oldno82

I agree Cleetz. There are no quick slants or Boldin screens in our repertoire. Maybe I should have said more imaginative rather than aggressive. And I like Flacco, but have yet to see him throw a successful fade for a TD to Boldin though we've tried.

I think it is. Wish Cam would get off the pot and call a more aggressive game. He showed signs of doing that in the preseason and then...

Holy Cow!!! A Steelers fan I actually like! Who would have thunk it?

Look, I know the playoffs are the goal here but so is entertainment value. We've got guys on offense that should be lighting up the scoreboard and providing us with entertaining games instead of watching a slow motion offense keep pressuring our D to hold the other team to one or two scores. I've been watching a lame offense here for the last 11 years. Now we have the personnel and something is still definitely wrong. Well, on second thought, maybe the O-line personnel aren't as good as I thought they were. Maybe that's where the problem lies.

Comment From Tyler] Ken, Trent Dilfer was on 105.7 the fan recently and said that Cam's offensive scheme doesnt involve progressions for the Qb its just 2 options or so followed by a checkdown. Is this true? Because the more i watch the more it looks to be true plus that would explain why Rb's in Cams offenses always have so many catches. 12:08 Ken Murray: Trent knows better than I know, Tyler. That's not what we're led to believe, though. I think with the offensive line struggling to protect Flacco, he's had to short-circuit the reads to get the ball out. He still has some hesitancy, and we saw that again yesterday. He's not a finished product. But you make a very valid point in how Cam's running backs are usually favorite targets. Clipped from the Sun's Raven Insider website.

You hit the nail on the head!

I agree with everything thats been said here. We failed to properly utilize Boldin, Housh, and Stallworth and the latter 2 have contracts, I think, that were only 1 year deals so why should they come back? The pass protection is weak and the passing scheme is weaker. And sometimes Joe has time to throw and either no one is open or he doesn't see them. What the heck is going on here? We need to use the weapons we have and there are many. After the season, I expect the Ravens to do SOMETHING to remedy this offensive mess we have and I want to hear Harbaugh tell the fans what that is.

The offense definitely sucked, looking as bad as it did on several Sundays this year. All that talent and so few points. Still, a win is a win. We're in the playoffs. We beat the Bengals who destroyed the Chargers last week. So, it looks like its going to be a game in KC next week if Indy wins.

Cool...sounds like something from Star Trek.

Good Grief Max! Are we on the same brainwave channel? I just posted the same topic as you did.

Hey guys, lets not overlook the fact that the Bengals are coming to town this Sunday and would love to hang another loss on us. Carson Palmer destroyed the Chargers last week without the 'mighty' TO and Ocho and the Chargers were arguably the hottest team in the NFL. Lets take care of this Sunday's business and then we can concentrate on the playoffs.

A decent win and we're playoff bound. We might even beat Manning what with the Colts' decimated O-line.

This is a sad development on many levels. Most importantly, a talented kid may lose out on his God-given ability to make a great living and have a super career. After that, its true he could have really been a plus for our defense. I'm holding out hope that maybe he'll still play in 2011.

Joe's soft touch TD pass to Rice was a thing of beauty too.

Couldn't ask for much more from the O-line other than fewer procedure penalties. Joe's protection was good. Ray, who was superb, had holes to run through. Joe had some excellent throws and should have had a third TD pass that McClain dropped. We still need to play a whole game on offense and defense didn't shut them down but damn it was a good, team win.

Also well said. We have a franchise qb and they need to protect him better. Mike Preston had a blog post where he said Joe is reminding him of Testeverde. I beg to differ. Vinny wasn't a bad qb but he was interception prone at crucial times. Flacco definitely has his head together more.

Yes! We do agree. The problem is offensive playcalling and coaching. Papa is right too that we need to look at what other teams did with similar talent that we have. On the offensive line we have two number one draft choices, Oher and Grubbs, a third round pick, Chester, and Yanda does a good job. Birk, I don't know if he's history or not---just haven't watched him enough to know for sure but there is talent there and that is what leads me to say offensive line coaching needs a lot of work.

While I don't think he's quite toast yet, Cousins is very close to being a complete bust if he doesn't show a great deal of improvement in these last 3 weeks.

Dee, as I said, I'm not knocking Ray Rice but he just isn't a power back like Jamal. Many times I've seen JL hit a solid wall right at the line, bounce off, and run off tackle down the field breaking tackles as he went. Plus, Jamal had the size and strength to carry the ball all those carries in a game. RR doesn't appear to have that kind of durability given his size. Ray is more of a back who hits a hole very quickly and moves downfield with great quickness, but I don't think we can 'pound the ball' with him given our offensive line's lack of charge off the ball (to say nothing of how the line has so much trouble pass protecting). Thus its hard for our offense to tire out an opposing defense like we used to do when Jamal was here. We need to take advantage of RR's elusiveness in the open field; use him more on swing passes out of the backfield, run more sweeps, and get him more away from traffic because it looks like this line just can't open up enough lanes on a consistent basis for him.

I don't think this offense can 'pound the ball' anymore like it used to. Not only is the offensive line not as powerful on the run but Ray Rice is not Jamal Lewis who bowled over defenders even when they were stacked 8 and 9 in the box. Don't get me wrong---Ray is a great multipurpose back, but he doesn't have the power Jamal had to make something happen when there is no hole. Again, Cam needs to adapt his system to the talent available not the other way around. More slants, more Boldin screens, more use of Stallworth and Housh, and use Ray Rice to keep defenses honest. I am beginning to think Cam is the biggest problem. He's definitely talented, but he micromanages Flacco too much, doesn't use the shotgun and no-huddle enough, and doesn't use Ray Rice properly. He has to change---be changed.

100% right!

Excellent points! Plus, I don't know how many noticed but when Housh was ragging on the officials for a non-PI call and going on too long loud and loud with it, Joe yelled at him to get back to the huddle.

Hey! Funny and accurate at the same time...this post gets a 10!

I absolutely agree. And it wasn't just once, there were numerous blitzes off the edge we didn't even block. Joe is going to get killed one day.

Joe is a good quarterback. The problems are with the O-line as has been stated on this board. I'm not sure about Cam's playcalling and micro-managing of the offense either. We could certainly use O-line help in the draft, but the defense needs someone else to pass rush---and its time we found a LB to eventually replace Ray Lewis. All in all we have more needs than I thought we would when the season started. Its been a disappointing season to see us waste valuable resources like Boldin, Housh, and Donte.