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Article Week Five Preview: Baltimore Ravens at Oakland Raiders

29BmoreBird22

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This is going to sound a little bit sad, but this game actually makes me incredibly nervous. A game without one of the games best young quarterbacks, Derek Carr, should be a blessing for the Ravens. Even better, the backup is EJ Manuel, a quarterback who has consistently been a backup during his career due to his poor play. He has never been able to hold down a starting job for an entire season since being a first round pick of the Buffalo Bills in 2013.

For all of that, though, this game terrifies me because the 2017 Baltimore Ravens are unpredictable. Which defense will show up? The one that forced 10 turnovers between weeks one and two or the defense that allowed Blake Bortles to look like Joe Montana? Which Joe Flacco will show up? Will it be the one that threw a beautiful pass to Mike Wallace against the Steelers or the one that threw two ill-advised passes that were intercepted against the Steelers? Will Alex Collins be able to keep a handle on the football as he makes more electric runs or will he put the ball on the ground in Ravens territory again? This team has been an absolute roller coaster after coming in with high expectations from the fan base. At this point, all expectations are out the window and the fans just want a consistent team, good or bad, so that they do not have to go through a team that gives so much hope, then takes it away the next week.

Without further ado, let us take a look at this week’s key match ups that may give us answers to who these 2017 Baltimore Ravens are.

Key Match Ups

Ravens Front Seven vs Marshawn Lynch:
Marshawn Lynch had to be, along with Colin Kaepernick, one of the top talked about players of the offseason as the media ate up his path to hometown Oakland. For all the hype, though, Lynch has hardly lived up to the massive expectations. Since rushing for 76 yards on opening day, Lynch has not even topped 50 yards or 4.0 yards per carry in a game. He looks like a shell of beast mode.

Except, all of that could easily change on Sunday, unfortunately. Le’Veon Bell was looking like his decision to hold out for a new deal was a mistake until he faced this vaunted Ravens front. Bell found massive amounts of room on the edges as the outside linebackers were unable to hold the edges without Brent Urban. A usual stalwart, Terrell Suggs was invisible against the Steelers and Matt Judon’s decision to lose weight looks like it has done lots of damage in the run defense department.

With a new face at quarterback that the Raiders never wanted to start, they will probably lean heavily on Lynch to help keep the ball out of EJ Manuel’s hands and control the pace of the game. It will be up to the edges of the defense to keep this one in control.

EJ Manuel vs the Ravens Secondary: After notching four interceptions in the first two games of the season for a total of eight, the Ravens have only forced one interception against five touchdowns allowed in their past two games. Fortunately for the Ravens, they are facing EJ Manuel, a quarterback who has not thrown a touchdown pass since 2015 and has already thrown an interception on the year.

Unfortunately, I thought the game against the Jacksonville Jaguars would be easy for the Ravens secondary and it was quite the difficult match up as Bortles lit up the Ravens secondary for four touchdowns. Would it be a total surprise to see him come out and throw two or three touchdowns? Not at all. On the same token, would it be a surprise to see two or three interceptions? Not at all.

This should be the perfect game for the Ravens secondary to get back on track, but as always, I will be holding my breath until it happens.

Joe Flacco vs Joe Flacco: At this point, I really do not care about who is on the other team or who is in the secondary. It could be a secondary of 2014 Jimmy Smith, 2009 Darelle Revis, Ronnie Lott, and Ed Reed and I think Joe would be every bit capable of lighting them up when he is on his game. On the same token, it could be a secondary of Rashan Melvin, Frank Walker, Brandon Williams at S, and Marshal Yanda at S, and Joe is capable of getting intercepted about 10 times.

Honestly, there is just zero way of predicting which Joe will show up on Sunday. He has all the potential in the world, but it is being wasted away with poor mechanics and a gun-shy mentality that sees Flacco defaulting to a dump off pass than attempting a strike to his receivers. Will this Sunday be the time that we consistently see Flacco step into his throws and deliver darts or will we continue to see the same scared Flacco that throws off of his back foot?

Remember, the Ravens lost to EJ Manuel and the Bills in 2013 because Flacco threw five interceptions. With the way Joe is playing now, that may happen again. Or we could see five touchdowns. Who knows?

Final Score Prediction

I originally had this game as a loss coming into the season as I thought the Raiders would be one of the top teams in the NFL. Well, through four weeks, their offensive line looks less than advertised and their defense is proving to be leakier than they had hoped with Khalil Mack coming fresh off of a DPOY campaign. Still, the 2017 Baltimore Ravens can make any team look good on any given Sunday. The one stat that keeps coming to my mind when I make this prediction is that since 2013, the Ravens are 0-5 on the west coast. Not a good record, at all. Let us hope they change that.

Baltimore Ravens: 20, Oakland Raiders: 7


Lost in Translation here… Aka the Bay Area Resident here(well, I went to high school there).. We’re in for either a treat, or a tooth ache.

Ah... Oakland. The Baltimore of the West Coast. A truly horrible city with a horrible stadium. At least San Francisco is a train ride away. To be honest, this game could and should go either way. Even with EJ Manuel starting. Let’s get into the things.

Ravens Front Seven vs. Marshawn Lynch. Will beast mode go feast mode? Listen, I’m just hoping that old age has been slowing down Marshawn as anyone. The key for this game is for Suggs to return to being a good edge setter, and one of our plethora of young edge players to set the other edge. As good as Brandon Williams has been, I think the interior will be fine. I think our run defense is more than capable of a bounce back weel.

EJ Manuel vs. The Ravens Secondary- EJ Manuel is just what the doctor ordered. The defense has been struggling in recent weeks. Oakland may have a talented receiving corps. Sadly, the doctor has also decided to hurt our best corner. Jimmy Smith might not play vs. the team, and against a team with two #1 WRs, we are going to need all the help we can get. Overall. I could see this as a bounce back game, but you don’t know at this point. It could go either way.

Joe Flacco vs. Joe Flacco- Sadly, Joe Flacco is also what the doctor has ordered for the Oakland defense. Even if Khalil Mack is a one man wrecking ball, the defense has struggled for the majority of the season. Ultimately, Flacco has struggled vs. a Del Rio defense throughout the majority of his career. And given that his back is still clearly bothering him, I could see him continue his interception streak vs Oakland, and them having another bounce back week.

Alex Collins vs. Alex Collins- Alex Collins looks like he belongs at the NFL level. But his fumbling problem might keep persisting. He’s super talented, but if he keeps up his fumbling problems than that might put a massive handicap on the offense in addition to Flacco’s turnovers.

The Ravens offensive line vs. the Radiers Front Seven- Oh lordy, I am not looking forward to playing Mack. Even though the rest of their defense has appeared to struggle, he’s still an unstoppable wrecking ball who can make any offensive lineman in the league look bad. We need the offensive line to step up in pass protection if we want to have any chance of winning this game.

Final score: Raiders 24, Ravens 10. Oakland’s defense may be underperforming at the moment, but ultimately they have a very talented unit and could shine against a struggling quarterback and horrible offensive line. I think the defense will have a bounce back game, but Flacco and the offense will put the Raiders back into scoring position with his mistakes to the point where the defense can honestly do nothing. I see this as a loss, but at the same time EJ Manuel could pull an EJ Manuel and we could pull out a win. But I do not see a bounce back win for us.
 
Last edited:

allblackraven

Hall of Famer
Last time Flacco played vs Manuel, he threw 5 INT's vs Manuel's 2 and lost fumble. We lost to Bills 23-20.
Just a bit of trivia to warm us up for this game.
 
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