Week 2: Baltimore Ravens @ Tennessee Titans

[pat-daddy]

Quote: Originally Posted by LBzrule

Not only that. But if Flacco is always looking for the deep pass first as he says then that might reveal the QB read system behind the offense, namely, R3. Rhythm, Read, Rush. The Rhythm route is the deep route and with R3 the QB always looks to that route first. If it is covered they drop down to the Read route, which is the intermediate route. Against the blitz however, the QB looks Rhythm, and if it is not there immediately drops to rush - which is the back out of the backfield. Sounds like how the QB operates in our offense to me. He can criticize all he wants. While his criticisms are not to be ignored, I think they fail to take into account the system. This is not West Coast. This is a modified version of Don Coryell offense. Here is a good article for that: http://www.geocities.com/epark/raide...l-offense.html Until one actually understands the offense and what the QB is looking at I'm taking the criticisms lightly. Is Flacco a bad QB? He might be a terrible West Coast QB, but I wouldn't know that because that's not the system he's in. If I try to grade him that way he will never pass the litmus test. But at the same time I wouldn't know because I haven't seen him in that type of system. He might be better suited for that. But that's not what we run.

I hear what you're saying but I think you've misunderstood my criticisms. Flacco looks deep too long. He's too willing to gamble for the long pass that isn't there, hoping in vain that it will develop when it's just not going to. Instead of recognizing this sooner, he wastes time. By the time he finally concedes it's not there, the shorter options have been closed down too. So he decides to just throw it deep and hopes to get lucky. But usually ends up lucky just to not get an INT. Or, he gets unlucky and gets the INT. And if he doesn't do that, he takes a sack because instead of conceding and throwing it away, he's too busy continuing to look for a deep route to open that just isn't going to. I guess that you could say that Flacco's problems could be summed up by the fact that he's horrible at understanding when to cut his losses.

It's interesting that you bring up the West Coast offense, because I've said in many a conversation that in my opinion Flacco looks like he wants to play as if it were a West Coast system. But he's not that kind of quarterback. And our team isn't set up like that in the first place. But I want to be clear here that while I don't like Flacco because of the way he's developed, I find the root of the problem to be more on the overestimation of Flacco and the way he was hyped since day one. It went to his head. In my mind Flacco and Tony Romo are very similar in this regard. Both are decent talents that were instantly overhyped from day one. There were early coaching decisions that were mistakes for both, which involved too much gambling on these guys. It allowed these guys to get too big of heads, to think that they were too capable of single handedly pulling their teams through. And it all lead to the establishment of habits and patterns of behavior from the sidelines and in both of them individually that are making them the weakest link for their respective teams. Both of these guys have talent. But it's not being used in the right way. Instead it's often used in counterproductive ways. I'll tell you what, take either of those guys and put them on an Andy Reid team, and they'll shine twice as brightly as they have so far. Either one of those guys, if they were being coached better from the onset, would be just as good, if not better than Aaron Rogers.

[JayBee74]

Quote: Originally Posted by wwharton

Letting those guys go was the right choice. McClain is not that good. He had a good year pounding straight ahead and did little since then. Decent full back but I'll take the guy that A)blocked for Foster with his insane year, B)doesn't seem like a huge douche/stupid penalty risk/wants to play the role he has and help the team. McGahee wants more touches and really deserves them. I don't like the idea of just trying to make situations for the guy. Rice can carry a heavier load so he was kind of a waste. And for the # of touches we're talking about, Ricky is great, and a solid replacement if Rice gets hurt. Definitely don't have a problem with those moves. I don't think we need to get tricky with Rice either. He's a great option out of the backfield but I don't see him as a great route runner or big target. He catches short passes and makes the best out of them. They could use him in more screens, but don't need him lined up outside to do that. Cam just needs to call a better game. Who knows, the pressure getting through with Grubbs down may have screwed up the gameplan this week. It'd be a sorry excuse but a possible one. We have weapons though. Two former probowl WRs and two great pass catching TEs, and another 2 or 3 young WRs for certain situations. We shouldn't need to put Rice out there, we should find out why all those guys can't get open. It's always been shelved when we had issues at corner though. I'm with you. I can understand not ignoring the issues when going into a game, but when your back is against the wall I don't see what the point is of continuing with what's not working.

Yeah, I think Mcclain preferred to run the ball rather than block. Vonta Leach is a significant upgrade-as a matter of fact it's not even debatable.

Meanwhile Harbaugh is considering sitting Foxworth and Lee Evans until they are better recovered from their injuries.

[wwharton]

Quote: Originally Posted by pat-daddy

I hear what you're saying but I think you've misunderstood my criticisms. Flacco looks deep too long. He's too willing to gamble for the long pass that isn't there, hoping in vain that it will develop when it's just not going to. Instead of recognizing this sooner, he wastes time. By the time he finally concedes it's not there, the shorter options have been closed down too. So he decides to just throw it deep and hopes to get lucky. But usually ends up lucky just to not get an INT. Or, he gets unlucky and gets the INT. And if he doesn't do that, he takes a sack because instead of conceding and throwing it away, he's too busy continuing to look for a deep route to open that just isn't going to. I guess that you could say that Flacco's problems could be summed up by the fact that he's horrible at understanding when to cut his losses. It's interesting that you bring up the West Coast offense, because I've said in many a conversation that in my opinion Flacco looks like he wants to play as if it were a West Coast system. But he's not that kind of quarterback. And our team isn't set up like that in the first place. But I want to be clear here that while I don't like Flacco because of the way he's developed, I find the root of the problem to be more on the overestimation of Flacco and the way he was hyped since day one. It went to his head. In my mind Flacco and Tony Romo are very similar in this regard. Both are decent talents that were instantly overhyped from day one. There were early coaching decisions that were mistakes for both, which involved too much gambling on these guys. It allowed these guys to get too big of heads, to think that they were too capable of single handedly pulling their teams through. And it all lead to the establishment of habits and patterns of behavior from the sidelines and in both of them individually that are making them the weakest link for their respective teams. Both of these guys have talent. But it's not being used in the right way. Instead it's often used in counterproductive ways. I'll tell you what, take either of those guys and put them on an Andy Reid team, and they'll shine twice as brightly as they have so far. Either one of those guys, if they were being coached better from the onset, would be just as good, if not better than Aaron Rogers.

I only want to comment on a couple of things (instead of going around in circles).

First, Flacco is FAR from perfect and has a lot of things he needs to work on but the idea that he just throws deep and either gets an INT or gets lucky not to just doesn't make sense. He only had 10 ints last year. He completed 63% of his passes. 7.4 yards a completion. They drafted Smith and traded for Evans bc it was too easy to defend the pass since there was no deep threat. I don't know where you're getting that idea from.

Second, Andy Reid has proven to be a great coach for QBs if not just a great coach period. I don't think it's to stretch to say most QBs would've been better off if they got a chance to work with him. But to think that Romo, Flacco or most QBs in the league would be Rodgers or better is just crazy.

[wwharton]

Had to bump this for Pat daddy.

Here's an article on Flacco audibling into many of the pass plays in last week's game against the Rams.

http://blogs.baltimoreravens.com/201...arial-assault/

If ever there was a case for your argument, this is it. I still don't agree with a lot of your thoughts on Flacco, but this was definitely a game where he looked deep early and often... and it looks like he audibled into the bombs.

In the STL game, it just made too much sense but I would've liked to see them run more. It'll be interesting to see what the play calling looks like in the game coming up with the Jets.

[LBzrule]

Quote: Originally Posted by wwharton

Had to bump this for Pat daddy. Here's an article on Flacco audibling into many of the pass plays in last week's game against the Rams. http://blogs.baltimoreravens.com/201...arial-assault/ If ever there was a case for your argument, this is it. I still don't agree with a lot of your thoughts on Flacco, but this was definitely a game where he looked deep early and often... and it looks like he audibled into the bombs. In the STL game, it just made too much sense but I would've liked to see them run more. It'll be interesting to see what the play calling looks like in the game coming up with the Jets.

And I will say Flacco's audibles in this game were on the money. With two of them he had single coverage it was just a matter of Smith being ready to play and he was. On the other Smith just got past the Safety, but he had Boldin open underneath this route, which is probably what made the Safety hesitate and Smith get past him.

Against the Jets it'll be a little different I think. I think the focus will be more to Dickson and Pitta this game. They may target Revis once or twice but not often. Regardless of what Smith did last week, Revis will be covering Anquan Boldin.

[wwharton]

Quote: Originally Posted by LBzrule

And I will say Flacco's audibles in this game were on the money. With two of them he had single coverage it was just a matter of Smith being ready to play and he was. On the other Smith just got past the Safety, but he had Boldin open underneath this route, which is probably what made the Safety hesitate and Smith get past him. Against the Jets it'll be a little different I think. I think the focus will be more to Dickson and Pitta this game. They may target Revis once or twice but not often. Regardless of what Smith did last week, Revis will be covering Anquan Boldin.

Definitely were on the money. I'm playing a little devil's advocate to pat daddy's point just to say if Flacco does have the ability to audible to these deep plays and keeps doing it even in bad situations (like against a team like the Jets and Revis) then he may have a point there. I don't think that'll be the case either though. Evans may be back too which could open up things even more. They may have to play more zone.