Official melt, cut, comment on Ravens at Broncos

[rmw10]

They gambled deactivating Mellette that's for sure. I believe they only had 7 active OL too.

Without a doubt. Having both McClellan/James and Levine/Trawick seemed contradictory. I love beefing up ST, but they may have went a bit too far.

[Purple_ICE 81]

Dallas Clark is our TE until Pitta gets back. He had 7 catches, showed he can still separate and was targeted about 17 times by Flacco. Although he should have had 15 catches or so and a score, give him time to shake the rust off and continue to develop chemistry with Joe. Furstenburg and Juice are not the answer, only acts of desparity.

[rmw10]

I sort of don't understand this. I live and die by the Ravens like most of us but I felt like we were playing with house money in this game. So we lost. It doesn't take away the playoff win last year and I generally prefer a blowout to losing by a point. It still only counts as one loss. Plus it was a road game. It would sting even more if the game was at M&T and we lost like this.

It's more for people saying to cut guys like Huff, Graham, etc. It's just not going to happen.

[Militant X 1]

fix the running game..it was trash!

cut ties with stokely, clark and dickson ...immediately!  they are bums!

 

~Mili

[Poes Crows]

Clearly Jacoby Jones "Friendly Fire" injury altered the Raven's passing attack. I've watched a lot of football, but have never seen a punt blocker run full tilt into a returner waiving for a fair catch.  The lack of awareness there spells immediate CUT to me, but the Raven Front Office has become Very Contrarian lately. Releasing players they need to keep and signing players that theres no way should be signed.

 

Dallas Clark is another that cannot be on my team tomorrow. If he is, its further proof the Management has lost control.

 

Its even worse than I thought and I factored it being very bad.

 

We could have used Mellete. Or at least have given him a chance to get some experience.

[flaccopoe]

Clearly Jacoby Jones "Friendly Fire" injury altered the Raven's passing attack. I've watched a lot of football, but have never seen a punt blocker run full tilt into a returner waiving for a fair catch.  The lack of awareness there spells immediate CUT to me, but the Raven Front Office has become Very Contrarian lately. Releasing players they need to keep and signing players that theres no way should be signed.

 

Dallas Clark is another that cannot be on my team tomorrow. If he is, its further proof the Management has lost control.

 

Its even worse than I thought and I factored it being very bad.

 

We could have used Mellete. Or at least have given him a chance to get some experience.

 

At least Brown looked decent...

[Poes Crows]

Dallas Clark is our TE until Pitta gets back. He had 7 catches, showed he can still separate and was targeted about 17 times by Flacco. Although he should have had 15 catches or so and a score, give him time to shake the rust off and continue to develop chemistry with Joe. Furstenburg and Juice are not the answer, only acts of desparity.

lmao

[ravensfan160]

Clark and Stokley!I was against them from the first day of signing. With the addition of both, it only delays the development of younger players like Matt Furstenburg.

At this point Stokley is better than Clark but also older. A part of the argument against Boldin was in reference to his age and not getting separation yet they bring in (two older players) a 34 year old and a 37 year old. Don't panic though there is still time to fix it.

The OL got handled!

 

Losing Jones hurt our offense a lot more than I thought it would. Instead of having legitimate deep threats on both sides they could focus on Torrey and clamp down on the short routes which is exactly what they did. At this point in their careers Clark and Stokley will thrive in zone but struggle a bit in man coverage. Losing Jones really hurt.

[ratedr]

And to think, some people wanted to trade Jacoby.

[Raving_Heathen]

The dude caught the ball in practice with bare hand which was impressive but in game when counted, he dropped balls like Manning bribed him for those drops.....He's old and washed up..

 

We need to try other rookie TEs...

 

Dickson is Dickson....ball dropper

 

I don't consider Dickson a ball dropper, at least not on the same level as Clark 2013. More like he never comes up with the grabs to help Flacco out. I was so excited when we drafted him, but he's turned out to be nothing special. Very disappointed.

[Crabcakes&Football]

Ugh. Most embarrassing loss I can remember. We'll most definitely improve, and we certainly have the room to.

[busterblue52]

I am most worried about clark. He looked horrible all night whenever a ball was thrown his way I cringed.

[StingerNLG]

Losing Jacoby allowed the Broncos to basically roll coverage over to Torrey Smith and stop him, because they were completely unafraid of Clark, Stokley, and Dickson.

 

I miss Anquan Boldin.   And I know Flacco does too.

[NaveSenrag]

Okay. Here's my honest analysis of the game.

 

Offense:

I'm not usually one to judge based on one game, but I'd honestly be more comfortable with Air Bud at tight end than anyone else we currently have on the roster. Dickson carved up a couple of stone hands for tonight's game, Clark looked like an old man, and our blocking TE still can't block to save his life.

 

We had 4 WRs catch passes today. Jacoby got injured by Trawick (I'll get to him later), Torrey and Marlon had good games, and Stokely couldn't pick up a third down to save his life.

 

Ray Rice did well catching the ball and was crazy good on a couple of impromptu screens, but he and Pierce were terrible running. It didn't help that Cam Cameron Jim Caldwell was unable to call any running play that wasn't up the middle. Leach caught a TD pass and decided to take the rest of the night off.

 

The offensive line's pass blocking was abysmal. Words cannot express my dissapointment with them. Yanda injured Oher, Gino started picking fights, and Wagner's only contribution other than getting Flacco sacked was a dive onto a fumble. I lost count of the times Flacco got hit, sacked, or hurried to the point where he threw it away or forced a pass. I shudder to think about what would have happened if they had played Von Miller against us. As unlikely as it sounds, the run blocking was even worse. There were a few plays here and there that worked, but overall the line did nothing to help the run game.

 

Flacco actually impressed me. He forced throws, missed reads, and he focused in on Clark to a ridiculous extent, but overall he had a decent game considerring the clusterfuck that was the rest of the offense. He made passes all over the field, and there were several passes that would have been highlight reel material (because of the quality of the throw, not the improbability of the catch) if the receiver had just caught the ball.

 

Caldwell was garbage. After the excitement of the playoffs, this was a particularly bitter hit. After all we heard about wrinkles and Caldwell turning this into his offense, tonight he looked like a man in over his head calling plays from someone else's playbook. Predictable and repetitive.

 

Defense:

The cornerback play was actually not that bad considering the competition. Webb had several near interceptions and incredible coverage throughout the night, no matter who he was matched up with. Jimmy had a solid outing, despite a rough beginning. Graham was dissapointing. He looked overmatched and out of place, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt considering he was matched up against Demaryious Thomas at several points in the game.

 

The safetys were very inconsistent. Ihedigbo had a solid game with the exception of his whiff on J. Thomas' second TD. Huff was about as bad as a safety could play. He tackled less effectively than Ed Reed (did anyone else see the tackle at the end where the receiver literally carried Huff on his back for several yards?), and was out of position on several plays including J. Thomas' first TD.

 

The D-line (I'm counting OLBs pass rushing and defending the run here) played decent footballl. They were very strong against the run, but they just couldn't get around the O-line for pressure. They did a good job in the first quarter, but the O-line tightened up and shut the pass rush down for the rest of the game.

 

The linebacker coverage was absoulutely horrifying early on, but it got better as the game went on. Julius Thomas had a field day while single covered, but got shut out in the second half. The RBs had a good time catching passes against us including a 20 yard catch where there was literally no one within 10 yards of the RB when he caught the ball.

 

Pees called a very bad game. I don't know enough about defensive play calling to make a definite judgement, but I have the feeling that part of the problem was Pees.

 

ST:

If this game proved anything, it's that we aren't balanced enough to handle an average return game. After Jacoby left, there were a grand total of zero kickoff returns that left the end zone, and our only punt returns of substance were Webb's which continues to scare me.

 

Tucker went a perfect 4 for 4 on kickoffs, and Koch played a decent game. When he got the punt off quickly he did well, but he had  a slow windup at times that led to a blocked punt, an almost blocked punt that required Ihedigbo to plant a lineman into the turf to prevent, and a hurried punt that gave the Broncos excellent field position.

 

The coverage units were excellent. There was one punt where Welker almost broke free, but the rest of the game, they were aware and stingy. The one exception of course is special teams ace Trawick who beat out Omar Brown for a job and beat down Jacoby Jones today. His hit on Jacoby cost us our only returner worth mentioning, and a critical piece of our offense.

 

It's hard to judge Harbs because we see so little of him, but what we did see was a missed opportunity to challenge a critical third down play, and a failure to keep the troops in line with several scuffles breaking out, and dirty plays like Albert McClellan's out of bounds hit on Hollliday.

[SecretAgentMan]

Ugh. Most embarrassing loss I can remember. We'll most definitely improve, and we certainly have the room to.

Jacksonville has this beat easy.

Denver was at least a good team

[ravensfan160]

Clearly Jacoby Jones "Friendly Fire" injury altered the Raven's passing attack. I've watched a lot of football, but have never seen a punt blocker run full tilt into a returner waiving for a fair catch.  The lack of awareness there spells immediate CUT to me, but the Raven Front Office has become Very Contrarian lately. Releasing players they need to keep and signing players that theres no way should be signed.

 

Dallas Clark is another that cannot be on my team tomorrow. If he is, its further proof the Management has lost control.

 

Its even worse than I thought and I factored it being very bad.

 

We could have used Mellete. Or at least have given him a chance to get some experience.

Way to overreact. First, as a veteran his salary is now fully guaranteed since he was on the roster week 1. Cutting him makes absolutely no sense. Second, he clearly had a bad game but his two biggest mistakes was a dropped easy touchdown and a fumble. Those are mental and not physical. He may have lost a step but he can still be decent. Tonight Clark looked like a veteran pressing to make plays who doesn't know the offense perfectly yet.

 

If he catches that TD and things don't get out of control in the second half we all would be singing a different tune.

[Purple_ICE 81]

lmao

Whats so funny? What other options do we have? At this point its either Dallas Clark, Ed Dickson, Kyle Juice, or Matt Furstenburg. Dallas Clark is our best option at TE, if he gets it together he could be a big threat on offense. If not then we cut him and are stuck with young unproven TEs who will likely have just as many drops and bad plays.

[Raving_Heathen]

Dallas Clark is our TE until Pitta gets back. He had 7 catches, showed he can still separate and was targeted about 17 times by Flacco. Although he should have had 15 catches or so and a score, give him time to shake the rust off and continue to develop chemistry with Joe. Furstenburg and Juice are not the answer, only acts of desparity.

 

I think we were watching different games.

[HoldingCall]

Trawick has value and I agreed with him making either the team or PS.

[nyc9192]

Clark and Stokley!I was against them from the first day of signing. With the addition of both, it only delays the development of younger players like Matt Furstenburg.

At this point Stokley is better than Clark but also older. A part of the argument against Boldin was in reference to his age and not getting separation yet they bring in (two older players) a 34 year old and a 37 year old. Don't panic though there is still time to fix it.

The OL got handled!

Good point never got how Boldin was too old but Stokley wasn't.I never understood how ravens fans were content with this joke of a recieving core.I want Dickson cut.I'm done with him and his butter fingers.Ozzie needs to call up Brandon Lloyd and try and see if he could get that trade going with Kenny Britt(not sure how much truth there was to those rumours).With a core looking something like this

WR-Smith,Brown,Lloyd/Stokley,Mellette and Britt

TE-Furstenberg,Bajema,and Jus

PR/KR-Jacoby(occasional reciever)

 

We'd be dangerous with a lineup like this for sure.

[ravens533]

Marlow Brown was one of the few bright spots in the game. Have we got an update on JJ and Oher? Look at it this way - There are lots of coaching points for next week for our players.

[NaveSenrag]

Anyone interested in going through the tape and determining just how many drops we had last night? It felt like we had more drops than completions, but that's obviously bias.

[jazz1988]

I did get mad at the game especially when the rookie saftety  tackle Jacoby Jones for some odd reason during a punt returner as if he was  bronco receiver.  Stokley wasnt much impressive i kinda felt like the ravens were better off keeping Tandon Doss over him, you could tell the ravens defense had some serious miscommunication( made  me miss lewis and reed), Jacoby Jones definately showed he's not only valueable on special teams but as a receiver as well, and it definately seem dumb on the ravens part to cut bobby rainey cause he could had definately help as a kick returner instead of Bernard Pierce.

 

Overall it was just the first game and stuff like this happens but the ravens definately have to get better.

[ravensfan160]

I'm more disappointed with Dickson tonight than I am Clark.

[Purple_ICE 81]

I think we were watching different games.

Im not saying he can separate like Grokowski or Graham, but he can still make plays for an old man. He did have 7 for 87 which should have been more like 15 for 100+yds and a TD. Clark showed a lot of rust but he will likely be given another game or 2 to try to prove himself. I really dont care because the fact of te matter is until we get a healthy Pitta back TE is ging to be a weak position for us.

[Pats]

I blame joe flacco for being greedy enough to want a huge contract forcing other players out. Ravens could have built on last years superbowl(still can obviously) if they didn't lose so much. It pains me to see peyton get 7 tds in a game.

[ravensfan160]

Anyone interested in going through the tape and determining just how many drops we had last night? It felt like we had more drops than completions, but that's obviously bias.

Glad to see you've already put the game behind you. :D

[ratedr]

I blame joe flacco for being greedy enough to want a huge contract forcing other players out. Ravens could have built on last years superbowl(still can obviously) if they didn't lose so much. It pains me to see peyton get 7 tds in a game.

Congratulations for not knowing what you're talking about.

PS - Tom Brady is never winning another Super Bowl.

[Ravenseconbeast]

I did get mad at the game especially when the rookie saftety  tackle Jacoby Jones for some odd reason during a punt returner as if he was  bronco receiver.  Stokley wasnt much impressive i kinda felt like the ravens were better off keeping Tandon Doss over him, you could tell the ravens defense had some serious miscommunication( made  me miss lewis and reed), Jacoby Jones definately showed he's not only valueable on special teams but as a receiver as well, and it definately seem dumb on the ravens part to cut bobby rainey cause he could had definately help as a kick returner instead of Bernard Pierce.

 

Overall it was just the first game and stuff like this happens but the ravens definately have to get better.

 

It tells me that Jerry Rosburg is clueless when it comes to evaluating talent on ST.   When the ST coach is asked by head coach on cut days, rosburg is the one that makes the decision who goes in.   Not only can he not evaluate talent, he can't coach the players if it costed him his life.   

The guy needs to get fired asap.

[BallHawker]

I blame joe flacco for being greedy enough to want a huge contract forcing other players out. Ravens could have built on last years superbowl(still can obviously) if they didn't lose so much. It pains me to see peyton get 7 tds in a game.

 

Hahaha. Cool story, bro