Ravens Rundown: Week 3 2017

[drd23]

Use this thread to discuss what we liked (lol) and didn't like about the embarrassment that was this Week 3 loss to the Jags in London.

[drd23]

What I Liked
- Umm, Alex Collins?  Marlon Humphrey's coverage?.

What I Didn't Like
- THE FACT IT APPEARED NOBODY CAME TO PLAY
- OL - not unexpected, but they still sucked
- Joe Flacco - even accounting for the poor blocking in front of him, 8 passing yards in a half is not acceptable from a "starting NFL QB" and his 2 INTs were just poor reads and poor throws.  I'm not convinced that the Ravens can seriously contend with him at QB going forward
- Offensive play calling - it really was offensive
- Giving up 44 points to the Jags
- Soft zone defense - again :eyerollemoji:
- Numerous missed tackles
- Blocking on the opening punt
- Throwing it 2 yards on 4th & 8 - WTF is up with that?
- Injuries - we have enough, we don't need more

[M.10.E]

25 minutes ago, drd23 said:

What I Liked
- Umm, Alex Collins?  Marlon Humphrey's coverage?.

What I Didn't Like
- THE FACT IT APPEARED NOBODY CAME TO PLAY
- OL - not unexpected, but they still sucked
- Joe Flacco - even accounting for the poor blocking in front of him, 8 passing yards in a half is not acceptable from a "starting NFL QB" and his 2 INTs were just poor reads and poor throws.  I'm not convinced that the Ravens can seriously contend with him at QB going forward
- Offensive play calling - it really was offensive
- Giving up 44 points to the Jags
- Soft zone defense - again :eyerollemoji:
- Numerous missed tackles
- Blocking on the opening punt
- Throwing it 2 yards on 4th & 8 - WTF is up with that?
- Injuries - we have enough, we don't need more

Hit everything. I've been a huge defender of Flacco but I'm losing faith man. I don't care how bad everything is around you. You have to do better than that. I'm honestly not that surprised at the D. They gave up quite a few plays the first two weeks and got bailed out by terrible decisions.

Now I don't think we're this bad, but I see us firmly as average.

 

[Danand]

Just now, M.10.E said:

Hit everything. I've been a huge defender of Flacco but I'm losing faith man. I don't care how bad everything is around you. You have to do better than that. I'm honestly not that surprised at the D. They gave up quite a few plays the first two weeks and got bailed out by terrible decisions.

Now I don't think we're this bad, but I see us firmly as average.

 

Every now and then, a QB looks like that when he has nothing around him. Flacco will bounce back, but it will be next year with a different oline and someone else than Wallace and Perriman at wide receiver. After looking at him specifically today, I am even more convinced we will never get anything out of perriman.

[RavensfanRD]

Likes

- Joe Flacco didn't get hurt! (He's still key to our success)

- Alex Collins (He should be starting. I'm over T-West and Buck Allen. Collins, though he fumbles, hits the holes hard and decisive)

Dislikes

- Fraudy Mornhinweg 

- Dean Pees (No snazzy name for this joker)

- Patchwork offensive line

-  PERRY-MAN

- The curious case of Where is Michael Wallace

- John Harbaugh (Every time we're losing, he just has that "I don't know what to do" look. Guess that's why I have a love/hate relationship with him) 

[wackywabbit]

We lost NOTHING in divisional the standings. THANK YOU BEARS!

They just ran the ball ALL THE TIME. Please takes notes Marty/Roman.

[coordinator0]

This Was Good

1. Alex Collins. The lone bright spot of the offense. And he didn't even fumble! Alex looks like the only back that has some juice in his legs. West is a plodder and Allen kind of is too as a runner. Not that he should be carrying the ball much anyways though.

2. Justin Tucker. Hey, he didn't miss a kick this week. Considering the rest of this mess I'll chalk that up as a positive.

3. Kamalei Correa. I think this was his best game yet. Unless he was bad in the portions of the game that I just couldn't watch. Still, he wasn't terrible from what I saw. 

This Was Not So Good

1. The Offense. It was awful. The line might not have been good before, but losing Yanda looks to have been the straw the broke the camel's back. Even if Skura is decent that's not really enough because the line needs elite to deal with the rest of the trash. This is going to be a rough year for Stanley too since he's the only one worth mentioning as a real plus right now. Jensen is okay. The receivers are broke too. No separation at all through the first three games, and very little production too. And then there's Flacco. He looks to have a terminal case of shell-shock.

2. The Defense. Also awful. These guys weren't ready to play and it was more than obvious. Missed tackles, no pass-rush against a middle at best offensive line, and generally being slow and dumb. We have to really hope the unit wasn't just getting by on opportunistic turnovers the first two weeks. Pees wasn't scheming anything special with four rushers just dominating, and he's proven not to be able to scheme up pressure otherwise when needed so this needs to be scrutinized heavily in the coming weeks. Also, Brandon Williams IS that important. 

3. Injuries. I haven't seen anything about Urban yet but he went out. Then Maclin almost got hurt (again). Can't remember off the top of my head if anybody else had anything worth noting. Not sure what else to put here with such widespread coverage with my first two points.

[Danand]

I believe urban came back to play some snaps. Seeing our receivers from the stands compared to on tv was a huge disappointment. The most open was camp on the target he dropped and maclin where the pass sailed high. It doesn't seem we do anything vertical, but on the other hand, jaguars played a lot of cover 2.

It seemed we managed to scheme guys open in the first games, yesterday there where no creativity whatsoever. 

On the pass down the right side to perriman, when he realized the play broke down, he gave up and jogged back towards flaccid. 

[M.10.E]

I just can't fathom how we couldn't come up with ONE play on offense to get us going. The team doesn't have one go-to play to get us 8 freaking yards on first down? It looked like we were a college team versus an NFL team out there on Sunday.

Doug Marrone and crew coached CIRCLES around us.

[SalvadorsDeli]

Joe Flacco is just a bad quarterback. This whole "all he needs is a great offensive line and a good running game and receivers who can make contested catch" stuff that we're constantly doing to pass the buck on to someone else are all just different ways of saying that we've got a crappy quarterback who needs everyone else to carry him in order to even pass as an NFL-caliber QB. Oldest rookie in the league. 

Neither side of the ball was remotely good yesterday but the cause and effect here is the offense sucking leading to a gassed defense that wears down and can't make any stops. But unless Joe figures things out in a big way we're going to hover around .500 again this year at best. 

[Mancunian Raven]

1 hour ago, BaltimoreTerp said:

Joe Flacco is just a bad quarterback. This whole "all he needs is a great offensive line and a good running game and receivers who can make contested catch" stuff that we're constantly doing to pass the buck on to someone else are all just different ways of saying that we've got a crappy quarterback who needs everyone else to carry him in order to even pass as an NFL-caliber QB. Oldest rookie in the league. 

I think he can still be a decent QB in the NFL. He has the ability to make any throw, and if he was coached properly, with particular attention paid to addressing his weaknesses, he could be productive. But, I no longer have any faith that any of that will happen with the Baltimore Ravens. As you say, year after year we're saying that the O-line is bad, the WRs are weak, the running game is not good enough. And all those things are true. They aren't going to change any time soon, and Flacco has shown no real ability to rise above the offensive malaise that is the Baltimore Ravens football team. He isn't leading the team, he isn't inspiring anyone to be more than the sum of their parts (then again, it seems like no one on offense is). He's become a part of the problem, and I think a clean break would be best for him and for the Ravens. Not right now, because it's infeasible, but in a year or two when it can be done, I think that both parties should move on.

But to be honest, I don't see things improving for the Ravens on offense, regardless of QB, unless there is a complete change of coaching mentality and ability on that side of the ball. It always seems like 'eh, that's probably good enough' is the overriding philosophy, that mediocrity is acceptable in hires and signings. Particularly in the skill positions, where the WRs look badly coached and lazy, and the RBs are just not the calibre you need if your receivers are trash.

I'll excuse the O-line for not being good enough, because it's a unit that has lost four of last year's starters now (Lewis, Yanda, Wagner and Zuttah), and another two guys (Siragusa and Urschel) who were slated to be backups or potential starters this year. Hard to be great when you have backups calibre talent starting in multiple positions. But you need your QB and WRs and playcalling to adapt to that, and they aren't.

 

[M.10.E]

4 minutes ago, Mancunian Raven said:

I think he can still be a decent QB in the NFL. He has the ability to make any throw, and if he was coached properly, with particular attention paid to addressing his weaknesses, he could be productive. But, I no longer have any faith that any of that will happen with the Baltimore Ravens. As you say, year after year we're saying that the O-line is bad, the WRs are weak, the running game is not good enough. And all those things are true. They aren't going to change any time soon, and Flacco has shown no real ability to rise above the offensive malaise that is the Baltimore Ravens football team. He isn't leading the team, he isn't inspiring anyone to be more than the sum of their parts (then again, it seems like no one on offense is). He's become a part of the problem, and I think a clean break would be best for him and for the Ravens. Not right now, because it's infeasible, but in a year or two when it can be done, I think that both parties should move on.

But to be honest, I don't see things improving for the Ravens on offense, regardless of QB, unless there is a complete change of coaching mentality and ability on that side of the ball. It always seems like 'eh, that's probably good enough' is the overriding philosophy, that mediocrity is acceptable in hires and signings. Particularly in the skill positions, where the WRs look badly coached and lazy, and the RBs are just not the calibre you need if your receivers are trash.

I'll excuse the O-line for not being good enough, because it's a unit that has lost four of last year's starters now (Lewis, Yanda, Wagner and Zuttah), and another two guys (Siragusa and Urschel) who were slated to be backups or potential starters this year. Hard to be great when you have backups calibre talent starting in multiple positions. But you need your QB and WRs and playcalling to adapt to that, and they aren't.

 

+ our offense just looks slow and outdated. The only time we attempt to throw the ball down the field are 'hail-mary' 50/50 balls which never go in our favor because our WRs don't make plays.

[coordinator0]

1 hour ago, M.10.E said:

+ our offense just looks slow and outdated. The only time we attempt to throw the ball down the field are 'hail-mary' 50/50 balls which never go in our favor because our WRs don't make plays.

To be fair that's pretty much the only kind of downfield throw Flacco has ever attempted. He never gives it gas to try and lead the receiver to a particular spot. Just an arm-punt praying for the receiver to come down with it. I'm not sure that's necessarily a bad thing, but it isn't pretty either. 

[M.10.E]

5 minutes ago, coordinator0 said:

To be fair that's pretty much the only kind of downfield throw Flacco has ever attempted. He never gives it gas to try and lead the receiver to a particular spot. Just an arm-punt praying for the receiver to come down with it. I'm not sure that's necessarily a bad thing, but it isn't pretty either. 

Our offense looks like it's stuck in 1979. The most frustrating play in football is 3rd and 8 and you check it down to your average RB for 4 yards.

 

Some teams do this a few times a game, while I feel like we do it 80% of third downs. If we had Leveon Bell I'd at least understand a bit but we JAGs at RB.

[coordinator0]

9 minutes ago, M.10.E said:

Our offense looks like it's stuck in 1979. The most frustrating play in football is 3rd and 8 and you check it down to your average RB for 4 yards.

 

Some teams do this a few times a game, while I feel like we do it 80% of third downs. If we had Leveon Bell I'd at least understand a bit but we JAGs at RB.

Completely. I was just pointing out that Flacco's downfield throws will look the same regardless of offensive structure. Mornhinweg has been as uninspiring as expected when Harbaugh foolishly retained him over giving the offense a new look. But he will get the injuries excuse and be back next year like Pees has. Because that's just how John rolls, and we will still get the "well Harbaugh's a great head coach!" responses while nothing changes.