Next Up: vs Bengals

[Charm City]

Depends on what your expectations are. If your expectations are for this team to make the playoffs, you should definitely not think the sky is falling. If your expectations were that this team would be in the AFC championship or Super Bowl you can probably say the sky is falling.

What you've already seen is that the defense is tremendously underperorming based on the amount of talent it has. And the reason for that is due to the distribution of talent. The IDL and the secondary are LOADED with talent and the ENTIRE line backing corps, both inside and out are really bad and thin! You also just got an injury Bynes this game so even thinner. All of the goodness of the line and secondary rendered useless by the lack of pass rush, poor tackling, and zero LB coverage ability.

The offense was set up with the bare minimum at the WR position. Which when all healthy was enough to get by for sure. But there goes Bateman. In his absence, I think this offense really sputters.

The greater point I'm making is that this team while extremely talented still has huge units of weaknesses and is somehow yet again the MOST injured team in the league. So if those units aren't going to get better and we're only going to get more injured, this team won't be able to compete for a superbowl. And that's fine I guess, but the entire future of the Ravens for the next 5 years is the hands of Decosta at the draft. We'll see what happens.

I agree with you on a lot of your points but as you stated we overhauled most of our weaknesses from last year aside from ILB. OLB was supposed to be held down by average to below average players until ojabo and Bowser could come back. Same with RB with Dobbins and Gus. It’s poor luck for lack of a better term that Means got injured and Ferguson passed away, rip. At ILB we invested a lot into the position with Queen and Harrison in 2020 and we hoped that at some point they would make a leap and it’s easy to say in retrospect that that decision was a poor one, although I’ve believed for a while that their deficiencies aren’t something that can be coached up. Ross actually looked promising before he went down with injury too

 

[UPennChem]

I agree with you on a lot of your points but as you stated we overhauled most of our weaknesses from last year aside from ILB. OLB was supposed to be held down by average to below average players until ojabo and Bowser could come back. Same with RB with Dobbins and Gus. It’s poor luck for lack of a better term that Means got injured and Ferguson passed away, rip. At ILB we invested a lot into the position with Queen and Harrison in 2020 and we hoped that at some point they would make a leap and it’s easy to say in retrospect that that decision was a poor one, although I’ve believed for a while that their deficiencies aren’t something that can be coached up. Ross actually looked promising before he went down with injury too

Yeah I hear you. It's just funny though this whole situation. It's gotta be EXTREMELY difficult to be a GM. We crucified Decosta for not addressing the OL for a couple of years in the past and he did this year. And thank God for that. But at the cost of upgrading the OL, we left OLB, ILB, and WR super thin. It's the same the situation from the past where the unit was just shifted. I know you can't have supreme depth at every position. There's no such thing as a perfect team. But that's where you have to weigh philosophically, what is the best way to build a team. And I think what you find is that if you really draft truly to best player available, you find yourself with a team that's always in the mix to compete, but if BPA doesn't happen to correspond to really high level WRs and Pass rushers to go along with a top 5 QB, you don't win superbowls. It's easy for me to sit here and write this stuff, so I won't trivialize Eric's job. Just some food for thought regarding which types of rosters can win SBs

 

[rmcjacket23]

Because of Lamar. This whole entire team is Lamar with some help from Marcus Williams (sometimes). Without Lamar no one on here can tell me Harbaugh would’ve kept his job in 2018, that 2019 would’ve been glorious (until when it actually mattered), and that we wouldn’t be something like 1-3 this year

lol, I mean that's pretty much how every coach in the league looks like. If you don't have at least a decent QB, you're going to lose a lot.

How's Mike Tomlin looking these days? How's Belichick looking these days? Both those teams are mortal locks to have losing records this season, and I see no "greener pastures" ahead for either.

The greatest coach in the history of the world in football is in a weekly grind to get to 8 wins with a mid-tier QB.

 

[rmcjacket23]

We have the second most players on IR and are in the top half of the league with respect to the contracts of those players. Now some of those guys should come off IR which would make things better. So it doesn't seem like we're the most injured team to me, but we are certainly not among the healthiest by any means. Not sure what those other reports from yesterday were.

NFL 2023 Injured Reserve Tracker

A real-time look at the 2023 injured reserve cap totals for each NFL team and position.

www.spotrac.com

Right, but are those like world-class, critical players on IR? And how many of those guys have we spent the entire offseason preparing to not play with? Answer... pretty much all of them.

I'm not saying we don't have injuries, but if you literally go through the roster of players you expected to be out there today, who are the one's that are missing? It's basically Stanley and Fuller. And maybe one week of Justin Houston. That's it. That's the list. And I don't think anybody was out there saying "o man we can't win without Kyle Fuller". Good player and would love to have him, but he's not a world beater.

People need to stop blaming injuries right now. That ain't the problem. No team is going to be fully healthy, and by NFL standards, we are plenty, plenty, plenty healthy.
80% of our Oline has basically played nearly every snap
Our QB has played every snap
We now have as healthy of a RB group as we're going to see all year
TE core is all out there
WR core is all out there
The "core 5" of the secondary, namely Peters, Marlon, Clark, Hamilton, Williams... all out there
Most of the Dline is out there every week (Campbell, Madubuike, etc.).

Like by NFL standards, its a very healthy team. People can point to IR all they want, but there's plenty of teams who have 1-2 players on IR that are more impactful than the totality of the guys we have on IR.

 

[rossihunter2]

Thank you. I just can't imagine watching that game, seeing the defense get shredded, seeing the offense go 44 minutes without scoring and think oh the aggressive decision at the end to try and win this game was the problem. A sloppy game all around.

to me that loss is squarely on the offence not scoring a point in the 2nd half
defence played above and beyond but...

they've shown they're not good at getting off the field or clamping down - the defence can be good-to-great in normal phases of play but in certain situations it's currently not fit to task and now has form over the last year and a bit now of capitulating in 2 minute drills and end of game situations - it's a feast or famine defence and that's not a good thing to be in game-ending situations... over a game that might work but situationally it's not helpful to be relying on things like turnovers

you can even say the defence did pretty well yesterday all-told... but in its current makeup it's unreliable, untrustworthy and is gonna give up a bunch of yards

offence looked like poor execution and a bad day against a team that had an elite and deep edge rushing unit matched up against our 4th string LT on a poor weather day where we made a bunch of mistakes and had pre-snap penalties - im not worried about the offence even though they had a poor showing

im worried about the defence because im not sure how you fix the issues it has - maybe it really is as simple as just waiting for JPP to get acclimated, waiting for Houston to get healthy, waiting for Bowser's return and waiting for Ojabo to come in - maybe that fixes the myriad issues (and that's not out of the realm of possibility given the skillsets that these guys have) - but if it isnt that then idk that i see any answers

 

[rmcjacket23]

to me that loss is squarely on the offence not scoring a point in the 2nd half
defence played above and beyond but...

they've shown they're not good at getting off the field or clamping down - the defence can be good-to-great in normal phases of play but in certain situations it's currently not fit to task and now has form over the last year and a bit now of capitulating in 2 minute drills and end of game situations - it's a feast or famine defence and that's not a good thing to be in game-ending situations... over a game that might work but situationally it's not helpful to be relying on things like turnovers

you can even say the defence did pretty well yesterday all-told... but in its current makeup it's unreliable, untrustworthy and is gonna give up a bunch of yards

offence looked like poor execution and a bad day against a team that had an elite and deep edge rushing unit matched up against our 4th string LT on a poor weather day where we made a bunch of mistakes and had pre-snap penalties - im not worried about the offence even though they had a poor showing

im worried about the defence because im not sure how you fix the issues it has - maybe it really is as simple as just waiting for JPP to get acclimated, waiting for Houston to get healthy, waiting for Bowser's return and waiting for Ojabo to come in - maybe that fixes the myriad issues (and that's not out of the realm of possibility given the skillsets that these guys have) - but if it isnt that then idk that i see any answers

About an hour after the game, I texted my brother and simply asked... if the Ravens didn't blow that lead to Miami, does John still go for it there yesterday?
I think he kicks...

 

[UPennChem]

Right, but are those like world-class, critical players on IR? And how many of those guys have we spent the entire offseason preparing to not play with? Answer... pretty much all of them.

I'm not saying we don't have injuries, but if you literally go through the roster of players you expected to be out there today, who are the one's that are missing? It's basically Stanley and Fuller. And maybe one week of Justin Houston. That's it. That's the list. And I don't think anybody was out there saying "o man we can't win without Kyle Fuller". Good player and would love to have him, but he's not a world beater.

People need to stop blaming injuries right now. That ain't the problem. No team is going to be fully healthy, and by NFL standards, we are plenty, plenty, plenty healthy.
80% of our Oline has basically played nearly every snap
Our QB has played every snap
We now have as healthy of a RB group as we're going to see all year
TE core is all out there
WR core is all out there
The "core 5" of the secondary, namely Peters, Marlon, Clark, Hamilton, Williams... all out there
Most of the Dline is out there every week (Campbell, Madubuike, etc.).

Like by NFL standards, its a very healthy team. People can point to IR all they want, but there's plenty of teams who have 1-2 players on IR that are more impactful than the totality of the guys we have on IR.

Did you read what I wrote? I said I'd go find out the information. I presented it for people. The conclusion was we are NOT among the unhealthiest despite what people were putting yesterday. Just that we are also not among the healthiest. That's called correcting your view based on new data.

 

[rossihunter2]

Well the play call sucked, and the Bills did what they should have done, which is bring pressure and force Lamar to one side of the field.
I absolutely hate goal-line calls that force a QB to split the field in half. I know that wasn't the call, but its not like its shocking to see a team pressure a QB on the goal line. The fields already condensed, so you don't have to worry getting beat deep for a big play.

Not to mention that, for much of the second half, Lamar was either under pressure or thinking he was seeing pressure, and spent most of it outside the pocket. You have to understand where the strength of your team is on THAT DAY, not a long term approach over the course of years.

Long run, going for it is the correct move. In this game and at that moment, I didn't think so.

tbf the bills didnt actually send an extra man to force lamar that way - faalele just got beat that quickly by lawson off the edge and they actually had an extra man coming from the other side

 

[rmcjacket23]

tbf the bills didnt actually send an extra man to force lamar that way - faalele just got beat that quickly by lawson off the edge and they actually had an extra man coming from the other side

Right, but either way, they're getting pressure. Maybe its due to lack of protection or maybe we should be going with a more "max protection" call in that spot. I don't know that you need 4-5 route runners on that play call.

 

[rossihunter2]

I agree with you on a lot of your points but as you stated we overhauled most of our weaknesses from last year aside from ILB. OLB was supposed to be held down by average to below average players until ojabo and Bowser could come back. Same with RB with Dobbins and Gus. It’s poor luck for lack of a better term that Means got injured and Ferguson passed away, rip. At ILB we invested a lot into the position with Queen and Harrison in 2020 and we hoped that at some point they would make a leap and it’s easy to say in retrospect that that decision was a poor one, although I’ve believed for a while that their deficiencies aren’t something that can be coached up. Ross actually looked promising before he went down with injury too

you can create contingency wherever you want but you have to pick and choose
at a certain point you have to expect that the guys you have at certain positions can step up

- invested in OL, TE, S, CB, DL

- knew we had some reinforcements potentially coming at EDGE but that it would probably be rough until then but then had an apocalypse with the depth we had available at that position that's made the cupboard even barer than it was initially (which was not well stocked)

- similar idea behind RB which didn't work out initially but also knew JK was on the horizon - could have invested more here for cheap which you can certainly criticise

- trusted the guys on the roster at WR to step up, Bateman has stepped up and been basically everything we hoped he could be in year 2, and in slightly more limited usage we've had a guy step up in a big way in Duvernay who we were less reliant on but hopeful for

- trusted the guys on the roster at LB to step up and while it initially looked like Queen had taken a big step, he still has a tendency to go to sea and is not reliable - he's not the dumpster fire people make him out to be but he's not lived up to the athleticism and traits he showed as a 1 year starter and that got the ravens to jump on him as a 1st round pick - have also had nothing to write home about from Harrison either

basically we've got 2 sets of twin positions with twin strategies
- RB and EDGE both were given some attention but not much with the understanding that there were talented guys who would be potentially able to reinforce those positions after the season started and had to take that calculated risk... with RB it looks like it may be paying off as JK's workload increases each week, with EDGE we'll only start to find out in a few weeks but also were hit hard in the depth at that position which has made everything seem worse
- LB and WR both given almost no attention and actually, if anything, lost talent this offseason but had some talented young guys who were being relied upon to step up... in WR case they have, in LB case they have not

 

[JAAM]

Don't have a good feeling about this game. Curious to see the repercussions (if any) of losing as well. You'd have to think some changes would be made somewhere

 

[rossihunter2]

Right, but are those like world-class, critical players on IR? And how many of those guys have we spent the entire offseason preparing to not play with? Answer... pretty much all of them.

I'm not saying we don't have injuries, but if you literally go through the roster of players you expected to be out there today, who are the one's that are missing? It's basically Stanley and Fuller. And maybe one week of Justin Houston. That's it. That's the list. And I don't think anybody was out there saying "o man we can't win without Kyle Fuller". Good player and would love to have him, but he's not a world beater.

People need to stop blaming injuries right now. That ain't the problem. No team is going to be fully healthy, and by NFL standards, we are plenty, plenty, plenty healthy.
80% of our Oline has basically played nearly every snap
Our QB has played every snap
We now have as healthy of a RB group as we're going to see all year
TE core is all out there
WR core is all out there
The "core 5" of the secondary, namely Peters, Marlon, Clark, Hamilton, Williams... all out there
Most of the Dline is out there every week (Campbell, Madubuike, etc.).

Like by NFL standards, its a very healthy team. People can point to IR all they want, but there's plenty of teams who have 1-2 players on IR that are more impactful than the totality of the guys we have on IR.

the injuries are frustrating because they're piling up at certain positions
i get that it's a contact sport but it's really difficult watching us lose guys for multiple games each week

im not suggesting we're anything like the chargers (or even the bills tbh) - and in many cases, yes we've had more time to prepare for some of our missing guys (stanley, bowser, gus/jk etc.) because they're holdovers from last season

but that tbf doesnt make their absences unimportant - i think it's very easy to imagine (especially given where the game fell apart for us yesterday) that stanley, bowser and gus would have made huge impacts in that game if they were available and healthy

 

[OURavensFan]

It wouldn’t be unlike the Ravens to come out and win this game.

On the other hand, I expect Burrow to shred us, probably with his arm and feet. Joe Mixon will probably run all over us.

Their run game has actually been very poor, so if Mixon runs well against us it’s just another blow to our defense. Bengals O line has improved each week and we don’t have the pass rushers Dallas and Pittsburgh have, but hopefully the thought of losing 6 home games in a row and Burrows stat padding and trash talk motivate this team to dominate. We could use a dominating win right now, but I fear another squandered lead and failed 4th down

 

[rossihunter2]

About an hour after the game, I texted my brother and simply asked... if the Ravens didn't blow that lead to Miami, does John still go for it there yesterday?
I think he kicks...

idk - analytically it was close enough as to be basically an even choice (models on go/no-go had go as about 2% better when you factor in game-state, success rate of the play, and change in win percentage in the event of a success vs fail)

when it's that close it's 100% a coach's call so for sure the miami game will have played into it - but i dont think that makes it necessarily the wrong call... think i would have gone for it too... and so much of the choice to go or not go is whether you have a playcall you like in that situation and they clearly did... and it was a good one - lamar just didnt see Duv early enough and got moved off his spot by the instant pressure which is extra frustrating because lamar's been incredible vs pressure all season

idk that he kicks it if the ravens dont blow the lead - but blowing the lead probably made it an easier choice for him in his own mind to go for it

 

[JAAM]

idk - analytically it was close enough as to be basically an even choice (models on go/no-go had go as about 2% better when you factor in game-state, success rate of the play, and change in win percentage in the event of a success vs fail)

Serious question - has analytics ever really helped us in any significant way since Harbs became HC?

Any time I hear the term "analytics", I think of Barkley's rant on Daryl Morey

 

[OURavensFan]

Right, but are those like world-class, critical players on IR? And how many of those guys have we spent the entire offseason preparing to not play with? Answer... pretty much all of them.

I'm not saying we don't have injuries, but if you literally go through the roster of players you expected to be out there today, who are the one's that are missing? It's basically Stanley and Fuller. And maybe one week of Justin Houston. That's it. That's the list. And I don't think anybody was out there saying "o man we can't win without Kyle Fuller". Good player and would love to have him, but he's not a world beater.

People need to stop blaming injuries right now. That ain't the problem. No team is going to be fully healthy, and by NFL standards, we are plenty, plenty, plenty healthy.
80% of our Oline has basically played nearly every snap
Our QB has played every snap
We now have as healthy of a RB group as we're going to see all year
TE core is all out there
WR core is all out there
The "core 5" of the secondary, namely Peters, Marlon, Clark, Hamilton, Williams... all out there
Most of the Dline is out there every week (Campbell, Madubuike, etc.).

Like by NFL standards, its a very healthy team. People can point to IR all they want, but there's plenty of teams who have 1-2 players on IR that are more impactful than the totality of the guys we have on IR.

I really hope we don’t lose Bateman, that could have a big impact on our offense

 

[rossihunter2]

Serious question - has analytics ever really helped us in any significant way since Harbs became HC?

Any time I hear the term "analytics", I think of Barkley's rant on Daryl Morey

idk who barkley or morey are lol

but analytics are helping in all sorts of significant ways... things like 4th down decision-making, when to go for 2 (we dont win the colts game last year without those decisions), what sorts of plays and personnel are more successful vs what are lower percentage plays, when is it efficient to run the ball etc.

and then outside of the in-game stuff you've got tons of analytics that help with regard to draft philosophy, positional value, team-building, trades, what testing matters (or doesnt matter)

analytics is just an umbrella term given to all the research and studies done to challenge biases, test traditional viewpoints, find unseen advantages etc.

all those games we won with 4th down conversions? that's stuff that harbs wasnt really doing 6-7 years ago...

we've got one of the largest and most prolific analytics departments in the league

 

[OURavensFan]

I still haven’t seen anything about Bateman

 

[rmcjacket23]

the injuries are frustrating because they're piling up at certain positions
i get that it's a contact sport but it's really difficult watching us lose guys for multiple games each week

im not suggesting we're anything like the chargers (or even the bills tbh) - and in many cases, yes we've had more time to prepare for some of our missing guys (stanley, bowser, gus/jk etc.) because they're holdovers from last season

but that tbf doesnt make their absences unimportant - i think it's very easy to imagine (especially given where the game fell apart for us yesterday) that stanley, bowser and gus would have made huge impacts in that game if they were available and healthy

Right, but I guess my point is... in my eyes, there's a difference between injuries you've planned for and injuries that occur mid-season that you have to adapt to.

Most of the injuries we have absorbed have been expected injuries for months. We didn't anticipate those players being out there, and we had significant time and resources to develop game plans and strategies without them.

Like we probably would have expected Mekari, Pierce and Houston out there, and they're certainly key guys, but they're also not guys that I think should be the difference between winning a bunch or losing a bunch.

 

[rmcjacket23]

Serious question - has analytics ever really helped us in any significant way since Harbs became HC?

Any time I hear the term "analytics", I think of Barkley's rant on Daryl Morey

Depends on how you define "significant". We've converted key analytics-based situations in the past.

Yesterday, we went for it on 4th and 1 at our own 34 in a tied game in the 3rd quarter. We converted, but ultimately threw an interception. Didn't end up costing us or them any points, but the game could be significantly different if we punt there instead of going for it.