Week 10: Browns @ ‘Vens

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

In our losses this year:

Colts, last 6 offensive drives: FG, Punt, Punt, Missed FG, Punt, Downs

Steelers, 4th drive onwards: Fumble, Downs, Punt, Punt, Safety, Punt, INT, Fumble, Downs

Browns, last 4 drives: Punt, Touchdown (7 plays 12 yards), Pick Six, Punt

It's a trend. Our 2nd half offense not only doesn't do anything, but we turn the ball over repeatedly. If not for James Proche gifting us a free redzone trip and then multiple flags gift us first down after first down, we probably don't even score a single point in the 4th quarter today despite having 4 drives in the 4th quarter.

Our defense definitely put a stinker today, but our offense's inability to close games in the 2nd half - or moreover- Lamar's inability to close games and/or not turn the ball over, is the difference here.

[hornbybrown]

That game was mental. Browns at no point in the 60 mins lead. The ball went through after double zeroes.

 

AFC north football is just different than the rest

[Nobellythrower]

I know monken was keeping things vanilla but he has to get better playcalling it cant be lamar scramble and make a play, where was the cover 1 beaters?  why would you go away from the run game

also Okoronkwo putting mekari on his knees which let him tip the pass like that , team misses morgan 

 

falee looked pretty good , stanley is not it anymore

 

harbaugh needs to get the special team in tact too many momentum swings 

Edited November 13, 2023 by Nobellythrower

[AngusMcFife]

24 minutes ago, AFlaccoSeagulls said:

In our losses this year:

Colts, last 6 offensive drives: FG, Punt, Punt, Missed FG, Punt, Downs

Steelers, 4th drive onwards: Fumble, Downs, Punt, Punt, Safety, Punt, INT, Fumble, Downs

Browns, last 4 drives: Punt, Touchdown (7 plays 12 yards), Pick Six, Punt

It's a trend. Our 2nd half offense not only doesn't do anything, but we turn the ball over repeatedly. If not for James Proche gifting us a free redzone trip and then multiple flags gift us first down after first down, we probably don't even score a single point in the 4th quarter today despite having 4 drives in the 4th quarter.

Our defense definitely put a stinker today, but our offense's inability to close games in the 2nd half - or moreover- Lamar's inability to close games and/or not turn the ball over, is the difference here.

I think it's good to keep things in perspective:

The Ravens scored 10 points in the 4th vs. the Cards to put the game away.
They had 2 long, time-consuming FG drives in the 4th vs. the Titans to salt the game away. 
They scored 18 points in the second half to beat the Texans, who are good! 
They had a long TD drive vs. the Bengals in the 4th to put the game out of reach. 

The 4th quarters vs. the Seahawks, Browns 1, and Lions didn't matter, obviously. 

So yes we have brutal 4th quarter meltdowns in the losses, but that shouldn't obscure some of the successes as well. 

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

1 hour ago, AngusMcFife said:

I think it's good to keep things in perspective:

The Ravens scored 10 points in the 4th vs. the Cards to put the game away.
They had 2 long, time-consuming FG drives in the 4th vs. the Titans to salt the game away. 
They scored 18 points in the second half to beat the Texans, who are good! 
They had a long TD drive vs. the Bengals in the 4th to put the game out of reach. 

The 4th quarters vs. the Seahawks, Browns 1, and Lions didn't matter, obviously. 

So yes we have brutal 4th quarter meltdowns in the losses, but that shouldn't obscure some of the successes as well. 

And in those wins, how many turnovers did we have in the 2nd half or 4th quarter of those games? (I'm genuinely asking because I'm about to log off and go to bed but I'm almost certain it's zero).

[diamondbull424]

The problem with this game was coaching IMO. Was terrible.

Monken got cute in the first half with that stupid reverse playcall against a fast and disciplined defense. That was a pivotal moment that could’ve put the team up 3 TDs and forced the Browns from sticking with their rushing attack.

Instead we got behind schedule against a good defense. Besides that he went away from running the football. Keaton Mitchell had a big time rushing TD and we decide to not give him a single other handoff? What?!

Mike Macdonald put together an even worse coordinating job with the constant zone defense. It was getting picked apart all night because Watson was manipulating defenders with his eyes. Yet he did not adjust his scheme- at all. It was clear that after the first half of the first quarter that man coverage was generating the best results. Make the gimping Watson beat you with his feet.

Not to mention they rushed Watson like he wasn’t a mobile QB, where was the contain rush? How about at the end of the game where everyone and their mother knew the Browns would run as they did all game long and yet we’re giving them off tackle right as we were all game?

 

And Harbaugh. We have Tucker rushing onto the field for the 55 yd field goal in the first half for pivotal points and we don’t call a timeout but instead force him to rush into the kick?

While it was BS that the refs had a player on the ground and didn’t force an injured player to leave the field and then that catapulted the Ravens offense into a pivotal delay of game… there’s no reason Harbaugh shouldn’t have called a TO there (though Lamar also could’ve called it).

That went from 3rd and manageable to 3rd and long. A first down there and we likely win this game. There was no reason to not shed the TO there to make sure we got a good playcall and it wasn’t rushed.

Especially when you consider that the Browns offense was milking the clock all game long and it wasn’t likely that having the two TOs vs one would be that beneficial. Had we had three, different story, but the game management was not strategically apt.

 

Lamar had an absolute letdown performance. The ripped interception wasn’t particularly on him, same as the Watson pick wasn’t really on him. Just excellent defensive plays mixed with luck. Yet Lamar threw two boneheaded passes, though only one counted officially as a pick. Also on the Keaton Mitchell dropped TD reception, he had Bateman streaking wide open for the first down. That was a below average decision to take the low percentage TD pass to your rookie RB instead of the sure-thing first down. You throw such a pass if it’s Andrews or Flowers, not a RB (unless it’s someone like CMC or Kamara). The fact that he hit Mitchell and it went through his hands meant it wasn’t a bad decision because the pass was indeed there, but he got greedy.

 

I wonder if anyone will give us a 2nd for Ronnie Stanley? If he’s back with the team next season, it’d be a mistake. Injury prone All Pro LT, that’s annoying but doable. Injury pro average LT? Nah. Trade him for whatever we can get and spend the money on retaining Madubuike, it’s not even a question.

[M.10.E]

Didn’t watch (backpacking Thailand) but seems like same ole story loss. Team is mentally weak and crumbles under pressure. 

[RavensTillIDie]

16 hours ago, Nobellythrower said:

outphysicaled,outcoached,outplayed

 

The bolded is the primary issue with the loss from my perspective. Forget the ineptitude on both sides of the ball yesterday, it was the lack of physicality that really had me triggered. Some of it was just due to a sheer lack of size/ability, but a lot of it was just attitude and mentality.

Our offensive line as a whole got absolutely dominated yesterday at the LOS, but Patrick Mekari in particular was getting ragdolled the entire game. Him getting pushed back into Lamar was the main reason Lamar threw that horrid pass that got tipped and returned for a pick six. Does Morgan Moses make a significant difference if he was healthy? Maybe, maybe not, but he surely couldn't of done any worse than Mekari did yesterday.

On Mark Andrews 36 yard catch and run yesterday, anyone notice how he opted to sprint out of bonds instead of taking the contact and picking up a few extra yards? Been seeing that a lot out of our receivers this year, as well as going down instead of taking hard hits. It just feels like something they're being coached to do, which just doesn't sit well with me in the most physical division in the NFL; as showcased by the Browns yesterday.

Our defensive line was just trash down the stretch, for as good as they've been at getting to the quarterback this year, they could do absolutely nothing to the stop the Browns when they put on their hard hats and decided to play smash mouth football against us. Kareem Hunt and Wyatt Teller in particular were just physical as all hell and wanted it way more than anybody on the defensive side of the ball for the Ravens yesterday. Unlike the offensive line, I don't know if there is really an injury or replacement we can point to here that can help bolster this unit against the more physical running games we may see down the stretch (probably not a lot of teams in the modern NFL, but still).

I think we've seen enough from Harbaugh to know at least as far as the mental aspect of the game, that's something they can and will work on, but in terms of the sheer physical limitations, I honestly don't know how to remedy some of that this season. Maybe just hope we don't see another team w/ a dominant O-Line and D-Line like Cleveland again? But is that really the approach if you envision this team to be a potential Super Bowl contender?

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

GG ya goobers 😂 

Might not be the last one this season either.  We lucked out a bit yesterday, but y’all are legit as hell. 

[Nobellythrower]

5 minutes ago, RavensTillIDie said:

Maybe just hope we don't see another team w/ a dominant O-Line and D-Line like Cleveland again?

49ers are a physical team , want to see how the ravens will perform against them 

[AngusMcFife]

12 minutes ago, RavensTillIDie said:

On Mark Andrews 36 yard catch and run yesterday, anyone notice how he opted to sprint out of bonds instead of taking the contact and picking up a few extra yards? Been seeing that a lot out of our receivers this year, as well as going down instead of taking hard hits. It just feels like something they're being coached to do, which just doesn't sit well with me in the most physical division in the NFL; as showcased by the Browns yesterday.

That plays seemed strange to me as well. 5 more yards or so would have helped a lot set up a FG there. 

[AngusMcFife]

14 minutes ago, RavensTillIDie said:

Our defensive line was just trash down the stretch, for as good as they've been at getting to the quarterback this year, they could do absolutely nothing to the stop the Browns when they put on their hard hats and decided to play smash mouth football against us. Kareem Hunt and Wyatt Teller in particular were just physical as all hell and wanted it way more than anybody on the defensive side of the ball for the Ravens yesterday. Unlike the offensive line, I don't know if there is really an injury or replacement we can point to here that can help bolster this unit against the more physical running games we may see down the stretch (probably not a lot of teams in the modern NFL, but still).

Suh is available and taking calls. 

[Nobellythrower]

bengals weren't expecting stroud to take deep shots and he did, so this should be the game where lamar get his deep ball right

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

I don't have an issue with our skill guys choosing not to get hurt or playing smart and getting out of bounds. If Mark gets hurt fighting for extra yards I guarantee some of you would be in here criticizing him for not getting out of bounds.

But I do agree overall that our team was severely out-physical'd by the Browns yesterday, especially in the trenches.

I cannot for the life of me figure out why nobody in the media pressed Harbaugh about why Keaton Mitchell was abandoned completely yesterday. It's just completely unacceptable for him to say "that's just how the game went".

[RavensTillIDie]

1 minute ago, AFlaccoSeagulls said:

I don't have an issue with our skill guys choosing not to get hurt or playing smart and getting out of bounds. If Mark gets hurt fighting for extra yards I guarantee some of you would be in here criticizing him for not getting out of bounds.

But I do agree overall that our team was severely out-physical'd by the Browns yesterday, especially in the trenches.

I cannot for the life of me figure out why nobody in the media pressed Harbaugh about why Keaton Mitchell was abandoned completely yesterday. It's just completely unacceptable for him to say "that's just how the game went".

As much as it pains me to say it, I can somewhat accept receivers looking to protect themselves, but in no world do I want to see my TE playing it safe. Get those extra 2-3 yards and be injured for the next few weeks for all I care, but I do not want soft, me-first play out of a 6'5'' 260 lb dude going against a corner.

As far as Keaton Mitchell and really the playcalling in general, I honestly didn't have a problem with it. Analyzing it after the fact is really just hindsight and revisionist history. We had large leads for a significant portion of the game and tried to run it on early downs, but we kept getting stonewalled at the point of attack. In spite of that, and the Cleveland secondary getting decimated, I still wish they would have committed to the run more in the second half, but I think Monken got a little overzealous trying to take advantage of the matchups on the outside, while disregarding the fact that our tackles were getting eaten up and not providing Lamar adequate time to actually exploit those deficiencies in their secondary. That and Keaton Mitchell just wasn't all that effective after his two explosive plays to open the game. He had the dropped pass in the endzone. He took a 7 yard loss in the red zone, which put us in 3rd and long and resulted in Lamar taking a sack and pushing us into a 55 yard field goal that got blocked and lead to points for Cleveland. And in the limited carries he did get in the second half, he wasn't generating much yardage, which again put us in 2nd/3rd and long situations, which we simply did not handle well.
 

Just to highlight what I'm talking about above:

https://www.espn.com/nfl/playbyplay/_/gameId/401547531

 

First Ravens Punt:

• 1st & 10 at BAL 40

  (1:01 - 1st) (Shotgun) L.Jackson scrambles left end pushed ob at BLT 43 for 3 yards (G.Delpit).

• 2nd & 7 at BAL 43

  (0:32 - 1st) (Shotgun) G.Edwards left guard to BLT 42 for -1 yards (J.Owusu-Koramoah, G.Delpit).

3rd & 8 at BAL 42

(15:00 - 2nd) (Shotgun) L.Jackson pass incomplete deep middle to N.Agholor.

 

Blocked FG:

• 1st & 10 at CLE 31

  (4:32 - 2nd) G.Edwards left guard to CLV 25 for 6 yards (M.Emerson).

• 2nd & 4 at CLE 25

  (3:56 - 2nd) (Shotgun) K.Mitchell right end to CLV 32 for -7 yards (G.Delpit).

• 3rd & 11 at CLE 32

  (3:12 - 2nd) (Shotgun) L.Jackson sacked at CLV 37 for -5 yards (sack split by Z.Smith and G.Newsome).

• 4th & 16 at CLE 37

  (2:27 - 2nd) J.Tucker 55 yard field goal is BLOCKED (J.Elliott), Center-T.Ott, Holder-J.Stout, RECOVERED by CLV-A.Walker at CLV 35. A.Walker pushed ob at BLT 38 for 27 yards (J.Stout).

Second Ravens Punt:

 

• 1st & 10 at BAL 25

  (2:20 - 3rd) (Shotgun) L.Jackson pass short left to M.Andrews ran ob at CLV 39 for 36 yards (M.Emerson). Penalty on CLV-G.Newsome, Illegal Contact, declined.

• 1st & 10 at CLE 39

  (2:00 - 3rd) K.Mitchell left guard to CLV 37 for 2 yards (A.Walker).

• 2nd & 8 at CLE 37

  (1:21 - 3rd) (Shotgun) L.Jackson sacked at CLV 46 for -9 yards (sack split by M.Garrett and J.Owusu-Koramoah). CLV-G.Delpit was injured during the play.
• (0:58 - 3rd) Timeout at 00:58.

• 3rd & 17 at CLE 46

  (0:35 - 3rd) (Shotgun) L.Jackson sacked at BLT 45 for -9 yards (M.Garrett).