Teams Baltimore Ravens - Rise and Conquer

[LittleG]

We can only beat the team we are scheduled to play. At this stage we have been lucky with our opponents BUT our offensive play calling is really poor. That Flacco had to ask for more deep balls after two games, shows he has a better read than the OC of the game.
The runs being called are also very vanilla and not allowing lineman to block anyone but the guy right in front of them. We desperately need a new OC!

 

[Toadvine]

The runs being called are also very vanilla and not allowing lineman to block anyone but the guy right in front of them. We desperately need a new OC!

How many times has he called those outside pitch runs this season with almost zero success? We burned two of our timeouts on O in the 2nd half as well.

 

[LittleG]

How many times has he called those outside pitch runs this season with almost zero success? We burned two of our timeouts on O in the 2nd half as well.

I have been waiting for a cutback from that formation but then, the other team generally has a free defender in that spot.
That tells me that the defense is playing run on that down and perhaps either a trick or end around would be better.

 

[bomberman500]

we won that coz the browns are gonna brown.
extremely lucky to walk away with that

A few points I noticed
- our secondary has been exposed again through lack of speed. McCown just had to wait for one on one deep balls and put it to a spot where it was gonna be too long or a catch to the rxer
- quick dump-offs and let pryor/coleman and co torch us with YAC
- Once we adequately protected both the deep ball and dump-offs, we forced McCown to throw intermediate passes over the middle, this kept him in the pocket for longer than normal while he went through his reads, allowing us to get pressure on the QB
- twice now our run game has been non-existent. It seems we are very predictable in first quarter play calling this year. first play of each game has been an inside handoff. not sure what the reason is but losing KO in the off-season sure didn't help
- 3rd and short plays have nearly always been runs, has been easy to predict and opposition Ds have been stacking the box... needs more play-action bootlegs
- Dennis bloody Pitta... welcome back, our O can be very deadly through the air when everyone gets on the same page as Flacco

 

[Pies_10]

Our record may be flattering, however last season we'd probably be 0-2.
So I'll take it, still getting into the groove particularly on offense.

 

[LittleG]

we won that coz the browns are gonna brown.

That really sums up the win. We played poorly but the Browns are gonna brown.

 

[trueblue_91]

A win is a win. Good to be 2-0. We did have some luck with that taunting call (however, Coleman was definitely out of bounds on one of their TDs).

Positives:

Mike Wallace was once again big for us. He will be enormous in our offense this year.
Huge game by Dennis Pitta. So good to see him overcome his injuries and play at that level again
The ability to come back from 20-0 down was epic. Don't underestimate how amazing that feet is.

Negatives:

The Run game (or lack of it)
Pass rush (our internal rush looks good, but we seem to be unable to get pressure from our edge rushers. We need doom back)


Overall: I still have no idea where we sit relative to the rest of the league. Unfortunately I don't think our defense is good enough to make the playoffs this year, unless there is significant improvement in the secondary and with our edge rush. Hopefully I am proven wrong

 

[bomberman500]

A win is a win. Good to be 2-0. We did have some luck with that taunting call (however, Coleman was definitely out of bounds on one of their TDs).

Positives:

Mike Wallace was once again big for us. He will be enormous in our offense this year.
Huge game by Dennis Pitta. So good to see him overcome his injuries and play at that level again
The ability to come back from 20-0 down was epic. Don't underestimate how amazing that feet is.

Negatives:

The Run game (or lack of it)
Pass rush (our internal rush looks good, but we seem to be unable to get pressure from our edge rushers. We need doom back)


Overall: I still have no idea where we sit relative to the rest of the league. Unfortunately I don't think our defense is good enough to make the playoffs this year, unless there is significant improvement in the secondary and with our edge rush. Hopefully I am proven wrong

I think we are an 8-8 team give or take 2 wins
I think the 4 Division winners will be Pit, NE, Hou and Den
which puts us in the wildcard race with Cin, Ind, KC and Oak
Cin should be a 10 win team and take a wildcard spot which imo puts us in a 4 way race for the last spot.

...I did have Jax in that wildcard list but after a poor 0-2 start ive cut them from the list

 

[SnakeMan86]

How good was it to See Pitta flying again.
Jeez we're shakey though, 2 "Just" wins against arguably the two worst teams in the league.
I shudder to think what Big Bens gonna do to our secondary in week 8

 

[Toadvine]

Great article on Yanda for those who don't hate PFF
https://www.profootballfocus.com/pro-the-best-nfl-player-youve-never-heard-of/

 

[drd23]

Its always good to see Yanda get the recognition that he deserves because he has clearly been the best Guard for the past couple of years (to the point that he was rated among Antonio Brown and Rob Gronkowski as players with the biggest gap in play quality over others at their position by various podcasts I listened to).

That said, OL grading is probably close to the weakest aspect of PFF - as evidenced by the fact that they think he had the 4th best game of any Guard in Week 1 when he clearly had a down game and failed to make a number of blocks that even I noticed in real time

 

[trueblue_91]

Hopefully Dumervil is back tomorrow. We have sorely missed his pressure from the edge.

 

[drd23]

Highly likely that Zuttah isn't starting tomorrow morning. He missed the walkthrough on Friday and Harbaugh was very cryptic in his answer why except to say that it wasn't for injury reasons.

I'll be interested to see who out of Urschel (who hasn't played a game this season and has been on the injury report throughout) or Jensen start if it is the case that Zuttah doesn't start/play

 

[trueblue_91]

Highly likely that Zuttah isn't starting tomorrow morning. He missed the walkthrough on Friday and Harbaugh was very cryptic in his answer why except to say that it wasn't for injury reasons.

I'll be interested to see who out of Urschel (who hasn't played a game this season and has been on the injury report throughout) or Jensen start if it is the case that Zuttah doesn't start/play

Zuttah hasn't been fantastic in the first 2 games. Wouldn't mind seeing Jensen or Urschel get the start

 

[drd23]

Zuttah hasn't been fantastic ever - he's been about average at best the entire time he's been with the Ravens (although that is a massive upgrade over who was starting immediately before that)

 

[trueblue_91]

Zuttah hasn't been fantastic ever - he's been about average at best the entire time he's been with the Ravens (although that is a massive upgrade over who was starting immediately before that)

Gino Gradkowski was the worst

 

[SnakeMan86]

Good win.
Tucker with his 11th final 2min FG win.
Suggs with a big sack when it counted.
Defense was big.

 

[Toadvine]

What a crazy game. It's awesome we're finding ways to come out with the win in these tight 50/50 games.

Mosely has taken it back to his rookie season form and is having an impact.

Glad I woke up for this one!

 

[Pies_10]

Tucker is just money, he may be the best I've seen in my 15 years of following the NFL and Ravens.
Mosley has shaken last season off and is just balling out.
Jernigan and Suggs getting good pressure with Doom to return, the offense was ok Flacco with 21 straight completions but just didn't quite click and the turnovers were off miss communication.
All in all 3-0 is still good with the Raiders to come next week.

 

[trueblue_91]

Justin Tucker is money!

 

[bomberman500]

Started bad
Middle was good
Ended bad, thankfully Jax ended worse.

Our D was ranked 2nd coming into this match, however the first 2, and this match I though our Defense was only slightly above average.
Pass rush needs to be a 4 qtr effort, not flashes for a quarter or 2.

Our ability to stuff the run is in the elite category... big tick

Pass D is still a worry, If not for Bortles overthrowing it Jax would have had 4 biiiig gains of passes, most likely going for touchdowns as the coverage was blown wide open.
Weddle has been amazing in bringing some stability to the secondary, big improvement on last year but still a worry.

Saw a glimpse of what Flacco can do. 21 completed passes in a row. I believe having missed the entire preseason that this is still his preseason.
has struggled to start well in all 3 games.

I mentioned after the last game that the offence needed to run more play actions and bootlegs.... I think Trestman must read this blog because they were aplenty...
And they worked.

Run game was better but still lacking, they cut down on pitch plays which was good to see, only remember seeing one of them (had about a dozen last game which didnt work).

A few drops by the receivers on gimme balls from flacco, need to cut down on that.


All in all we are 3-0 which is all you can ask. Off last years luck we'd probably be 1-2. On to next week

 

[Toadvine]

Really looking forward to hopefully having Doom and Dixon back in week 4. Both would be a massive boost in areas of weakness over the first 3 games.

 

[trueblue_91]

well, at least we got the running game going in the second half....

 

[dlanod]

well, at least we got the running game going in the second half....

Funnily enough right after a guy in my fantasy league dropped West to pick up a kicker.

 

[bomberman500]

Goes to show how good I think Oakland are becoming. I thought as a whole it was our best performed game of the year... and we lost

- WRs dropping some gimme passes with no pressure hurt at crucial times
- O line massively struggled. think we had about 8 or 9 holding calls against us... which pretty much stopped 8 or 9 extra sacks
- Flacco had a down-ish day, but im not going to point the finger at him too hard, he pretty much had his 3 step drop and had to get rid of it coz he was under pressure
Though his final drive to put us in game winning fg position was terrible, couple of clear underthrown passes.
- Front 7 struggled to get any kind of pressure on Carr, got a couple of sacks but for the most part Carr had plenty of time in the pocket
- Secondary was impressive (considering my low expectations for them) but let the team down in crunch situations.
- Marquette King... wow has that guy got a leg. Proud owner of him in my fantasy league