Ravens @ Panthers, Week 8 Gameday Thread

Man, that last sentence touched my freaking soul.

I've defended Harbaugh for years, but his time is up. Most head coaches specialize in offense or defense. He's a special teams guy in a league going away from special teams. Koch was good before John, Tucker doesn't need him, and almost all kicks are touchbacks.

Honestly, it's time for a reset. Ozzie stepped down already and as much as I love Oz and what he's done for Baltimore, his defensive focused became outdated in a league that puts defense at a disadvantage. Joe's time is up. He just hasn't improved. He's had some of the best pass blocking of his career and the best pass catchers of his career and he is still inconsistent Joe. Wtf was that first INT??? How do you throw it away to a defender? And Harbaugh just needs to go also. Even Billick never went 3 straight years without a playoff performance. With how this team is looking, 2018 will be year #4 in a row without a post season game. Fuck John

 

We say all this but it's really depressing that such things just wont matter. This team is big on loyalty and i really believe that our future doesnt lie with john nor joe, which is why we may as well move on now and start getting ready for the future.

i strongly believe this D and the DC is good enough, they just need some help when they arent on all guns blazing mode. We can NOT be so lopsided in todays NFL- a decade ago it may have worked but right now we just need something. a friend suggested a guy like Foles, which honestly i would be over the moon with mostly because they can manage games and make solid plays while not getting all that flustered- they wont light the league on fire but we dont need that. our identity is hard menacing D and that CAN work, it just needs more help from the O than it used to.

Who knows, maybe jackson really is the second coming of vick but his mechanics scare the fuck out of me. Losing stanley really fucking sucks too. This upcoming draft is fucking stacked with D line talent so im hoping we can pick up a couple good options there because losing interior d line pressure (pass) is such a huge blow in this era. Suggs almost got home a few times, and i still have faith in our secondary, we did get a little outcoached but the second half entailed a lot of risks so im really not too mad at what they did- they had to go big or lose anyway

2k

 

I didn't watch the rest of the game, so I can't comment on what happened by halftime or after when the game was over, but I'm definitely surprised by some of the comments I do see.

Flacco was more than fine to start the game up until his INT which is when I stopped watching. If anything, he was one of the few actual quality players at the beginning of the game. He had something like 1 or 2 incompletions prior to the INT drive in the first half. What killed the offense was stupid penalty after stupid penalty after stupid penalty. Then you have a trick play wide open incompletion where Jackson tosses the ball into the dirt.

Look, there have been plenty of times I've wanted Flacco gone over the years, but the defense sucked as much as any unit could possibly suck, and you have absolutely no running game at all. This was vintage Pees defense with no pressure whatsoever and Collins doing what he does best in fumbling the football...

...and that brings me to my last point where the last time the run game was this bad as I recall was when we had Gradkowski at center. Both he and Skura are abysmal at the position.

This team is still in shell shock from the Tucker miss, but be prepared for their annual egg of a game before the bye week. The only possible saving grace there is it's at home vs on the road where you can guarantee them a loss.

As a final note, something I had been thinking over the past few weeks: How much better would the team be going into the future if they drafted Ridley or Moore instead of Hurst and had Ridley/Moore and Andrews?

 

I had Andrews ranked over Hurst and I think drafting Hayden with that first pick was a mistake (said as much on draft day). There were a lot of other options available at that point that made more sense for Baltimore IMO and Ridley was definitely one of them.

I said it last year and discussed it some with RR1 - I think the Ravens need a complete reboot. Until they make some significant changes they have the feel of a team that is going to have wild swings up and down with little stability throughout the season.

I still believe it's time for a new coaching staff/quarterback and a fresh approach. Remove the old guard and start building the foundation for the next two decades.

 

I've numbered your paragraphs just so I can respond to them directly.

1. My personal problem is that I'm tired of saying "Flacco was fine". Prior to this game, I was arguing with Mano in PMs about the state of the NFL. My argument was that good defense can dictate a game, his argument was that offenses and QBs have far more say in the game than any QB. I conceded, he was right. We are in a flat out passing league and have a QB where we far more often than not, can only say "he was fine". Not that he won us a game, but that he didn't lose it.......until he loses it. We've given him every excuse. "He's injured", "he hasn't had the same OC more than one year", "the o-line doesn't give him time", "his WRs suck", etc. None of those are a factor this season and he's still consistently inconsistent.

2. As said, defenses are set up for failure for the most part. But this is the first true true we can say they sucked for an entire game. They definitely didn't suck against the Browns, and for what they did against the Saints overall, you really can't expect more than that. Meanwhile, every loss this season features Joe throwing under 60%. 3 of the for losses are games were Joe had the same, or less, TDs to INTs. QBs are too important to have inconsistent play from one.

3. The run game is trash. Easily the worst it's been since 2013. And it's honestly another reason why it feels like Joe's should be up. I think I said it in another post, but Lamar helps the run game. Outside of obvious runs up the middle on 3rd and 1, I can't think of many runs that Lamar has been a part of that went for less than 3 yards. Defenses have to respect his ability to hold the ball and run, which helps each RB out.

4. And that's a reason Harbaugh needs to go.

5. In hindsight, Hurst was a horrible pick. The worst part of it isn't so much who we could have had (Derwin James, Calvin Ridley, etc) but the biggest issue will be that he'll continue to get opportunities in place of Mark Andrews simply because of being a 1st round draft pick.....even though Andrews is flat out playing better than him. I will say Hurst has looked better with Jackson than Flacco though, preseason and limited regular season play

 

Completely agree. The last three drafts have a lot of players that the team can build upon and move forward with, but they need to start fresh with the coaching staff and QB. Harbaugh's play not to lose culture is infecting the young players

 

Beat me to it, well said!

 

Your first point though RR1- regarding your convo with mano. is his argument that an Offence overall has more of an effect than just the qb? the phrasing is a little confusing for me? if so, that seems evident in the sense that any small part of a larger machine if you will, is undoubtedly always going to have a smaller effect on the outcome of a machines given purpose ( score points), just follow logically.

I think that conversation would be far more interesting if we look at say the efficacy of an offense by looking at what has the biggest impact between coaches, qb ( skill positions), o line etc.

 

POST TRAIN.

Ok on Hurst- he is a good player and i think he will be fine when used correctly and in a better system, Joe is not comfortable with him at all, and hurst has good hands. As for whether he is a good or bad pick, way way way too early to say and even at the time he wasnt a bad pick, he just wasnt optimal from a draftnut perspective, there were ( based upon what we had access to at the time) better options out there regarding BPA. I am ok with hurst.

the key part of your response and the part we need to focus on is part 2. or bullet point 2. Our D is never going to excel every week in this league, i had the same conversation with friends. A D can not carry you like it used too, and it cant mask average offense. I would put our O performances prior to the last week ( NO) at around a 6ish, maybe 7 if you are being biased. That is all we needed to win with our D and ST. But what we have got lately is 5 or below and a large part of that is on flacco, if flacco cant play above a 6, we lose. It is far to risky to play like this. Flacco's issues when he entered the league are still his issues today. He had a brief moment of improvement under Kubaik but then its back to what we saw yesterday.

The D did not do well, but their back got broken early it seemed and they had a bad day but they did decent again the best offense in the league last week with 2 weeks to prep, who pulled out so many god damn tricks in their book on top of going for it on 4th...5 times? i think. They gameplanned very very smart for us.

I suppose this is all academic, but as i said earlier, we got a ring in a trade for that joe contract- he gambled on himself, he played well that post season and he won and so did we with a ring- but in the long term we hamstrung ourselves and tied ourselves to a very average qb.

Personally, i just want change and to not feel this feeling of deja vu again, i want to be really upbeat again. ( the ravens situation reminds me a lot of arsenal football club, who i love- they got rid of a long standing coach and things are so much better this year, fans are so much more happy)

2k

 

I don't disagree with anything you all are saying. I think a total coaching reboot is in order. I would love to see a young innovative playcaller get a shot here. Regardless of the lack of experience (almost regardless, someone who knows somewhat what they are doing) like a McVay or Shannahan type who has a new, fresh offensive mindset that has been a "passing league" native rather than one of these old west coast dinosaurs/retreads from 20 years ago. I think you get what I am pointing to.

Also, as far as Hurst is concerned, as unfair and stupid as it may sound, he will have a helluva battle to regain the fanbase's trust after dropping the pass in the Saints game. Joe targeted him and hit him with a pretty darned good pass and as far as the fans are concerned, he helped lose us the game at that point by dropping it. Fair or unfair, I have heard many, many people refer to it. You only get one shot at a first impression.

Finally, I had an interesting thought. Would Jax or the Giants want to trade for Joe to help them over the next few seasons get through until they draft and develop a young guy? He is better than what they have and could be a good bridge for 2 seasons until they have a young player available. The QB market looks to be drier than it was last off season and they are clearly in need of a veteran presence. I would love to hear your thoughts on that.

 

The debate was how effective a great defense can be in this NFL.

I was saying to Mano that a great defense can flat out limit or stop any offense so long as the defense is clicking. His argument is that the only way a great offense gets stopped is if they are simply off on their own as opposed to the defense causing it. Hopefully I'm explaining this correctly. Either way, after watching Cam and company just dismantle the Ravens defense, I had to concede the argument for the time being.

 

As with most things, i think its a bit of both. A great D can hinder a great O as we saw before against the saints even with the extra time and prep the saints had- ( their gameplan and approach was unconventional) but you need the O to get something done too to match up. Our D did not play well yesterday so its hard to look at any one game and make a conclusion. I think D's are important but less so than they used to be. A great D can still hinder great O, even if they arent playing badly themselves, but a great D can no longer win a game with the same degree of success it used to.

Slight tangent, but i think if you see Donald with the rams right now- he is DPOY every year until someone can stop him. He destroys the line of scrimmage, i still think no matter how much football evolves, the most important battle is in the trenches. The rams can suck on the back end but they have pressure upfront, they have their a and b gap looked after because they have a fucking beast of a D line. The saints beat us off the back of a great O line performance more than any other unit. Same can be said of yesterday but it was just worse because our D played worse and so did our O.

i want to see us draft lineman next year, just really get some beasts back on that D line, top tier talent and grab a top guard in the second. Just rebuild. our corners have a few good years left, and we need to retool a our pass rushers.

2k

 

Really interesting proposal there at the end.

I really dont think Joe is all that safe anymore. He isnt an alex smith type of QB who is no flash but a lot of consistency. I also dont know what the fuck we could get for him as his contract is still absurd.

2k

 

Definitely not happening this year as his cap hit would go up another $4M. I'll say this though, I said it in the offseason, I'd eat the extra $4M in 2018 if it meant not having anything on the cap for him in 2019 and after.

But yeah, reasonably, they could get rid of him next year. Any team that trades for Joe would have an $18M cap hit for 2019 for him, and that's not bad to be fair. It'd be $20M the year after and $24M in 2021. But they could cut him at any time and save all that money since it's all salary and not a bonus. Or they could do a small extension to save some of the hit.

 

Joe is definitely gone after 2018, anyone that believes he will still be around after June 1st is kidding themselves. 2019, the Ravens will be Lamar's team to run and in all fairness, he might be starting if this team continues to fall out of the playoff chase. I could see them trying to trade him off, but he will be released in the end and the Ravens will eat the 8 mil cap hit.

This season should have been a 6-2 front half, (THE KICK and the debacle at Cleveland) but they are 4-4, 1-2 in the division. The positives is that 2 of those losses are to NFC teams so they won't factor in the tie-breaking formulas, but the bottom line is the Ravens have to go 6-2 in the 2nd half to make it in at 10-6. 9-7 won't get you in. They also have to sweep the division in these last 3 games, of which all 3 are at home. Can they pull it off? Sure, provided everything was to fall into place. Will they? I have my doubts. This is John Harbaugh that we are talking about, who can't adjust in a game to save his life it seems, then you have the injuries along the Offensive line and just plain suck ass play by a certain couple of starting OL (Skura, Lewis). We also do not have a play-making RB on the squad either. The defense can be good but teams are adjusting to their scheme now and guess what, the Ravens haven't adjusted to that fact so they are getting lit up like a christmas tree..

Must wins to get to the playoffs are as follows, the next 3 games are at home vs the Steelers, Bengals and Raiders. They also need to beat the Chiefs and Chargers to be in their best possible position in tie-breakers. I can't see them beating KC so they will need to beat Tampa or Atlanta to make sure they get in. This will leave them with a 4-2 division record, and an AFC record of 8-3.

A hell of a lot of IF's in the next few weeks. I do think John Harbaugh will be fired if he misses the playoffs again this year. If the Ravens lose the next two games to the Steelers and Bengals, I think that Joe will be benched for good and allow Lamar to get his feet wet in the rest of the lost season.

I much would rather see the Ravens pull off the 6-2 run and get in the playoffs though.

 

I guess I'll continue to use the numbering system!

1. I'd say that "fine" in this game was still better than pretty much the rest of the entire team. Remember, I only watched up to the INT, and then I was out. By that point, it was clear the team had completely given up and the game was over, so I don't much care about what happened after. Prior to that though, Flacco had something like 2 incompletions. He was not the reason the team was losing there.

Piggy backing on that, I DO feel like Flacco has the tendency to give up in games that he knows they aren't winning. I said it long ago in the Hey Diddle Diddle game that I feel Flacco completely gave up on that play. I think it's why his regular season stats suck compared to post season. In the regular season, he feels like "there is always next week", but in the post season, he knows they must win it. Again, that's me playing couch shrink.

2. I can't comment on Flacco's entire game stats. To me, when the game actually mattered and was competitive, he was rocking something like an 80% completion rate if not higher. He just wasn't the reason the offense didn't have more than 7 points. It was the moronic penalties, the fumble, the bad protection leading to an unblocked sack, and no running game. And I didn't get the feeling that he was just tossing it 2 yards either like in the past 2 seasons.

5. I said it on draft day that the Ravens were morons, and I'm sorry, but I have to say it again. You have the #1 WR in the draft all college and preseason drop into your laps and you pass on him twice. Ridley was the right pick there and an absolute gift to the team, but as with all WRs, they screwed up this one too. I don't hate Hurst, but he was their "safe" pick in however we want to define the word.

 

Unless this team somehow magically improves and starts looking like a professional football team that is capable of competing, I see Harbaugh gone after this year. Frankly, the only reason I think he's still here is because he had one year left on his contract and Lamar isn't ready this year.

But in all honesty, I have to place some of the blame for the shortcomings of this team on Ozzie and the front office. They haven't placed enough emphasis on getting quality offensive lineman and they seem to pay the wrong people. Brandon Williams got a nice paycheck but has he been worth it? Mosley will want a payday after this year. Is he worth a huge contract? Not as far as I'm concerned.

Why Ozzie drafted not one, but two TE's this year when Ridley or Moore was available is beyond me. One TE would have been more than enough considering how Boyle and Williams have performed. Why he didn't draft Miles Jack two years ago still has me perplexed. His fascination with Alabama is misplaced. I know he'll be gone after this year, but what input has DeCosta had in these drafts and is it as much his fault the drafts have been sub-par?

The offensive scheme is dated and stale and the defense looks below average, having gotten good numbers playing inferior teams. Good offenses have their way with our defense.

 

To answer a few questions, no Brandon Williams hasn't been worth it and I called that when it happens. 10M a year average for a guy playing LESS than 50% of the available snaps. Chris Wormley and Michael Pierce both had more snaps last week. Against a running team with a QB that is very willing to run.

Mosley won't be worth the contract he'll get. I know some people love him, but an ILB that can't cover should not break the bank like he probably will. Great run stopper, liability in coverage.

The reason I think they went double TE is kind of obvious. The TEs sucked last year outside of an average old man Watson. Williams was hurt and under-performing, Boyle was suspended and is at risk for at least a 10 game on his next infraction, and Gilmore is gone. They had also signed 3 WRs. I knew they weren't going WR early and honestly, outside of the benefit of hindsight, I get it. Imagine if they draft Ridley and he's placed 4th on the depth chart (you know how Harbaugh doesn't always play rookies) and the TEs never improved. People would be yelling how we needed TEs and not another WR after free agency.

Myles Jack was an injury concern after drafting Perriman.

 

Wasn't his last suspension a 10-game? If so, he's facing a 1 year suspension.

 

Ahh, then yeah, you're right.