Ravens vs Bengals, Start of a New Era(?) Gameday Thread

I think Kenny Young only, if he started.

Win or lose, this game has been exciting. We have a chance to have two players over 100 yards rushing for, I'm guessing, the first time in franchise history

 

Damn Edwards hits that hole fast.

 

No I know, I was being sarcastic about how garbage this "#1 defense" has been against one of the worst offenses in the league without their best player.

If the Ravens win, it will be because the offense starting about 6 rookies (if you count Elumenor) saves their overrated asses.

But yeah, Jackson and Edwards have been great today.

 

Ahh, yeah I missed the sarcasm. I agree, the defense has been disappointing overall. No AJ Green and still can't make a stop. I won't be surprised if Dalton gets a TD on this drive

 

Congrats to Jackson and Edwards legit.

I'd have to see the INT again, but I have a feeling Hurst wasn't even looking for a pass anyway. Maybe a bad decision and bad communication amongst rookies.

 

For a kid questioned about accuracy, I think he threw 68% on his first game. He had multiple passes go 10+ in the air so it wasn't like it was all checkdowns.

I said it earlier, I love his ability to hit guys in stride. The INT was a bad throw on first glance, but I'll have to watch it again also. 200+ rushing yards for the Ravens for the first time in idk how long. We haven't even had a 100 yard rusher this season prior to today, and now we have two in one game

 

I missed the INT, i had to step away during the series so ill have to re-watch it back

So from what i saw, focusing just on Jackson- i felt like we saw potential but i couldn't shake the feeling that he was being hamstrung in some way. Like they had a very limited playbook they wanted to use and just had various wrinkles that could be executed out of the same play. A lot of his success came from the difficulty in marking someone like him, but other teams will figure it out with access to tape. They need to do a better job of masking intent and best way to do that for me is actually catering to his skill set which obviously they didnt do this season.

We need to take shots down field, if you get the safeties afraid to step up in the box because they will lose contain over top or need to double a guy then it will just cause more space to open up at the second level- several times he broke through with what can only be discribed as fucking insane cosmic acceleration but then he was met by a safety and linebacker.

I would hope they create packages that force him in to one on ones with a backer cos i think he wins about 50% of those at least, and he only needs one to break his way to make big gains.

As for his throwing, he did ok, the O line being better will help, he made a couple of nice throws on pure timing and had good zip but the DUAL threat for me isnt quite there.

I like what i saw.

Fuck the D although Humphrey continues to impress, even on the big grab he gave up his arm and coverage was great, that was just a great play by the WR and a little bit of fortune.

My fear for our D is definitely upfront, we dont get enough push. Sizzle is ageless.

2k

 

I think 2day proves Balt will not win w LJ...vs a legit Def this offense wont score 10 pts

 

There's too much being made out of the gameplan. We have a conservative HC who was starting a rookie for the rookie's first ever start. We all should have known this was the strategy coming into the game. Joe has always been considered a pocket passer, go check the boxscore of his first start. Rice and McClain combined for 41 carries. It was also against a defense that you could beat with a lot of runs. Expect the same thing against Oakland also.

My concern though is your future QB running the ball 27 times.

And to 2k's comment, they definitely handcuffed the playbook. It was opened up a little more when we were down 21-13. I missed a lot of the first quarter, but once we got down by 8 you could see the intermediate routes get called, and Jackson did well on those. He had his rookie mistakes, but we've seen rookie mistakes from our starting QB all season

 

Jackson just takes hits like crazy. He needs to start protecting himself or his career will be a short one.

 

I honestly didnt think he did too bad at all here, he took a bad hit on the leg near on the boundary once and there was one kinda less severe hit in the middle but it could have been worse. the sacks were just sacks, of all the issues i may have had there, i think i was pleasantly surprised how little he got lit up- then again maybe i just didnt pay enough attention at times.

2k

 

I kept seeing highlights while watching the Steelers and I saw him get hit pretty hard a few times.

 

I did miss a series, and i was really focused on what we were doing with pieces so perhaps i just looked at it and thought- meh thats normal. I explicitly remember 2 moments where i thought he should not have taken that hit.

I will cede to to others if the opinion does in fact seem to be he got hit a lot.

2k

 

I've already mentioned that I missed a lot of the game also, but I didn't think he took too many big/bad hits either. That one on the sideline that should have been a penalty was bad, and then I think I remember the hit around the leg area.

I did mention somewhere that I think Jackson's quickness and suddenness helps him avoid big hits more often than not

 

I agree with gidion that he took a few hard hits. I think his first run had him take a helmet to the back of his head. He also constantly dove forward which would lead to a hit. That being said, it wasn't all that bad if you look at it as a single game.

Jackson is young, and I don't know if you remember being young, but your body bounces back far faster than if he was nearing 30 years old. He's going to have to learn to take less punishment, but for this season and how far into it we are, he can get away with being young.

 

Also, we have to talk about how ass this defense is. They can't get interceptions, they can't cause a fumble, and they can't sack the QB. Basically we are relying on staying in coverage with our CBs and hoping the tight coverage causes enough incompletions to get off the field. Anytime you watch them, you're just waiting for the bottom to drop out which is a far cry from 2000 when I used to root for the defense to get on the field because I knew something big was going to happen.

 

The defense didn't play half bad stats wise. They only gave up 255 total yards and 48 of those as rushing yards. Thats pretty good stuff, 6 of 14 on 3rd down which isn't great but still less than 50 percent conversion rate. Granted, the front 7 has gotten slammed with injuries inside, and we know that our secondary have been banged up as well but overall, they did just enough to get out of there with a Win.

Lamar Jackson played a hell of a game, he ran entirely too much and that is going to get him eventually injured, but the offense went over 400 on the game, so well done young man! At one point in the game, the team was down 21-13, and he didn't panic, he took them down the field in the 4th and got that lead back, something Joe Flacco has been hard pressed to do much of lately. Given time and more confidence, the kid will get better as a passer overall, he just needs the opportunity.

 

Bring Pagano back after this season as HC and watch that change.