GDT Week 5: Baltimore Ravens vs Cleveland Browns

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

1 hour ago, diamondbull424 said:

?

Ray Lewis would never say some corny stuff like that. I’m done with Mosley. He’s not a gamebreaking athlete like prime Lewis, his pass coverage is lame, and now he can’t even except accountability for the decisive third down play. If there was no play, Ray Lewis analyzes what the offense has been doing to that point and gets his defense setup in a way to take advantage. And if it fails, he shoulders responsibility.

My mind is made up on Mosley, he won’t be worth the money he’ll command. I’d rather resign Suggs to a 2-3 year extension instead (since his contract is up after this year).

Couldn't agree more with this.

[Danand]

While it would have been a great build of momentum getting that W in Cleveland, I am not that heartbroken the morning after.

I didn’t see us as a much better team going into the game, although I would give us the edge on both offense, defense and special teams. Unfortunately only the defense really showed up yesterday. Flaccos performance is heavily weighed down because of the red zone interception and the TD that never where.

If he either throws the ball away on the interception and Crabtree had his hands on the final interception, Flaccos performance wouldn’t be scrutinized. While I do believe the oline did well enough, they also did it mostly against less rushers and Flacco had to pass against 6-7 defenders in coverage. We never got the tight ends involved in the game – I wonder why that is.

With all the talk about what makes football more exciting, this was the game that had me the most at the end of my seat so far. I love these games where it feels like a single score has much more importance than in the +30 games.

On to the Titans, that has to be a win.

[berlin calling]

3 hours ago, Danand said:

We never got the tight ends involved in the game – I wonder why that is.

game plan? maybe Mornhinweg thought it'd be better to attack on the outside for whatever reason. Ward had a great game and showed his talent.

i also did expect to see a heavy load of targets for the 4 TEs and Snead, well... whatever.

[Danand]

57 minutes ago, berlin calling said:

game plan? maybe Mornhinweg thought it'd be better to attack on the outside for whatever reason. Ward had a great game and showed his talent.

i also did expect to see a heavy load of targets for the 4 TEs and Snead, well... whatever.

I am going to watch the all 22 tonight. I expect to see a lot of Flaccos pocket collapsing slowly and not much room to throw and few routes developing. Maybe this is a game where we learn to use Chris Moore on the outside and let him use his speed, at least as a decoy.

[paraven]

It sucks we lost a winnable game, but it happens every year (including the superbowl runs).  Ravens need to take care of business in Nashville, and crabtree needs to spend the next week on the jugs machine

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

Relating to this game, here are the snap counts:

Tyus Bowser played the 2nd least amount of defensive snaps in a week where Tim Williams was out due to injury. Of course. Lots of speculation that his PT would increase with Timmy out, but as I said during the week, they're just gonna increase the other guys, which they did. Suggs at 82% snaps, Z. Smith at 79% and Judon at 66% is a freaking joke. At least Suggs was actually doing something most of the time, though. Judon needs to be benched at this point. He's literally wasting snaps by being on the field.

Also, Kenny Young playing 20 snaps is just infuriating. Why is it that this team sees a guy flash, and then basically immediately benches him so often? I don't understand.

[DreamKid]

Watched the game over.

I don't think anybody is, but obviously you can't blame the defense. The loss is on the offense, namely Marty. 9 points on the day just isn't acceptable. Crabtree was the only albatross out there. One bad apple means we should still eat good. So it's on the chef for cooking up a bad meal when we don't. 

The Allen turnover was bad/costly. John Brown could've snagged that pass in the endzone right before Ward's pick. Crabtree catch at the end would've won the game. The Chris Moore penalty was some silliness, if he didn't cough on that defender who had no shot at Collins anyway...the game is over. The blocked kick obviously was a killer. Marlon's misplay gave up an easy TD throw to Higgins.

Flacco was a C+. He wasn't the problem. Had the game won a couple times, but little errors throughout the day keep him comfortably out of B or A territory. He missed Snead on an easy conversion at one point, instead going to Brown who was blanketed. I thought he bailed out of the pocket too early a couple times which led to nothing. That back shoulder to Brown late was a near beaut but slightly off imo. The Ward pick was a mess. Flacco says he was throwing at Boyle's feet, unfortunately it got tipped and Boyle didn't attack the ball. I'm not going to argue with people who think it shouldn't have been thrown. A pretty average performance, but with a couple should've been game sealing drives and a horrid game call from Marty, he earns a slightly above average C+.

Staying on Marty. Dude is highly unpredictable, and not in a good way. His concepts and decisions are going to be picked apart all week and rightly so. Against defenses with talent, he's a coin flip at this point.

The Browns defense had a good day. Marty stupidly played to their strengths and they didn't buckle. Ward played great for them and appears to be a respectable foil to John Brown. Their LBs/DBs played sound football and won on a couple low percentage situations. 

 

Tyus Bowser watch: 13 Snaps. 

Tyus had a strong game. As did all of our OLBs. The Browns Tackles are super weak. They were getting bulled back so many times. Bowser got in on the bull rush party, carrying the RT to Baker. He also had a pressure and near strip of Baker when both he and ZDS met him in the backfield. To Baker's credit though he escaped. Wink actually took advantage off Bowser's athleticism and dropped him perfectly in the 4th quarter. Bowser shut down Baker's primary read and a Levine PD ended the play. Tyus also had an amazing deflection in the 4th quarter that wasn't credited. Finally, he was held on the Duke Johson run to set up the Brown's GW Field Goal. That was during the Browns grace period though. After the correct no call on Landry, the refs didn't want to hear the crowd anymore and stopped calling penalties on the Browns, and boy did they take advantage. IDGAF though, we should've won the game regardless. 

ZDS and Suggs had big games. A ton of pressures for them. Judon was visible for once, even had a couple TFLs. Henry looked good in his return. Brandon Williams getting a Sack was a sight to behold, he also had a great pursuit tackle later in the game where he speared the carrier from behind. Michael Pierce was missed.

Kenny Young had 20 snaps but was subbed out for Peanut at a couple points, which I just don't get. There's more of an argument for Kenny to take snaps from Mosley, than Peanut from him. 

That big 3rd down where Mosley says no one had the play was interesting. You see a lot of pre snap communication that doesn't look comfortable. Brandon Carr was in the slot instead of Tavon, who shifted completely over to cover the HB out of the backfield. Landry motions and Marlon goes with him. After the snap Mosley blitzes and get's no pressure. Suggs and Judon get immediate pressure right in Bakers lap. Both rushers stopped their push and reached for the sack though, allowing Baker to step back and the Browns tackles to just jam Judon and Suggs up together. 

End Result?: Baker makes an off balance jumping cross body throw from the 6 yard line on 3rd and 8 and completes to Derrick Willies for 39 yards. Then some well timed holds on Bowser and Williams allow a 15 yard run from Duke Johnson to end the game. 

Carr doesn't have the agility to hang with receivers inside. Which is why he doesn't play slot. He got beat easily and with Mosley having blitzed it was easy for Baker to see the middle of the field. Just all around bad.

 

This week will be interesting. Pressure is on and the Titan game is a must win. 

 

[berlin calling]

after years of watching promising rookies spend their first 2 to 3 years mainly on the bench i come to the conclusion it is Harbaughs grand idea of how to develop a rookie.

have him earn his snaps. (how is someone supposed to earn snaps when he sits on the bench though)

make him understand every down counts. as in, give him so little playtime he will give 110% effort to show he belongs, once he hits the field.
(basically having the mindset most if not all rookies are arrogant and full of themselves)

all of that while ignoring the obvious talent somebody aged <25 may have and that this talent could help the team to succeed. will a rookie make mistakes - yes, of course, how else is he supposed to learn.

20 snaps for Young, basically same snap count as Onwuasor is simply inexcusable for anybody who has watched him play the last few games.

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

5 minutes ago, berlin calling said:

after years of watching promising rookies spend their first 2 to 3 years mainly on the bench i come to the conclusion it is Harbaughs grand idea of how to develop a rookie.

have him earn his snaps. (how is someone supposed to earn snaps when he sits on the bench though)

make him understand every down counts. as in, give him so little playtime he will give 110% effort to show he belongs, once he hits the field.
(basically having the mindset most if not all rookies are arrogant and full of themselves)

all of that while ignoring the obvious talent somebody aged <25 may have and that this talent could help the team to succeed. will a rookie make mistakes - yes, of course, how else is he supposed to learn.

20 snaps for Young, basically same snap count as Onwuasor is simply inexcusable for anybody who has watched him play the last few games.

This same post but add in Tyus Bowser as well. This team, once it decides that a player is worthy, will run that player into the ground no matter how invisible they are. Case in point here is Judon. Dude has done nothing all year and his snap count still hovers each week above 60% while Bowser gets nothing and Tim Williams gets little. We have the rotations available to play the hot hand and sub guys out if they're not producing. Why we don't do it I just do not understand.

Also, after having watched the Texans/Cowboys and Rams/Seahawks game last night, we DESPERATELY need inside pass rushers. We have literally nobody who can actually attack a gap on a pass play from the inside. They all just run into guys and stand there playing pattycake for 3-4 seconds looking to bat passes down rather than actually get in Mayfield's lap. If you look at the times when Mayfield played poorly, it was largely when Suggs put the LT right in his lap and created pressure up the middle. None of our interior rushers ever did that.

[SalvadorsDeli]

I wish I was surprised by the loss but basically the moment we put Pittsburgh away you could feel the letdown performance coming the next week. This has been the MO of this team for several years now, the mentality just isn't there to dominate and put teams away on a consistent basis. Every time this team has threatened to establish themselves as a real contender, we've made sure to come right back down to Earth losing winnable games against middling teams. Yeah, the Browns aren't a bad team anymore and this was a road divisional game, but the performance itself was so familiar and the lack of execution in key moments. 9-7 and a prayer of a wild card berth is once again this team's ceiling, and even that might be pushing it with how tough the schedule will get from here. 

 

 

[wackywabbit]

I'm still confident we'll still hit 10 wins and a playoff spot, as someone who expected this loss. It's not trivial that we've played all of our road division games already. I believe this team will hold serve at home very well, and then it's just a matter of stealing a couple on the road. Winning next week is huge for us, though. 

[wackywabbit]

3 hours ago, BaltimoreTerp said:

I wish I was surprised by the loss but basically the moment we put Pittsburgh away you could feel the letdown performance coming the next week. This has been the MO of this team for several years now, the mentality just isn't there to dominate and put teams away on a consistent basis. Every time this team has threatened to establish themselves as a real contender, we've made sure to come right back down to Earth losing winnable games against middling teams.

 

To be fair, if we lost to the Steelers and then beat the Browns, there'd be a similar chorus about us only beating "easy" matchups (which I don't even think is fair to the Browns) and we aren't a contender for that reason.

It does suck that we're continuing to have this terrible close game outcomes. Even the Bengals game was a one score game late, while all 3 of our wins have been more comfortable. All the stats supported the fact that the kind of "bad luck" we had with close games last year was unsustainable noise. But, we're seeing that once again this year, albeit in different ways than when we were blaming Pees. 

[DawgX]

Not sure why you guys stopped running on us when you guys had plenty of success doing so. Instead Flacco throws the ball like 56 times when our pass D was completely shutting the pass down? Odd play calling.

You guys are legit though. That defense is very, very good. Good luck the rest of the way, except when we play you guys again later on this season.

BTW, what did you guys think of Baker?

[diamondbull424]

I think it’s the players. The mentality of players aren’t ideal. Guys I actually like from a “mentality” standpoint are Terrell Suggs, Eric Weddle, Tony Jefferson, Marlon Humphrey, and Tim Williams on defense. On offense Marshal Yanda, Buck Allen, John Brown, Willie Snead, Maxx Williams, and MAYBE James Hurst. We have too many guys that have a 9-5 approach to their mentality. Guys like Ray Lewis and Ed Reed were into the game to an infection point where it rubbed off onto others.

I do feel we have more high mentality players this season than last though. And we have a talented roster so I definitely see this as a 10-6 playoff squad. But if we’re going to go far and make noise we’re going to need some guys to step it up in a big way. From a preparation standpoint. Flacco has also been good mentally this season as well, but we’ll see how he is. I know in the past he’s had moments where his technique gets lazy as the season progresses and thus has him regress in play a little bit. If he keeps up his play though than I’ll be satisfied.

[diamondbull424]

10 minutes ago, DawgX said:

Not sure why you guys stopped running on us when you guys had plenty of success doing so. Instead Flacco throws the ball like 56 times when our pass D was completely shutting the pass down? Odd play calling.

You guys are legit though. That defense is very, very good. Good luck the rest of the way, except when we play you guys again later on this season.

BTW, what did you guys think of Baker?

I definitely think he’s going to be good with his pocket presence. He reminds me of Drew Brees in that and his accuracy. His decision making was questionable, but he’s also a rookie that’s developing so I think given a 3-5 more years and he’s entering into his prime he could be one of the premier QBs in the league. But it’ll take time, just like Brees because he will need to develop his knowledge and develop creative ways, like Brees and Wilson, to minimize his lost awareness of the field due to his height. The fact that he plays in Cleveland (worse weather than a dome) will also probably limit his overall trajectory in comparison to Brees though. I still believes he’s going to be at the apex of the QB position 5 years down the road though.