Baltimore Ravens Thread

kevohmsford

Tough game first up against the Bengals. Injuries are a big problem.
Woodhead should get plenty of plays. Maybe 8-8 season ahead.

mikemac2

8-8

Offense will not be able to run the ball at all and we go back to throwing the ball 45 damn times a game, sigh

Defence will be superb, top 3!

Paully D

Well, the D is as advertised. What an absolutely superb defensive display. Only 247 yards conceded (170 through the air, 77 on the ground), 4 turnovers, 5 sacks, numerous pressures. And most shocking of all, it seems like we may have a proper, functioning secondary that is not going to give up big pass play after big pass play.

On the other side of things - I know he's just coming back off an injury and missed preseason and needs to get back up to speed, but sorry, Flacco looks the exact same QB as last season making the exact same mistakes and that's a huge worry. Stupidly risky throw after stupidly risky throw, not planting his feet, and that was with the run game performing well. I think we just have to accept now that he's in the bottom bracket of starting QB's in the NFL. QB is a real problem for us and we simple cannot ignore it any more.

Despite that, we have the Browns and Jaguars at home next two games and really should be aiming for (and probably will need to be if we have serious playoff aspirations) 3-0 before we travel to Pittsburgh. Be 3-0 before that game and I'll be very happy with how things are going.

mikemac2

40 rushing attempts - 17 passing attempts, I guess they weren't lying when they said they would focus on the run game.

Defense was superb. The linemen and linebackers will get most of the credit for the constant pressure, 4 sacks and a fumble but the secondary was great too, zero big plays. Last few years the Ravens D could do well and then get killed with large completions

I'd say the Bengals would pay any money to have Andrew Whitworth back :pac: their left tackle is horrible and their right tackle not much better

Offensive line did fine, Geno Atkins even beat Yanda and not many can do that. Jensen with three holding penalties, very dumb but hopefully won't be repeated.

If Woodhead is hurt then West and Allen are the only backs, gonna need to sign someone

Browns should be a W but Jags will be tough, their D looks special. Jags actually lead the Ravens 11-9 in team records.

Paully D

I forgot that the Jaguars game is in London actually, thought it was at home for some reason. That certainly makes things tougher. Still, Jaguars and Browns on any ground we should be targeting as a win.

3-0 is very achievable before the Steelers game.

Paully D

5 turnovers again today. :eek:

Jaguars in London next.

It's imperative that we are 3-0 going into that Steelers game.

Now to pray that Yanda's injury isn't serious.

mikemac2

Yanda done for the year with a fractured ankle noooooooooooooooo

He still walked off the field, tough as nails!

Paully D

15 players on IR now. It's September 18th FFS and that doesn't even include Pitta or Orr who we also lost.

mikemac2

More players on IR than the rest of the AFC North put together

Bam Bradley done for the year with a torn ACL

What a name! If ever there was a name for a linebacker it's this!

Paully D

Don't think anything needs to be said about yesterday really. Just horrific from start to finish.

The only slight positive was that Humphrey looks promising so far, albeit it being very early days.

Ivefoundgod

Still here in London, left the game around the end of the third quarter. First live NFL game and really enjoyed it even if we were an absolute shambles all over the field. Thought the Jags DBs were really good, our receivers never got an inch of separation.

Would come back again to see them and would even go see two random teams as well. Really good atmosphere pre match and the stadium is really good with small enough queues for everything.

Paully D

Williams is out this week.

Sigh. :rolleyes:

Paully D

Jesus. That offense is as bad as I can remember.

Feels like a lifetime ago that we had a balanced offense with Rice pounding the rock and freeing up the play-action plays to Smith/Boldin/Pitta in 2010-2012, or even as recently as 2014 with Forsett and the two Smith's plus Pitta.

Ravens offense in the Flacco era has always been built off the foundations of a solid run game, it's no coincidence that his best seasons have come with a functioning running game (2010-2012 and 2014 as above). Now don't get me wrong, he's a shadow of his former self and I actually think he's as good as done with us now, but at least give him half a chance again with a capable running game as we are stuck until at least 2020 regardless.

Looking ahead to the draft for a second and it would be nearly worth spending all of our early picks on offense IMO. Imagine how different things might be on offense if we could get a Zeke/Fournette type back and start to pound the ball. This draft could be one of the best for RB's in a long time, and we may well have a high enough pick, so why not grab a Barkley/Guice/Jones/Love type player and get back to doing what we do best?

Oh and of course, if we could get a healthy team on the field it would also make a huge difference! :rolleyes:

Paully D

Nice to get back to winning ways last night after a difficult couple of weeks.

First play of the game and Flacco connects with Wallace on a 50 yard bomb, which opened up the running game and led to a relatively comfortable win. It's no surprise.

No TD's for Flacco but the main thing was he snapped that INT streak and didn't do anything silly. If he could throw for 200+ every week without any INT and we could get the running game going we'd be fine.

Credit to the O-line too who were very good and kept the pocket clean all night.

Negatives are yet another injury which happened a whopping 90 seconds into the game with West going off and not returning.

We could also badly do with Williams returning as our run D hasn't been anywhere near the same without him.

Looking ahead, at home to Chicago next week is one we really should be targeting as a win.

Paully D

Oh for God sake, another loss against a team we really should be beating.

Such a Jekyll and Hyde team and you never know what you are going to get from one week to the next but I suppose that's the definition of a 7-9 or 8-8 team that we predicted in the offseason.

dfx-

I thought they'd go for it with Tucker with that 2nd OT possession...how far out would it have been?

Paully D

Brandon Williams is worth every penny of that contract by the way. We need him back so badly.

Paully D

Well that's a nice scoreline to wake up to.

I only got to see the 8 minute highlights on NFL.com this morning so can't really comment on the game as a whole. Checked the box score beforehand and seen that Flacco only had a 101 yards in a 40-0 win which I thought was very unusual, then saw the hit. Jesus Christ. :eek:

4-4 now. Looking at our next 4 games, we'll probably go 2-2 there too. We look to be the definition of that 8-8 team that many predicted in the offseason.

kevohmsford

The late hit on Flacco was brutal. Alex Collins had a great game.

helimachoptor

How you guys feeling about Sunday?

Looks like Mariota is back to his mobile self, it's also likely Titans will finally get Corey Davis back on the field, he's had 2 weeks of practice by the time the game comes around, but not a huge amount of time with Mariota.

Possible that both Delanie Walker and one of our starting guards miss the game.

Jags have a relatively easy 5 game stretch, so this is a very important game for us.

Assume Flacco will play?

Paully D

We are top five in rushing yards and literally last in the league in passing yards.

Today, our offense did one thing 52 times and the other half as many times. Have a guess which? :rolleyes:

I would say it's beyond belief, but well, it's not.

helimachoptor

Yeah expected more running tbh Paully. There were stretches in the game where the RB's did well and then you guys went back to a couple of throws and the ball came back to the Titans.

Flacco wasnt great so was surprised the left it in his hands so much

Paully D

https://twitter.com/jeffrisdon/status/932955830143602688

Frightening.

We are 5-5 with basically no passing offense.

Paully D

T-Sizzle is playing like a 25 year old, not a 35 year old coming off a number of serious injuries.

I hope he doesn't get tested anytime soon. :pac:

That wasn't pretty, and we are extremely lucky we've played the Packers and Texans without Rodgers and Watson, but a win's a win.

I have an awful feeling we are going to just miss out on the wildcard spots however. That said, we have literally no passing offense so it's astonishing that we are over .500 at the moment.

matthew8

I think we'll make it, be favourites in 4 of the last 5 games probably and strong favourites in the last 3. Even 9-7 should do it. Defense has produced 3 shutouts, passing offense dreadful, you might say it's 2000 all over again.

Paully D

Devastated.

That loss will be hard to recover from.

Paully D

Well, that wasn't pretty but a win's a win which is the most important thing at this stage of the season. Nice to move on from last week's heartbreak too.

I read somewhere we had an 81% chance of making the playoffs prior to tonight's game, according to the statistical models. You'd think that'll have creeped up slightly now. The Chiefs winning last night was good news too as we hold the tiebreaker over the Chargers, and I believe we'll have it over the Bills too.

Colts and Bengals next up so if we don't get the job done we have no one to blame but ourselves really and there can be no excuses.

If we get in, with our defense you just never know.

matthew8

ESPN have the Bills with the tie breaker because of strength of victory. Hardly any chance they win both their last 2 though.

Paully D

matthew8 wrote: »

ESPN have the Bills with the tie breaker because of strength of victory. Hardly any chance they win both their last 2 though.

I read one of the Ravens guys saying even if we both win out we'll have the edge in common opponents which will give us the nod over them when all is said and done.

matthew8

It says minimum of four, only common opponents the teams have are Dolphins and Bengals. Ravens to finish 3-0 is winning out, Bills 2-1 if doing the same. Obviously that's 6 separate games but I don't know if they need 4 separate opponents or 4 separate games, and I don't know if the games are 4 each or 4 total.