Ravens @ Chiefs, Week 3 Gameday Thread

Good grief fkin screen pass game over

 

The Ravens were on the road against an undefeated team playing in their home opener.

Lamar Jackson and the Ravens in general played bad football today, but somehow they made it look interesting at the end. There was no doubt though that the Chiefs are clearly the superior squad today.

As mentioned earlier, Jackson threw the ball poorly all day. He missed wide open receivers on the outside while looking inside for his big targets. On deep balls, he consistently overthrew them by 5 yards.

Good thing Earl Thomas is here to eliminate all the big plays!

The defense was after Patrick in the 1st and 4th quarter, but the pressure disappeared in the middle of the game.

As we've seen through the Flacco tenure, the defense wilts in important situations.

Boykin Moncriefed another one today. I think he has more Moncriefs this season than he does actual catches. I wasn't too worried about it in the preseason, but I am definitely worried about Boykin now. All my hype on him has evaporated.

The first 2 point conversion was a good call (bad playcall though), but the rest should never have happened or had to happen. At the same time, it's unfathomable that this team failed to gain 1-2 yards on three separate calls.

Despite all that, we were still within 5 points of a tie game on the road against a top 2 AFC team. The Ravens are going to be really good when they play good football.

 

At the end of the day, a win was possible but I doubt even the most die hard Ravens fan was going to bet money on it.

In a game that featured incredibly stupid coaching decisions, very badly timer penalties to not only negatr big offensive plays but a key turnover, and a game where the QB couldn't hit anything deep, we lost by 5 to one of the best teams in the league.

I'll say this, Lamar needs to build some chemistry with players not named Brown or Andrews. Seth Roberts bailed him out. Willie Snead bailed him out. Mark Ingram bailed him out. I personally think he scans the field well, so either he needs to have more faith in other receivers or Roman needs to scheme more than Brown and Andrews open

And yes, Boykin has been disappointing

 

In theory, I agree with you so much on this one. Why does 2 penalties offset one?
Apparently there is a rule that if all of the penalties carry equal yardage, they will all offset.
However, if one of the two is, say, an interference penalty, the equal yardage penalties offset and the Interference is enforced because it carries more yardage.

Here is the rule from the NFL rulebook

ARTICLE 1. DOUBLE FOUL WITHOUT CHANGE OF POSSESSION
If there is a Double Foul (3-14-1-e) during a down in which there is not a change of possession, the penalties are offset, and the down is replayed at the previous spot. If it is a scrimmage down, the number of the next down and the line to gain is the same as for the down in which the fouls occurred.

Exceptions:

1. If one or more fouls by one team includes a 15-yard penalty, and the penalty for the foul or fouls committed by the other team is for a five-yard penalty without an automatic First Down, a loss of down, or a 10-second runoff (15 yards versus five yards), or that is not a spot foul, the 15-yard penalty is enforced from the previous spot, and the five-yard penalty is disregarded. Five vs. 15 enforcement cannot be declined by the team that committed the minor foul, except as described in (2) below. See 4-8-2-h and 14-4-9-Item 3-Exc. 1 for dead ball fouls at the end of a half.
2. If one of the fouls is a Dead Ball Foul for delay of game for spiking the ball and the opponent’s foul is a Live Ball Foul, the team that committed the delay of game foul, in addition to Article 1 above, will have the option to decline the foul committed by its opponent and be assessed the penalty for delay from the dead-ball spot.
3. If both fouls are Dead Ball Fouls or are treated as such (14-4-9), the penalties are offset, and the ball is next put in play at the succeeding spot, unless the Dead Ball fouls occur after the ball has been made ready for play, in which case 5 vs. 15 enforcement applies.

Note: Disqualification of one or more players is enforced, even though the penalties are offset.

 

When you do the math, you could say the 2 missed 2-pt conversions, whatever.

But not punting on 4th down just inside Ravens territory leading to an easy late KC TD late in the first half , and the interception negated by a pass interference call, giving KC the ball back, leading to a KC TD are where you can find the point difference today.

But I agree, I also thought the Chiefs are the superior team and outplayed the Ravens today. Not only because not only are they a superior team, but because today I thought the Ravens were out coached, or should I say out coached themselves?

I do believe Lamar has to get over his dependence on the TE's and try to find WR's other than "Hollywood" (who continues to prove he's the real deal)
If he can use everyone, and get protection, this can be a very effective offense. Ingram and Edwards are a helluva one-two punch.

Defensively, something doesn't feel right. Is it the pass rush? is it the secondary? but I'm beginning to question my confidence in this defense. Am I the only one?

On to Cleveland.....Go Rams.

 

I am going to disagree, I thought the Ravens were the superior team, that outsmarted themselves. The Ravens are much better on D than KC, and I don't know what they were thinking in the first half, but if your game plan is to go for it on all 4th downs, then clearly you believe you have the edge on the line, therefore why on earth would you not run the ball at them non-stop? If the Ravens had stayed on the ground in the first half, they would have chewed up clock, worn the Chiefs down, taken their will early, and it would have been a different outcome. And my biggest officiating gripe was the phantom holding call on the Edwards run. Other than that, I could see the rationale for most of the others. Even after a loss, this is the most excited about a Ravens team I've been in a while.

 

Y'all know me, I don't do too much complaining about losing games due to refs.........but man, so much keeps coming out on this.

That PI on Jefferson on what should have been a Mahomes INT still hurts, but then there's more. On the screen pass to McCoy that led to a TD, the Chiefs LG literally tackled Onwuasor from behind. No exaggeration, it happens right in the middle of everything. Both of these were on the same drive

And on that, I think, 83 yard TD to Hardman, he was lined up past the LoS and there's a pic with the line judge looking right down the line and nothing.

We 100% could and should have overcame those, but man that sucks to see. This isn't some "holding happens on every play" complaint, these are huge, and game changing, missed or called penalties.

Ahh well, got that out my system. On to the Browns

 

I will echo a lot of what everyone else said. If the Ravens could recognize a screen, we would have won that game handily. The decision to not run the ball,not even one time near the end of the half is what cost the game, in my opinion. They went all passes, never tried a run and then punted back where the Chiefs marched down for a FG. If we get the FG and chew the clock up that is a 6 point swing right there. We even had 2 timeouts in our pocket we could have run the ball easily.

The Chiefs could not stop the run to save their lives and we should have run the ball almost every down. I think the early attempts to go deep really pushed the safeties back and allowed us to get to the 2nd level in many of our runs. clearly Lamar's passing ability had them cautious and they played back deep a lot.

the decision to go for 2 and go for 4th downs so much was maddening. The one where we went for it on or around our own 35 was the one I say was truly stupid. I did not have too much issue with the others. Not sure why we went for 2 on the opening score, we had just stopped them and took the ball and rammed it down their throats. Why give them the potential edge by missing the 2 pointer? I would have gone for 1 there and made them play "match our scores"

There were a handful of penalties that had me confused, the 2 offsetting 1 call and the phantom hold on Snead. Not sure what they saw there.

Mahomes is clearly as good or better than advertised. I also do not disagree with the take that we were the superior team. More balanced across the board on offense (run and pass) and better on defense. A little more schemed pass run in the middle 2 quarters and a nose for the screen and we are in a different conversation right now.

I liked the moxy and the clawing our way back in the 3rd and 4th quarters. I also liked the fact that other receivers showed up today. Moore, Snead, and Roberts. Boykin needs some hands coaching and some intense practice on catching.

 

BSF, Harbaugh went for 2 on the first score because the penalty pushed the ball to the 1 yard line. 2 points for getting 1 yard on the field is just too good of a payoff to pass up.

I can see people thinking the Ravens were superior when you look at some of the horrendous calls that wiped out huge plays for the Ravens. There were several game changing plays where this happened, and that's too much for any team facing the quality of opponent the Ravens were. It's not like the Ravens ran it 4 yards and then had a hold bring that 4 yards back.

Still, despite that, once the Chiefs got in front, it didn't feel like there was much question about what was going to happen the rest of the day. The Ravens made it interesting, but Mahomes is another level of greatness throwing the ball. Think about how often he chucks the ball deep and how rarely you see it be an awful throw. That right there was the huge difference maker as Jackson regressed from his first two weeks throwing the ball and couldn't consistently sustain air yardage.

I think Jackson will bounce back from this game (which wasn't even the worst QBing we've ever seen). The offense is going to have more days like this because of how young they are.

The defense needs to pull its head out of its ass though. I love that we have the ability to stop the run with the dline, but teams are generating stats with those guys and we aren't. Want to have an easy time this week against the Browns? Get big man pressure up the middle on Mayfield and take him out of the catch and release offense.

 

The defense missing 2 of its best corners right now is forcing them to use Averitt much more than usual in the slot and having to rely on Brandon Carr far more on the outside than I would like is hurting the overall pass defense. Earl Thomas has yet to assert himself either as far as i can tell. Marlon is hobbling as well so basically our Top 3 corners are hurt or hurting. That makes defending a guy like Mahomes, a pretty much impossibility.

 

I think RR1 said it during the game, but yet again, Jimmy Smith goes out and the defense falls to pieces. He's going to go down as one of the most underappreciated Ravens.

Also saw a stat where the Ravens' defense leads the league in the time from snap to QB pressure arriving. It was something like 2.5 seconds.

 

We also lead the league in QB hits, so pressure isn't our issue. The problem is that there's always an open WR or TE so the pressure doesn't matter.

And yeah, I said that. Doesn't matter who the DC is, who the players are, or who we play. When Jimmy goes down, everyone else seems to forget how to cover. It's freaking uncanny. It's also why I always disagree when someone says they want Jimmy gone. I'd rather have him 10-12 games a year since I don't have faith in this defense to go 16 games without him.

 

I saw that and thought it was hilarious. Mainly because of all the offseason talk about these two QBs

 

Exactly. I'm in the camp of believing in Jackson. I was definitely concerned coming into the season, but it's obvious how much work he put into improving this off-season. That's how you succeed at this level, so if he keeps it up, he'll stay at the top of the game.