Discuss your thoughts on the Ravens 23-17 loss to the Patriots last night on our message board.
Huge problems on the O-line.
You can say all you want that it’s a team game, yada yada yada…Matt Skura single handedly killed two second half drives because of his ineptness to snap the football. He rolled one to Mark Ingram in the Wildcat on a 4th and 1, and on the second to last drive rolled one passed Lamar Jackson that he had to jump on to salvage 2nd and 26, leading to a punt.
Completely inexcusable. We’ve seen this for two weeks now with the poor snaps, and the excuse is a “cut” on his hand. If it is this bad, why is he in there? Everyone who plays in the trenches has cuts on their hands. No?
D.J. Fluker did himself no favors getting benched at halftime after multiple first half penalties that also killed drives. Tried him at guard, tried at tackle, is his time here up? Patrick Mekari, a center and guard, had to bounce out to right tackle, and actually didn’t bring any negative attention to himself. That’s really all we ask for from the O-line. No dumb penalties and don’t be a complete turnstile.
If you’re a center, throw in there getting the ball to your quarterback.
Don’t give me the weather excuse. The Patriots center did his job rather than looking like he was snapping a KY ball.
I don’t know what the Ravens can do. You want to put Mekari in Skura’s place so that you don’t have to hold your breath with every snap. But who plays tackle now? Week 11 is too late to be figuring this out. Ronnie Stanley and Marshal Yanda sure are missed.
Ravens defense waited too long to be aggressive versus the run.
Why? All the Patriots do is run the ball. They are among the top three in rushing attempts and rushing yards per game. Cam Newton entered the game throwing just two touchdowns on the year. The weather suggested it would be a run heavy attack. The Ravens had no answers for the Pats ground game in the first half. They got a lot more aggressive, and exotic with their blitz looks after allowing a touchdown to open the second half. They were able to stymie the Patriots offense enough to keep the Ravens in contention. Too little too late.
Willie Snead open often, a lot more than the “Soulja”.
Not only did Snead find the endzone twice, but he found the holes in the Patriots zone often, giving Lamar Jackson a clean lane to deliver the ball to a wide open target. Most of his passes were well placed given the conditions.
Snead ended up hauling in five balls for 64 yards and the two touchdowns, though he did have a drop in the horrific weather conditions.
Brown on the other hand, was never open and Jackson forced two deep passes his way down the field. One of them intercepted near the end of the first half. What happened to Brown’s speed? His foot is supposed to be healed from last year. He was doing all the right things in the offseason according to his social media videos. Yet he gets zero separation for Jackson to deliver him a deep ball that he is supposed to have better than a 50/50 chance at catching. He’s not a big receiver so his speed is what separates him, literally and figuratively. When not getting separation, he’s getting squeezed out of bounds, or boxed out by defensive backs. It’s not a good look.
His complaining probably has Jackson forcing Brown the ball sometimes as well.
Hopefully Brown regrets being a diva on Twitter. Even though he (or someone) took his post down quickly after the Steelers game, this is the stigma he carries now. One way to erase that stigma is to elevate your game. Get yourself open so you can get the ball. He caught two balls for 14 yards. Going to need a lot more than that if you’re going to beg for more targets. Even if he isn’t going to tweet about it, you know where his mindset is. He wants the ball, but he didn’t earn the targets last night.
Even with seven games to play, sitting at 6-3, the division seems lost.
The records in the AFC North are pretty inflated given that the division faces the NFC East. The Steelers improved to 9-0 yesterday. I understand the luck factor makes them the worst undefeated team in history through this point in a season. Ravens fans point to point differential, but now we trail Pittsburgh in that regard. Steelers are +100 in point differential which trails only the Chiefs (+103). Despite the loss, the Ravens are still third in the NFL at +79.
Don’t look now but Cleveland is right on the Ravens heels at 6-3, only trailing because the Ravens own that head to head tie breaker, for now.
The Steelers remaining schedule goes like this: @ JAX, vs. BAL, vs. WAS, @BUF, @ CIN, vs. IND, @ CLE.
Sounding optimistic for Ravens fans, I see Pittsburgh losing at most, three games, four or more would be ideal for the Ravens though, including the Ravens beating them. Steelers could easily go 15-1 as well. JAX just played their hearts out to compete with Green Bay, makes me think they lay an egg next time out. Maybe the Ravens win. The rest of the games could be competitive, even WAS who was pretty resilient yesterday and have a decent defense and are starting to maybe realize how good Antonio Gibson actually is and feed him the ball more. The last four games could be competitive, but they likely don’t do worse than split those.
I’m not going to try to predict the Ravens finish because when you lose two out of three, and key injuries are stacking up, there are no definite wins on the slate anymore. New England was supposed to be one. They barely escaped the Jets and had the short week to get ready. The Ravens have taken a step back from being a top tier NFL team until they earn it back again.
I can’t predict the Ravens to finish 6-1 which would mean the Steelers finishing 3-4 and the tiebreakers favoring the Ravens in order to win the division. Seems like too tall a task.
Five-Thirty-Eight still gives the Ravens an 88% chance at making the playoffs, but only a 11% chance at winning the AFC North. For you Texas Hold’em players, it’s like having Ace-King suited and going up against pocket Aces. You need to pray for a flush or two of the other three kings to show up. Long odds for sure.
Good news is that home field advantage in the playoffs means nothing in this season.
Look ahead to Week 11 vs. Tennessee.
The Titans ended the Ravens dream season a year ago, quite abruptly, dispatching of them with ease in the divisional round of the playoffs after the Ravens earned the first-round bye.
Getting a win won’t equal vindication since this is just another regular season game. But the ground game the Patriot just employed doesn’t make me feel good about the Ravens trying to stop Derrick Henry. Consider the Ravens could be missing Brandon Williams who left the Pats game with an ankle injury, Calais Campbell sidelined as well.
Tennessee comes in on a long week having played Thursday night, but didn’t look too competitive as they dropped a game to the division rival Colts, 34-17. Expect the 6-3 Titans to bounce back after a down week, but they have been struggling to 6-3, having lost 3 of their last 5. The lowly Texans took them to OT where the Titans did prevail, they lost to the Steelers, Bengals, edged out the Bears, and the Thursday loss to Indy.
The Ravens come in with four weeks of not being able to play a complete game. They let the Eagles almost pull an improbable upset. The Steelers loss they committed four turnovers. They beat the Colts but only playing well in the second half, and not much went right in last night’s loss.
Feels like a big game for both teams, as 7-3 will look a lot better than 6-4 as the playoff picture begins to take shape. Will it be a struggle, or will one the teams feel like they are back on track afterward?
Ravens Analyst
Mike was born on the Eastern Shore, raised in Finksburg, and currently resides in Parkville. In 2009, Mike graduated from the Broadcasting Institute of Maryland. Mike became a Baltimore City Fire Fighter in late 2010. Mike has appeared as a guest on Q1370, and FOX45. Now a Sr. Ravens Analyst for BSL, he can be reached at mike.randall@baltimoresportsandlife.com.