The Defence, the Turnovers, and the Tucker

[UPennChem]

You said that, I'm not inventing anything.

I didn't say youre inventing things. And how is that not true? He is responsible for a lot of the struggles. He's also been let down so unbelivably dramatically by his surrounding crew and coaches it's insane.

Again my whole point is some people choose to fixate on one or the other. It's not one, it's both. I really can't imagine why that would even be a hot take.

 

[allblackraven]

I didn't say youre inventing things. And how is that not true? He is responsible for a lot of the struggles. He's also been let down so unbelivably dramatically by his surrounding crew and coaches it's insane.

Again my whole point is some people choose to fixate on one or the other. It's not one, it's both. I really can't imagine why that would even be a hot take.

I do not agree with "a lot of the struggles" qualification.

If his legs are cut under him by crap O line and receivers dropping football, play caller not putting DH in on a 2pt conversion...... what can he do? He can only produce so much magic and probably not against the above average defense.

 

[UPennChem]

I do not agree with "a lot of the struggles" qualification.

If his legs are cut under him by crap O line and receivers dropping football, play caller not putting DH in on a 2pt conversion...... what can he do? He can only produce so much magic and probably not against the above average defense.

OK I'll use the phrase some of instead.

I totally agree and mentioned, the rest of the Ravens have made his job harder. Their job is to make it easier. And in that respect, that's been a total failure.

Lamar's biggest failures over the years in those big games have been untimely redzone interceptions, untimely fumbles, untimely sacks, and overthrows to open receivers. All that stuff has happened and has contributed to the loses. In those games our TO differential is usually bad and we've not scored tons of points even when the defense has largely limited opponents.

I can see Lamar getting better. Panicking less. Really being a lot more careful with the football. Committing to taking what the defense gives him. And in spite of that, against the Steelers, the rest of the team let him down. That's why I have such little confidence in a deep run.

Before it was Lamar and the team have both largely been to blame. Lamar has taken a step but it's pretty clear the rest of the team is ridiculously inconsistent. And as good as Lamar is, a probably 3x MVP kinda guy, he still can't score 20 points when his team shits the bed.

JH doesn't get these teams to rise to the necessary occasion. And when we fail, Lamar gets blamed entirely. And that really sucks for him

 

[JoeyFlex5]

This is true. Here's the problem I have when we talk about the "abandoning the identity things"... it doesn't always materialize into losses. It's pretty clear that our run/pass distribution in both Cincinnati games was nowhere close to what we wanted it to be. I'm not saying we "got away from ourselves", but I think far too often we just assume that if we're not "balanced" or even run heavy, that Lamar starts sucking. He was fantastic in both of those games. He was very good against Cleveland.

I struggle with this idea that when we "abandon our identity" it means Lamar has to suck. He deserves a LOT of blame for some of these PIT and KC losses. Not all of it, and maybe not most of it, but a lot of it. He can simply play better. He gets paid to play better. He's expected to. It matters more to play well in this game than it does to throw 5 TDs in a blowout against Denver. It just does.

I don't buy for a second that this loss was about "abandoning who we are" from a run/pass distribution. We had 16 designed runs for Derrick Henry called by the end of 3rd quarter. That is NOT a low number by any stretch of the imagination. I'd argue its too high of a number over the course of a 17 game season.

Lamar gets less blame because of the penalties and the down/distance he had to deal with, and the missed kicks and the turnovers. He missed plenty of throws. He missed plenty of opportunities to extend plays with his legs. Coaching won't solve that. He needs to solve that. He's the expensive veteran. He is the measuring stick for these games.

At the end of the day, Lamar needs to go out there and make it extremely clear that he's the best player on the field in these games. He came pretty close to doing that against KC earlier this year, and that's why he caught less shit for that loss. He wasn't anywhere close to the best player yesterday, and hasn't been in really any PIT game he's played and very few KC games also.

Ftr I wasn’t trying to say losing our identity was why we lost to Pitt, I know we couldn’t run the ball because nearly every possession had us in 1st or 2nd and 15+

Our last 2 vs KC though…

 

[JoeyFlex5]

Run blocking is pretty important for a guard. If Vorhees outplays him there he could move out to RT and rotate with Rosengarten like was first planned.

Fuck no. No reason for it. Zero upside to rotating there.

 

[rmcjacket23]

So - O line played like crap and WRs were dropping balls but let's blame Lamar for A LOT OF THE STRUGGLES.

If we don't, we are homers.

Is that Sunday's game or games prior? Didn't see many drops on Sunday and the Oline was good enough to win with.

 

[rmcjacket23]

Ftr I wasn’t trying to say losing our identity was why we lost to Pitt, I know we couldn’t run the ball because nearly every possession had us in 1st or 2nd and 15+

Our last 2 vs KC though…

Playoff game, sure. I don't understand the concern of "identity lost" from Week 1. Maybe not using Henry "enough" is an argument, but 13 carries isn't a small amount. And he only averaged 3.5 with a long run of 9. And Lamar had 16. Very clear the gameplan was at least partially "Lamar use his legs a lot". Hasn't ran anything close to that much since.

Holistically, a 41/32 pass:run ratio can't be an "identity breaker".

Know I wasn't around here to critique week 1, but I thought we played well and just got beat. I didn't walk away from that game thinking "O wow we abandoned our identity again". Thought Lamar was good, thought we were pretty balanced offensively. Thought the defense could have played a lot better, but knowing what I know now, not sure they were all that bad either.

 

[OURavensFan]

Playoff game, sure. I don't understand the concern of "identity lost" from Week 1. Maybe not using Henry "enough" is an argument, but 13 carries isn't a small amount. And he only averaged 3.5 with a long run of 9. And Lamar had 16. Very clear the gameplan was at least partially "Lamar use his legs a lot". Hasn't ran anything close to that much since.

Holistically, a 41/32 pass:run ratio can't be an "identity breaker".

Know I wasn't around here to critique week 1, but I thought we played well and just got beat. I didn't walk away from that game thinking "O wow we abandoned our identity again". Thought Lamar was good, thought we were pretty balanced offensively. Thought the defense could have played a lot better, but knowing what I know now, not sure they were all that bad either.

Mahomes whiffed on a wide open wheel route that Lamar would get crucified for missing

 

[rossihunter2]

Me and you were both heavy on ardarius in the draft. So far This one looks like a gem by Eric

in hindsight we were too high - but clearly the NFL was way too low

 

[gtalk12]

Tucker missing kicks has cost us how many games now?

2? 3?

 

[airconteka]

Your tingle is as reliable as Tucker's leg.

Factually incorrect. I only missed once, he missed twice. But yeah I was 0% and he was 33% so yeah as I said you are wrong, Florida man.

 

[redrum52]

Remember all this steelers praise this week. All the best team talk. We'll revisit this convo in a couple weeks

 

[Baltimorican]

LMAo, Browns only team with winning record in division games.

 

[rmcjacket23]

Mahomes whiffed on a wide open wheel route that Lamar would get crucified for missing

Depends. Which team won the game? Criticism obviously occurs at higher levels when the outcome desired isn't achieved.

Mahomes won't get criticism for anybody in the regular season because he takes a steamy shit on just about every team in the league in January and February.

The very second Lamar wins a ring (if he does), you'll see a massive, massive, massive decrease in criticism.

 

[OURavensFan]

Depends. Which team won the game? Criticism obviously occurs at higher levels when the outcome desired isn't achieved.

Mahomes won't get criticism for anybody in the regular season because he takes a steamy shit on just about every team in the league in January and February.

The very second Lamar wins a ring (if he does), you'll see a massive, massive, massive decrease in criticism.

Will be nice when he wins it this year

 

[Tank]

Depends. Which team won the game? Criticism obviously occurs at higher levels when the outcome desired isn't achieved.

Mahomes won't get criticism for anybody in the regular season because he takes a steamy shit on just about every team in the league in January and February.

The very second Lamar wins a ring (if he does), you'll see a massive, massive, massive decrease in criticism.

I don't think we necessarily need to win a SB for the decrease to happen. Lamar just needs to perform well in the post season as he does in most regular season games to shake the "big game choke" criticism.

 

[OURavensFan]

I don't think we necessarily need to win a SB for the decrease to happen. Lamar just needs to perform well in the post season as he does in most regular season games to shake the "big game choke" criticism.

I still don’t understand why Burrow wasn’t really criticized his last championship game, he was lucky to have 2 INTs called back ontop of the 2 he threw.