[News] With Jimmy Smith Sidelined, Ravens Defense Can't Stop Cowboys Offense

[BR News]

The absence of top cornerback Jimmy Smith clearly hurt Baltimore's defense in Sunday's 27-17 loss to Dallas.

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[BallsoHard622]

The Ravens have failed to address the corner back situation. We drafted tavon young which was good but we need another corner with size that can be our number one if jimmy gets hurt. (An he's hurt a lot) Every year it's the same stuff that we deal with.

[shiri2]

...soon as they announced Jimmy Smith was out, I already knew we would be vulnerable in the secondary. Powers and Tavon Young can't cover 6.6", 200+ lbs of Dez Bryant. Tavon is only 175lbs, 5'9. For Dez, it was like taking candy from a baby. I know our mentality is "next man up," but that mentality doesn't always work in our favor...no disrespect to Tavon, he did the best he could.

[JamesA119]

I sense that no one has confidence in Shareece Wright and Jerraud Powers

[Ravensfolyfe]

Jimmy we needed you,your boy Wright is not the answer.

[PalmBayRaven]

I'm not blaming defense for this loss. They have at least played at high level. No the total blame goes to the ineptitude of the offense and more specifically Joe Flacco who has dubious honor of the worst Quarterback in the NFL 2016.

[PalmBayRaven]

Who loses their job first Joe Flacco or John Harbaugh for sticking with him? Will be interesting. Flacco 2 - Offensive Coordinators 0.

[Crusader]

Jimmy we needed you,your boy Wright is not the answer.

Jimmy can't never be counted on. He had too many injuries. What ravens need is better coaching and talent research.

[Crusader]

Come next year only Weddel and Young would be the only players I would keep. J Smith is just another Webb.

[Fastfingers]

One player can make a difference. Moe Williams couldn't replace Jamal Lewis. So if we can get 100% healthy we can make a run at going 8-8 / 9-7 and maybe win the division. Our offense needs some finger pointing at this time. Ray Lewis had it right. Hold them all accountable. Leave politics out of it. Make the Ravens offense show up from here on out. 

[Crusader]

WOW, one guy goes down and you can't win? That says your organization is built on shaky ground.

[sami]

We need another big corner and a center. Why did we abandon the run? Oh well, the Cowboys ARE pretty good.

[Flockster]

1 hour ago, sami said:

We need another big corner and a center. Why did we abandon the run? Oh well, the Cowboys ARE pretty good.

That cheap eye poke on Joe was pretty bad. So were the no calls on pass interference. The officials were pretty bad. Jason Garrett will figure out how to blow it in the end. He's really bad but anyone can get lucky. Brian Billick did. Other than that, i agree 100%.

[Minionhunter]

I'm not blaming defense for this loss. They have at least played at high level. No the total blame goes to the ineptitude of the offense and more specifically Joe Flacco who has dubious honor of the worst Quarterback in the NFL 2016.

Then you weren't watching the game. Joe was fine. Far from perfect but was fine. Penalties killed at least three drives. The officials screwed us and injuries finished us off.

[RaRaRavens]

The truly sad thing is, that like Flacco said, the Cowboys were completely beatable for us. But at one point it was as if our guys lost the will to win (outside of SSS ofcourse). It's not unheard of that a team loses momentum and players lose focus a bit, but that's when team leaders must step up. Players like Lewis and Reed would have never let the defense get sloppy like that. I remember times when Birk was pumping up O-line on the side. At the moment, this team does not have leaders like that. And that's why I prefer vocal leaders. Not stoic ones like Flacco.

[sizzlingdoom]

The truly sad thing is, that like Flacco said, the Cowboys were completely beatable for us. But at one point it was as if our guys lost the will to win (outside of SSS ofcourse). It's not unheard of that a team loses momentum and players lose focus a bit, but that's when team leaders must step up. Players like Lewis and Reed would have never let the defense get sloppy like that. I remember times when Birk was pumping up O-line on the side. At the moment, this team does not have leaders like that. And that's why I prefer vocal leaders. Not stoic ones like Flacco.

I woulddn't call Flacco a leader in any way. He's play QB is the only reason why some people have to refer to him as that

[81Jimmy]

At this late point in a season, each team deals with injuries. Yes, Jimmy was out and Wright/Powers/Young gave up plays (Wright's covergae in the PI play was so bad, I doubt his ability to play in this league), but in my view, the passing game was opened up in the second half by Witten over the middle especially. There was bad alignment between webb/wedlle and Mosley/Orr in my view. AND: we did not have enough push on the edge at DL giving Prescott so much time in the second half, I hardly could not believe it. Even with Jimmy, how to cover TE and WRs of every team with that much time in the pocket?

What me concerns offensively is the play of TE group and Zuttah. Even though he played most games in this patchwork o-line, he is the worst one. He makes mistakes in pass and run blocking and commits key penalities week over week. Also, the center sets the tone of the o-line. I think we never replaced anything close to Birk after SB- his retirement is constantly overlooked as major setback for the offense since then! Pitta plays bad over the last weeks as well. He struggles to get open (maybe it is also wrong play calls as we are not using it much, only WR crossing/slants routes) and his blocking skills markably dropped. I see no effort in blocking. TE group was considered a really promising one, but injuries and bad play piled up. This takes felxibility away from the passing and running game.

Apart from that, we are still having chances to make the playoffs. 8-8 is realistic and may suffice. Key is to win the home games and cross fingers Cincy beats the Steelers in a couple of weeks.

[Fastynart]

Although the headlines of the article is right, "Losing Jimmy Smith Dooms Ravens", it shouldn't be. If you lose one guy on defense, your defense shouldn't fall apart, but it does. Drafting has killed the Ravens, especially on defense, where bad picks and emphasis on offense have done them in. Oh, maybe we should draft a few more wide receivers next year. That should fix it.

[whobilly]

Stop it. IF Jimmy did play the results would have been the same. This team is just not good enough. To many roster fillers drafted over the last eight years have killed us along with the majority of the early picks being MIA.

[whobilly]

Although the headlines of the article is right, "Losing Jimmy Smith Dooms Ravens", it shouldn't be. If you lose one guy on defense, your defense shouldn't fall apart, but it does. Drafting has killed the Ravens, especially on defense, where bad picks and emphasis on offense have done them in. Oh, maybe we should draft a few more wide receivers next year. That should fix it.

At this point maybe we can talk Steve Smith to come back for one more season. On a similar note, Anquan Bolding "only" has 41 receptions and 5 TD's for the Lions who paid him 2 million. We could have done the same but the coaches didn't want Q taking away playing time from "our talented young receivers" who are MIA.

[whobilly]

  46 minutes ago, Fastynart said:

Although the headlines of the article is right, "Losing Jimmy Smith Dooms Ravens", it shouldn't be. If you lose one guy on defense, your defense shouldn't fall apart, but it does. Drafting has killed the Ravens, especially on defense, where bad picks and emphasis on offense have done them in. Oh, maybe we should draft a few more wide receivers next year. That should fix it.

At this point maybe we can talk Steve Smith to come back for one more season. On a similar note, Anquan Bolding "only" has 41 receptions and 5 TD's for the Lions who paid him 2 million. We could have done the same but the coaches didn't want Q taking away playing time from "our talented young receivers" who are MIA.

Typo....Boldin. One of the Best WINNERS we've ever had.

[whobilly]

The truly sad thing is, that like Flacco said, the Cowboys were completely beatable for us. But at one point it was as if our guys lost the will to win (outside of SSS ofcourse). It's not unheard of that a team loses momentum and players lose focus a bit, but that's when team leaders must step up. Players like Lewis and Reed would have never let the defense get sloppy like that. I remember times when Birk was pumping up O-line on the side. At the moment, this team does not have leaders like that. And that's why I prefer vocal leaders. Not stoic ones like Flacco.

Teams that aren't good enough don't win these type of games.

[whobilly]

  11 hours ago, PalmBayRaven said:

I'm not blaming defense for this loss. They have at least played at high level. No the total blame goes to the ineptitude of the offense and more specifically Joe Flacco who has dubious honor of the worst Quarterback in the NFL 2016.

Then you weren't watching the game. Joe was fine. Far from perfect but was fine. Penalties killed at least three drives. The officials screwed us and injuries finished us off.

Ravens. NOT god enough. Real simple. No need to break things down and blame the officials.

[Crusader]

One reason to see whats wrong with this team is look at the payroll. Second you have a 60 year old picking players and 67 year old running defense in today's NFL.

[KidNme]

Joe did fine. He was mobile when he needed to be and was spot on his throws for the most part. He had time to throw but no one was getting open often enough.
Dallas is a good team but they were beatable. I'm starting to think our coaches are to blame here. Soft zone D is always our down fall but we do it all the time. A lot of our guys were saying that Dak was taking advantage of the check downs but I saw Dak throwing to his guys that had 10yds cushions. Don't need check downs when your WR's are getting 12yds a pop easily plus, Dak was throwing the ball in under 3 seconds. Geesh wright stinks up the joint and is not a good player at all. On our Offense, Why did we abandon the run, not only was it working but you have to stick with it for it to wear down the Defense and eat some clock (Just like Dallas did!!) On D, we switched to a soft zone and again, just too many penalties. Harbaugh said that the game dictated us throwing it in the 2nd half but we were tied at the end of the half and when Dallas got a TD, that means we need to start chucking it all over the place? Run the ball, eat up the clock and make it a game!
Most of these are coaching decisions.

[Drew P]

Lack of talent. Gutless Defensive play calling and an average QB at best...blah

[RaRaRavens]

Tragic thing is, we need to rebuild this team from the scratch to be considered relevant for years to come. And I mean from the top down, starting with at least the coordinators. I won't even start with the position coaches, like how Castillo for example is unable to get his group to play disciplined etc. Harbs is safe, maybe, if he can acknowledge the deep issues this team has.

From there on out, we need to consider a serious overhaul on nearly every position, including QB. Flacco will not go anywhere with his cap situation just yet, but something must change. Whether its going back to day 1 of his rookie season with him coaching wise and starting from the very basic fundamentals or just find someone to compete with him for the QB job. He plays like a rookie, he should be treated like one.

On O-line, Zuttah and Wagner could be backups at best. Need much addition to the quality right there.

We still don't have no 1 WR. SSS is great, but will retire. Even if he doesn't we can't bank on a to-be 38 years old WR. The amount of times when non of our WRs can get separation for even a pass attempt from Flacco is ridiculously high. I don't even know what's going on with our TEs. I mean, our best TE couldn't block a garbage can, yet he's out there on most plays. Where the F is Maxx Williams, anyone?!

Our best CB is injury prone guy, who we can not count on to play for an entire season. Young is up and coming, but if you have the smallest guy playing on the outside, it really shows you the quality of the group you have. Webb and Wright are just embarrassments.

Pass rush needs some serious young energy. Suggs is monster for playing the way he does with 1 arm, but he should have been grooming his successor for couple of years already. Instead he's our main hope for any pass rush. Judon flashes here and there occasionaly but that's it from our edge rush department. D-line is solid, but we'll be without B.Williams most likely next year so need to find a starter there as well. 

But most of all, we need some leaders, because god knows we have no true leaders on this team at the moment. Not our HC, not our QB and no true leaders from defensive side either.

It'll take at least 2-3 really strong drafts for us to get out of this hole. Unfortunately the past few drafts have not boosted my confidence too much.

[Raven1995]

I'm not blaming defense for this loss. They have at least played at high level. No the total blame goes to the ineptitude of the offense and more specifically Joe Flacco who has dubious honor of the worst Quarterback in the NFL 2016.

Shortsighted Joe Didn't get the ball Hardly at all in the Second half and when they did the Offensive line committed killer penalties.

[Raven1995]

Who loses their job first Joe Flacco or John Harbaugh for sticking with him? Will be interesting. Flacco 2 - Offensive Coordinators 0.

John Unitas, Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers couldn't do anything if this Offensive line keeps committing penalties.

[Raven1995]

Come next year only Weddel and Young would be the only players I would keep. J Smith is just another Webb.

Please, Smith is still in his prime, Webb can't play corner anymore. smith is of high value. When he was out in the second half against the Giants the defense fell apart, we need him bad, very bad.