The Optimism Positive Thread Thing That I Always Have To Make After Every Loss

[SecretAgentMan]

[quote name='terpsnation' timestamp='1354730338' post='1247413']
My positive: If the offensive playcalling continues to be as terrible as it is right now, we might finally get our wish of having a different OC next year.
[/quote]
Here Here!

[The Prestige]

[quote name='frozen joe flacco fan' timestamp='1354673750' post='1247018']
Astute observation! Actually,your point was validated on the 4th and 29 call in SD. It worked! We had 4 receivers guarded by 7 Defensive players and nobody within 20 yards of Ray Rice when he caught the ball. I wondered why we didn't use that formation more often two years ago when we had Houshmansadeh, Stallworth, Mason, Boldin and Heap. I could see no way Pittsburgh could have defended it in the AFC Championship game that year. Unfortunately, we don't coordinate the offense.
Hmmm! Let's see! Isn't Stallworth back in NE again?
[/quote]

I appreciate the compliment. It's the law of "make sure you cover everybody". Even if a team slips into zone coverage with their corners and LB's to kind of crowd the passing lanes, if Thompson and Smith get one-on-one's deep, Flacco has the arm strength to get the ball over the top, and Ray Rice would also have more space in the flat. You call it "astute" and it definitely once was, but most NFL teams have been getting their playmakers in space with rub routes, clear-outs and 4-wide for over a decade now.

I'm WAY BEYOND the point of being mad. I get frustrated after games. I take it out - carefully - in my workouts. I was mad in 2010, thought with the lack of depth at WR last season that Cam did a near-average job in most games, but when you combine the lack of pass protection with the incredible speed they have at WR, it's such a no-brainer to go up-tempo and spread teams out.

I will actually feel really bad for Cam Cameron when they fire him. Not TOO bad, given that he's literally stolen a Super Bowl from this team in 2010 and is on the precipice of doing another one of these, but bad in the sense that - whether by a new OC taking over, putting up way more sustained drives + points or by Flacco leaving the Ravens and putting up 41 TD-17 INT, 5100 yards a year somewhere else - he will be hated by so many and go down as the worst offensive coordinator in history. It didn't have to be that way but Joe's too meek to stand up for himself.

There's a lot of reason to be upset.

Ray Rice, Joe Flacco, and Torrey Smith are in the primes of their careers, and there are about 27 other NFL OC's who would not waste this special time, and about 60-70 assistants and college OC's that would also make use of their skills and ATTACK defenses.

Y'all may think I'm being harsh, but I'll call every single person out who defends Cam: If you defend Cam, you are saying the Ravens players are bad. One or the other must be true. If can't be that the players and Cam COMBINE to only put up 7 one week and just 20 another. If the players are good enough, they should be averaging no less than 27 points of offense a week. There are weeks where the offense is outscored by the defense and/or special teams. You can see the talent Ray Rice, Torrey Smith and Jacoby Jones have. Cam Cameron should be shown the door...NOW.

WHO CARES if it's late in the season and it could be a distraction? Like others have said, it seems unfathomable that anyone could do worse than he did in the second Browns game and in the Chiefs and Chargers games, and in both Steelers games. I don't want to hear "we didn't execute..." YOU CAN'T EXECUTE A BALANCED ATTACK WHEN TEAMS KNOW WHEN YOU ARE RUNNING, AND WHEN YOU ONLY PLAY-ACTION OUT OF 2TE/1FB/BOLDIN SETS.

[frozen joe flacco fan]

Very well said & Amen!!

I have to admit. It has taken me far too long to figure this out but I'm with you on this. When our team was 9-2, fans like us were still frustrated and feeling like something's wrong with this team. We are too good to be struggling with weaker teams. Arguably, our record should be 11-1 right now. I'm now convinced that Cam is the problem and the sooner he goes the better off we'll be.
If Coach Harbaugh is too dumb or too nice to fire Cam, then he probably should not be a head coach.

[The Prestige]

The clichés of "we'll work this out as a family", "we'll take it one game at a time", "we lose as a team", and "I know we have the right guys in the locker room" all sounded great in early 2010.

Now that John Harbaugh has revealed there is zero accountability, those clichés feel more like coachspeak and the sound of a coach who has no answers.

[quote name='frozen joe flacco fan' timestamp='1354807260' post='1247990']
If Coach Harbaugh is too dumb or too nice to fire Cam, then he probably should not be a head coach.
[/quote]

I measure success by Super Bowls. Period. John Harbaugh is likely a very nice guy. The team's overall talent has been enough to win them games in SPITE of the coaching, and that seems to have - in turn - allowed Harbaugh to use the same excuses and same blame-shifting that is dressed up in an appearance of pragmatism and determination.

He has this sort of close-minded approach to blame. In his universe, it can't be that they have all-world talent being underutilized, it can't be that they could learn things from the Patriots and Packers or even QBs coach Jim Caldwell on how to spread defenses out, it has to be a combination of Flacco and Rice playing poorly combined with the line playing poorly and the receivers playing poorly and Cam needing to call different plays.

But, here in reality, I have to forgive him and Cam or God won't forgive me.

Since this is a positive thread, I should mention something upbeat. Well, if the Ravens collapse and don't win any postseason games this year, maybe they won't bring Flacco back and Ravens fans will get to see him play for a team that will help him flourish. It would still be in the context of the Ravens continually putting out the same half-baked offensive output week in and week out, but it would at least give us a team with better Super Bowl hopes to root for on the side.