[News] Joe Flacco Wants To Spread The Ball More

[Drew P]

Mr. Newsome, can you please stop trying to draft receivers. You're really bad at it. Thanks.

 

Come on give him credit he did select Stokley

[ratedr]

What Flacco wants to say: "I want to spread the ball more...but the rest of these receivers are hot garbage."

[ratedr]

Flacco saying he wants to spread the ball more is a direct jab to the front office. GET ME MORE, RELIABLE TARGETS! A 36yr old WR is not enough especially when you play in the AFC North. Everybody saw this coming during preseason. Even Sarah Ellison said her biggest concern this season was that Aiken was not good enough to be a WR2 in any of the other teams he played for, what makes the front office think he was gonna live up to the expectations here in Bmore. Blunder nation.

Aiken wasn't even good enough to make the roster on other teams, yet we're trotting him out as a #2. Shameful.

[ratedr]

If every time a WR dropped a pass and a QB stopped throwing him the ball, it would be a "run happy" league. Brady put no name wide WRs on his back and carried them into the post season a couple of years ago. Joe ought to be able to do the same.

LOL this lie. Tell me how Brady looked in his first four games last year without Gronkowski.

 

To this day you still have Cheatriots fans claiming we won the 2012 AFCCG because Gronk was out. The almighty Brady apparently couldn't cope.

[ratedr]

Running into a wall a bunch of times was a big reason we went 3 and out in the first half. When we stopped doing that, and we let Joe throw on most of the 1st downs, the 3-and-outs turned into scoring drives. It's been like that all year. When we get stuffed on 1st down, we get into 2nd and 3rd and long situations, which leads to 3-and-outs, which puts the defense right back on the field. We almost never go 3-and-out in our spread, pass first offense. We didn't lose because Joe had over 350 yds. We lost because we waited too long to spread it out, and because our defense blew 2 leads.

Exactly. We had 1 yard net rushing in the second half. Seriously. Yet that's when the offense exploded.

 

Running Forsett into a wall = wasted down.

[MickRaven24]

Anybody blaming Joe for the loses is stupid. Our defense giving up the lead twice, late in the game, the last 4 games. Our offense is putting up 30 point games. Joe gives us the lead twice and the defense gives it away twice. At some point you to hold the defense accountable. Plain and simple, if the defense could actually finish a game, Joe wouldn't be in the situation where he has to save the game. If the defense actually did their job, we wouldn't have to see Joe try to make something happen.

[RavensBaltimore]

4 weeks in a row (including our last game last year) Joe has had the ball last with enough time to get the job done. 3 of those games he threw interceptions with the game on the line. The blame is squarely on him. If he wants to be considered elite, those are the plays he has to make.

So it's squarely on Flacco that he couldn't go 80 yds in 26 secs with no explosive weapons to throw to? After the offense put up 33 points? It's squarely on Joe that SSS dropped a game winner against Denver that hit him in the palm of both of his hands? It's squarely on Joe that after throwing 4TDs, with a mediocre receiving corps, in NE, the defense blows 2 4th qtr leads and Torrey gives up on a deep ball? It's squarely on Joe that after a go ahead, 4th qtr TD, the defense blows yet another lead, and a facemask penalty negates a 1st down, putting him in 4th and 17? Did you see Brady before Gronk got healthy last year? He was getting completely shut down in the second half, giving his team ZERO chance to win. Flacco has given his team a chance to win all of these games, despite an extremely limited cast around him.

[DENNYK]

This is really a tough one to figure out for sure. Not. Take the guys that can catch the ball and build your offensive game plan around those players. The guys that you cannot rely on are dead weight if they cannot do the job. CAN THEM. Grab a few free agent WR's that are out there. You may just find one that will work out. Give a few a chance to see what they can do. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. At least try to fix the problem and not just stick with a lame offense for the remainder of the season.

[sami]

So it's squarely on Flacco that he couldn't go 80 yds in 26 secs with no explosive weapons to throw to? After the offense put up 33 points? It's squarely on Joe that SSS dropped a game winner against Denver that hit him in the palm of both of his hands? It's squarely on Joe that after throwing 4TDs, with a mediocre receiving corps, in NE, the defense blows 2 4th qtr leads and Torrey gives up on a deep ball? It's squarely on Joe that after a go ahead, 4th qtr TD, the defense blows yet another lead, and a facemask penalty negates a 1st down, putting him in 4th and 17? Did you see Brady before Gronk got healthy last year? He was getting completely shut down in the second half, giving his team ZERO chance to win. Flacco has given his team a chance to win all of these games, despite an extremely limited cast around him.

YES, it IS squarely on Joes shoulders. Hes the QB, he gets paid the big bucks and if Brady or Peyton or Rogers would have been in the situation more than likely they would have found the open man and put the ball where he could get it.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Joe and wouldn't trade him for anyone (except maybe Rogers) but in the past he had the confidence and so did we that he was gonna pull the game out....this year it doesn't look like he nor the fans expect him to.

I know the defense put us in a hole the last 4 games but we had a chance to get out of it and we didn't. It was put on Joes shoulders and he didn't come thru.

[GangofRavens]

Running into a wall a bunch of times was a big reason we went 3 and out in the first half. When we stopped doing that, and we let Joe throw on most of the 1st downs, the 3-and-outs turned into scoring drives. It's been like that all year. When we get stuffed on 1st down, we get into 2nd and 3rd and long situations, which leads to 3-and-outs, which puts the defense right back on the field. We almost never go 3-and-out in our spread, pass first offense. We didn't lose because Joe had over 350 yds. We lost because we waited too long to spread it out, and because our defense blew 2 leads.

I stand by my previous comment. Joe threw for almost 400yds and we still loss.  It ain't the answer.  If we don't want our defense to lose games for us we need to keep the other offense off the field for as long as possible by getting the run game going.  Period.  We can get our running game going by fixing the missed or poor blocks by the O-linemen.  

[RavensBaltimore]

YES, it IS squarely on Joes shoulders. Hes the QB, he gets paid the big bucks and if Brady or Peyton or Rogers would have been in the situation more than likely they would have found the open man and put the ball where he could get it.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Joe and wouldn't trade him for anyone (except maybe Rogers) but in the past he had the confidence and so did we that he was gonna pull the game out....this year it doesn't look like he nor the fans expect him to.

I know the defense put us in a hole the last 4 games but we had a chance to get out of it and we didn't. It was put on Joes shoulders and he didn't come thru.

You must not have watched Brady before Gronk got healthy last year. Do you really think he puts together an 80 yd TD drive with 26 secs left? Has he ever done something like that? Brady sure didn't find the open man and "put the ball where he could get it" against us in the AFC Championship game when our secondary was actually somewhat healthy. He got shut out in the second half, throwing 2ints and 0TDs, only scoring 13 points the entire game. In his next playoff defeat, he missed two wide open receivers down the field and scored less than 20 again in a loss. Flacco throws 4 TDs against a better secondary, puts up 31 points, but somehow people think that Brady would have done a better job. There is absolutely nothing a qb can do if his receivers can't catch clutch passes and his D can't protect a lead. I only remember one key drop from one of Brady's receivers in a big game. Did the Patriots win that game? No, but everyone blamed Welker, even though it was a terrible throw. When Flacco's receivers drop passes, everyone blames Joe. There is no way you can squarely put these losses on Flacco without making things up and ignoring reality.

[RavensBaltimore]

I stand by my previous comment. Joe threw for almost 400yds and we still loss.  It ain't the answer.  If we don't want our defense to lose games for us we need to keep the other offense off the field for as long as possible by getting the run game going.  Period.  We can get our running game going by fixing the missed or poor blocks by the O-linemen.  

Saying "Joe threw for almost 400 yds and we still lost" is an extremely simplistic generalization. Correlation does not equal causation, and if you actually watch the game instead of just looking at stats, you'd see that when we stopped running it, spread it out, and passed on almost every down, our offense was great and we scored 17 second half points. That's a fact, so it makes absolutely no sense to say that Joe throwing for so many yds was the reason we lost. It was the reason we got back into the game and had a chance to win, and if we wouldn't have waited until the second half to do it, we probably would have won. Joe threw for 117 yds in the opener, and not only did we lose, but our offense scored 6 points. The objective of the offense has to be to SCORE POINTS, not to slow the game down, and when we pass the ball, we keep the defense off the field anyway by getting first downs. Running the ball is what puts the defense back on the field quickly, because it has led to 3-and-outs. Passing the ball has not. We have NEVER had a good offense when we are run heavy. We won a super bowl with a spread, pass first mentality, despite a mediocre at best defense. You can say we "should" run more, and that's an opinion, but the FACT is that our offense has been far better this year at moving the ball and scoring points when spreading it out and going pass heavy. It hasn't even been close. It's like night and day. To say that we should do more of what's causing 3-and-outs and less of what's consistently leading to first downs and points seems insane to me.

[GangofRavens]

Saying "Joe threw for almost 400 yds and we still lost" is an extremely simplistic generalization. Correlation does not equal causation, and if you actually watch the game instead of just looking at stats, you'd see that when we stopped running it, spread it out, and passed on almost every down, our offense was great and we scored 17 second half points. That's a fact, so it makes absolutely no sense to say that Joe throwing for so many yds was the reason we lost. It was the reason we got back into the game and had a chance to win, and if we wouldn't have waited until the second half to do it, we probably would have won. Joe threw for 117 yds in the opener, and not only did we lose, but our offense scored 6 points. The objective of the offense has to be to SCORE POINTS, not to slow the game down, and when we pass the ball, we keep the defense off the field anyway by getting first downs. Running the ball is what puts the defense back on the field quickly, because it has led to 3-and-outs. Passing the ball has not. We have NEVER had a good offense when we are run heavy. We won a super bowl with a spread, pass first mentality, despite a mediocre at best defense. You can say we "should" run more, and that's an opinion, but the FACT is that our offense has been far better this year at moving the ball and scoring points when spreading it out and going pass heavy. It hasn't even been close. It's like night and day. To say that we should do more of what's causing 3-and-outs and less of what's consistently leading to first downs and points seems insane to me.

I never said his throwing was the "reason" we lost.  I said and still am saying going to a pass heavy offense is not going to work.  It's been tried in the past with Joe and hasn't worked.  In addition facts are facts Joe threw for a hefty amount of yards and we still loss; hence, my conclusion, based on results not wishful thinking, is that it won't work. 

 

 

By the way I do watch the games and the problem on offense is not play calling as it is the offensive line play.  I don't care how many pass plays you call if that line doesn't run block or pass block better we will continue to have an up an down performance.  You go look at the game tape.

[RavensBaltimore]

I never said his throwing was the "reason" we lost.  I said and still am saying going to a pass heavy offense is not going to work.  It's been tried in the past with Joe and hasn't worked.  In addition facts are facts Joe threw for a hefty amount of yards and we still loss; hence, my conclusion, based on results not wishful thinking, is that it won't work. 

 

 

By the way I do watch the games and the problem on offense is not play calling as it is the offensive line play.  I don't care how many pass plays you call if that line doesn't run block or pass block better we will continue to have an up an down performance.  You go look at the game tape.

By drawing a conclusion that we shouldn't let Flacco throw that often because he threw for a lot of yards and we lost, you're implying that we lost BECAUSE Flacco threw for a lot of yds. In reality, Flacco throwing for over 300 yds had nothing to do with us losing, but it had everything to do with us coming back from a 14-0 deficit and taking a lead. Flacco had 107 yds in the first half, and we scored 0 points. He had 255 yds in the second half and we scored 17, so the reason we lost is because we waited too long to spread it out, not because he had so many yds. As someone else mentioned, we had ONE YARD rushing in the second half, and that's when our offense exploded, proving we don't need to run the ball to score points. Against Oakland, we were in spread, pass first mode all game, and we didn't have a single 3-and-out, and scored 33 points. Yeah, we lost that game, but you're going to win most of the time when you score that many, so saying it "won't work" when he throws for that many yards simply doesn't make sense. Flacco also has a good career record when he throws for over 300. We sure didn't win when Flacco barely threw for more than 100 yds. Scoring points helps you win, and we have consistently scored points when we run the spread offense. That's an undebatable FACT.

 

You're also revising history, because when we used a spread, pass heavy offense with Joe before, we won the SB, and our offense was dominant.

[GangofRavens]

By drawing a conclusion that we shouldn't let Flacco throw that often because he threw for a lot of yards and we lost, you're implying that we lost BECAUSE Flacco threw for a lot of yds. In reality, Flacco throwing for over 300 yds had nothing to do with us losing, but it had everything to do with us coming back from a 14-0 deficit and taking a lead. Flacco had 107 yds in the first half, and we scored 0 points. He had 255 yds in the second half and we scored 17, so the reason we lost is because we waited too long to spread it out, not because he had so many yds. As someone else mentioned, we had ONE YARD rushing in the second half, and that's when our offense exploded, proving we don't need to run the ball to score points. Against Oakland, we were in spread, pass first mode all game, and we didn't have a single 3-and-out, and scored 33 points. Yeah, we lost that game, but you're going to win most of the time when you score that many, so saying it "won't work" when he throws for that many yards simply doesn't make sense. Flacco also has a good career record when he throws for over 300. We sure didn't win when Flacco barely threw for more than 100 yds. Scoring points helps you win, and we have consistently scored points when we run the spread offense. That's an undebatable FACT.

 

You're also revising history, because when we used a spread, pass heavy offense with Joe before, we won the SB, and our offense was dominant.

I didn't imply, you inferred.  This SEASON did we win the last two games?  As for the Super Bowl, I remember the mile high miracle, ray rice, cam cameron being fired, ray lewis religious antics, jacoby jones's run back, a stifling ravens defense the first half, Joe's jump ball throw to Q, Jimmy Smith's interception, and Jim Caldwell calling pass plays for the middle of the field.  Huh, seems like I remember more then YOU.  I'm good on the history.  How about you?

[RavensBaltimore]

I didn't imply, you inferred.  This SEASON did we win the last two games?  As for the Super Bowl, I remember the mile high miracle, ray rice, cam cameron being fired, ray lewis religious antics, jacoby jones's run back, a stifling ravens defense the first half, Joe's jump ball throw to Q, Jimmy Smith's interception, and Jim Caldwell calling pass plays for the middle of the field.  Huh, seems like I remember more then YOU.  I'm good on the history.  How about you?

I never said none of those things happened(I don't remember Smith coming up with a significant int though. I think you may have made that one up). You said that Joe had never been successful in a spread offense, and I pointed out that that was false.

 

We didn't win the last two games, but Flacco throwing for 350 yds had nothing to do with us losing. It's actually the only thing on offense that gave us a chance to win. You're saying we should stop doing the thing that's leading to long drives and points.  The goal is to keep doing the things that you're doing well, and fix the things that are holding you back. You don't just change everything because you lost a couple games by 1 play. Other factors go into winning and losing, but moving the ball and scoring points clearly gives you the best chance to win, and the spread offense has been the most conducive to that.

 

And if you're not implying that Flacco throwing for 300+ yds had something to do with us losing, then why are you saying it "didn't work" and that we should stop doing that? This whole argument is based on that implication, which makes absolutely no sense, seeing as how the spread offense just put up 17 second half points against a great defense, after scoring 0 points in the first half with the power run game on early downs. What's more conducive to winning? 0 points or 17 points?