[News] Eisenberg: Turns Out, Second Half Of Ravens' Schedule Not As Brutal As Once Thought

[BR News]

In some ways, the first half of the schedule has been just as difficult as what lies ahead. That means the Ravens (5-4) have the right to think big in terms of getting to the playoffs.

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[craymonham]

I'm so happy our defense is in the top 3. I just hope we can get our o line together because it seems to be our biggest weakness "GO FIGURE"!

[mearzunkies]

I'm so happy our defense is in the top 3. I just hope we can get our o line together because it seems to be our biggest weakness "GO FIGURE"!

YOU said it man. The O-Line is the weak spot and unfortunately is one of the most important.

[CQ1]

I'm not worried at all about our schedule- its our offense (that is beating itself, whether its the QB [helllo] and, or the issues with the offensive line) I'm consistently worried about.
Grant it, we had a nice surge, or spark against Cleveland in the second half- but it was Cleveland. Also, think how many points that were NOT taken advantage of.
The 2 major interceptions by Flacco [hi- again] , both in and near the end zone that killed points. A 10 year rookis should NOT be doing that. He had also took a sack for a major loss in the first half that killed the drive and had taken us out of FG range. I know its 'should of' but we should have easily posted a good 40 points against the Browns.
Regardless of who is on the schedule, its up to the offense- to progress quickly, and to not beat itself.

[sami]

I'm raising my hand cuz I thought our rookies WOULD add to the pass rush.

[ravens4life86]

Im still taking this thing 1 game at a time... they got it back to 5-4 but theres no time to relax. Big test in Dallas to keep a undefeated record vs Cowboys in Dallas. Must keep balance.. like in victories 30x runs, 30 passes.

Side note, its week 10 Boyle is eligible will they activate him?

[eze17]

Really have to agree that those two games against the Bungles are going to probably determine if we make the play-offs or sit at home...

[JimmyBlack]

We might just have a winning season after all.

[bioLarzen]

OK. This is the glass half full view. The glass half empty vireew is that we have no chance top make the playoffs.

The in-between view, IMHO, is that it's gonna be dead hard to make the playoffs if the Ravens don't find consistency. On O, we can make enough points to win a game - if the O-line has no key injuries...

As for the D... yep, it could be argued that the 2016 Ravens will probably go as far as the D carries them... because ut's by far the better unit. However, it doesn't mean a playoff ticket punched: people are keen to forget that we had not one but two games (Raiders, Giants) where the makeshift O won the game - and then the D found a way to still lose it...

The reality, IMHO, is that our D is great against O's that run the ball a lot. But as soon as thjere's a good QB-good deep threat receiver combo with a rapport, our D gets increasingly exposed. That was the caasae with Carr and Crabtree and Manning and Beckham. And we have two games against the Dalton-Green couple which kills us about every time we play them, Big Ben and Brown at their turf, Prescott and Dez Bryant... And we have the Patriots in Foxboro...

With due respect, I still don't see this team going anywehere near over 0.500 - we'll have to win 3 more games to get to 0.500... - and that is probably not gonna be enough to win the division - and nowhere near enough to secure a Wild Card spot.

[FloridalovesRavens]

OK. This is the glass half full view. The glass half empty vireew is that we have no chance top make the playoffs.

The in-between view, IMHO, is that it's gonna be dead hard to make the playoffs if the Ravens don't find consistency. On O, we can make enough points to win a game - if the O-line has no key injuries...

As for the D... yep, it could be argued that the 2016 Ravens will probably go as far as the D carries them... because ut's by far the better unit. However, it doesn't mean a playoff ticket punched: people are keen to forget that we had not one but two games (Raiders, Giants) where the makeshift O won the game - and then the D found a way to still lose it...

The reality, IMHO, is that our D is great against O's that run the ball a lot. But as soon as thjere's a good QB-good deep threat receiver combo with a rapport, our D gets increasingly exposed. That was the caasae with Carr and Crabtree and Manning and Beckham. And we have two games against the Dalton-Green couple which kills us about every time we play them, Big Ben and Brown at their turf, Prescott and Dez Bryant... And we have the Patriots in Foxboro...

With due respect, I still don't see this team going anywehere near over 0.500 - we'll have to win 3 more games to get to 0.500... - and that is probably not gonna be enough to win the division - and nowhere near enough to secure a Wild Card spot.

As I see it you have no respect for this team. The Ravens have just as much chance as any other team in the NFL. Our defense is stout and our O line while crippled can still hold them off for Flacco. Should we make the playoffs you will hear from me again and should we not I'm quite sure you'll give me what for lol. Go Ravens!

[TheConquerorWorm]

I'm not worried at all about our schedule- its our offense (that is beating itself, whether its the QB [helllo] and, or the issues with the offensive line) I'm consistently worried about.
Grant it, we had a nice surge, or spark against Cleveland in the second half- but it was Cleveland. Also, think how many points that were NOT taken advantage of.
The 2 major interceptions by Flacco [hi- again] , both in and near the end zone that killed points. A 10 year rookis should NOT be doing that. He had also took a sack for a major loss in the first half that killed the drive and had taken us out of FG range. I know its 'should of' but we should have easily posted a good 40 points against the Browns.
Regardless of who is on the schedule, its up to the offense- to progress quickly, and to not beat itself.

That sack was the fault of Pitta whose (non) block was the worst I've ever seen. Both INTs were really good plays by the defense. The long ball to Smith where he pulled up and did his best Torrey impression - can't really fault them for taking a deep shot to SSS covered 1 on 1 with a rookie CB. And the other in the end zone was a good play by Haden - he was covering the RB and dropped off at the last second to make the INT - you can't "read" that (Joe's target was open for the TD). Again, it's the Defense that has let us down - giving up last second TDs to Crabtree & Beckham after Flacco led game winning scores. If the D holds, we "should of" be 7-2.

Offensive line might be an issue but I have no worries that Flacco can win games.

[RavensBaltimore]

OK. This is the glass half full view. The glass half empty vireew is that we have no chance top make the playoffs.

The in-between view, IMHO, is that it's gonna be dead hard to make the playoffs if the Ravens don't find consistency. On O, we can make enough points to win a game - if the O-line has no key injuries...

As for the D... yep, it could be argued that the 2016 Ravens will probably go as far as the D carries them... because ut's by far the better unit. However, it doesn't mean a playoff ticket punched: people are keen to forget that we had not one but two games (Raiders, Giants) where the makeshift O won the game - and then the D found a way to still lose it...

The reality, IMHO, is that our D is great against O's that run the ball a lot. But as soon as thjere's a good QB-good deep threat receiver combo with a rapport, our D gets increasingly exposed. That was the caasae with Carr and Crabtree and Manning and Beckham. And we have two games against the Dalton-Green couple which kills us about every time we play them, Big Ben and Brown at their turf, Prescott and Dez Bryant... And we have the Patriots in Foxboro...

With due respect, I still don't see this team going anywehere near over 0.500 - we'll have to win 3 more games to get to 0.500... - and that is probably not gonna be enough to win the division - and nowhere near enough to secure a Wild Card spot.

Our defense basically gave up 14 against the Raiders, who have a great offense, and they weren't healthy against the Giants. Yeah, they gave up a couple of clutch TDs, but when healthy, they haven't been overmatched by anyone. Not even close. We've had issues with A.J. Green, but our defense is better, and the Bengals lost a couple of their other wrs and haven't been as good this year.

With the offense, SSS was just starting to get in shape when he got injured, Perriman is a rookie that hadn't played in almost 2 years, Flacco and Pitta were coming off major injuries, and the O-line had injury issues. It's not too surprising that they had a rough first half, but now that they're healthier and have had some time to gel, it's reasonable to believe they will start playing at least a little better, and with our defense and kicker, that's all they'll really need to do. Maybe they can break out and play really well, but even if they don't, we still have a shot at the postseason.

Saying we have no chance to make the playoffs isn't "half empty". It's simply false. There are certainly no guarantees at this point, but at worst, we at least have a legit chance.

[b93333]

Whether the glass is half full or half empty the Ravens have a chance next week against the Cowboys to put themselves into a legitimate position to get to the playoffs. Despite their record they are beatable. I think we will likely know then whether we have a contender or a pretender.

[MadStorkSociety]

  6 hours ago, CQ1 said:

I'm not worried at all about our schedule- its our offense (that is beating itself, whether its the QB [helllo] and, or the issues with the offensive line) I'm consistently worried about.
Grant it, we had a nice surge, or spark against Cleveland in the second half- but it was Cleveland. Also, think how many points that were NOT taken advantage of.
The 2 major interceptions by Flacco [hi- again] , both in and near the end zone that killed points. A 10 year rookis should NOT be doing that. He had also took a sack for a major loss in the first half that killed the drive and had taken us out of FG range. I know its 'should of' but we should have easily posted a good 40 points against the Browns.
Regardless of who is on the schedule, its up to the offense- to progress quickly, and to not beat itself.

That sack was the fault of Pitta whose (non) block was the worst I've ever seen. Both INTs were really good plays by the defense. The long ball to Smith where he pulled up and did his best Torrey impression - can't really fault them for taking a deep shot to SSS covered 1 on 1 with a rookie CB. And the other in the end zone was a good play by Haden - he was covering the RB and dropped off at the last second to make the INT - you can't "read" that (Joe's target was open for the TD). Again, it's the Defense that has let us down - giving up last second TDs to Crabtree & Beckham after Flacco led game winning scores. If the D holds, we "should of" be 7-2.

Offensive line might be an issue but I have no worries that Flacco can win games.

Offensive line might be an issue but I have no worries that Flacco can win games.

He has proven he can in the past, but he looks a little shaky this year.

[Zeus]

I was at the Game Thursday night and our D was awesome, I was very impressed. However, we will need a pass rush next week when we play the cowboys

[sizzlingdoom]

On ‎11‎/‎12‎/‎2016 at 0:59 PM, eze17 said:

Really have to agree that those two games against the Bungles are going to probably determine if we make the play-offs or sit at home...

What is our deal with them? We really need to make a statement against them this year. I would trade losing in Pitt for crushing Cincy twice this year. I think we have a good shot of winning all three though to be honest. Jimmy better be on AJ the entire game otherwise I'll lose it. I think AJ and Julio are the 2 best WRs in the NFL. People say Brown, and you can't lie about his production. But I would be interested to see any of our fans respond to this. I think AJ is better than Brown. My main and clear cut argument is switch the 2 on their teams. If Brown played with Dalton, I think he'd have less production than Green did with him. And Green would have even more with Ben than Brown did. I think they are really similar. But green is 6 inches taller. And yes, Green is quick too. Anyways, who's better people, Green or Brown?

[Molson Man]

On ‎11‎/‎13‎/‎2016 at 2:23 AM, sizzlingdoom said:

On ‎11‎/‎12‎/‎2016 at 0:59 PM, eze17 said:

Really have to agree that those two games against the Bungles are going to probably determine if we make the play-offs or sit at home...

What is our deal with them? We really need to make a statement against them this year. I would trade losing in Pitt for crushing Cincy twice this year. I think we have a good shot of winning all three though to be honest. Jimmy better be on AJ the entire game otherwise I'll lose it. I think AJ and Julio are the 2 best WRs in the NFL. People say Brown, and you can't lie about his production. But I would be interested to see any of our fans respond to this. I think AJ is better than Brown. My main and clear cut argument is switch the 2 on their teams. If Brown played with Dalton, I think he'd have less production than Green did with him. And Green would have even more with Ben than Brown did. I think they are really similar. But green is 6 inches taller. And yes, Green is quick too. Anyways, who's better people, Green or Brown?

While I like your argument compare their numbers since entering the league and Brown wins. The measurables coming out favored Green, but the stats have seen Brown flourish more. Yes Ben is better than Andy but to say Green would do better in a switch is not possible, you can't measure Browns heart and desire. Just like Michael Jordan having more heart than his much more measurable opponents. I think we are also forgetting that until this year Green had Sanu and Jones to take some heat off him Brown is all the Steelers have had for a while. That said the Steelers have a better run game to help bring people into the box leaving more room for Brown to work his magic. Likewise the Bengals have a better defense in recent years and prior to this season perhaps the best 53 man roster for 4 years straight, losing a lot this year in free agency. All things considered I'll take Brown over Green but honestly they aren't that far apart, again good question.

[Molson Man]

OK. This is the glass half full view. The glass half empty vireew is that we have no chance top make the playoffs.

The in-between view, IMHO, is that it's gonna be dead hard to make the playoffs if the Ravens don't find consistency. On O, we can make enough points to win a game - if the O-line has no key injuries...

As for the D... yep, it could be argued that the 2016 Ravens will probably go as far as the D carries them... because ut's by far the better unit. However, it doesn't mean a playoff ticket punched: people are keen to forget that we had not one but two games (Raiders, Giants) where the makeshift O won the game - and then the D found a way to still lose it...

The reality, IMHO, is that our D is great against O's that run the ball a lot. But as soon as thjere's a good QB-good deep threat receiver combo with a rapport, our D gets increasingly exposed. That was the caasae with Carr and Crabtree and Manning and Beckham. And we have two games against the Dalton-Green couple which kills us about every time we play them, Big Ben and Brown at their turf, Prescott and Dez Bryant... And we have the Patriots in Foxboro...

With due respect, I still don't see this team going anywehere near over 0.500 - we'll have to win 3 more games to get to 0.500... - and that is probably not gonna be enough to win the division - and nowhere near enough to secure a Wild Card spot.

I'm just saying this division is at tipping point, Steelers and Bengals both win on Sunday and we will have three teams at .500 or better, lose and we remain the worst division this season winning percentage wise. Yes I agree our secondary is slow and can be exposed, however our pressure/pass rush has been heating up. That said Big Ben has a great arm and a top running back with a top receiver and we handled that perfectly. The Raiders didn't even put up that much points on us scoring only 14 on offense, the special teams lost that game in several plays if you watch it again. The Giants was just plain sad if Young hadn't come off the ball flat footed he wouldn't have fallen over on the last Beckham TD, that said Young is getting better each game and by the end of the year might prove to be our best cornerback. The Cowboys should be a good test for how physical we are and the Patriots will answer our secondary questions, everyone else is at or below .500 don't see a real reason we can't make the postseason. Once your in it's all about getting hot at the right time, often enough the best team doesn't win the Super Bowl, just the hottest postseason team that year.

[Molson Man]

I'm raising my hand cuz I thought our rookies WOULD add to the pass rush.

And what about Young he is a real surprise at cornerback considering we weren't even considering him as our second cornerback on the field.

[Rav'n Maniac]

Im still taking this thing 1 game at a time... they got it back to 5-4 but theres no time to relax. Big test in Dallas to keep a undefeated record vs Cowboys in Dallas. Must keep balance.. like in victories 30x runs, 30 passes.

Side note, its week 10 Boyle is eligible will they activate him?

It's a 10 game suspension, not 10 weeks. Boyle won't become available until after the boys game and then he has to work himself back into football shape. Realistically, I wouldn't expect to see him before week 12 at earliest, if at all. I feel it depends a lot on Gilmore's injury and how close he is to coming back.

[KidNme]

Our pass rush is going to be key, if we expect to make it to the playoffs.
We need to get pressure with 4 or less and our CB's will need to be on their toes the ENTIRE game. A few more first downs by our Offense would go a long way in letting our D get a breather so I expect the coaches to have them running wind sprints in practice the rest of the season!

[Rav'n Maniac]

We will know a lot more about our chances after the boys play the Steelers today.

[January J]

Yep. A Steelers loss will give us a nice little cushion. Hate to say and im not hoping for anybody to get seriously hurt but a Couple injuries on the cowboys side wouldn't hurt either, esp to the o line. Not that I don't believe we can't beat them straight up either.

[VermontRaven]

6 hours ago, sizzlingdoom said:

What is our deal with them? We really need to make a statement against them this year. I would trade losing in Pitt for crushing Cincy twice this year. I think we have a good shot of winning all three though to be honest. Jimmy better be on AJ the entire game otherwise I'll lose it. I think AJ and Julio are the 2 best WRs in the NFL. People say Brown, and you can't lie about his production. But I would be interested to see any of our fans respond to this. I think AJ is better than Brown. My main and clear cut argument is switch the 2 on their teams. If Brown played with Dalton, I think he'd have less production than Green did with him. And Green would have even more with Ben than Brown did. I think they are really similar. But green is 6 inches taller. And yes, Green is quick as **** too. Anyways, who's better people, Green or Brown?

 See the sentiment here, but I think a sweep of Pitt and split with Cincy would help our playoff chances more. Then we'd have toebreak over Steelers (who I think are more of a threat) and over Cincy--due to division record-altjough very unlikely tiebreak comes into play with cincy due to the tie

[The Greek]

Yep. A Steelers loss will give us a nice little cushion. Hate to say and im not hoping for anybody to get seriously hurt but a Couple injuries on the cowboys side wouldn't hurt either, esp to the o line. Not that I don't believe we can't beat them straight up either.

i was thinking the same thing. a steelers loss and a few injuries to the cowgirls would not hurt my feelings one bit. hehehe

[JamesA119]

  23 hours ago, CQ1 said:

I'm not worried at all about our schedule- its our offense (that is beating itself, whether its the QB [helllo] and, or the issues with the offensive line) I'm consistently worried about.
Grant it, we had a nice surge, or spark against Cleveland in the second half- but it was Cleveland. Also, think how many points that were NOT taken advantage of.
The 2 major interceptions by Flacco [hi- again] , both in and near the end zone that killed points. A 10 year rookis should NOT be doing that. He had also took a sack for a major loss in the first half that killed the drive and had taken us out of FG range. I know its 'should of' but we should have easily posted a good 40 points against the Browns.
Regardless of who is on the schedule, its up to the offense- to progress quickly, and to not beat itself.

That sack was the fault of Pitta whose (non) block was the worst I've ever seen. Both INTs were really good plays by the defense. The long ball to Smith where he pulled up and did his best Torrey impression - can't really fault them for taking a deep shot to SSS covered 1 on 1 with a rookie CB. And the other in the end zone was a good play by Haden - he was covering the RB and dropped off at the last second to make the INT - you can't "read" that (Joe's target was open for the TD). Again, it's the Defense that has let us down - giving up last second TDs to Crabtree & Beckham after Flacco led game winning scores. If the D holds, we "should of" be 7-2.

Offensive line might be an issue but I have no worries that Flacco can win games.

Can we be realistic for a change. I believe that we will make the playoffs if we do not take any more steps back. However we cannot say with a straight face that the defense is holding us back. Without our defense we could easily be 0 for. The offense score about 11 TDs in a 100 drives. Up until the last game they were tied with Houston for the least amount of TDs in the NFL. How do you think that we managed to stay in every game despite such horrendous offensive out put. To even insinuate that the defense is holding us back this year is ... I don't know what to say.
The QB is on pace for about 12 or 13 TDs and 16 Ints. That's not exactly killing it on offense.

We need the QB to be a QB not just get the ball from the center and throw it.

[MikebRaven]

I think you can beat any time left on schedule...except Cowboys...tough one there. You can beat New England and I hope you do!

[Moderator 3]

Enough with the injury talk.  Not only are these human beings, Karma can be a real nasty character.

[dirtybird66]

I saw it and said it here,because the bengals released good key players and pittsburgs defense is weaker and the browns well,are the browns.also after the cowboys play pittsburg,they will have key injuries as well,so if we stop the run,we have a legit shot at winning that game,i just hope the offense has turned the corner,if so our defense is championship quality.

[dirtybird66]

I still want to see a legitament #1 QB come in to challenge flacco next season,sam bradford or whoever.