The Win, The Penalties and Everything Else

[rossihunter2]

I can't imagine a non inept coaching staff coming to any other conclusion than Duv is WR2. But I just don't understand why after 6 games we have 0 idea what we have in Proche. I'm really excited by him, but with no disrespect to him, if he's really going to get 0 offensive snaps, I'm pretty sure Duv can take punts. Might as well use his active spot for someone who can help if you're not going to play him. Thing is I'd expect proche, like Duv to outplay fucking Boykin. Maybe I'm wrong and he's awful, but if he has no snaps you just don't know. Doesn't it seem irresponsible to not assess your whole squad?

he played a handful of snaps last week and looked pretty good - im amazed he had none today with the offence struggling
proche was impressive enough in 5 snaps that i literally did a video on a couple of his routes from the bengals game on saturday before this game with the expectation that he'd play at least another handful of snaps

the problem with replacing boykin is that he's a true outside receiver and proche is exclusively a slot - other than boykin (and hollywood), no one outside of chris moore is a "true" outside receiver on this team in terms of where they're aligned which makes it harder to like for like swap them in

but there are definitely ways to get all these guys on the field at once

 

[rossihunter2]

Hand, but I wonder if it was actually enough to keep him from playing or if the coaches had just seen enough.

yeah i wonder if the hand was just an excuse to bench him and reassess during the bye - they've got the bye to work on OL chemistry if they do want to make a change

 

[Simba]

A completely random note today... Justice Hill is fast AF. He caught my eye a couple of times as a gunner. Would be a shame if we can't find a way to utilize that on offense at some point in the future.

 

[rossihunter2]

A completely random note today... Justice Hill is fast AF. He caught my eye a couple of times as a gunner. Would be a shame if we can't find a way to utilize that on offense at some point in the future.

yeah - i know we're utilising dobbins on most of the passing downs but i find it hard to believe there isnt a role in this offence for a 2nd year player with 4.4 speed

 

[RavensMania]

I agree with that. I just hope it is enough. Idk if a roster move or a position swap or startsr swap could be helpful. Did anyone look at Mekari and Powers from last week?

Mekari was getting a good push in the run game today. I think he could be the starter at RG in two weeks.

 

[ravenslord]

Greg Roman has pulled out Cam Cameron’s playbook and it is hurting this team terribly.

Very predictable calls and nothing surprises me like last year .

Roman has started to eat too much vanilla ice cream .

 

[organizedchaos21]

Queen's near pick-six (Q4, 14:35)

 

[Dom McRaven]

Queen's near pick-six (Q4, 14:35)

Add in McPhee's INT (could be pick-6) and Elliott's should've-been INT and we're talking about a different game.

 

[organizedchaos21]

Add in McPhee's INT (could be pick-6) and Elliott's should've-been INT and we're talking about a different game.

FWIW, I don't think McPhee scores (Fulgham is coming back to the ball and practically on top of him), but it is at least 3 more points (Ravens ball near the red zone with 5 to 10 seconds left).

This game was so weird. It ended up very close, but I think the Eagles had a ton of H2 plays break their way:

• Long run from Sanders (this hole was huge), fumble recovered by Arcega-Whiteside (only Eagle among ~5 Ravens)
• Next TD drive had a blown coverage (long pass to Hightower at Q3, 01:04), and then the RTP from Ward after a 3rd down incompletion (don't hit the QBs head...). The latter came after Queen's drop.
• TD drive 3 had the 40 yard scramble from Wentz (which, uh, please tackle him?). And then Wentz just throws it up on 4th&9. The Ravens have both of their top two corners there, yet Fulgham somehow comes down with it. That was after Elliott dropped the gift-wrapped interception (I'm sure that hurt. Zrebiec wrote this week that Elliott really wanted to get a takeaway).
• Final TD drive had the questionable 49 yard PI (there's contact before the ball is there, but I think it's mostly nonsense). Not to mention that the new RT tackled Bowser, else Wentz has no space to step up. That was basically the whole drive.

There's a 3&out and a 4&out interspersed in there too. On the 3&out, Humphrey forced yet another fumble, but the ball went OoB before Peters could recover. Hmm, I feel a lot better about the game now. I'd still like the offense to wake up, but the formula worked despite all of this insane "luck."

 

[D1City55]

Man iv really grown to appreciate some of the recent WRs we’ve had before like Steve Smith Sr, Torrey Smith, Derek Mason and Anquan Boldin. Iv always had love for those guys but seeing the receiver play lately has been so frustrating.

 

[purp]

Not a satisfying game to say the least but glad we got the W. A few takeaways:

-I'm not reading too much into the late game defensive "collapse." It was pretty clear in that game that, for whatever reason, the officiating was highly skewed. Our guys didn't disappear, they were held relentlessly in the second half and it just wasn't called. That happens quite a bit in the NFL and I'm glad we were able to overcome it. I'm not even mad about it, but it was pretty obvious that was the difference.

-It was awesome to see that Lamar has his legs back, that touchdown saved the game.

-The offense isn't "not clicking," it's bad. We are so weak at the RG position that it's dragging down the rest of the line and causing Lamar to bail out of the pocket even when he doesn't have to. I like that his instinct is to protect the football but I'm getting tired of watching him run backward 15 yards when he could've stepped up.

-The league has caught up to the side arm. I like it when he's slipping the ball in somewhere it has no business being like we saw on the touchdown, but the throwing motion from the pocket turns makes the release of our 6' 2" quarterback what it would be if he 5' 10". The problem is I don't know if you can fix that this year and its apparent that the abbreviated offseason has our QB slipping into bad habits.

-Miles Boykin is a good dude, a smart one too, so it baffles me that he can't figure out how to make reads within the offense. For whatever reason he NEVER understands when a run gets checked to a pass. It's a mystery.

We've totally revamped the team during the BYE week before, we'll see what the coaches can come up with over the next couple of weeks.

 

[JoeyFlex5]

A lot of big plays or big non-plays are being brought up, but you don’t even have to bring those up, if we don’t have so many illegal formations bringing back quality gains on first and 2nd down then this game probably never gets close.

 

[Sandtown]

The lack of creativity in the passing game designs is notable - route combinations especially

Look like Cam Cameron calling the plays but I don't think Greg Roman is Cam Cameron. Not sure why the creativity is lacking but it's definitely not making Roman and Culley look good.

 

[ravenslord]

We just might be desperate enough to pick up Antonio Brown and take our chances with his personality. If it doesn't work , we can always release him.

 

[Sandtown]

Go get AB, I said it last week. We need him, I think he's the difference maker our offense needs. Hollywood, Duv, Andrews, Boyle, and then add AB. We need to stretch defenses and make them pay, it's easy for teams to stack the box and stop the run, but we stretch the defense out it will open up more opportunities for our offense.

I don't think this is going to happen. He is still being investigated by The NFL for his pending sexual assault case. The Ravens still have a strong stance on domestic violence related issues. Anything is possible but if The Ravens end up signing AB that's going to make them look like hypocrites and it doesn't make sense for them to release Earl Thomas then be willing to sign AB.

 

[Justin Diaz-Thomas]

I don't think this is going to happen. He is still being investigated by The NFL for his pending sexual assault case. The Ravens still have a strong stance on domestic violence related issues. Anything is possible but if The Ravens end up signing AB that's going to make them look like hypocrites and it doesn't make sense for them to release Earl Thomas then be willing to sign AB.

Well ET's release has more to do with how the locker room viewed him vs the gang bang he put on with his brother that almost ended in his demise lol. I'll wait and see on AB's case, if it's proven false sign him if not then oh well we move on. But it seems at the very least our Franchise QB and a few other skills players would love to have him, and with our O struggling-ish perhaps that is enough

 

[JoeyFlex5]

One thing I keep going back to is 2012, I just can’t help it. We were tooting the super bowl horn all the way up until late November when the losing streak started, and at no point did that team look as good or have anywhere near the potential that this team has.

we are truly spoiled. It looks ugly at times and Lamar and Roman are really shitting the bed, but compare this team shitting the bed to Flacco and Cameron shitting the bed, my god.. the difference is that Lamar Jackson’s ravens can absolutely shit the bed against a quality opponent and still win, Joe Flacco’s ravens could Be somewhat inconsistent against a bottom dweller and fucking lose.

My hope is that Harbaugh and urban sit down with Roman and go over a philosophy change, do everything to get Lamar’s mechanics back under control, and cut the dead weight on game days, Boykin is a detriment when he’s on the field, I don’t Give a shit That he blocks well because we’ve given up on running the ball so get a threat out there, stop moving the pocket, stop taking Lamars eyes off the defense with these long developing rollouts, go 5 wide and get speedsters deep, open up the whole field, let Lamar see the field and decide whether to challenge them deep in 1v1, find andrews for the 2nd read, or take off running, or even dump off to a dobbins and let him make a play in space, get Lamar in the shotgun taking regular drops where he can observe the play unfolding, he was deadly in 2 phases last year, read option and spread/4wide, read option isn’t working so let the man run some spread/4wide. We have this obsession with short YAC patterns but have zero creativity in the patterns, we have the likes of duvernay, Hollywood, and dobbins, and also 2 excellent TEs, run some goddamn bunch formations and get some rubs going if you wanna pick up YAC, the YAC philosophy simply doesn’t work without creativity in the route combinations.

this team has the talent, it also has the coaching, the coaching just needs to come the fuck together and stop being too cute and get some synergy going with their personnel

 

[JoeyFlex5]

I don't think this is going to happen. He is still being investigated by The NFL for his pending sexual assault case. The Ravens still have a strong stance on domestic violence related issues. Anything is possible but if The Ravens end up signing AB that's going to make them look like hypocrites and it doesn't make sense for them to release Earl Thomas then be willing to sign AB.

What’s worse for the locker room in your opinion... the risk of signing AB, or desperately needing a wr for a super bowl push and not signing this all star wr that the players are clamoring for and is also the cousin of our WR1?

the latter is much worse for the locker room, if the offense was looking good then I wouldn’t have this point of view, but what does it say when you have the piece right there to get it clicking and you just say no...

 

[Adreme]

I mean they cant even entertain the notion of getting AB for another month anyway so it is not like it is a relevant topic yet.

 

[rmcjacket23]

What’s worse for the locker room in your opinion... the risk of signing AB, or desperately needing a wr for a super bowl push and not signing this all star wr that the players are clamoring for and is also the cousin of our WR1?

the latter is much worse for the locker room, if the offense was looking good then I wouldn’t have this point of view, but what does it say when you have the piece right there to get it clicking and you just say no...

I think if AB acts like, well, AB, signing him will be 100x worse for the locker room. Remember... prime AB, who was dominating the league, was routinely pissing off people in the locker room. One thing you gotta realize about locker rooms is they're not just all about "having great players around". Perfect reference point is from less than two months ago. Earl Thomas. Didn't hear a single player stand up for him when he got booted, and he certainly is a good player that could make this team better.