Jaworski: Ravens Are Best Team In AFC

[PolishRifle]

It's kind of silly to make these type of comments already, we're in the preseason, how can you say this team is the best in the league or that team is better in their division based on a couple almost meaningless preseason games? I don't agree with Jaws or the other guy. On paper we have improved I'd say. Yeah we lost Ed and Ray but we added better players on paper (Huff, Daryl, Dumervil, Canty, list goes on). Flacco was awesome but I wouldn't expect him to put up those numbers again, not turning the ball over in 5+ games or something like that. The AFC is way too competitive to say right now team x is the best. The Bengals look competitive although IMO I'm pretty sure we'll handle them. The Browns even look kind of competitive. Jaws sounds extremely pro-Ravens, he really tries to defend his opinion and kind of gets aggressive when Skips tries to argue with him. :D

 

Danny still remembers that beating he took with the Broncos against us, I think Ray had a pick 6 in that game.

It's not until the 3rd or 4th regular season game, when you can really tell how the season will unfold. In the pre-season, you have only "on paper talent" to judge your team by and in that case Jaws would be right and the Ravens are the best team in the AFC with the Texans probably coming second.

In the end, winning is a team effort, though, which is why prognosticating like this has no credibility. But right now, at this point of the season, Jaws would be right.

 

Ray was a great player (best LB ever) and a great leader (and team mate) for the team, but Skip overblows the impact of one player purposefully, just so he doesn't have to give credit to other players, especially Joe.

Between the 2000 season and the 2012 season, there were 11 team, that managed to win the SB without Ray on their roster and it wasn't until the 2008 season, when John Harbaugh became the Ravens headcoach, Joe Flacco became the Ravens QB and Ray Rice became the Raven RB, that this team got to the playoffs 5 seasons in a row.

Before that, the Ravens only made the playoffs 3 times in 8 years and only managed to win once. That was with Ray Lewis AND Ed Reed in their prime.

Without Flacco and Rice, the Ravens were not contenders with or without Lewis and Reed on the roster and John Harbaugh, the HEADCOACH, certainly had more of an impact in coaching the Raven THAN A MLB! That show is a joke.

[Raving_Heathen]

Jaws has a reputation for watching and breaking down more game tape than anyone. He's basically the Ray Lewis of analysts.

 

Having said that, I'm surprised he didn't bring up Joe's phenomenal TD:INT ratio as a rebuttal to Skip's QBR nonsense.

 

Having said that, all this continued Flacco bashing by the talking heads is very, very, very reminiscent of the Tom Brady bashing pre-2007. Even with 3 SB victories under his belt and 2 SB MVPs, there were sooooooooooooooooo many idiots in the media and fanbase who continued to argue Brady was merely a system QB based solely on his pedestrian stats. It wasn't until Brady put up his gawdy numbers with Moss that detractors finally admitted, "yeah maybe he is elite" and put him in the same category as Peyton.

 

I think Flacco will pretty much have to do the same thing to get the same level of national respect. Forget about playoff wins, SBs, and SB MVPs... Unfortunately Skip's opinions aren't the minority- it's all about big stats for most people. That's why a lot of people out there still think Matt Stafford and Tony Romo are better QBs than Flacco.

[Militant X 1]

"You look at numbers, I look at the tape". Loved when Jaws said that.

Boom!

 

~Mili

[callahan09]

Jaws has a reputation for watching and breaking down more game tape than anyone. He's basically the Ray Lewis of analysts.

 

Having said that, I'm surprised he didn't bring up Joe's phenomenal TD:INT ratio as a rebuttal to Skip's QBR nonsense.

 

Having said that, all this continued Flacco bashing by the talking heads is very, very, very reminiscent of the Tom Brady bashing pre-2007. Even with 3 SB victories under his belt and 2 SB MVPs, there were sooooooooooooooooo many idiots in the media and fanbase who continued to argue Brady was merely a system QB based solely on his pedestrian stats. It wasn't until Brady put up his gawdy numbers with Moss that detractors finally admitted, "yeah maybe he is elite" and put him in the same category as Peyton.

 

I think Flacco will pretty much have to do the same thing to get the same level of national respect. Forget about playoff wins, SBs, and SB MVPs... Unfortunately Skip's opinions aren't the minority- it's all about big stats for most people. That's why a lot of people out there still think Matt Stafford and Tony Romo are better QBs than Flacco.

Is that really true?  I know there was some gibber jabber here and there about him being a system QB, but it was always met with disdain and furtive argument by his supporters who claimed he was one of the greats way, way prior to his 2007 season. I remember him being given a ton of credit after winning his first Super Bowl.  There were some comments to that effect after his team missed the playoffs the following year, but even then you would get articles like this one: 

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/football/2003/preview/news/2003/07/28/brady_first_person/

 

Basically saying that the Patriots woes aren't Brady's fault. The article even contains the sentence " don't even think about blaming quarterback Tom Brady", and "Despite the uneven nature of the Patriots' 2002 season, Brady continued his development as one of the game's brightest young stars."

 

One year later, after just his third season as a starter, and after winning his second Super Bowl (and a full 4 seasons prior to completing that 2007 season), you have articles like this one:

http://www.nfl.com/superbowl/history/mvp/sbxxxviii

 

Containing the sentence: "Can there be any doubt now that Tom Brady is one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history?" and also "Brady deserves all of the credit he can get.  He can be mentioned in the same sentence as some of the all-time greats, including his boyhood idol, Joe Montana."

 

This other article from just after the 2003 season and Brady's second Super Bowl win:

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/story/7255757

 

Refers to Brady as one of the Greats and "the shining example of excellence."

 

And this story from just after that second Super Bowl makes me hate Tom Brady:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=1833050

 

Following his first Super Bowl win, all the articles were coming out about how humble and down to earth he was.  Just two years later he's being called one of the greatest of all time and acting like a ridiculous brat.  Can you imagine the tone of that article if it had been Joe Flacco this year whining about not getting his free limited edition car in time? They'd have crucified him.  And it wouldn't have just been one article on ESPN, it would have been discussed to no end in every corner of the Sports media about what a spoiled, narcissistic, self-entitled jerk Flacco is and how he doesn't deserve any of it.

 

Here's more:

http://www.coldhardfootballfacts.com/content/brady-vs-the-all-time-greats/4515/

 

"Next time someone tells you that Brady is a "system" quarterback not worthy of mention among the game's elite, beat them about the head, neck and face with this billy club of truth called the Cold, Hard Football Facts."

 

http://www.coldhardfootballfacts.com/content/brady-vs-manning-complete-unabridged-vol-ii/4682/

 

Cold Hard Football Facts was pushing Tom Brady as better than Peyton Manning since before Brady won his third Super Bowl and completed 4 seasons as a starter (the initial article was titled 'The Complete & Unabridged Guide to Why Tom Brady is Better than Peyton Manning, Vol. I')

 

Just after winning that third Super Bowl, I think just about everyone was sold.  From February 2005:

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/story/8170976

 

"Only 27, Brady seals his Hall of Fame credentials"

[JEEPercreepermd]

Skip beats those two QBr's like a dead hoarse. "you look at the numbers, I look at the tape" perfectly stated Jaws. Funny how they both rely on arguments that have absolutely nothing to do with actual on field performamce when they are backed into a corner by Jaws.


Skip says that we lost "young talent on our D" lets face it. Paul Kruger IS a one dimensional player and he only got sacks when he was the free blitzer. Ellerbe is average, and definitely not worth what wr would have had to pay to keep him. So Ozzie lets both walk and picks up Doom who is head and.shoulders above Kruger, Canty,.Spears, and Smith at Ilb..who is a definite upgrade over Ellerbe.

Ozzie overhauled the entire front 7 for what he would have given Reed who is past his prime and two LB's who are extremely average.

The "analysts" will say "yeah but they.lost their emotional leaders" As much as I love Ray, and Ed..it was the OFFENSE clicking that.gave the team the huge boost in the SB run..the defense was good but not nearly as unstoppable as the O.

Let them say what they want..they read numbers and come to half brained conclusions..there are.a few posters here who could SCHOOL Skip Gutless on matters of our team

[pbutcher]

My thoughts as I was watching this...

 

Jaws sounds very reasonable with his arguments, he debates very well.

 

Skip is the definition of a Troll, he dogs Ray Lewis and Ed Reed for being over the hill and not worst the impact they make and then flips and says they are the reason the Ravens made the Super Bowl. SMH

 

Who the *bleep* exactly is Danny Kanell and why does his opinion matter when compared to guys like Jaws and Skip?

 

I didn't realize that Ray and Ed were the only guys on the Ravens that knew how to study film and that the coaches can't coach without them there... right ;)

 

Jaws is the first guy I've heard that hasn't been touting Boldin as the greatest receiver in the world (hyperbole there).

 

Jaws has his finger on the pulse on Joe Flacco's psyche, he gets him better than any analyst I've heard.

 

Jaws is driving the Flacco bandwagon and Skip is driving the Tebow bandwagon, who's opinion do I think is more accurate?

 

Love that there was no mention of Cameron neutering the offense for 12 of the regular season games.

 

Jaws: Wins > Stats... AMEN

 

Jaws: 1

The Other "Analysts": -5 (In my debating rules you loose points for bad arguments :P)

 

I was going to write a long reply to this but the quote pretty much sums up my thoughts.

 

Loved the "You look at numbers, I look at tape" line. If you pay attention to Jaws, you'll notice he ends up being right A LOT. Guy knows his stuff.

[Ravenslifer]

Skip beats those two QBr's like a dead hoarse. "you look at the numbers, I look at the tape" perfectly stated Jaws. Funny how they both rely on arguments that have absolutely nothing to do with actual on field performamce when they are backed into a corner by Jaws.


Skip says that we lost "young talent on our D" lets face it. Paul Kruger IS a one dimensional player and he only got sacks when he was the free blitzer. Ellerbe is average, and definitely not worth what wr would have had to pay to keep him. So Ozzie lets both walk and picks up Doom who is head and.shoulders above Kruger, Canty,.Spears, and Smith at Ilb..who is a definite upgrade over Ellerbe.

Ozzie overhauled the entire front 7 for what he would have given Reed who is past his prime and two LB's who are extremely average.

The "analysts" will say "yeah but they.lost their emotional leaders" As much as I love Ray, and Ed..it was the OFFENSE clicking that.gave the team the huge boost in the SB run..the defense was good but not nearly as unstoppable as the O.

Let them say what they want..they read numbers and come to half brained conclusions..there are.a few posters here who could SCHOOL Skip Gutless on matters of our team

 

I said it when Kruger went to the Browns, but nobody was more happy about that move than Ray Rice.  

[Ravenslifer]

Well, in the segment before, Skip was saying that going back to 2011, Tim Tebow has the best QBR in the last 5 mins of games.

 

What is increasingly aggravating for me about QBR is this

• No one NO ONE really knows how to calculate it just like no one knows how to calculate Quarterback Rating (how do we get to 157 or whatever it is and what constitutes 148 vs 109???) It's an arbitrary stat
• I guarantee if you asked him to break QBR down Skip would fold faster than a hustler in Vegas
• How could it be that Joe threw a TD in both the Denver and Houston games and has the lowest QBR ever recorded whereas Matt Ryan played in Giants stadium and didn't orchestrate a single point. Not one field goal, not NOTHIN!!! And Joe Flacco has the lowest 2 QBRs EVER???!?! While Ryan didn't have a turnover, he was sacked twice, they went 4 of 14 and 0 of 3 on 3rd and 4th downs respectively, and threw for 199. in fact, aside from the pick 6 that Joe threw in the Denver game, he managed 2 TDs, threw for 254, and was sacked 3 times. Here's the rub, for that Denver game the traditional Quarterback rating was actually 76.5 while Peyton Manning's was 96 or something. His QBR ended up being 62.9, and he only threw for 204 yds and 1 TD. He was sacked twice.

I understand that it's allegedly a more robust calculation...and I know that my personal ignorance of QBR renders my argument somewhat irrelevant. But the fact that the disparity between the 2 metrics is that large is somewhat absurd.

 

The same way that QBR nonsense said Brady outplayed Joe in the 2011-2012 AFCCG.  The QBR takes off points for the quarterback getting sacked (which is a whole lot of nonsense in itself) - ergo in the two games Skip loves to reference, Joe was being mauled the whole time (one was Houston were he was sacked like 5 times and hit a whole bunch more, I'm not sure what the other one was), and that kept dropping his QBR score.  I'm actually surprised more people don't bring up that QBR disparity between Brady and Joe last year every time Skip mentions QBR.