Who is to blame for the Ravens offense?

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

There's a lot of things we could be doing differently on offense. I don't think it's useful to try to say any one thing is going to be the difference. We're just bad in every phase of things.

[RavensTillIDie]

53 minutes ago, Darth Pees said:

There's a lot of things we could be doing differently on offense. I don't think it's useful to try to say any one thing is going to be the difference. We're just bad in every phase of things.

Oh, that wasn't the point of my post. Just pointing out one of the more frustrating parts of our offense. Can''t fix everything, and especially not all at once. But the team could at least try to take a long hard look at what IS working and see how they can better utilize/incorporate that in the offense.

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

29 minutes ago, RavensTillIDie said:

Oh, that wasn't the point of my post. Just pointing out one of the more frustrating parts of our offense. Can''t fix everything, and especially not all at once. But the team could at least try to take a long hard look at what IS working and see how they can better utilize/incorporate that in the offense.

But why use logic and reasoning when you can continue to largely ignore Alex Collins and force feed Breshad Perriman?!

[Danand]

1 hour ago, Darth Pees said:

But why use logic and reasoning when you can continue to largely ignore Alex Collins and force feed Breshad Perriman?!

We could easily insert ther "stop trying to make XXX happen, it won't happen" meme

[paraven]

12 hours ago, Darth Pees said:

Agreed here, but not enough is being said about how truly pathetic Flacco looks out there on the field this year. No heart. No emotion (or care, I know he generally shows emotion). Horrible mechanics. Bad decisions. Poor accuracy.

Just truly bad.

Honestly I dont think flacco is the problem. Yea that one Int was 100% his fault, but the running game wasnt that effective and the titans were constantly getting pressure with a 3 man rush. I mean yea he could have played better, but if perriman catches one of those long balls, this game is won

[berlin calling]

Flacco is one of many issues. however, being the highest paid Raven you certainly can expect him to carry this team and be a difference maker in some games a seaason. which he has not been this season at all. it is absolutely fair and necessary to criticize him and hold him to the standard any starting QB in this league is hold to. of course you should surround him with better talent but i only accept a lack of playmakers as main excuse for the QB when he did everything to win the game for his team which he def. has not in a long time. he has so many issues and all he has to say after every loss is " we have been bad / have to be better". well, Joe... duh! great conclusion. so please let me know what exactly you will be doing better the next game?

words come easy, i expect the coaching staff to hold this team - everybody - accountable.

[Danand]

29 minutes ago, paraven said:

Honestly I dont think flacco is the problem. Yea that one Int was 100% his fault, but the running game wasnt that effective and the titans were constantly getting pressure with a 3 man rush. I mean yea he could have played better, but if perriman catches one of those long balls, this game is won

The weird thing is, I am not even that much of a Flacco supporter, but I tend to go over the top trying to defend him because of the complete ignorance that seems to be when evaluating his play.

If Perriman has a set of hands yesterday and make the catches that other receivers have been able to, Flacco completes what would have been a long TD, then a 40-50 yard pass and another 12-15 yard pass and his stats and the offenses momentum is completely changed.

The Bears game were one of the worst examples of how what should have been big plays ended up costing us the game. Two big plays went through the wide receivers hands and became interceptions - 1 returned for a TD, while there were also a stumble in the end zone which should have/could have been a TD as well as a tight end who wasn't able to hold onto a ball. On the opposite site, a Kendall Wright made exactly a similar contested catch in a crucial time and the Bears won.

As much as Flacco has had poor games, made poor decisions/plays in the game we've won this year, he has never had so much bad luck when it comes to the players around him NOT making the plays they should. This is beyond the Torrey Smith throws where the lack of effort/ability to go up and get the ball costs us games. This is Torrey Smith and Lee Evans combined-bad what we see this year.

Also, I really really doubt Flacco is the one who insist that the 2 yard outs to tight ends is a good idea. Really, that conservative stuff is even more conservative than the Ray Rice dump offs in his first years.

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

2 hours ago, paraven said:

Honestly I dont think flacco is the problem. Yea that one Int was 100% his fault, but the running game wasnt that effective and the titans were constantly getting pressure with a 3 man rush. I mean yea he could have played better, but if perriman catches one of those long balls, this game is won

Could have, would have, should have. The bottom line is Flacco is playing very poorly this year. He can't even make the simple throws look easy. He constantly runs himself into sacks, makes bad decisions, has terrible mechanics/footwork, and his situational awareness and leadership is completely gone. Watching him in the 2-minute offense yesterday was so sad, because there was no effort to throw to the sidelines (except forcing a throw into double coverage to Mike Wallace), and it was just check downs over the middle, walk back to the line of scrimmage and run a play 30 seconds later. Terrible.

And lastly, and this is what bugs me the most, Flacco has this thing where if one guy on defense is having the game of his life, Flacco just keeps throwing at that guy. I noticed it in the Bears game with Fuller, and I noticed it yesterday with Byard. I don't know why he does it, but he does.

But this all comes back to why this offense should never be running through Joe Flacco and the passing game. He can't do it. It has to go through the running game. If we run the ball 25 times a game with Collins and manage to lose, I'm okay with that because odds are we also aren't throwing INT's into triple coverage on 2nd down. Just my take. There are legit gripes about this offense for excusing Flacco's play, but just watching him play this year has been sad because he himself is so bad.

[SalvadorsDeli]

No one gives our running game a break because they're running against stacked boxes because of our crappy QB. Nobody gives our receives a break because they're playing with a QB who lobs up ducks and prays that they'll make a play for him. Yet with Flacco it's always something or the other, someone else's fault. We all know that there are a lot of non-functioning aspects of our offense but Flacco is a key part of it, not a victim of it.

Dude sucks. We made a deal with the devil to get us a ring before the window closed with Ray and Ed and we'll end up being irrelevant for nearly a decade afterwards because of it. 

[Danand]

I simply don't see the same things you guys do.

The thing that annoys me is mechanics stuff, which we all can say is an issue. Flacco has time, and still throws of his back foot. The short throws, the throws clearly behind or too high when there is no reason to.

But when he actually makes a great throw, some which are contestable, the receivers are just not doing their part, and that makes Flacco look way worse than he is.

[M.10.E]

If you made Flacco's stats marginally better to account for his crappy offense, they are still bad.

Make this excuse if he's like the 20th rated passer, not (basically) dead last. He's playing horrible along with 99% of the offense.

[RavensTillIDie]

35 minutes ago, M.10.E said:

If you made Flacco's stats marginally better to account for his crappy offense, they are still bad.

Make this excuse if he's like the 20th rated passer, not (basically) dead last. He's playing horrible along with 99% of the offense.

Again, I don't think anyone is trying to argue that he's playing well or that he is not a part of the problem, but I think the difference in opinion lies with how big a part of the problem he is. From my perspective, there honestly isn't a worse set of offensive pieces surrounding the quarterback, with the exception of maybe the Browns - and they have yet to register a win this season. The TEAM really is this bad, especially the offensive players. With that said, it doesn't absolve Flacco of the blame, especially on a lot of his boneheaded throws and unnecessary sacks. However, it does go to show a marginally competent offense would at least not have Flacco dead last in passer rating.

[paraven]

3 hours ago, BaltimoreTerp said:

No one gives our running game a break because they're running against stacked boxes because of our crappy QB. Nobody gives our receives a break because they're playing with a QB who lobs up ducks and prays that they'll make a play for him. Yet with Flacco it's always something or the other, someone else's fault. We all know that there are a lot of non-functioning aspects of our offense but Flacco is a key part of it, not a victim of it.

Dude sucks. We made a deal with the devil to get us a ring before the window closed with Ray and Ed and we'll end up being irrelevant for nearly a decade afterwards because of it. 

while we are at, lets put a lot of blame on ozzie. He created this monstrosity of a roster. He hasnt had a decent draft since 08. Im tired of everyone saying how great he is, after he fails at the draft year after year. Since 08 the number of early round busts has hurt this team more then flacco has

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

1 hour ago, paraven said:

while we are at, lets put a lot of blame on ozzie. He created this monstrosity of a roster. He hasnt had a decent draft since 08. Im tired of everyone saying how great he is, after he fails at the draft year after year. Since 08 the number of early round busts has hurt this team more then flacco has

I've been saying this for the past few years and am always criticized for it because Ozzie still has the reputation of drafting like he did in the early-mid 2000's when he was just churning out All-Pros like crazy. Those days are long gone. Sure, we still have some "good" players like Jimmy and CJ, but our 2 best players are an OG (Yanda) and our kicker. That's not good.

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But when he actually makes a great throw, some which are contestable, the receivers are just not doing their part, and that makes Flacco look way worse than he is.

There's truth to this, and I don't think anyone denies it, but those throws are few and far between this year. Most of the time Flacco is throwing horribly placed balls with poor mechanics and lazy footwork into coverages where the throw shouldn't be going. We don't have the WR's to win jump balls, so why does Flacco keep throwing them (especially to Perriman)? But I mean, I can deal with him trying to create throws down the field - it's kind of what got him his reputation in the first place. The problem I have is the short/medium throw accuracy issues. Those are 100% on Flacco and his mechanics being poor.

[RavensTillIDie]

1 hour ago, paraven said:

while we are at, lets put a lot of blame on ozzie. He created this monstrosity of a roster. He hasnt had a decent draft since 08. Im tired of everyone saying how great he is, after he fails at the draft year after year. Since 08 the number of early round busts has hurt this team more then flacco has

I think there's two things wrong with this assessment, personally. The first is that, it's a bit misleading to say that Ozzie hasn't had good drafts since 2008. We've certainly managed to find some really good players since 2008, and even prior to that, at most we'd find 3-4 really good players in any draft out of say 7 or 8 picks. Ozzie and the front office have been hitting at roughly the same rate of successful draft picks, so that's not what's changed.

However what has changed, and this is largely based on opinion, is the type and caliber of players we have selected. This I believe to largely be a Harbaugh and Biscotti influence; meaning we've tended to avoid guys with any type of character concerns up until recently. We've elected to get the clean cut, ideal locker room guys, and in doing so we have passed on some obvious, but troubled talents. Furthermore, we've had such sustained success under Harbaugh that it's been a dual edged sword. While everybody loves a winner, if you don't win the Super Bowl in a given year, the only prize you get is a lower draft pick. Making the job of the front office that much harder to secure elite talents, which typically go early in the draft. All that considered, not many GMs can say in a 5 year span they've selected players like: Brandon Williams, Kyle Juszczyk, Ricky Wagner, Ryan Jensen, CJ Mosley, Timmy Jernigan, Crockett Gillmore (injured), Brent Urban (injured), Carl Davis, Za'Darius Smith, Ronnie Stanley, Tavon Young, Alex Lewis (injured), Kennth Dixon (injured/suspended), Matt Judon, Maurice Canady, and all the guys from this year who look like they will be serious contributors moving forward.

Ozzie can certainly take some blame for not adequately setting up the roster to be able to sustain all our injuries, but to be fair, there aren't many (if any) GMs that could have potentially foreseen the litany of injuries we've suffered this year and had a "next man up" for every single position. All this to say I still think Ozzie has it, whatever you classify "it" as. However, continuous injuries, (probably) being given direction to avoid certain types of troubled players, and having low draft selection year after year certainly haven't helped Ozzie or the front office live up to their billing as (one of) the best in the league.