The Random Thought Thread

[Deebo813]

I don't see many scenarios where Pittsburgh has the luxury of resting starters. It would require them to win their next 4 games and the Chiefs losing at least once.
They'll likely have to play all the way through to get the #1 seed.

The Browns aren't the one's I think we're competing against. I think they're a 10-11 win team already. They, like all of the AFC North, have a very favorable schedule.

Miami only has one more easy win on their schedule, which is this week. They finish with Chiefs, Patriots, Raiders and Bills. If they lose 3 out of 4 or all 4, it wouldn't surprise me. I think they go 9-7.

Raiders have a more favorable schedule, but still have to play Indy, LA and the Dolphins. I think they'll be 9-7 or 10-6 also.

I have no idea what Indy will look like. Still play Pittsburgh, Raiders and Houston twice. I probably like their chances of getting to 10 wins more than most.

So I think if we go 10-6, we'll end up with tiebreakers with Cleveland and probably Indy. I think the Raiders and Dolphins are going to be on the outside looking in.

I just dont want us with 7th seed and having to pay KC 1st rnd so thats why i say we need to win out. I also think dolphins will continue to lose so we may just be ok. Even though season maybe terrible, we could actually end it with lamar getting his first playoff win long as we dnt play kc 1st rnd..

 

[jdynamite]

I wonder if Gary Kubiak would consider returning here as an assistant HC, OC or whatever title they chose. We’d still have a great rushing attack, I think he’d do a helluva job getting Lamar play-action game going. He knows how to involve TEs.

 

[JoeyFlex5]

Well I mean if we see declining production from players due to lingering effects of COVID, it would obviously be unreasonable to put losses that occur from that on the HC's shoulders. That would be on the players shoulders since, you know, they're the one's not playing as well and they're the one's that got COVID.

There's virtually nothing that's going to happen this year that's going to impact Harbs' career in a negative way. If the wheels fall off, he's got the world's foremost excuse for why it did baked in already. Losing to good teams in close games, like Pittsburgh and Tennessee, won't be what defined this season. Those are coin flip games that can go any direction already.

Without COVID, I'd have agreed with you. You take a healthy team and get beat by Dallas or some of the other guys we've got coming up, and Harbs has problems. But with a roster ravaged by COVID, its an easy out.

Thoughts were all over the place lol let me try to clarify...

There was a lot of coaching complaints before the Covid outbreak, players have been dissenting a little bit, things were shaky already, then this happened...

If the players aren’t suffering after effects, and are back to health and playing well, then harbaugh has to right the ship, this team is too good to be 6-5 and a big part falls on the coaching and throughout the season the body language and communication between players and coaches has not looked great, so if the players return to normal but we continue with the poor clock management, poor decision making, predictable play calling, poor game planning overall, etc. then we will miss the playoffs and it would be kinda hard to argue that harbaugh doesn’t hold a big share of the blame, and it mostly falls on the fact that he isn’t a X and O guy, when the OC isn’t getting it done the best coaching staffs see the HC take over play calling, harbaugh has never and it’s always been the Achilles heel of the ravens, going in with a weak gameplan dooms us from the start because the adjustments are just so rarely there.

 

[rmcjacket23]

I just dont want us with 7th seed and having to pay KC 1st rnd so thats why i say we need to win out. I also think dolphins will continue to lose so we may just be ok. Even though season maybe terrible, we could actually end it with lamar getting his first playoff win long as we dnt play kc 1st rnd..

Generally agree.

11-5 gets us a guaranteed playoff spot, and it won't be the 7 seed.
10-6 could end up as 7th seed, though it will depend on tiebreakers. We'll have a tiebreaker over Indy, so that's helpful, and if we sweep Cleveland, we'll have a tiebreaker there also.

 

[rmcjacket23]

Thoughts were all over the place lol let me try to clarify...

There was a lot of coaching complaints before the Covid outbreak, players have been dissenting a little bit, things were shaky already, then this happened...

If the players aren’t suffering after effects, and are back to health and playing well, then harbaugh has to right the ship, this team is too good to be 6-5 and a big part falls on the coaching and throughout the season the body language and communication between players and coaches has not looked great, so if the players return to normal but we continue with the poor clock management, poor decision making, predictable play calling, poor game planning overall, etc. then we will miss the playoffs and it would be kinda hard to argue that harbaugh doesn’t hold a big share of the blame, and it mostly falls on the fact that he isn’t a X and O guy, when the OC isn’t getting it done the best coaching staffs see the HC take over play calling, harbaugh has never and it’s always been the Achilles heel of the ravens, going in with a weak gameplan dooms us from the start because the adjustments are just so rarely there.

I mean... I don't know that we're "too good to be 6-5". I write off yesterdays loss as a team that never had a shot via personnel.

The only other game that's an outlier is the loss to NE. I think Tennessee is better than us right now, I think Pittsburgh is better than us right now (though neither by a lot) and I think KC is clearly better than us. That's basically 3-4 losses at least.

Like this is definitely not a 9-2 team in my eyes.

I don't buy into any of the "bad gameplan" nonsense. In my opinion, there's really never been such a thing as a "bad gameplan". I think every NFL HC in and even assistant coach in this league is capable of watching film on opponents, determining weaknesses, and developing a gameplan to expose those.

Pretty much everything after that is execution.

The Ravens didn't have a bad gameplan yesterday. They didn't have a bad gameplan against Pittsburgh the first time either. They didn't even have a bad gameplan against Tennessee. We lost to Pittsburgh the first time because our QB kept turning the ball over, which is never a part of any gameplan.

We lost to Tennessee because our secondary kept getting faked out of our shoes, which was partially because the gameplan was not to get run over, which we largely didn't. DB's biting on play fakes and getting exposed in coverage isn't a part of any gameplan.

There is one game this year we lost because of bad coaching in my eyes, and that was KC. Personnel and execution played a role, but I think Wink had his worst game as a Raven that game.

Like fans like to talk about clock management and play calling, etc., but that's because they over-emphasize a situational plays in a game, and ignore the dozens of others that weren't executed properly that had just as much, if not more, impact.

I would concede that mid-game adjustments are sometimes our achilles heal, but at the same time, I look at a game like Indianapolis, where mid-game adjustments were clearly one of the reasons we WON that game.

 

[Sandtown]

Thoughts were all over the place lol let me try to clarify...

There was a lot of coaching complaints before the Covid outbreak, players have been dissenting a little bit, things were shaky already, then this happened...

If the players aren’t suffering after effects, and are back to health and playing well, then harbaugh has to right the ship, this team is too good to be 6-5 and a big part falls on the coaching and throughout the season the body language and communication between players and coaches has not looked great, so if the players return to normal but we continue with the poor clock management, poor decision making, predictable play calling, poor game planning overall, etc. then we will miss the playoffs and it would be kinda hard to argue that harbaugh doesn’t hold a big share of the blame, and it mostly falls on the fact that he isn’t a X and O guy, when the OC isn’t getting it done the best coaching staffs see the HC take over play calling, harbaugh has never and it’s always been the Achilles heel of the ravens, going in with a weak gameplan dooms us from the start because the adjustments are just so rarely there.

So can Pete Carroll, Mike Tomlin, Mike Vrabel and etc take over play calling duties from offensive coordinator ? Has Bill Belichick himself ever taking over play calling duties from the offensive coordinator. Honestly I haven't seen a head coach yet that could not only take over play calling from the defensive side but the offensive side as well. Maybe there is a head coach that has done so but that's alot of responsibility when the head coach main job is the lead the team and provide the philosophy for his team .

 

[JoeyFlex5]

I mean... I don't know that we're "too good to be 6-5". I write off yesterdays loss as a team that never had a shot via personnel.

The only other game that's an outlier is the loss to NE. I think Tennessee is better than us right now, I think Pittsburgh is better than us right now (though neither by a lot) and I think KC is clearly better than us. That's basically 3-4 losses at least.

Like this is definitely not a 9-2 team in my eyes.

I don't buy into any of the "bad gameplan" nonsense. In my opinion, there's really never been such a thing as a "bad gameplan". I think every NFL HC in and even assistant coach in this league is capable of watching film on opponents, determining weaknesses, and developing a gameplan to expose those.

Pretty much everything after that is execution.

The Ravens didn't have a bad gameplan yesterday. They didn't have a bad gameplan against Pittsburgh the first time either. They didn't even have a bad gameplan against Tennessee. We lost to Pittsburgh the first time because our QB kept turning the ball over, which is never a part of any gameplan.

We lost to Tennessee because our secondary kept getting faked out of our shoes, which was partially because the gameplan was not to get run over, which we largely didn't. DB's biting on play fakes and getting exposed in coverage isn't a part of any gameplan.

There is one game this year we lost because of bad coaching in my eyes, and that was KC. Personnel and execution played a role, but I think Wink had his worst game as a Raven that game.

Like fans like to talk about clock management and play calling, etc., but that's because they over-emphasize a situational plays in a game, and ignore the dozens of others that weren't executed properly that had just as much, if not more, impact.

I would concede that mid-game adjustments are sometimes our achilles heal, but at the same time, I look at a game like Indianapolis, where mid-game adjustments were clearly one of the reasons we WON that game.

My problem with this though is that vs Pitt the first time we absolutely shoved it down their throats, and then we stop running, they hadn’t proved at any point that they could stop us from running the ball yet we passed every time we got to the red zone and then stalled. You could say the same for us pulling dobbins frequently vs Tennessee when he was having his way with them. Yes we didn’t execute, but there are moments where you seriously wonder why the coaches did what they did and you definitely get the sense that execution would have been better had we rode the hot hand, and it’s been a thing for a while, ever since kubiak left harbaugh has had a thing for forcing the rb by committee concept and it’s rarely worked, and now we’ve had a star rb twice now have his hot hand cooled off by our coaching staff.

honestly That’s my biggest issue, is that when we do decide to switch it up we do it in the worst way, we don’t wanna be predictable by continuing to run on first down so we take the hot hand off the field and then run a play that literally every fan watching could’ve predicted pre snap, the one read jet motion passes and drags have been the only staple of this passing game and it’s beyond stale and doesn’t work and won’t suddenly start working, if you can’t call a proper passing game then at least ride your hot hand as much as possible

 

[JoeyFlex5]

So can Pete Carroll, Mike Tomlin, Mike Vrabel and etc take over play calling duties from offensive coordinator ? Has Bill Belichick himself ever taking over play calling duties from the offensive coordinator. Honestly I haven't seen a head coach yet that could not only take over play calling from the defensive side but the offensive side as well. Maybe there is a head coach that has done so but that's alot of responsibility when the head coach main job is the lead the team and provide the philosophy for his team .

I’m not talking about becoming the full time playcaller, but being able to identify when your guys gameplan has been countered and changing the philosophy and calling different plays for a half.

and we know that harbaugh is a Notorious delegator, he’s always been extremely loyal to his coordinators and delegates playcalling to them and doesn’t intervene like a mcvay or shanahan would do, and that’s fine, but at some point you wish you had that kind of coach when shit gets stale. We all felt this way with marty and trestman and you damn sure aren’t gonna try to convince me that those were purely execution issues lol.

 

[cdp]

Yesterday was yet another example why Roman has to be fired.
Roman has failed to adapt his scheme and gameplan throughout the season. Yesterday he could've prepared different sets with either Trace or RG3 in at qb or even both simultaneously. I didn't see any creative plays. It was clear that we needed big plays/chunk plays and not the 3-4 yards per play we actually had. Why would you run the same stuff and not alter your gameplan accordingly to what your 2nd & 3rd string qb do best. No creativity. Gimmick plays, 4 verts no he prefers run plays up the middle.

 

[Sandtown]

I wonder if Gary Kubiak would consider returning here as an assistant HC, OC or whatever title they chose. We’d still have a great rushing attack, I think he’d do a helluva job getting Lamar play-action game going. He knows how to involve TEs.

That would only happen if The Viking head coach get's fired which i'm not sure that is going to be the case. It also potentially changes The Ravens offensive system in a covid 19 era that probably still going to linger throughout in 2021 which may not be a smart decision for The Ravens to do. I'm all for them to potentially add a new passing coordinator that could really influence change in the passing game but i'm not sure if totally changing the offensive system is the right move to go with.

 

[RavensFan419]

I’m seeing lots of optimism around here that we make a run, and I get it, but the realist in me is worried about what kind of performance we get once the guys return. We have a lot of players with Covid and it’s unreasonable to expect none to have lingering effects, at the very least a few players are gonna see a decline, and some guys might just be counting down the weeks until this fucked up season is over.

harbs is gonna define his career the remainder of this season, does he take this gutsy performance and get the team going and make a run? Or does he lose the locker room? I’m not sure he hasn’t already but I won’t judge based off of this crazy week.

What would ever make you think he lost the locker room did you just watch that game yesterday and the effort put out

 

[RavensFan419]

Thoughts were all over the place lol let me try to clarify...

There was a lot of coaching complaints before the Covid outbreak, players have been dissenting a little bit, things were shaky already, then this happened...

If the players aren’t suffering after effects, and are back to health and playing well, then harbaugh has to right the ship, this team is too good to be 6-5 and a big part falls on the coaching and throughout the season the body language and communication between players and coaches has not looked great, so if the players return to normal but we continue with the poor clock management, poor decision making, predictable play calling, poor game planning overall, etc. then we will miss the playoffs and it would be kinda hard to argue that harbaugh doesn’t hold a big share of the blame, and it mostly falls on the fact that he isn’t a X and O guy, when the OC isn’t getting it done the best coaching staffs see the HC take over play calling, harbaugh has never and it’s always been the Achilles heel of the ravens, going in with a weak gameplan dooms us from the start because the adjustments are just so rarely there.

Of course the teams moral looks different then last year we ripped off 12 straight losing 3 games in a row does a number on your attitude but not towards the coach or the season but just losing sucks I literally don't think Harbaugh is even close to losing this team just in yesterday's press conferences multiple players said they were thankful and happy with how he and the team handled everything

 

[JoeyFlex5]

What would ever make you think he lost the locker room did you just watch that game yesterday and the effort put out

I listed all the reasons, dissent from players and complaining on Twitter along with just shit body language in game, it looks entirely different, the team lost its swagger and confidence, as a head coach who’s considered more a motivator coach than anything it’s on him to get that part of it right.

I’m hoping what we saw yesterday was a sign of things to come

 

[rossihunter2]

Yesterday was yet another example why Roman has to be fired.
Roman has failed to adapt his scheme and gameplan throughout the season. Yesterday he could've prepared different sets with either Trace or RG3 in at qb or even both simultaneously. I didn't see any creative plays. It was clear that we needed big plays/chunk plays and not the 3-4 yards per play we actually had. Why would you run the same stuff and not alter your gameplan accordingly to what your 2nd & 3rd string qb do best. No creativity. Gimmick plays, 4 verts no he prefers run plays up the middle.

idk - offence looked pretty different to me
We saw a lot more inverted veer, qb sweep etc to get the numbers advantage on offence back

passing game was all quick stuff with the understanding that the pocket wasn’t gonna last 2 seconds let alone 3

to me it looked like a great adaptation to the conditions we had to operate under

 

[cdp]

idk - offence looked pretty different to me
We saw a lot more inverted veer, qb sweep etc to get the numbers advantage on offence back

passing game was all quick stuff with the understanding that the pocket wasn’t gonna last 2 seconds let alone 3

to me it looked like a great adaptation to the conditions we had to operate under

We usually run the inverted veer 1-3 times a game ( i believe we run it with dobbins at rb) and yesterday we ran it what 4-5 times, does that really make a difference? a moving pocket would've been great bc the short stuff clearly didn't work - 2.8 yards per play. The best thing you can do when half of your roster are ps guys is to run stuff you usually don't. so the defense doesn't know for the 1st 2-3 series what you run which results in having more time to let plays develop. You don't win games if you don't take chances.

Ot: Chris Boards leads the pro bowl vote for s.t. - how? He's not a name non-ravens fans know or are we the only fanbase voting for special teamers lol.

 

[rossihunter2]

not ravens but putting it here because it’s flacco:

how bad do things have to be that joe flacco was in some sort of fight lol?
Like what?

what could possibly have happened to cause that sort or altercation with joe flacco lol

 

[gtalk12]

not ravens but putting it here because it’s flacco:

how bad do things have to be that joe flacco was in some sort of fight lol?
Like what?

what could possibly have happened to cause that sort or altercation with joe flacco lol

What did they do to my boy JOE man?

 

[Nurps]

not ravens but putting it here because it’s flacco:

how bad do things have to be that joe flacco was in some sort of fight lol?
Like what?

what could possibly have happened to cause that sort or altercation with joe flacco lol

I think Flacco saying "Whatever BRO" is considered hostility lol

 

[JoeyFlex5]

idk - offence looked pretty different to me
We saw a lot more inverted veer, qb sweep etc to get the numbers advantage on offence back

passing game was all quick stuff with the understanding that the pocket wasn’t gonna last 2 seconds let alone 3

to me it looked like a great adaptation to the conditions we had to operate under

Yeah I’m not totally hating on our playcalling yesterday just because of our limitations, although romans complete ineptitude in the passing game was still evident as ever, we expect only one pass play every 4-5 snaps and even then he couldn’t come up with anything, nearly every time we knew what the one and only read was before the ball was even snapped, the one that really stands out was the jet motion swing pass to duvernay on third down that got shut down after 1 yard.

 

[JoeyFlex5]

not ravens but putting it here because it’s flacco:

how bad do things have to be that joe flacco was in some sort of fight lol?
Like what?

what could possibly have happened to cause that sort or altercation with joe flacco lol

Man joe gets this rap of being a quiet nobody lol, he’s talked shit at the podium, there’s footage of him barking at harbaugh and telling him to get off his ass, Joe hasn’t been the guy he’s been portrayed as since like 2010 lol, he’s got plenty of fire even still, he just happens to suck so he looks silly when he gets fired up