Week 5: Ravens @ Bengals (complaints are back on the menu)

[Ray Reed]

15 hours ago, AngusMcFife said:

But at least MacDonald went down to Michigan for a year to get DC experience before becoming an NFL DC at age 34.

Orr has 0 experience coordinating and became DC at 31. Literally nobody else on the staff has any coordinating experience except our DB coach was a college DC for like 1 season over 10 years ago. I think its fair to say there isn't a single coach on the staff who has proven they can coordinate a defense. At least MacDonald could lean on veteran coaches like Anthony Weaver, Harbaugh has left the cupboard complete bare for a 31 year old to cut his teeth in the NFL. 

If Orr is having problems, who does he go to for advice/counsel? Who in the building can say they've been in his shoes?
 

I'm just not sure about that. As far as the DC hirings go, I would rank them thusly:

Greg Mattison. F - Just wasn't an NFL mind. Wasn't even good as a college DC.
Pagano. A - Great for one year.
Dean Pees. B- - He was fine but was bad in late-game scenarios. He got the ring but once Ray and Ed left the defense changed for the worse.
Wink. C+ - his blitz heavy style was easily dissected by top QBs and smart OCs, but worked fine playing bad teams that we could build a lead against.
MacDonald - A - Boy genius got poached unfortunately. 
Orr - TBD.

So IMO Pagano and MacDonald were excellent, Pees and Wink were fine but nothing special, and Mattison sucked.

If you want to talk offense

Cam Cameron - B+ - a solid OC.
Caldwell - D - he somehow got a ring OCing Cameron's offense but the 2013 was one of the worst run offenses ever and was let go.
Kubiak - A+ - god of Ravens OC
Mark Trestman - F - he really sucked
Marty Morningweg - C - he's a run of the mill OC, not bad but not great either
Greg Roman - B- - He did some nice things early on but obviously he's massively deficient in pass game concepts.
Monken - A- - He's the second best OC ever after Kubiak.

To me this is a mixed bag. I'm just not sure Harbaugh can survive this latest brain drain. I can't intrinsically trust a man who installed Mark Trestman as OC or Greg Mattison at DC is . He's made plenty of horrible hires and I have a long memory.

Yeah, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree here on some things, which is fine. Like, Wink had the #2, #3, and #2 PPG ranked defenses from 2018-2020. The wheels fell off when seemingly every player got hurt in 2021. To me that's a B at worst. At what's more - to Harbaugh's credit - after one down year from Wink, he fired him and made the switch to Mike Mac who proved to be even better. I also don't think you can blame Harbaugh for hiring these great coordinators and then constantly having to replace them (in some instances after 1 season) because of how successful the team has been under his leadership. 

Think back to the Billick days. Those teams had Ray and Ed and Suggs too, but were inconsistent as hell - they never made the playoffs in back to back years. So I don't buy the "Ray and Ed carried John" narrative for the early part of his career. Harbaugh had a #1 ranked defense in the 2008-2012 era, a #1 ranked defense in the 2018-2020 era, and a #1 ranked defense in the 2021-2023 era...with three different coordinators.

Not to mention countless defensive coaches (including Mike Mac, Weaver, and Wilson when they left this year, Wink when he left, Orr when he was hired, Jesse Minter when he left, etc.) have talked in interviews about how the Ravens defensive system has been built by Harbaugh over the past 20+ years and just shifts slightly based on the DC's personality.

Prior to this season, in 16 years under Harbaugh the Ravens average defensive PPG ranking is 6th in the NFL (and that includes 1-2 "wheels completely falling off" years where we were ranked 24+ due to injuries that completely tank that average). That has been with 6 different coordinators. At some point we have to acknowledge that Harbaugh probably knows what he's doing on that front.

There are plenty of things Harbaugh is mediocre or downright bad at. The coordinator hiring critiques don't belong in those categories, imo. Not close.

I think we just need to give Orr time. 

Edited October 8 by Ray Reed

[AngusMcFife]

3 hours ago, Ray Reed said:

Yeah, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree here on some things, which is fine. Like, Wink had the #2, #3, and #2 PPG ranked defenses from 2018-2020. The wheels fell off when seemingly every player got hurt in 2021. To me that's a B at worst. At what's more - to Harbaugh's credit - after one down year from Wink, he fired him and made the switch to Mike Mac who proved to be even better. I also don't think you can blame Harbaugh for hiring these great coordinators and then constantly having to replace them (in some instances after 1 season) because of how successful the team has been under his leadership. 

Think back to the Billick days. Those teams had Ray and Ed and Suggs too, but were inconsistent as hell - they never made the playoffs in back to back years. So I don't buy the "Ray and Ed carried John" narrative for the early part of his career. Harbaugh had a #1 ranked defense in the 2008-2012 era, a #1 ranked defense in the 2018-2020 era, and a #1 ranked defense in the 2021-2023 era...with three different coordinators.

Not to mention countless defensive coaches (including Mike Mac, Weaver, and Wilson when they left this year, Wink when he left, Orr when he was hired, Jesse Minter when he left, etc.) have talked in interviews about how the Ravens defensive system has been built by Harbaugh over the past 20+ years and just shifts slightly based on the DC's personality.

Prior to this season, in 16 years under Harbaugh the Ravens average defensive PPG ranking is 6th in the NFL (and that includes 1-2 "wheels completely falling off" years where we were ranked 24+ due to injuries that completely tank that average). That has been with 6 different coordinators. At some point we have to acknowledge that Harbaugh probably knows what he's doing on that front.

There are plenty of things Harbaugh is mediocre or downright bad at. The coordinator hiring critiques don't belong in those categories, imo. Not close.

These are all good points.

For now, I'll just point out that in the past Harbaugh has had at least people on staff with experience coaching the defense.

Now the only guy on staff with DC experience had 2 yrs as DC at New Mexico in 2009-2010.

So this season, Harbaugh's ability to coach the defense will be exposed. If he fixes these problems and the secondary turns into a lockdown unit, I will hail Harbaugh as defensive mastermind. If this leaky secondary continues to be a liability, Harbaugh's status as defensive mastermind should be put to rest. Because now there's nobody on the staff who can fix it for Harbaugh, it's up to him now.
 

Quote

I think we just need to give Orr time. 

We've got the top offense in the league and Lamar in his prime. We're a Super Bowl contender, it's not really time for on the job training IMO. How much time do you want to give him? 2 years?

[Xmad]

1 hour ago, AngusMcFife said:

These are all good points.

For now, I'll just point out that in the past Harbaugh has had at least people on staff with experience coaching the defense.

Now the only guy on staff with DC experience had 2 yrs as DC at New Mexico in 2009-2010.

So this season, Harbaugh's ability to coach the defense will be exposed. If he fixes these problems and the secondary turns into a lockdown unit, I will hail Harbaugh as defensive mastermind. If this leaky secondary continues to be a liability, Harbaugh's status as defensive mastermind should be put to rest. Because now there's nobody on the staff who can fix it for Harbaugh, it's up to him now.
 

We've got the top offense in the league and Lamar in his prime. We're a Super Bowl contender, it's not really time for on the job training IMO. How much time do you want to give him? 2 years?

My guy. 

We had like three people steal all of our defensive assistants last year since we had MacDonald leave, Weaver became DC in Miami and took some people with him etc. zOf course the staff is gonna be mostly newer talent and not everyone is gonna have DC experience that's why you build it back up.

One bad season does not define a coach's ability to coach, the defense had some issues against a top tier passing attack that will happen. You don't stop Chase/Higgins/Burrow you limit the damage and hope your offense can keep pace.

It's up to the DC to fine tune adjustments and up to the players to make plays. 

It is literally how you get good coordinators my guy......If they don't do the job they don't learn.

[AngusMcFife]

1 hour ago, Xmad said:

My guy. 

We had like three people steal all of our defensive assistants last year since we had MacDonald leave, Weaver became DC in Miami and took some people with him etc. zOf course the staff is gonna be mostly newer talent and not everyone is gonna have DC experience that's why you build it back up.

One bad season does not define a coach's ability to coach, the defense had some issues against a top tier passing attack that will happen. You don't stop Chase/Higgins/Burrow you limit the damage and hope your offense can keep pace.

It's up to the DC to fine tune adjustments and up to the players to make plays. 

It is literally how you get good coordinators my guy......If they don't do the job they don't learn.

Do you think Harbaugh should have considered interviewing any outside candidates for DC?

Given that we are a Super Bowl contending team and entrusting the defense to a 31-year old with no coordinating experience and nobody on staff has coordinating experience either.

[Xmad]

1 hour ago, AngusMcFife said:

Do you think Harbaugh should have considered interviewing any outside candidates for DC?

Given that we are a Super Bowl contending team and entrusting the defense to a 31-year old with no coordinating experience and nobody on staff has coordinating experience either.

Given that everyone else left and an outside coach has to adjust to the scheme vs. an inside guy just running the scheme with some tweaks. 

I'd say the guy who has the job right now is the best guy for the job. 

Also I'd bet he and wink talked for sure but given what led to him leaving there's a reason he's at michigan and Oor is our DC. 

We had 3 guys leave to be defensive coordinators in the offseason or head coach, we could only hire one as DC. 

[diamondbull424]

I’d like the team to let Orr ride out things, but if he’s still struggling after this next quarter of the season than we need to see what it would take to get Belichick to consult with our coaching staff, especially with regard to his defensive forte. He’s one of the greatest defensive coaches of all time.

Plus if he’s trying to get back into coaching, showing he can take the Lamar Ravens to a Sb win would really be a good way of displaying what he could do. So it benefits him as well. Not to mention he’s originally from Baltimore and that’s where his football journey first started, so if he isn’t given the keys to another franchise than what better way to end his coaching career than in the city where it all began for him working with Ozzie.

Not to mention he’d get another ring that would be separate from Tom Brady, even if it’s in an unofficial capacity as he’s not the head coach.

[Ray Reed]

Rewatching the game, Eddie Jackson had just as bad of a game - if not worse - than Marcus Williams.

No reason he should ever be on the field over Ardarius moving forward