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Ravens Rundown: Week 4 2017


drd23

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Good
- Alex Collins running ability
- Scoring a TD that wasn't in garbage time?
- Flacco looking better in the 4th quarter than he has for the previous 7 quarters?

Bad
- Flacco's inexplicable decision making on both INTs
- OL - not to beat a dead horse, but they really struggled, particularly when pass blocking, for most of the day
- Run defense - they were worked over on the opening drive by Pitt and didn't improve much after that

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Good

Alex Collins has so much potential. He could be an actual playmaker, if he could keep his mitts on the ball.

Flacco's throw for the TD looked like the Flacco we'd like to see. Sharp, fast, on target. An odd, decisive moment from him.

 

Bad

The defense is a shell of itself without Brandon Williams. They need him back. It's ludicrous that Pees' defenses fall apart so quickly when just one player is lost.

The O-line is going to get Flacco hurt. For all that he could play better, it's hard to blame him if he feels gunshy and exposed back there.

Not a single WR is forcing Flacco to look their way. They want the ball (Mike Wallace), then show up and beat CBs consistently.

There seems to be no real philosophy with the offense, other than 'hope we score first and then the D stops them, so we don't have to take risks'.

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Lots of bad.

Some good news in the bigger picture is that we are still alive this season at 2-2, if Flacco can start playing better. Obviously can't be thinking we're a playoff team, based on what we've seen the last two weeks, but we can still go on week to week, it's a long season. I don't think we are going to IR someone today, so that's something. We definitely made the right decision in paying Brandon Williams this offseason.

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Good: 

No injuries

Flacco seemed to knock off rust in second half, but it was too late at that time.

Collins seems to know how to run

Bad:

The offensive game planning is terrible. Flacco and the WR's are just a no show every week. 

The defense has way to many holes. To many 3rd and longs were converted. 

Almost no pressure on big ben. This was supposed to be the bread and butter of this defense, but they arent any better then last year at getting to the QB which is dissapointing

The turnovers, 2 by flacco and the fumble by collins

 

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Good:

Alex Collins, despite his fumbles, is the only competent runner we have.

Marlon Humphrey continues to impress me.

Ben Watson is a pleasant surprise at TE this year.

Bad:

Offensive gameplan.

Defensive gameplan

Pass rush

Screen detection and coverage on defense

Flacco (my god is he bad)

The OL

Everything else except the good.

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Good:

- No injuries

- Collins

- We can move the ball if we are aggressive (that wasn't just garbage time yards as someone wants it to be - to late yes, but not garbage time yards)

Bad

- Outcoached, outschemed, outplayed despite lots of talent on defense

- No sense of urgency - aka. aggressiveness in playcalling on both sides of the ball. 

- Turnovers (lost the turnoverbattle second game in a row, and we can't win games when we do that)

 

Overall this was close to as disgusting as the Jaguars game. Ok, it wasn't a meltdown of the scoreboard like the London game, but for a long stretch we couldn't stop the Steelers or move the ball on offense. The defense inability to get off the field is hurting the offense, because we are not suited to play from behind, and just as our defense tires out, the offense has trouble getting into rythm because they stand on the sideline for 5-10 minutes per quarter (I belive one of the drives took 17 minutes effectively yesterday.

The offense lives and dies by Flacco, but he get very very very little help. It is constantly one step forward 2 step back, and everybody on offense has a part in that. Backups like hurst, skura, eluemanor and to a degree Howard/Jensen are somewhat excused, because they don't have that much talent/experience. Physically, they are not up to the challenge, and this often results in immediate pressure on Flacco. Once the protection is decent enough, Flacco has to eliminate the turnovers and make the easy throw.

Wide receivers, FFS! DO SOMETHING, they where more open in this game than in the Jaguars game, and we actually saw how Flacco can be an effective passer. Those are higher risk passes than what we have seen in the first 3 games, but we have to do that, if we want to get both the passing game and the running game going. Going deeper more often is where we get to stretch the defense, and open up the underneath stufff. Roll Flacco out to relieve some pressure, just do something so he doesn't have to stand in the middle of a pocket which is collapsing from the inside in 2 seconds. We need to have some presnap determined movement. The Wallace and Perriman and Maclin combo warrants a great deep threat offense, but it isn't called.

And don't try to make it sound like Flacco delivers a low thrown pass, when it hits the wide receiver right in the bucket. That incompletion was all on Wallace, and if we don't land those big plays, we as well as any other team will struggle on offense.

 

I am really disappointed and tired of excuses. Flacco admits he plays bad, they all admit they play bad (we haven't heard from OC DC yet though), but so far, 4 weeks in, we haven't seen anything that indicates, that it is going in the right direction. 

2 weeks isn't enough to fire anyone, and it won't help, we don't have anything in our coaching staff to do much better imo. We have 5 very winable games the coming weeks, and then we have the Browns and Bengals late. Unless we are too affected mentaly, we should be able to scratch 4-5 wins together before we face the Browns, the Colts and the Bengals in the 3 final games. If we are 6-7 going into those games, we should still be in contention of a wild card.

4 wins, we are going up against the Bears who either have Glennon or a rookie QB as quarterback, that can be won. We face a vikings team without their top runningback and Case Kennum/semi injured Sam Bradford. That can be won. Dolphins played just as bad as we did in London, and we actually play well against them. That can be won. 

That leaves the Raiders, the Titans, the Packers, the Texans, the Lions and the Steelers - we just need 1 (ONE) upset in those five games to be 6-7 and we are in contention.

 

Someone stop me, I am the pessimistic fan here. Someone has to be positive, because I am not very good at it.

 

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