylor looked good for his first outting, needs to improve on touch passes and accuracy of intermediate to long passes. Arthur Jones and Kindle had great penitration, just need to finish. Jah Reid looked good in the run game, but needs to improve his pass protection. Kruger I want to see a repeat with consistency. T. Barnes looked pretty shell-shocked, but he was forced into the starting position.

Guys who brought the weaksauce: Cousins, got his lunch packed all game. J. McClain can't make a tackle and looked lost in coverage. Same goes for Carr, better step it up if you're gonna be a starter this year. Nakamura, where's the tackling? T. Smith was invisible out there. M. Smith had no separation; he'll be lucky if he makes the team.

Other Thoughts: I like D. Berry over Parmele. IMO he has the most upside, but might be too similar to Rice in running style. Would like to see him and Allen get some more carries. Wilson v. Stupar battle should be interesting. Can't wait to see some of the these ravens out on the field, i.e. Dickson, Smith, Foxworth, and Ricky.

[Bullrush]

I haven't watched the entire game but I'm glad we were able to see what Pitta can do as a starter.

[IMG]http://i51.tinypic.com/2dl2crq.jpg[/IMG]

[Tank 92]

PS games obviously mean nothing. It is a little disconcerting that we looked more "scrambled" than other teams have looked this first week, but I don't place much weight on our sloppy performance. PS is nothing more than organized practice.

4 more weeks of practice, then bring on the squeelers!

[Guest RBates]

Vick without his best receiver, looked like a top three Quarterback in this league. Defense looked sloppy. Offense looked worse. There are a few individuals that stood out to me on both sides of the ball.

Offense -Dennis Pitta, Laquan Williams, Jalen Parmele, Tandon Doss,

Defense- Mcphee, Pollard, Ruki, Jones, Kruger, Cary Williams and (Cody for not tucking in his shirt, [b]thats just sloppy[/b]).

[Guest RBates]

[quote name='1/28/01' timestamp='1313148840' post='747329']
Bro, you are an absolute riot! Is this something that us "normal folk" wouldn't understand?
[/quote]
NO, but it is a fine in the NFL. It does look sloppy. Im sure its the least of anyone's concerns right now, but it irritates the he__ outta me.

[cursona pirate]

[quote name='CorvusCorax' timestamp='1313122776' post='747034']
I think our D-Line looks very promising. Kruger looking good at OLB.

[b][color="#FF0000"][size="3"]Pitta is going to need a nickname lol![/size][/color][/b]

We will need to work on O-Line. Looks like they are trying to put Cousins at LT to b/u Oher.

lol you guys sure you want Oher at RT now?
[/quote]
PITTY????????????
or PIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTT???????????

[Mount-Cody]

[quote name='cursona pirate' timestamp='1313273369' post='750075']
PITTY????????????
or PIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTT???????????

[/quote]

Dennis the menace

[Ravensfan23]

Ok, so I re-watched the game without all of the emotions of wanting the team to do well, even in a preseason setting.

After watching it a second time, here's what I saw.

Oline didn't play as poorly as it appeared. The NFL network showed the Eagles brodcast and their guys said the Eagles actually did a little bit of game planning for our offensive and defensive lines.

The 2 times Joe got here, the Oline actually did a really strong job initially. The one hit came after Joe threw the ball. Grubbs did a really good job of blocking Jenkins, but once Joe stepped up in the pocket, it allowed Jenkins to disengaged with Grubbs.

The actual sack on Joe was a coverage sack. The oline did a good job, but we had Marcus Smith working against DRC, and he couldn't get open on the out route Joe wanted. That wouldn't have happened with Boldin or Evans.

I think Brian Mattison held up really well, especially since it was his first actual game at Center. He should only improve, but I'm still not sure what we have there yet.

We also started to get the running game going on our 2nd drive. That'll be a big part of our offense.

Cam showed some formations that we should be able to have some success with this year. We had a 4WR bunch set, that had Doss run a type delayed route. He was open for a 1st down and maybe more but Tyrod tried to go downfield to Ma Smith. Joe probably would have hit Doss.

For the people who were down on Torrey, don't be. The guy got some real good separation. There was one time he was wide open across the middle of the field after losing his man, but Tyrod decided to throw the ball to Pitta in the flat. It was after Tyrod's first INT, so maybe he wasn't comfortable with throwing the ball down the middle of the field just yet.

This will come as no surprise to anyone, but Ellerbe has to be on the field more. He is explosive and just makes plays. He missed a couple tackles, but his reading and reaction time was great in that game. It looks like Pagano wants to move him around the defense to take advantage of his athletic ability and explosiveness. Don't be surprised to see him attacking the QB much more this year.

McClain didn't really look comfortable in pass coverage, despite having great positioning at times. On the first play of the game, he reacted as if he was beat, instead of playing the football. If McClain plays the ball in that situation, it's probably a pick, or at least a breakup.

The front 4 in our nickle packages could very well be Kruger, Jones, McPhee, Kindle, this year. All 4 of those guys did a really good job of knifing through the LOS (Jones and McPhee) and coming off the edge(Kruger and Kindle). Having to tackle guys like Vick, Young, and Brown in your first real game action in months is a tough task and it showed with the missed tackles. However, the good you take away from that is, we actually put ourselves in position to make plays defensively. We just gotta do a better job of closing the deal, especially with Ben coming up.

Pollard looked so comfortable with our defense. His style of play and attitude really fits us. He also hides his intention to blitz really well. I think we'll see a lot of QB hits from Pollard, Haruki, and Webb this year.

Both Cary Williams and Jimmy Smith are very physical. I look to see a lot of broken up passes from them, just because WRs will be anticipating the big hit instead of catching the ball with those 2 in defense. Also with Pollard, the Ravens once against have some enforcers in the secondary again.

I think the Ravens played off coverage a lot in this game by design. It was the first time using Pagano's blitz packages, and just like most everything in football, timing is key to blitzing. So I think by design we played off coverage, just to get a feel for our blitz game. I expect to see our DBs playing closer and closer to the LOS as time goes on. With the ball hawking nature of Jimmy, Cary, Webb, Foxy and Reed, the Ravens could very well break the mark for most INTs in franchise history set back in 2006(28). Shutting down the run on 1st and 2nd down, will help, as well as getting quick pressure on QBs, which we seemingly should be able to do.


Friday's game should be much different, especially with the additions of Ricky, Lee and Foxy. Seems like the coaches have been reading the board, because Cousins will be moved to RG, which means Reid and Harewood will get the majority of RT snaps.

I think all we can ask for is steady improvement from game to game. So with that, hopefully Friday will be a much better showing.