borntodiebalmerfan

My mom's family is from Baltimore, my father was in the Army, and retired out west. So I was always a fan looking in from the outside. When the Elway fiasco was going on I was in Palo Alto (home of Stanford). I was working at a Carl's JR and Budget Rent a car. I had no car, lived in a 1 room hotel room share bathroom and kitchen. To be living like that and have some guy flat out to refuse to play for the team I grew up with, in a game that I would have done just about anything to continue playing was hard to take. For all the years there was no Baltimore football, my favorite team became the team that was playing against Elway and Denver. Unfortunately, that time span also became the time I began to have kids and raise a family. Instead of my kids being raised to follow a team, they watched me week after week ranting and yelling like a maniac for the demise of one player and eventually the rage went towards Indianapolis when they became competitive. In my presence, Indianapolis is always referred to as Indianapolis and the c-word is never connected with Indy. My kids are adults now and have no loyalty to any teams or that much interest to watch football. So to me I feel like my family lost a generation of Baltimore football fans. This last years playoff run took a lot of that hate away as thundercletz pointed out about Denver/Elway and Indianapolis demons being exercised. I know that Baltimore teams have more super bowl wins than Indy, and both franchises (Colts and Ravens) have better winning percentages in Championship/ Super bowl games than Elway and Denver. Those two facts make me smile every time I think about it. I hope the Ravens open in Denver this next year with a big chip on their shoulders. I am pretty sure they will, isn't that the Raven way?

Doesen't Ben look like he is trying to intiminate Joe in the picture with this article? Joe and Ben.docx http://www.latimes.c...0,2721489.story

I have been out of touch with the local discussion about the Ravens until tonight, or this morning for you all. The last post evolved into Joe's inconsistency with his accuracy and thought process. Is Caldwell still his QB coach and didn't Joe seem to respond better with Jim Zorn? Someone made the point that Cam is not really good for Joe's game and Joe is not really good for Cam's game; so maybe this will be the last eight games (five reg, 2 playoff and 1 superbowl) with that combination on the offensive side.

In order to get Ray Rice to sign, shouldn't the Ravens get the line taken of ? I would think a running back that could command attention from other teams would want a decent line provided for him. As far as Dickson, I would love to have him represent. I am just afraid you cant brake old habits and he has droped catchable passes all the way through college and has not seemed to improve. Big TE's are the trend now and I just wonder if there are other ones out there that are more consistant than Dickson. Grubbs always seem to be the one lineman you would see get upfield to block for Ray on screens.

This is not much but the ravens should start by getting rid of Ed Dickson. He had stone hands at Oregon and has not improved his pass catching in the NFL. Pita can do the job. Would it help to get Flacco to agree to a 1 year extension? This may be a stupid question I am not very knowlegble when it comes to front office moves.

Jim H. had a good year there is no doubt about that. However, he did not draft the SF defense in one year, they were allready intact. He did manage to get the players to respond better than Singletary did. But to say that he out coached his brother is debateable the NFC West provides two games with the Cardinals, two with the Seahawks, and two with the Lambs. Brother John's AFC North division was the only division in the NFL to produce three playoff teams. And to me the tiebreaker is when the Ravens beat the 49er's head to head. There has been improvement every year John H. has coached the Ravens in team discipline and (I know the numbers do not bear the evidence) their red zone offense. The Ravens were only one completion away from the superbowl this year, I am pretty sure a lot of football fans wish they could say that for their teams. I wish Cam would have been shown the door as much as anyone else on this site. I wonder if Pags going to Indy stopped the plan because a winning team does not want to spend the off season trying to find an offensive and defensive coordinater at the same time.

The one common thread that weaved through the last four NFL teams standing was discipline. Think of the four coaches whos teams made it to chamionship Sunday Belincheck, Coughlin,and the Harbaugh brothers. All of these teams owe their success to discipline in how they prepare and play. It was the Pats defensive Moore who said that out of instinct he stripped the ball from Evans,it was also something he said the Pats did drills on.That comes down to discipline. Compared to the stupid penalties the Billick coached Ravens made this team has grown leaps and bounds in that part of team disciplne. I am pretty sure the Ravens had to of cut down on yards penalized this year. Maybe Caldwell will improve Joe's discipline with reads and he comes out next year and has MVP type numbers. Maybe the receivers become more disciplined and stop making so many drops. Those two improvements in discipline could make the difference.

I watched the Ravens 2000 superbowl episode of America's Game on the NFL network yesterday instead of a no defense Pro Bowl. RayLewis said something about that 2000 team that made myhair stand on the back of my neck thinking about next year.He said it seemed like that whole season the team was just plain pissed off at anything and everything and they played like that all year. I am 100% sure that as pissed off as I am, those guys are many many times more pissed off about how the season ended. That emotion may be what was missing this year and that is why this team did not have that cold blooded mentality to finish off teams. Perhaps this loss will instill that drive to put teams totally down in the ground when they get leads and not let teams crawl back into games or hang around untill the end. Teams that finish teams off have better road records then what the Ravens ended up with and one more road win in the season would have won home field all the way.