I'm not sure how much to take from a game that was basically handed to us during a stunning 22-minute stretch, when a Dolphins team that tied a league record for fewest turnovers in a season self-imploded. Miami turned the ball over 5 times during those 22 minutes (including 4 picks, most of them gift-wrapped by a QB who'd thrown only 7 in the previous 16 games), and a 3-3 nail-biter became a 20-3 laugher.

I'm hearing a lot of talk on the local airwaves about how we dominated this game. Certainly the final score says we did, as do the final rushing totals: for Miami, 52 yards on 21 rushes (2.5 yards/carry); for us, 151 yards on 33 rushes (4.6 yards/carry). Yet for all that, the Dolphins held the ball for nearly 7 more minutes. The imbalance in time of possession (combined, no doubt, with the Miami humidity) began to show by the final period, when our defense seemed to wear down chasing the Dolphins' short-passing game and our offense logged consecutive 3-and-outs.

Continue reading "Baltimore Ravens-Miami Dolphins post-game thoughts, part I"

Analyzing Sunday's Ravens-Dolphins game:

1. Joe Flacco: The rookie posted his lowest completion percentage of the season (9 completions in 23 attempts, or 39.1%). He threw for only 135 yards, and missed on at least 3 bombs to receivers open downfield (though he would have had a TD pass if Todd Heap had held onto a catchable ball in the end zone). Still, on a day when his counterpart in teal threw 4 interceptions and took some vicious hits, Flacco made smart decisions, converted several third downs on both TD drives, and ran a perfect QB keeper up the middle for the icing score. In short, nothing special—most likely nothing that will get it done against the Titans or Steelers—but he gave his team enough to walk away with the win. The first win ever for a rookie QB making his playoff debut on the road, by the way. Not even Ben Roethlisberger can say that.

Continue reading "Baltimore Ravens-Miami Dolphins post-game thoughts, part II"

By halftime of Saturday's Ravens-Titans game, the sense of Deja Vu was too strong to ignore. Was it 2009 or 2001?  Either way, the result was the same: a divisional round upset of a 13-3 Titans squad that completely dominated us on paper yet couldn't translate its offensive output into points. On Saturday, Tennessee passed for over 100 more yards, ran for over 60 more yards, racked up twice as many 1st downs, held the ball for nearly 10 more minutes ... and lost by 3 points. And that's not even the crazy game: In 2001, Tennessee held nearly identical advantages in passing and rushing yards, gained nearly four times as many 1st downs, held the ball for over 20 more minutes ... and lost by 14 points.

Of course, if this truly is 2001 redux, and the Ravens are Tampa-bound once more, that makes this year's Pittsburgh Steelers the 2001 Oakland Raiders. Those Raiders had the league's number 6 offense (including the top rushing attack) but a merely average defense. Those Ravens were simply too fast and too physical for Oakland, a comparison that hardly applies to this year's Steelers. The 2009 AFC title game will be as hard-hitting as any game all year---not exactly welcome news for a Ravens team that will be playing its 18th consecutive week of football.

Continue reading "Baltimore Ravens-Tennessee Titans post-game thoughts, part I"

Analysis of Saturday's Ravens-Titans game:

1. Joe Flacco: Flacco barely improved on his mediocre numbers from the Miami game: from 9 of 23 for 135 yards to 11 of 22 for 161 yards. However, he made two beautiful, absolutely clutch throws: the 48-yard TD bomb to Derrick Mason on 3rd-and-13, and the 23-yard completion to Todd Heap to convert a 3rd-and-2. The first throw tied the game at 7 all, answered Tennessee's TD drive, and gave us our first real sparks of life after consecutive 3-and-outs to open the game. The second throw kept alive the drive that culminated in Matt Stover's game-winning field goal with 57 seconds remaining.

I feel like I've been saying this every week since the Giants game, but we'll need more from the rookie to knock off PIttsburgh ... On the other hand, through two playoff games, Flacco has thrown no interceptions, lost no fumbles, and he hasn't been sacked. His two counterparts, the veterans Chad Pennington and Kerry Collins, combined for 5 interceptions, 2 fumbles, and 4 sacks. That kind of disparity in mistakes on Sunday---and Ben Roethlisberger has been known to make a mistake or two himself---will need to continue.

Continue reading "Baltimore Ravens-Tennessee Titans post-game thoughts, part II"

So this is how it ends. My own view seems to be shared by the majority in Ravensland: This was an amazing season, one nobody saw coming, and a loss in the AFC Championship game, while disappointing, represents---to echo Coach Harbaugh---a beginning rather than an end. For really, that's the key---that next season, and the season after, and many seasons to come, finds us right back in the playoffs. Because once you're inside, it's anyone's guess who survives the free-for-all and winds up in the Super Bowl. So much of what makes football these days simultaneously fascinating and maddening is the continual rising and falling of contenders. The Ravens have been no exception---in the playoffs one year, out the next ... it's a perpetual seesaw for all but those few teams that can rightly count themselves among the league's elite, with the Patriots and Colts at the top, and the Eagles, Steelers, Chargers, and Seahawks forming a slightly lesser tier.

Continue reading "Baltimore Ravens-Pittsburgh Steelers Post-Game Thoughts: AFC Championship, part I"

At the beginning of the year, I said that there were five areas in which the team needed to improve if we were to rate Year 1 of the John Harbaugh era a success. Obviously, you don't go from 5-11 to the AFC Championship game without improvements across the board. But looking back, I still say it's those five areas that were key --- or at the very least, they are the keys to building on this year's success, rather than sliding back yet again to mediocrity. These 5 areas are, in no particular order:

1. The establishment of a franchise QB, specifically Joe Flacco

2. The development of a reliable receiving corps

3. The development of a solid offensive line

4. The (re)establishment of discipline and a team-centered locker room

5. The validation of John Harbaugh and his coaching staff as the right men for the job

Continue reading "Baltimore Ravens-Pittsburgh Steelers Post-Game Thoughts: AFC Championship, part II"

The first of what I intend to be a running series of "grades" for each player, position by position, on this year's team. I'll give my thoughts on how they performed in 2008 and where I see them fitting into the plans for 2009. And I'll begin at QB.

Joe Flacco (R): The future of the Baltimore offense hangs on the capable right arm of the first QB in NFL history to start and win 2 playoff games as a rookie. That by itself should tell you all you need to know about Mr. Flacco. We all know he's poised, "unflappable," "Joe Cool." We all know to divide his season into two distinct periods: his first 5 games, during which he threw 1 TD and 7 interceptions, and every game since (including three playoff games), during which he threw 14 TDs and 8 interceptions (and only 5 until the AFC Championship Game ... that Steeler D will do that to a QB).

Continue reading "Baltimore Ravens 2008 Player Grades: Quarterbacks"

Willis McGahee: McGahee never got on track in 2008. He skipped the OTAs to work out on his own in Miami, then showed up at training camp unprepared for his new coach's up-tempo, physical two-a-days. Assorted injuries led him to miss the entire preseason, and when he dressed for but didn't play in the season opener, the conventional wisdom was that the coaches were sending him a message, namely that if he wanted to play for the Ravens he'd better get on board with the new regime. He recovered from his injuries enough to rush for 100+ yards in two midseason games against the Dolphins and the Texans, though by then it was clear the team preferred rotating him from game to game with fellow backs Le'Ron McClain and Ray Rice. Nagging injuries and declining productivity seemed to rob him of much of confidence during the second half of the season, as the cry to bench him for good (and then cut him in the offseason) grew louder on the local airwaves. For all that, he played a crucial role in the epic late-season win against Dallas, and in the AFC Championship loss to the Steelers, he was the best offensive player wearing purple.

Continue reading "Baltimore Ravens 2008 Player Grades: Running Backs"

Derrick Mason: I don't know how much more I can say about Derrick Mason (other than that I'd name my first-born for him). He was Joe Flacco's primary option and security blanket from the start; indeed, until Mark Clayton and Todd Heap began to show up down the stretch, he was for all practical purposes Flacco's only option. Yet somehow he kept getting open, though every defense we faced doubtlessly game-planned specifically for him. And it wasn't just the dink-and-dunk kind of "open," the kind that came to define Brian Billick's plodding offense and resulted in Mason's catching a career-high 103 balls in 2007 for a career-low 10.6 yard average. He got open short, he got open long, and he got open every which way between, with a full three-quarters of his catches producing first downs---the best ratio in his career as a starter.

Continue reading "Baltimore Ravens 2008 Player Grades: Wide Receivers"

Todd Heap: Before the season began, the conventional wisdom was that Heap would rebound from an injury-plagued 2007 (he only played in 6 games) to post Antonio Gates-like numbers in Cam Cameron's new offense. When injuries to Kyle Boller and Troy Smith forced young Joe Flacco to assume the starting QB job ahead of schedule, Heap looked like an even safer bet: what better friend is there to a rookie QB than a big, athletic, Pro Bowl tight end?

Unfortunately, Heap's lingering injuries caused him to miss most of the preseason (much to the coaching staff's displeasure, if the rumors were correct). Still, on opening day the very first pass of Flacco's NFL career went right to Heap, who took it 9 yards for a 1st down ... and promptly fumbled. Later in the half Flacco found him uncovered in the end zone and fired a perfect pass ... right through Heap's fingers. It would take Flacco until Week 10 to find his tight end in the end zone again, by which time Derrick Mason had firmly entrenched himself as the go-to guy, while Heap spent a (for him) unprecedented amount of time blocking pass rushers. The rumors that the extra blocking duty was punishment for failing to gut it out during training camp were doubtlessly overblown---a rookie QB behind a green offensive line (minus a certain future-Hall-of-Fame left tackle) is a recipe for disaster, and with backup tight ends Quinn Sypniewski on IR and Dan Wilcox battling his own slate of injuries, Heap had little choice but to accept the less glorified role. Still, the final numbers added up to a mere 35 catches for 403 yards, by far his lowest totals for any season in which he played every game. While he can surely take pride in working himself into a credible blocker, helping to pave the way for the league's 4th-best running game and keeping his QB on his feet far more often than might have been expected, it's a safe bet that for Todd Heap 2008 did not go according to plan.

Continue reading "Baltimore Ravens 2008 Player Grades: Tight Ends"