Our team's faults are defensive, not offensive
by Zachary Beard on Oct 18, 2009 8:21 PM EDT
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PrintAs the Baltimore Ravens have proved this Sunday, We are not crippled on offense. We don't need a Wide-Receiver or a new O-Lineman, We proved this by coming back by a 27 point deficit in less than 10 minutes. I don't know about you but having Joe Flacco throwing for 385 yard, 2 TDs, and no interceptions against one of the leagues best defenses doesn't sound too bad to me. Ray Rice having over 100 yards receiving and 77 yards rushing does not equate to a bad offensive team. But if our Defense didn't give up 33 points we would not have had to come back. Let's face it, we miss Rex Ryan. Our Corner-backs are slow, undersized, and cannot cover the the more athletic Wide-Receivers in the league such as Randy Moss, Vincent Jackson, and Ocho-Cinco. But when we do try our defense 9 times out of 10 commit a stupid penalty. I really hope Ozzie doesn't become an Al Davis second-coming and actually does something smart next year; Draft a Corner-back. Preferably over 6'0and runs faster than a 4.40. Another aspect of our defense we need to fix is our slow, unaware linebackers. What ever happened to Ray-Ray being in the backfield ever play? He and T-Sizzled out, are never applying pressure to the QB, and it is really starting to piss me off. Ed Reed is being stuck in too much man-coverage and is not the same ball-hawk we know,want, and need. This man-coverage is Mattison's fault because he doesn't know how to use a weapon like Ed Reed. Dawan Landry used to be good, but now it is time to start considering putting Nakamuri or Zbikowski in as SS. Remember last year?, Zbikowski was actually good last year, so why are we starting Landry? I have no clue why. And worst but not least, our defensive line, We are EXTREMELY over-rated. Besides Haloti Ngata the rest of our line keeps getting blocked by EVERY O-Line. A Steelers fan once told me if we could get a defensive player that could get 10 sacks in one year we would be one of the best teams it he NFL. I am starting to agree with him on this. I also think that we should start looking for a new defensive coach, because Mattison is WAY too conservative. Our Defense is something we should think about changing in the off-season. Another bonus would be a better Kicker, because Steve Haucshka really effed us over today. But remember we still have 10 games left and 13-3 is still a possibility, so keep your heads up Ravens fans, At least we are not 0-6 like the Titans. Have a good rest of the night if you can and remember we only lost by 2 points.
The opinions posted here are those of the administrator of this blog and his loyal readers. They are in no way official comments from the team, and should not be misconstued as such, even though he thinks he could do just as well or even a better job!
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Bout time someone said it other than me.
Coaching is definetly a problem because why would walker be 1-1 with Sidney Rice. A matter of fact why would he put a dime cornerback on the there #1 reciever. Lol Goddamn i couldve coached better than that.
I don't know
It’s only week six and we’re .500. There are plenty of concerns, but it’s too early to talk about the draft, in my opinion. I still have faith that we can work out our kinks especially with the upcoming by week and be absolutely ready for the Denver Broncos. Don’t give up yet.
the suggs and foxworth money will haunt us. DUMB DUMB DUMB.
mattison is horrendous and never deserved the job. the guy has turned us into a shadow D overnight. i think he just tries to stay out of the way and can’t even do that right.
teams play different when their killing you. i take this comeback with a grain of salt and the fact that the Vikings relaxed and barely got going again.
you're drunk
Mattison doesn’t go out there at the Ted Linebacker position and get blocked out of the play. Mattison doesn’t go out there and get smoked by Sindey Rice. Mattison doesn’t tell his players to make illegal contact while Carson Palmer is engineering a potentially game-winning drive. Mattison doesn’t arm-tackle Adrian Peterson and look up like “wow I can’t believe he got away.”
Mattison made some bad calls early on but I can’t say I hate on the playcalling right now. He’s just handcuffed by some glaring weaknesses in his personnel. He can’t blitz like we’re used to because he can’t trust his CBs 1v1 against ANYBODY. He’s in damage control mode right now, and it’s up to the players to step up and make the schemes work. The best playcalling and schematics in the world don’t matter if your DBs can’t cover and your Ted backer can’t shed a block.
"I know where you're at, man. You had it all, and now it's gone. It's torn a hole in your soul bigger than my Escalade. So you turned to the drugs, the alcohol. Pornography, free-basing with OJ, human trafficking, dog fights slash orgies... darkness."
-- Craig Robinson as Reg Mackworthy in Season 1, Episode 5 of Eastbound & Down
he cant blitz because we were better last year in the DB department?
not really. i guess you mean Leonhard who everyone says we don’t miss. rolle stunk and the other cast of characters were just as bad. mattison just can’t get it done. flat out. it may be the other way around. our DB’s have to cover for 1/2 hour while ray dances between rush and pass coverage and our Slugg line performs a Waltz at the line of scrimmage. any decent qb will pick apart any DB position with much time. we just get exposed faster because we can’t cover without holding our hitting defensless receivers.
Don't you see Suggs getting doubled every play?
No one else is picking up the slack. While I didn’t think we would miss Bart Scott, his blitzing helped us in the past and no one is picking up “his” slack.
aka 'Rexx'
by Bruce Raffel on Oct 20, 2009 9:34 AM EDT up reply actions
Suggs makes a ton of tackles
and is the ony one pressuring the QB despite getting double-teamed all the time. Ed seems to be freelancing so much he provides limited deep help. Ray is not as good as he once was but is still very very good.
However, Rex Ryan is 3-3 in NY, so he is definitely not the problem, as Greg Mattison can’t help the sloppy tackling or the lack of a pass rush or Frank Walker wrapping a guy up while the ball’s in the air.
It’s the players lack of execution.
aka 'Rexx'
You keep spewing the same crap..
How do you think it works Bruce? The defensive coordinator controls the defense! He tells the players where to line up and where there responsibilities are, the players themselves don’t get to choose. This has everything to do with the coordinator. You are not thinking clearly, maybe you got a concussion on your walk yesterday. You say “It’s the players lack of execution.”, I say its the defensive coordinators game plan that has them unprepared. You say “Ed seems to be freelancing” do you think he would have gotten away with blown assignments under Rex Ryan? “Ray is not as good as he once was..” are you serious, if everyone around you was under achieving don’t you think it would be hard for you to play also. I mean seriously he is a linebacker, not a safety, or a corner, and for that matter he isn’t a lineman either. He needs a dominating line to gobble up the blockers trying to get to him, he needs corners who can cover(so the quarterback holds the ball a half second longer), and he needs safety’s who play there assignments and don’t go freelancing around. These are just my thoughts and maybe you need to research what a defensive coordinator does in this league. I look forward to your response on this subject.
by Beauty And the Bear on Oct 19, 2009 11:02 AM EDT up reply actions
I like this
I put most of the blame of Reed’s poor positioning on the field because of Mattison. I think Mattison wanted Reed to play the run too much tonight. Most of the big time pass plays came off play action, and I think Mattison had Reed biting too much. No way it is ALL the players, like you said. We have the same core of our team on the field and good enough players at all positions to make plays. But Mattison decides to play as much single coverage as possible and move Reed up as close as he can. Should have tried to get Mike Nolan back here.
Limp and dangling.
Reed's positioning
comes from the fact that he’s constantly worried about his corners giving up the big play.
It might not be ALL the players, but it’s mostly the players. People need to get off Rex Ryan’s nuts, our defense had its lapses under him as well. Now we’re a year older, we have even weaker personnel at CB and nobody has really cemented the starting spot at ILB. If you expect a DC to just snap his fingers and invent top-5 defense with all those question marks floating around, you got another thing coming.
"I know where you're at, man. You had it all, and now it's gone. It's torn a hole in your soul bigger than my Escalade. So you turned to the drugs, the alcohol. Pornography, free-basing with OJ, human trafficking, dog fights slash orgies... darkness."
-- Craig Robinson as Reg Mackworthy in Season 1, Episode 5 of Eastbound & Down
Sorry, but can't agree
Both Ed and Ray have the leeway to play where they think the play’s going regardless of the defensive call. They call audibles all the time on offense and Ed is a, get ready for this, FREE safety, which means regardless of the scheme, he can go where he thinks the ball is going. Ray and Ed carried the DC’s all these years and still do, but they had help then and while there are good players around them, there are not enough.
We don’t need much and I’ll even say our corners re sufficient if the opposing QB’s only had less time to throw. Then Ed and the corners would be in better position to cover and stop the big plays w/o resorting to penalties to stop the TD throws.
aka 'Rexx'
by Bruce Raffel on Oct 19, 2009 4:12 PM EDT up reply actions
reasonable people can disagree on this.
But you gotta agree with me on the ILB thing. Who’s it gonna be? Ellerbe? McClain? Gooden? who? something is causing these lapses in the front 7, and I’m inclined to think it has to do with that lack of a solidified starter at the Ted Backer position
"I know where you're at, man. You had it all, and now it's gone. It's torn a hole in your soul bigger than my Escalade. So you turned to the drugs, the alcohol. Pornography, free-basing with OJ, human trafficking, dog fights slash orgies... darkness."
-- Craig Robinson as Reg Mackworthy in Season 1, Episode 5 of Eastbound & Down
Gooden is light in the pants and McLane is better. Actually I’d put Kruger in the LB position tomorrow.
Gooden and McCalin are ILB
while Kruger is an OLB. I like Ellerbe but can’t figure out why McClain isn’t playing as I haven’t seen him on the inactive or injured list.
aka 'Rexx'
by Bruce Raffel on Oct 20, 2009 9:35 AM EDT up reply actions
at least explain to me why Fabian got benched if he was playing “sufficiently” yesterday.
"I know where you're at, man. You had it all, and now it's gone. It's torn a hole in your soul bigger than my Escalade. So you turned to the drugs, the alcohol. Pornography, free-basing with OJ, human trafficking, dog fights slash orgies... darkness."
-- Craig Robinson as Reg Mackworthy in Season 1, Episode 5 of Eastbound & Down
not enough confusion
I don’t know about you guys, but i’m getting sick and tired of our D walking everyone up to the line thats going to blitz and actually send thoughs guys. Everytime we blitz, we give it away with about 10 seconds left on the playclock. The QB for the opposite team picks it up, changes protection and stuffs the blitz. In the minne game, we would walk up about 5 guys, put them right on the LOS and just let farve pick out who he wanted blocked. Also, did any one else catch it when Brett would change the play using the phrase “ALERT”? That ment quick slant pattern, which we got killed on. I picked that up in the 1stQ and you’re telling me that no one on the D could get it? This is crazy. This D really needs to get it together or we mine as well start thinking of who were going to draft in the top 10 next year.
FEAR THE NEVERMORE DEFENSE!!!!!!!!!!!!
We have the same core of our team on the field and good enough players at all positions to make plays. But Mattison decides to play as much single coverage as possible and move Reed up as close as he can.
respectfully, that’s erroneous. Reed crashes on the run by his own judgement since he knows Foxworth WILL miss the tackle and/or get blocked.
and you guys want to complain about how we can’t pressure the QB and then turn around and complain that we play too much man coverage. What’s it gonna be fellas? Usually when you blitz you’re forced to leave men in man to man coverage. The fire zone was nice back in the day but if you were watching the same Fabian Washington I was you wouldn’t be asking him to play deep zone. He already gives guys 5 yards of separation, I hate to think how far off he’d play if we dropped him in a deep cover 3.
"I know where you're at, man. You had it all, and now it's gone. It's torn a hole in your soul bigger than my Escalade. So you turned to the drugs, the alcohol. Pornography, free-basing with OJ, human trafficking, dog fights slash orgies... darkness."
-- Craig Robinson as Reg Mackworthy in Season 1, Episode 5 of Eastbound & Down
You can still blitz and double guys. But we are not doing that. You can send 5-6 guys and still have two people watching Sidney Rice. It’s not that we need to rush more people or more often, it is just that our pressure on the QB sucks in general, no matter how many people we are sending. And because of a crappy pass rush, we are getting crappy coverage. But, even when we only rush 4, we still suck at pass coverage.
I still do not understand the roles of our players in a 3-4. Ngata is not a DE. He is a DT and needs to be in the middle of the pack just pushing in one direction. He does not have a Freeney Spin move, and Peppers swim move to play DE. He is a great athlete, but we are not using him the right way what so ever. And I am not sure many of you can argue that. Ngata in my opinion is the sole reason behind if we stop the run or not. Well, 2 one hundred yard rushers and Ngata is ghost out there it seems like.
Limp and dangling.
You can send 5-6 guys and still have two people watching Sidney Rice.
sure. By leaving Foxworth alone with Berrian. Great idea. Your favorite play from last week was Landry not making a play on the TD pass to Shiancoe. But you’re telling me you’d still want to leave him 1v1 too?
Look, there’s 11 guys on the field, so if you rush 5 that means you can either rush 5 with man coverage and a safety high, or you can rush five with double coverage on one of the WRs. The latter is risky and it’s not difficult for Favre to read.
Rushing 6 means zero high—no safety, one-on-one man coverage for the whole family. I don’t know about you but that doesn’t make me comfortable.
I still do not understand the roles of our players in a 3-4. Ngata is not a DE. He is a DT and needs to be in the middle of the pack just pushing in one direction. He does not have a Freeney Spin move, and Peppers swim move to play DE.
now you’re talking sensibly. That is our main problem. O-Linemen know that Suggs is the main guy we ask to pressure the QB and so it’s not that hard to slide protection to the weak side and let Ngata, Gregg, and Pryce take their sweet time dancing around their blocks. Eventually every one of those guys will win against their blocker, but we don’t have until “eventually.” We need quick pressure.
I’m about ready to see us just go 43. Ngata and Gregg with Pryce rotated in at DT (yeah, he doesn’t have DE speed anymore), and Kruger and Suggs at DE. Forget about the other ILB, we don’t have starting material there in all likelihood.
"I know where you're at, man. You had it all, and now it's gone. It's torn a hole in your soul bigger than my Escalade. So you turned to the drugs, the alcohol. Pornography, free-basing with OJ, human trafficking, dog fights slash orgies... darkness."
-- Craig Robinson as Reg Mackworthy in Season 1, Episode 5 of Eastbound & Down
Didn't Kelly Gregg look average yesterday?
The Vikings o-line got forward progress a lot against our so-called stout run defense. AP got 140 yards but 60 of them on one run and 26 on the first one. Otherwise, we did okay but they always got five or so when they needed it. However, why run when you can sit back there and pick us apart, eh?
aka 'Rexx'
by Bruce Raffel on Oct 19, 2009 4:14 PM EDT up reply actions
he made acouple of plays
he’s on pace for like 90 tackles too. I’m not ready to give up on him.
I’m really thinking we could use a little 43 action though. I say forget about the Ted backer position, lets just make Kruger the starter at RE and let Ray be the lone MLB.
I’ll tell you what Bruce, that’s the easiest fix for our pass-rush woes (without adding new personnel).
"I know where you're at, man. You had it all, and now it's gone. It's torn a hole in your soul bigger than my Escalade. So you turned to the drugs, the alcohol. Pornography, free-basing with OJ, human trafficking, dog fights slash orgies... darkness."
-- Craig Robinson as Reg Mackworthy in Season 1, Episode 5 of Eastbound & Down
Certainly worth a look
what have we got to lose right about now. Unleash Kruger.
aka 'Rexx'
by Bruce Raffel on Oct 20, 2009 9:36 AM EDT up reply actions
Zone blitz
Why are we playing man coverage when we know we can’t. We need to start using more zone blitz schemes. Keep Ed high so we don’t get beat deep, bring 5 guys from different direction and play a cover 3. We may give up the little short dump off passes, but those can be tackled for a short to no gain.
FEAR THE NEVERMORE DEFENSE!!!!!!!!!!!!
No need to be a jerk man. You can make a point without being inflammatory.
The coaching hasn’t been perfect but we have had a chance to win at the end of every game. The coaches job is to give us a chance in every game, and the players job is to make a play to win games. The players didn’t do it yesterday or the past two weeks.
I don’t see how you can blame only the coaches or the players. Its a mix of a so so game plan and poor execution. There is plenty of blame to go around and the whole team, players and coaches need to step it up.
You say "Ed seems to be freelancing" do you think he would have gotten away with blown assignments under Rex Ryan?
Yes, I do. Do you not remember the first half of last year? Reed was worse then hes has been so far this year and had many blown coverages due to freelancing. He turned it around in the ninth game last year and I see no reason why this year should be different. Who was the coordinator then? Oh yea, it was Rex, but revisionist history is fun, isn’t it?
"Ray is not as good as he once was.." are you serious,
Ray is still a very good player but I don’t see how you can claim that he is the same player he was 5-10 years ago. He is not the problem but he is also not the best defensive player in the league like he was…. He is not near being the top MLB anymore (Patrick Willis among a few others), so clearly, he is not the player he was, as Bruce claimed. Bruce did not say he sucked or should be benched, he merely stated an observation which is almost universally agreed upon.
I’m surprised that you make these comments then have the gall to say…
These are just my thoughts and maybe you need to research what a defensive coordinator does in this league.
word.
you beat me to my reply. I wish my post could have been the first response to that crap.
"I know where you're at, man. You had it all, and now it's gone. It's torn a hole in your soul bigger than my Escalade. So you turned to the drugs, the alcohol. Pornography, free-basing with OJ, human trafficking, dog fights slash orgies... darkness."
-- Craig Robinson as Reg Mackworthy in Season 1, Episode 5 of Eastbound & Down
i see the crap coming from your end, homie.
I’m not sure what game you were watching, but a Defensive Coordinator isn’t to blame if a CB just gets plain smoked by every WR he lines up against. There’s no way to fix that. If a dude sucks, he sucks. Did Josh McDaniels just waltz into Denver and make their crappy personnel good suddenly? No! He brought his own guys in! Because he knew they could play!
Now, Mattison is stuck with free agents who we thought could play. He didn’t tell Ozzie to sign Foxworth, Washington, or Carr (not that Ozzie had much of a choice mind you). He’s just trying to get bad CBs to play good football.
I think maybe you need to watch some tape man, you’re the one who needs to do you some football learning. Bruce might not be a GM but he’s plenty better schooled than you seem to be. No scheme or coach can cure a guy who just sucks in man coverage. He can call a good play, he can dial up a blitz, he can show you all the game tape, but if you just go out there and get burned then his schemes aren’t going to work the way they were supposed to.
"I know where you're at, man. You had it all, and now it's gone. It's torn a hole in your soul bigger than my Escalade. So you turned to the drugs, the alcohol. Pornography, free-basing with OJ, human trafficking, dog fights slash orgies... darkness."
-- Craig Robinson as Reg Mackworthy in Season 1, Episode 5 of Eastbound & Down
The blind leading the blind
Keep spewing the same shit your obvious leader does. You should get an original opinion and stop jumping on other people. YOU PEOPLE STILL DON"T UNDERSTAND WHAT A DEFENSIVE COORDINATORS JOB CONSISTS OF AND HOW THINGS WORK!!! You haven’t told me anything to change my mind or my way of thinking. Also it’s obvious that you don’t have the brain power yourselves to do that. Follow, follow, follow, how pathetic.
by Beauty And the Bear on Oct 20, 2009 10:40 AM EDT up reply actions
hahaha
this is my favorite:
You say "Ed seems to be freelancing" do you think he would have gotten away with blown assignments under Rex Ryan?
yeah, he did.
"I know where you're at, man. You had it all, and now it's gone. It's torn a hole in your soul bigger than my Escalade. So you turned to the drugs, the alcohol. Pornography, free-basing with OJ, human trafficking, dog fights slash orgies... darkness."
-- Craig Robinson as Reg Mackworthy in Season 1, Episode 5 of Eastbound & Down
Football is the ultimate team game
Regardless of well a guy plays, if the guy next to him doesn’t execute, then they all look bad. It only takes one guy out of his lane to screw up the entire scheme. That’s why the systems are not working in the trenches or the secondary on defense. One is directly connected to the other. Until they are in sync and I have confidence we can turn this around, it won’t work. I’m not saying we will be among the top couple of d’s in the league, but if we can stay in top 10 then we can return to the playoffs without a doubt.
aka 'Rexx'
by Bruce Raffel on Oct 19, 2009 4:18 PM EDT up reply actions
I don’t care about rankings, I just want to be able to control games so that our offense isn’t asked to put up 21 points in less than 5 minutes in the fourth quarter.
I agree though, if we can just stop the bleeding Flacco will carry us to the promised land. Man is the truth.
"I know where you're at, man. You had it all, and now it's gone. It's torn a hole in your soul bigger than my Escalade. So you turned to the drugs, the alcohol. Pornography, free-basing with OJ, human trafficking, dog fights slash orgies... darkness."
-- Craig Robinson as Reg Mackworthy in Season 1, Episode 5 of Eastbound & Down
“suggs makes a ton of tackles”
i hope so. the run game comes right at him every other down. thats like getting excited about LB tackles. big deal. you could make more tackles than anyone else on the team by being somewhere by accident.
What are you trying to say?
That even a broken clock is right twice a day?
aka 'Rexx'
by Bruce Raffel on Oct 20, 2009 9:37 AM EDT up reply actions
point-
haven’t won games against good qb’s in years with the way ed and ray are playing it….regardless of who is lining up who! aren’t they the leaders… the coaches on the field everyone gushes about. isn’t that 1/2 their value.
torched by rivers, palmer, favre so far. want to keep the count going let it continue. offense was an excuse for years even though many games were lost with the D on the field. this years excuse is “having to help the CB’s”. the CB situation needs to be handled by the coaches. this problem should have been fixed in august when we all knew what the weekness was! foxworth is hardly the answer when your other side is naked.
i really feel bad for the O. they are being ripped off just as bad as the D was for years. BUT, unlike the D of past years this O shows up in the 4th quarter with 2 minutes on the clock.
the CB thing isn't an excuse,
it’s a hard fact of life at this point. The coaches are coaching the best they can. The bye week should help. But it’s up to the players to step up and elevate their level of play. I never blamed a coach if I missed a jumpshot in basketball or got blocked in football. That was on me. I could go ask my coach how to improve, but when I go out there in the game it’s all my responsibility.
"I know where you're at, man. You had it all, and now it's gone. It's torn a hole in your soul bigger than my Escalade. So you turned to the drugs, the alcohol. Pornography, free-basing with OJ, human trafficking, dog fights slash orgies... darkness."
-- Craig Robinson as Reg Mackworthy in Season 1, Episode 5 of Eastbound & Down
I hear Joey Galloway is availble, the Patriots just released him.
Maybe Ozzue could possibly go after him to add to our WR depth. What do you guys think?
R.I.P. Tony Fein
May God watch over you wherever you are now and may you be in a better place. We will never forget you!
Can Galloway be a CB?
Cam Cameron plays to the situation. He’s not the pace setter. If Pitt plays a tight game Cam will follow. If we’re down by 20 he’ll let Flacco air it out and leave us scratching our heads why this didn’t happen from the opening whistle. He seems to go into games waiting for the other team to decide whether it will be a shoot out or scracth for every yard.
Very odd and Cam is not exactly the tempo dictator I’d like. Flacco needs to throw the deep ball. Not just when we are spining wheels but to send a message threwout the entire game. As you can see, Flacco is a little rusty with the deep ball and has missed his last 2 bombs by a stride. He can make that throw and that throw will separate us from Pitt. We cannot play tight early.
Flaccos passing stats are a little misunderstood because the screens and dumps are basically a run play. So, when you see 46 passes please don’t jump overboard about a lack of balance. I like the short pass with this team. i always thought that Jamal Lewis should have had more screens as he is a beast once he gets past the line. It was a disservice to Jamal to slam him up the middle until we made him useless.
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