• Welcome to PurpleFlock! Be sure to sign up here so that you can chat with your fellow Ravens fans.

Article Steelers Week Loses Its Luster as the Ravens Approach a Crossroads

29BmoreBird22

Staff Member
Moderator
Writer
It seems to be an odd time in Baltimore if you are a Ravens fan. For the franchise and the fans, it feels like a crossroads are being encroached upon. After starting out 2-0 with dominant defensive play and an offense that appeared to be figuring things out, the Ravens have stumbled and faltered to a 2-2 record with signs of a dominant defense being a sham and offensive progression as more of a sign of poor play from the first two opponents than actual progression. It was never supposed to be this way. The sense of optimism said that Flacco should be progressing well, the defense should be smothering its opponents, and the team should be sitting pretty at 4-0, 3-1 at worst. Instead, the Baltimore Ravens were absolutely dominated by the Pittsburgh Steelers in such a way that the final score of 26-9 does not do justice to the beat down the Ravens endured.

The sad thing with this game was that offensively, the Ravens started off on the right foot. With Alex Collins officially receiving the “starting” nod for the Ravens, he made an immediate bang by opening up the game with a run for 23 yards. The Ravens then found yet another first down to move the chains after a fullback dive by Javorius Allen netted four yards on a 3rd and 3. Everything seemed to be clicking correctly. After the Ravens found themselves in a 2nd and 16 situation, Flacco calmly delivered a seven-yard pass to Mike Wallace to make it a more manageable 3rd and 9. Wallace, a player who was outspoken and upset with his role on the team thus far, was being actively involved from the very start. Unfortunately, on that third down, Flacco would try to force an errant pass to Jeremy Maclin that would ultimately fall to the turf, a pass that should have been easily intercepted. From then on out in the first half, the Ravens would have back-to-back three and outs, a fumble by Collins, and another three and out. For Collins, this was his second fumble on just 25 carries as a Raven. Despite breaking runs of 23 yards and 50 yards and showing phenomenal vision and the ability to navigate through traffic, ball security remains a significant issue for the young running back. His tantalizing talent may be undone by his lack of ability to hold onto the ball. To say the very least, it was an incredibly poor performance by the offense in the first half. The second half, however, would prove to be even more frustrating.

The Ravens were given an absolute gift of field position when Eric Weddle made a very bizarre interception off of a Ben Roethlisberger pass intended for Antonio Brown. With the ball at the 18 of the Steelers, the Ravens appeared poised to score a touchdown. On first down, the Ravens designed an absolute gem of a play. With the Steelers in zone coverage, Mike Wallace cleared out Joe Haden over the top by running a corner route. Terrence West and Ben Watson would both remain underneath and attract several Steelers defenders. Breshad Perriman would run what appeared to be another underneath out route before turning up field and running wide open toward the end zone. Joe Flacco saw his wide-open man and… missed the throw high and to the outside. With Perriman turning inside, Flacco placed the ball high and to the outside. Perriman tried his best to adjust to the ball, but failed to jump and the pass fell incomplete. What should have been a wide-open touchdown was relegated to an incompletion. For many fans, this left a feeling that nothing would change for the offense and Flacco.

Those fans would only be half right, though. On the very next drive, on second down after Alex Collins ran for 50 yards to put the Ravens in prime territory at the Steelers 16 (Flacco would deliver an incomplete pass on first down), Flacco delivered an absolute dime to Mike Wallace. With Wallace streaking to the right side of the end zone, Flacco stepped into his throw and placed the ball slightly behind Wallace, fitting the pass between two Steelers defenders and putting the ball in literally the only place it would not be intercepted. After the egregious miss to Perriman, Flacco delivered this gem? And Flacco would continue to deliver gems intermittently to both Wallace and Watson. Passes of that caliber were few and far between, but they were there; mixed in with the two interceptions that left many fans wondering if Flacco needed glasses to see four defenders around Campanaro or if Flacco saw Shazier perfectly undercut Flacco’s pass to Watson. On a day where Flacco should shoulder much of the offensive blame, he had a few passes that gave fans a glimmer of hope. Only a small glimmer, but one fans can hold onto and hope only grows in the coming weeks.

Defensively, the glimmer of hope that came in weeks one and two has dimmed. Over the course of the past two weeks, the defense that was so dominant that it forced 10 turnovers and generated 8 sacks in the first two weeks has created just one turnover (a very bizarre interception from Roethlisberger to Weddle) and one sack from Lardarius Webb on Roethlisberger.

When the Steelers started their first possession at their own three yard line, many in Baltimore had to be thinking that this was prime territory for the Ravens defense of the first two weeks to show up. The Steelers were backed up and pinned deep. Make them come to you and capitalize on any mistakes that the offense makes. Instead of doing just that, the Steelers had their way with the vaunted Ravens defense. Le’Veon Bell, who had struggled for the first three weeks of the season, suddenly found his form and gashed the Ravens defense on the edges. He showed off his trademark patience and burst and ran right at the vaunted Ravens immovable wall and made it look like a sieve. The Steelers would run 10 times to six passes with many of those passes coming as short dump offs and shovel passes to the running backs in such a way that the Steelers said they were not going to back down and they were going to have their way with the Ravens defense. After starting at their own three, the Steelers would generate a 16 play, 10-minute drive that would result in three points. What should have been a safety, an interception, a fumble, a three and out, or anything other than points resulted in a defensive failure.

For the rest of the game, the heralded Ravens defense would undergo the same level of inconsistency that we saw from second half Joe Flacco. The Ravens showed an ability to make crucial stops and force turnovers, but they also showed weaknesses and cracks. When the Steelers needed to run the ball, they simply attacked the edges on a day where no outside linebacker showed an ability to set the edge. If the Steelers needed a big pass play, they were more than happy to attack CJ Mosley over the middle with Juju Smith-Schuster or go deep on the right side of the defense with Martavis Bryant against Brandon Carr or Marlon Humphrey. Eric Weddle and Tony Jefferson both look like outstanding players underneath when tasked with blowing up a run or covering a short pass, but neither looks sure of themselves over the top. The defense that looked so dominant for two weeks all of a sudden looked unsure of themselves after being so soundly beaten by Blake Bortles and company.

To be fair to the defense, the Steelers netted 17 points off of starting at the Ravens 28 (fumble), 48, and 49 yard line. No one can reasonably expect perfection when the opponent starts inside your own territory, but this was a defense that feasted in the red zone in the first two weeks. The same level of intensity and the same thrill of the hunt seems to be lost from the defense as they look confused and scared to attack.

Steelers week is supposed to be the most exciting one out there for fans, but it instead turned into a nightmare. Unlike last week where I could find positives, this game provided very few positives for me. The game raised concerns over the status of Flacco and the defense. The game raised concerns over the ability of Pees and Mornhinweg to put their players in a position to succeed. The game raised overall concerns over whether or not the Ravens are actually good enough to compete this year. With a trip to the west coast next week against a Derek Carr-less Raiders, the Ravens need to quickly shape up and correct their mistakes or they will be staring down the barrel of 2-3 with the toughest part of the schedule yet to come.
 

3-4ravdef509

Practice Squad
I agree. There was still plenty of bad from Joe, but we actually saw him produce some down the field, poised and accurate throws. Maybe, just MAYBE, he might start to get back to normal in the coming weeks.

Obviously it's not ideal or acceptable that it's taking him so long to get into grove, one can either assume his health isn't as good as we are being told it is, or that there are mental hurdles Flacco is having to overcome on top of his already usual inconsistent play.

The entire offense including Flacco have a propensity to shoot themselves in the foot though that is troubling
 

29BmoreBird22

Staff Member
Moderator
Writer
I agree. There was still plenty of bad from Joe, but we actually saw him produce some down the field, poised and accurate throws. Maybe, just MAYBE, he might start to get back to normal in the coming weeks.

Obviously it's not ideal or acceptable that it's taking him so long to get into grove, one can either assume his health isn't as good as we are being told it is, or that there are mental hurdles Flacco is having to overcome on top of his already usual inconsistent play.

The entire offense including Flacco have a propensity to shoot themselves in the foot though that is troubling
I saw that touchdown pass to Wallace and I was like, "Wow, this may yet turn around." Then the interception happened and I was like, "Nope, there's the Joe I've come to love this season."

It's so maddening to see what he's capable of, but not see it on a consistent basis.
 

3-4ravdef509

Practice Squad
It is maddening. Like, we all see how good he CAN be, and for the first 5 years he displayed at least consistency where his lows weren't too low and there were enough highs to propel the team. Then after the Super Bowl, I thought he had truly broken out in Aaron Rodgers fashion.

To be completely fair, the FO tore down the offense to some degree after 2012, combined with retirement of some players and injuries to others, 2013 was bad in most senses but Joe still seemed to have "it", we all just kinda figured it was Super Bowl drop off. Then 2014 the offense looked amazing outside of maybe 2 bad games (I think all the bad games we had that year were against teams from the AFC South who were used to seeing a Kubiak led offense). We fell short in the playoffs more from our defense being injury depleted, although Joe did throw that head scratcher to Torrey that sealed our fate against the Patriots (weirdly enough I blasted Joe for that pass and many on the old board weren't as mad as I was).

But Kubes left, 2015 and 2016 have been to me Joe's worst years. Granted he missed a good portion of 2015 (as did many offensive players and players on the entire team), and 2016 was the year immediately after a major injury so we all kind of tried to be patient.

But Joe is struggling in ways that don't seem to add up to me, and more lost on me is how he almost immediately looks to dump off to short passes, and I can't say it's always play calling. When we does launch deep he's seemingly regressed in his deep throwing accuracy... it just feels like he's not the same player as he was before the knee injury. That player had his faults but was consistent most of the time, and this new guy just seems like a bad rip off imposter of the old Joe Flacco
 
Top