RavenMad

Our blitzing has been terrible and very predictable. Our guys are showing blitz too early and then the line gets time to adjust and pick it up. Only once did I see us show blitz early and then back off into coverage. We need to quit with the all out blitzes as well, I don't think they have worked once this season.

I thought Webb looked good returning kicks and I'm interested to see if he can do the same with punts. At this point in time Carr has done nothing and looks worse on D. Apart from that game winner that Houshka missed I have been impressed with his kicking. How well Houshka recovers from that kick will be the tell tale sign on whether he can be the long term answer at kicker. I agree that our kick coverage units need some work but the punt team at least looked respectable.

For me the only chance the Bengals have is if Palmer can consistently get the ball to his no.2 option should that be Caldwell, Henry or Coles or the TE. I think the Ravens proved last week that they can take away the no.1 receiving option. On D I don't think the Bengals can stop the Ravens, they just have to slow them down enough to keep their O in it. That said if Cam has us come out throwing that worries me a little. I would rather see the Ravens run the ball and set up the play action pass. It is with PA that Todd Heap could have a career day going against Roy Williams. If it is close then like Thundercleetz said whoever has the ball last could win.

It makes me wonder what sort of team the Broncos would be if they had simply kept Shanahan and hired Nolan to be the DC. With Cutler and that offense from last season and the improved D this season the Broncos would look amazing right now.

That one got me really mad as well when I saw the replay. The commentators tried to pass it off that the defender had a right to the space that Mason ran into but that was just complete bulls**t. The defender clearly stepped in front of Mason after Mason made his cut. Mason put his hands up to protect himself from the collision and then bounced off the defender and headed towards the sideline to make the catch. If anything it should have been defensive holding but was called against Mason. That got really mad. The roughing the passer ones that were called were probably the right call although the one on Ngata was harse. Ngata barely brushed him trying to bat the ball down. What really got me was the roughing the passer calls for Brady yet Flacco was regularly getting drilled after the pass yet nothing was called! Double f**ing standards just pissed me right off. That said I was proud of the team for nearly winning this game. Despite all the adversity including the bad calls, the injury to Gaither and the turnovers we still had a chance to win this game in the dying seconds. One final comment. Can we please draft a frigging WR next year? Or trade for a decent one at least? Clayton dropped 2 potential TD passes although difficult, plenty of NFL WRs make those catches and that drop on 4th down is inexcusable. I hope our WR play outside of Mason will not be the cause of our downfall this season.

It looks like Ben is ready to wrestle:

lol, did u see Brady Quinn. I'm no lip reader but I could of swore he just said,"At least I didn't throw 3 f'in picks"

Larry survives but it looks as though the Cardinals are about to succumb to another curse: The curse of the Superbowl runner up.

During the game when it got really close for a spell I was wondering why we weren't using the running game enough as we were dominating in that area. Once I stopped to think about things for a while I understood. The Ravens wanted to test Flacco and their passing game. What better time to do it than against a no hope opponent. I'm sure Cam Cameron knew we could run the ball as we have proved last season but he wanted to see just how we would do if we need to pass to win. Granted there were some good and bad things in the passing game but I'm sure Cam has now figured out what he can and can not use in more meaningful games. Gone are the days of 8 men in the box. Flacco will start burning 8 man fronts regularly. It was great to see other weapons appear outside of Mason with the re-emergence of Heap, Clayton showing some life and dare I say it health and the backs doing a nice job receiving out of the backfield. If Washington can put up those numbers every game then we got a reliable 3rd WR. Like Cam said, he wants us to be able to win a game if we need to run or pass 50 times per game depending on the strengths/weaknesses of the opponent.

It is so good to have you guys back. I need my fix of Ravens discussion on the eve of the new season even if this thread is about the Steelers.

Thats what I am worried about. I remember Troy having exactly the same knocks and very similar looking numbers although I believe DHB was a little more consistent than Troy. However, its a risk I would love to see us take. He could easily turn into the deep threat we need. How many times did we see Mark Clayton get oh so close to some of those long bombs from Flacco. DHB would have simply run under those and it would have been 6. A season under the route running tutelage of Mason could also be a blessing. What vet WRs did Troy have to show him the ropes - wait wasn't it Travis Taylor that went to the Vikings around the same time? Oh dear.

Drafting for need would have been taking Flacco at our original 1st round pick. We traded down and then up to get into a position where the need became BPA. Grubbs was BPA. We needed an OT or a CB way more than another guard. Ngata was BPA available at the spot we were in and the spot we traded up to. Ozzie goes after players we need in the spots he thinks they are worth. Leftwich went the spot after we were trying to trade up to leading me to believe Ozzie felt he was BPA at that spot. We didn't take Boller at 10 because he wasn't BPA, Suggs was. We then traded back up to a spot where we felt Boller was BPA. Hell the year after with Dwan Edwards we would have taken another safety early if the Colts hadn't snatched Bob Sanders the pick before. Dwan was BPA on the list available. Clayton wasn't a need as we had just signed Mason. Again BPA. Do you want to go back further? How about 96? JO was BPA in Ozzie's books hence he got picked ahead of Phillips. He played guard his first season because we had 2 OTs already, so JO wasn't a need. The trend is Ozzie targets needs at positions in the draft he feels where the player he wants is BPA. If he can't move around he drafts BPA.

Suggs can be franchised again but he gets a 20% raise on whatever his franchise tender cost last season so his cap figure would be roughly $10mill. As for C-Mac, he hasn't bought into the Harbaugh system and if that is the case he needs to go which is a shame. We could use that cap savings of $8mill to spend on getting at least Suggs and Ray resigned. But we NEED to draft another CB in the 1st or 2nd round this year in that scenario. I'm ok with Rolle and Washington as starters next season and the new guy as the nickel and learning from Rolle. The only other position of need is a deep threat WR. If we can get one of those with our other pick in round 1 or 2 then we can move Clayton to the slot.