The Good, The Bad and the Fucking Ugly. Week 4 Tampa.

Thank you. And Mano is ignoring something important. Dean Pees has run a "bend but don't break" for years. 3 years here in Baltimore and with the Patriots. That means they'll give up yards constantly, no matter how much us Ravens fans hate it, but will limit the points. Being tied for 2nd best scoring defense after 4 games shows that.

If this defense was bad, we'd be ranked somewhere around.........Pittsburgh in points allowed.

Also, let's not say it was just Ben's ineptitude that held the Steelers to 6 points. Those fumbles were forced by the defensive players. One by Mosely and one by D.Smith I think and neither of those were on Ben

 

LTS, I do agree that Steve Smith, like Antonio Brown, has been carrying the passing game. Thankfully for the Ravens, other players in the passing game have room to improve in case Smith does get shut down

 

While I will admit Brown is getting all the stats, Wheaton has been very good when Ben will take his dang eyes off of Brown.

 

See! I KNEW you would do that!! Didn't you just tell me a few weeks ago that you didn't focus on scoring defense when ranking defenses?

...here comes the spin... *THUMBSUP*

They scored 16 points. They averaged 5 yards per offensive play (not good!). They put up 423 yards of total offense, which looks very good, until you realize that it took them 85 plays to do it! They attempted 62 passes and only completed 56% of them. They turned the ball over twice and fumbled one more time and fell on it themselves. I can't imagine that there was a Ravens fan on the planet that watched that game and thought "Well, at least the offense played well!"

Come on yourself, #3...stop revising history based on the last game. Just because they looked like a juggernaut against Carolina doesn't all of a sudden make their other performances better.

Maybe, but for very different reasons. The Browns come back came up just short against the Steelers. Against the Ravens, they had the game in the bag! The stuffed a fourth down attempt late, threw a deep completion inside the 10 yard line for the score to ice the game. Game should have been over right there. A blocked kick from 20 yards away saved the Ravens and even then, they couldn't drive down the field. They had to punt and pin Cleveland deep and hope to get the ball back.

No, the Ravens should have lost. The Steelers hung on after a great first half. There's a difference.

Yes, but that wasn't the Steelers biggest offensive performance this year, was it? The Steelers are averaging more yards per play than all but two teams in the NFL and one of them is not Baltimore. The Steelers have one outlier to their stats and it was low of the Baltimore game. The Ravens have one outlier and it was the high of the Panthers game.

That's homerism at its best right there. Can't argue with the record, they are 3-1, so they are better than the Steelers, but they have been far from a "great team". Good offense I will give you, they have been good, just not great. I never said they were bad, just that they weren't as good as you were making them out to be.

 

Yeah, because the young, 2nd year guy starting opposite Brown has no room for growth! *THUMBSUP*

And the young, 2nd year guy playing the slot because Lance Moore has been hurt leaves no room for growth! *THUMBSUP*

 

#2 scoring defense, #3 in first downs per game allowed, #13 in yards per game allowed (bend but don't break system). Potentially the 3 most important defensive stats, how does this equal "they aren't very good"?

Mano, you understand football better than this. Kubiak runs a west coast, quick strike offense. THe yards per play will be low. You're also referencing the game against arguably one of the best defenses in the NFL. You're also arguing the entire team's first ever game in Kubiak's system (minus Forsett and Daniels). Meanwhile, you believe they can't get better but your team who's in their 3rd year under the same OC, with no starters missing mind you, will suddenly improve *CRAZY*

So you're saying I'm only using the Carolina game to say they are good......meanwhile you're only using the Bengals game to say they are bad? *CRAZY* again.

Kind of like how the Steelers had the game in the bag last weekend? No, the Browns took the lead with plenty of time left. In fact, there was enough time for 3 more possessions. That's not having a game in the bag no matter how much you say it. Being up 2+ scores with 2 minutes to go is having a game in the bag.

How was the FG blocked? Was it a bad kick that hit the back of a blocker? Was it a bad snap that prevented the holder from getting it down? Or did a Ravens defensive player make a good play?

So you're giving the Steelers credit for a good first half against the Browns (bad defense) but don't give the Ravens credit for a good second half against the Bengals (vastly better defense).

lol congrats, you're putting up great performances against those #23, #25, and #30 defenses. Yet didn't even have 300 total yards until there was less than 2:30 left in garbage time against the "they aren't very good" #13 defense.

We've gone over this before. Just compare the Steelers and Ravens here. We know the Steelers average more yards so that's one. Who averages more points? More first downs per game? The higher third down percentage? Less turnovers? More passes over 20 yards? More rushes over 20 yards? Less sacks? After yards, it's a clean sweep. There's a reason. The Steelers have had 3 games where they still NEEDED to move the chains in the last 4 minutes of the game. The Ravens have had 2 games where garbage time started in the 3rd quarter.

The homerism isn't coming from me, not on this.

The Ravens have the second biggest point differential in the league, 4 points behind the only team to beat them. That's the sign of a great team no matter how you spin it.

How good did I say they were? I said they'd be right there with Cincy in the end, asked you your reason for expecting both the offense and defense to get worse, then countered it. I do think they are better than that Steelers and have said that to you. The defense isn't arguable and outside of those oh so important yards, they beat the Steelers offense almost across the board while playing better defenses, while at the same time still learning a new offensive system and making starter swaps due to injuries/suspensions (something the Steelers haven't had to worry about).

What I reallllllly don't get is how you can keep discrediting the Baltimore offense, for whatever reasons you choose to, while giving passes to the Steelers offense when they've played two of the same defenses and the Ravens played tougher defenses in the other two games, in both yards and points allowed. Yet they are #5 (Steelers) and #6 in yards and #9 (Steelers) and #5 in points.

 

Never said he had no room for growth or improvement. I just said Torrey has room for improvement and we've seen how he can play, we know this isn't his best. At the same time, nobody knows what Wheaton's best is at the moment, correct? It could be where he is now, he could be the second coming of Jerry Rice, or it could be anywhere in between.

Let's not apply arguments I didn't make.

 

The Steelers run a quick strike, west coast style offense...6.3 yards per play.

That's not what I said! I said I believe they will come back down to earth. They will level out. They lack playmakers. I never said they couldn't improve over time, but I think they level out before that happens. I think they need another draft/offseason to load up before they ever really reach the potential that Kubiak wants them to reach.

Not at all. Pretty sure my post said that the Bengals, Browns and Steelers games weren't that good for the offense. They had good moments, but they were far from dominating in any of the three...the closest being the Steelers game.

Doesn't matter. Its rare. If I remember right a Raven came unblocked around the corner and blocked it, so it was probably a missed blocking assignment. Regardless, that wasn't at all the point. The point was, the game should have been in hand but the Browns were, once again, the Browns.

Yeah, I guess I am. The second half the Ravens had just wasn't that great. We've been through this already. Punt, bad. INT, bad. Long TD drive(good). FG drive (okay). 80 yard TD pass (good). Turnover on downs with the game on the line (very bad).
Again, they had their moments, but weren't exactly dominant.

The Browns surrendered over 500 yards of offense to the Steelers and didn't give up more than 400 to either of their other opponents (including the Ravens). So, with a sample size of only 3 games, is it not reasonable that the Steelers are primarily responsible for their #30 ranking?

The Bucs held the Panthers and Rams under 350 total yards, then got pounded by the Falcons and Steelers, so its not unreasonable to say that the Steelers had a big hand in their #25 ranking, is it?

The Panthers held the Bucs and Lions (not a bad offense at all) to under 325 total yards the first two weeks before the Steelers came to town and threw up 454 on them. So, doesn't it stand to reason that the Steelers (and certainly the Ravens after their lone good offensive performance ) had a large hand in their poor ranking?

This is a big reason why using such a small sample size with certain statistics is bad form.

You're right, the Ravens are gaining fewer yards and fewer yards per play, but are somehow scoring more points. Why? The easy answer is that the Ravens haven't had that one terrible outlier performance like the Steelers did. The Steelers have scored 30, 37 and 24 points in the 3 games outside of the Thursday night debacle against the Ravens (over 30 PPG). You credit the Ravens defense for that. I credit Ben missing open guys all night and call it an outlier. It happens and will surely happen to the Ravens at some point. Flacco is due for one of his patented 4 INT games any week now, isn't he?

As for the "more plays over 20 yards" thing...there is a website that actually tracks what they call "Big Plays". They categorize them as rushes over 10 yards and passes over 25 yards. Care to guess who is leading the league in "Big Plays"?

http://www.sportingcharts.com/nfl/stats/team-big-play-statistics/2014/

The Steelers are #1 with 11.06% of their plays being big plays. The Ravens are #6 in percentage and #4 in number of big plays, so not too far behind.

Thanks to two games! Don't make it sound like the Ravens are dominating teams week in and week out! They blew out the Panthers...the one game I am giving them full credit for offensively...then ended up beating the Steelers by 20, but that game was close until the 4th quarter.

Which I never said, just to be clear. So, you started this whole argument off of an incorrect premise.

Why isn't the defense arguable?

Never mind... :[

I haven't given the Steelers a pass on anything. There is only one game that is keeping the Steelers from leading the Ravens in every category and that was the game they played each other. Every game counts and no excuses, yada, yada, yada. At the end of the season, I fully expect that one game to even out and the Steelers to lead the Ravens in most categories on offense because the other 3 games these teams have played have shown that the Steelers are better.

 

Where he is now is better than Torrey through 4 games. *ROFL*

 

even if you count the 5 PIs and the 98 yards that go with it?

 

i'm using that tactic in Babyfan's contest. i hope my reverse works better than Haley's.

 

Everyone loves puppies.

 

The Steelers offense made those defenses get ranked so low.