SpearSrai

Cam doesn't have "nothing to work with"; it's the job of the coaches to coach up the players they have, and there is a ton of potential at the receiver position for the Ravens. Maybe Mark Clayton, Demetrius Williams, Kelley Washington, Justin Harper, ande co. are terrible, but those are the guys that the coaches presumably felt were good enough to start the season with. I have to think that that group is at least as good as Pierre Garcon and Austin Collie, and we do have Mason and Heap to draw the coverages away from them just like Wayne and Clark do. Flacco may not be experienced enough to "coach up" his receivers, but this should be a big part of Cam Cameron's responsbility as the runner of the offense. I can't put the brunt of it on Flaccom, but at some point a young, smart player has to know when to change the play at the line of scrimmage, to make up for poor play-calling from a bad coach. Granted, he may not feel like he is allowed to do this because of Cameron's "tenure", but I contend that calling your own plays (and knowing what to look for) separates the good from the great quarterbacks.

I think our defensive mentality was pretty good... we just needed better players. I have no problem with the mentality of our defense... I just wish we had better corners so we could play more press-coverage and less off-coverage. The mentality that I would really like to change (which is the exact same complaint as last year...) is our conservative playcalling on offense. I realize that Cameron's system relies on freeing up the runningback to make big plays in the passing game, but when your runningbacks can't catch consistently (and your quarterback can't hit them in stride) the offense has no quick-strike power.

While I do agree that we need a better pass rush, I'm not sure if that person can be drafted. It seems like getting pressure has more to do with blitzing schemes and snap-count-anticipation than anything. Yes, once in a blue moon you land a guy like LT, pre-steroids-bust-Merriman, or pre-steroids-bust-Peppers, but most of the guys turn out more like Vernon Gholston on the bad end, Terrell Suggs on the high end, or Antwan Barnes in between. Cover-corners, on the other hand... it would be nice just to get a guy who was fast, could tackle, could stay healthy, and could time a hit to avoid pass interference. Are those traits really that rare? I'm not asking for the anticipation, awareness, and leaping ability of Revis...just give me a guy who can play 16 games a year and not get flagged every one of them.

You think Rex would trade us Sanchez for Flacco, straight up, then? Because I love Sanchez's potential. The guy is already scanning the field and progressing to his 3rd and 4th reads. I'm not sure that Flacco even knows what he's looking for in a defensive coverage scheme. And considering that Brian Schottenheimer was talked about to take over our head coaching job, I'd definitely take his offensive mind over Cam's. Provided Cameron even has an offensive mind...

The Jets are everything that the Ravens used to be, and I've been pulling for them for the past few weeks. I honestly believed that we would meet them in NY for the AFC Championship. Unfortunately, we can't score 20 points against a terrible defense. While I can't stand Jet fans, I'm envious of what their defense is becoming. Heavy blitzing, quick pressure on the QB, and great play in the secondary? Yeah, we're decent tacklers and hard hitters, but I wish we could get back to the days when we shut down star quarterbacks every week. Letting Leonhard get away was one of the worst moves we've made. He's a natural playmaker, and we already knew that last year. We may not have been able to afford Bart and Ray, but I think we could've held onto Jim L. Would've helped the secondary, special teams, and in the return game with Lardarius going down. Nothing could be worse than Carr returning kicks.

Yeah, short-term, but long-term you want to know that your team can at least compete in big playoff games with elite teams. You think Eagles and Patriots fans just shrugged off their blowout losses? Or Cardinals fans? I'd rather lose a close game, as long as it wasn't a controversial ending (Packers).

I work with a Rams fan, believe it or not. I only know this, btw, because his fantasy team was named rams101. He never brought it up once this year.

We still gashed the Steelers in the run-game. Oher can learn to pass-block. At least we know he'll be there every week.

Putting up 3 points against a defense like that tells me that we're a lot further than "a star receiver" away from having a good offense. Plenty of good quarterbacks do more with less than we have at receiver. I think it's time to admit that we're using the "no #1 receiver" thing as a scapegoat, when really our offensive stalling has more to do with the guy calling the plays and the guy throwing the rock.

I talked about this earlier. A close loss would've made me feel sicker in the short term, because it wasn't drug out over a 60 minute game, but in the end I'd rather lose a close game because I could have a hopeful offseason. This way, I have no faith in our coaching staff, our 'franchise' QB, or our ability to fill our biggest needs (how are your two biggest needs the same two offseasons in a row? [WR/CB] Especially with the much-praised draft-team that we have?)

Even if you gave us all of Arizona or New Orleans' receivers, our offense would underachieve, because we do not run routes like the Cardinals and Saints do, and Flacco does not appear comfortable throwing the routes that are necessary to move the chains 20-30 yards at a time. The funny thing is, Flacco seemed to hit more crossing and middle-of-the-field routes last year than this year. Yes, I'm impressed with Flacco's ability to hit the down-and-out, but it's still a difficult throw to make drive-after-drive-after-drive. Run, dump-off, sideline route... mix up the order, repeat. Has any offense ever been successful with that formula? Were we really so impressed with its effectiveness last season that we went with the same thing again this year? And for that matter, has Cam Cameron proven at all that he can run a Super-Bowl-caliber offense? Look at Drew Brees post-Cameron. Sure, you can beat up on the little guys with a conservative offense like that, but I contend that you'll never win 3-4 straight playoff games that way against quality opponents.

I'd compare it to Federer having to hope that Nadal gets knocked off by someone else to have a shot at winning a major these days. The only thing in our favor, I guess, is that our team is quite young, and we'll have a few years post-Manning/Brady/Roethlisberger/Rivers where we can make a run. There's really no good up-and-coming QB as young as Flacco in the AFC, so there may be a gap of a few years in there. (Sanchez may be the closest.) Yeah, none of that is exciting to me, either.

I was sure that Josh McDaniels was going to win coach of the year... ...and then his team came to Baltimore. It was all downhill after that.

No way... the Chargers or Jets get a home AFC Championship game if we win. Of course they are pulling for us.

Al Davis has reportedly been in contact with the kid.

In the big formation, you would be using both Yanda and Cousins, obviously.

Since clearly we can't get Reed to stop attempting a lateral every time he touches the ball, and we can't exactly discipline him for doing so, we should go completely in the other direction and train every special teams and defensive player to watch for the lateral on a Reed return (INT or kick) and especially to dive on the ball when it inevitably winds up on the ground. At least then we wouldn't have guys getting pegged in the head by a Reed lateral that they didn't know was coming.

While I do agree that it's a terrible thing to do to a program, I also believe that most people would've done the same thing that Kiffin did, if they were in his situation. How many people are going to turn down their 'dream job'? Clearly Kiffin always wanted to follow in Pete Carroll's footsteps, and he definitely seems like a west-coast kind of guy. Some people would sacrifice their own happiness out of loyalty to their employer (or recruits/school/fans, in this case) and some people would not. I can't blame Kiffin for doing what's best for him, even if I feel bad for Tennessee's players and fans.

So who are the Ravens looking at in the draft?

Not even in the big formation? Isn't he a decent run-blocker?

There's no way Gaither doesn't play in this game. The rest is precautionary.

*INJURY REPORT IS FLACCO-FREE Despite widespread speculation regarding quarterback Joe Flacco’s health, the Ravens did not include his name on the first injury report on the week leading up to a playoff matchup with the Indianapolis Colts. Flacco had previously been bothered by a hip injury. He walked with a slight hitch in his step prior to last Sunday’s wild-card contest in New England, and after completing only four of 10 passes for 34 yards and one interception, many outside the organization questioned whether the injury was worse than anyone was letting on. “I feel great this week,” Flacco said on Wednesday. “I’m moving around really good. There’s nothing really to it.” http://blogs.baltimoreravens.com/?p=3063

Two important questions to ask about those stats: 1) Which games did Bob Sanders play in? 2) How many times did Indy sell out against the run because of our inability to punish them deep? The second question shows why it's important for Cam, Flacco, and (Demetrius Williams?) to come up with some big blitz-beating plays in this game.

To the "speed" point, I can't imagine Barnes being any slower than Anquan Boldin (who ran a 4.7) I only bring up Boldin because he is one of the big-name WR's that we have been pursuing. If Barnes were fast, he would be a top 20 pick; the point here is that he has a gift that only the SPECIAL receivers possess: he can get open, even when the entire defensive focus is on him.

What you mean to say is, "If we want to blow the Colts out, we're going to have to 'play a perfect game'. That's probably true. As for New England, they never had a shot, and we outplayed them in every area. We could've played worse and won by less, but no matter what, we were winning that game. Hell, we handed them 7 points by not throwing a challenge flag, and another challenge cost us 2 points. Combined with Flacco's accuracy problems and the dropped catches by the receivers (D-Will), I think you'd agree that our Patriots-dismantling was hardly perfect. Kurt Warner was perfect. We were not. We're just really, really good, and we don't lose if we're not committing dumb penalties.