What Happened To The Ravens This Year?
Poor play? Poor Coaching? Poor Luck? Injuries?
The answer is all of the above. All of these things are interrelated and all helped create a perfect storm of suck. Pure, unadulterated suck. This is relatively foreign territory for Baltimore fans. The Ravens have been a model of consistency since 2000, and even more since John Harbaugh arrived in 2008. They’re usually well-coached, they usually show up to play every week, and they rarely make deadly mistakes. Yet every game this year, they seem to make more of those mistakes than they usually do in ENTIRE SEASONS. I, as a 24 year old, really don’t have many memories of the loser football teams that Baltimore rooted for in the late 90’s. The only season I feel like compares is the 2007 team that ultimately got Brian Billick fired. They followed up a 13-3 playoff bye season with a 5-11 stinker, and lost games in every way imaginable. I really didn’t think I’d ever see pisspoor football in Baltimore like that again, yet here we are. They’re just a bunch of losers right now, and I don’t really know how to deal with it. I’ve been spoiled.
So the question is why? How did we get here? I’m just going to rank the culprits as best I can:
1. The coordinators: I really don’t know which coordinator has been worse. To be fair, both have been dealt shitty hands with injuries and lack of depth, but it’s their inability to make adjustments that infuriates me. On the defensive side, Dean Pees has had a bevy of cornerbacks come and go, yet the results are always the same. I have a tough time believing all of those corners are incompetent. You’d think one or two of them would seize the opportunity to become a dependable part of the defense, but nope. The only constant has been Pees and his shitty cover 2 defenses that don’t even execute that correctly.
On the other hand, Marc Trestman is trash. I think he broke my quarterback. The more I watch the stench Flacco puts out there every week, the more I believe the problem in Chicago was Trestman and not Cutty. The Chicago boys tried to warn me, and I tuned them out. I was wrong. Trestman stinks and he will ruin your quarterback. Flacco and Cutty aren’t dissimilar in what they bring to the table. Both have had success in the NFL to varying degrees and both have howitzers for right arms. Both were ruined by Marc Trestman.
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Fire the coordinators. Now.
2. Execution: I don’t know what’s come over some of these guys. I lashed out at the coaches, but good god the lack of focus from some of these guys has been incredible. I’ve never seen a team drop more interceptions than these Ravens. I’ve never seen a team drop more touchdowns than these Ravens. I’ve never seen a team accumulate dumber penalties on a consistent basis, including at key moments in a football game. Every week it snowballs into uglier and uglier football.
Joe Flacco is far from immune on the execution side. He’s a mental case right now. How much of that has to do with Trestman, I don’t know, but it’s clear that he’s rattled. His brain isn’t right. He’s pressing. I think he knows he’s throwing to a pisspoor collection of receivers and is putting pressure on himself to be a hero. That 31-foot dropback and throw off his back foot yesterday was one of the worst decisions I’ve ever seen in my life. He knows it, and showed it when he threw his helmet on the sideline afterwards. I’ve never seen anything like that from Joe in 7+ years now. He’s gotta get his head right.
3. Injuries: Going into this year, I thought the injury gods owed us one for the great cornerback famine of 2014. I was wrong. They came back again with a vengeance and not just for the secondary this time. They took the straw that stirs the drink on defense in Terrell Suggs. They took the first round WR that was supposed to cover the loss of Torrey Smith. Consequently, they battered the vet WR that the Ravens could ill afford to lose, the tackle that protects Joe’s blindside, a starting corner, a starting tight end, a starting safety, and a promising young receiver/returner . They took a starter at virtually every position group. I hate making injury excuses and the guys who have replaced them needed to be better, but the timing and scope of these injuries haven’t helped matters.
4. John Harbaugh: Harbaugh is actually pretty similar to Buck Showalter. There’s a reason why guys love playing for Baltimore’s two head honchos, and it’s because they do a great job of instilling confidence in guys. They always show faith in their guys and maintain a positive outlook with the media. The problem is, you can only put lipstick on a pig for so long before you start to look like a fool and lose credibility with those guys. Sometimes you gotta hold guys accountable for poor play, and I’m not seeing enough of that from Harbs.
On top of that, he did an awful job managing the 2nd half yesterday. Maybe this example should fall on Trestman and Flacco, but taking a timeout on the 2nd play of the 2nd half when you’re already down double digits…. that CAN’T HAPPEN. You know you’re likely to need that timeout. You were just in the locker room, and you just picked up a first down on the play before. What could possibly get mixed up? Why isn’t everyone on the same page?! (Plus I don’t even think burning a timeout to avoid 1st and 15 is worth it regardless of situation. I don’t think that’s discussed enough). Losing that timeout makes that calculated risk (which I can see why he threw the red flag) on the Boldin challenge that much more costly. And then the clock management on that final drive was ABYSMAL. No sense of urgency whatsoever. That’s a preparation issue and that should always fall on the head coach.
There’s no question that John hasn’t coached up to his (or anyone’s) standards this year. His job isn’t in any danger and it shouldn’t be given his track record, but he needs to take a long look in the mirror and be better next year.
5. Ray Rice: Huh? What the hell are you talking about Banks?
I’m talking about the dead cap money we’re on the hook for. Might be a tacky excuse, but $9.5 million in dead cap space DOES make a difference. I want to hammer Ozzie for not signing quality depth in the offseason (and it does look like he bungled the Perriman pick so far), but it’s hard to do that when his hands were tied. Maybe with that money, the Ravens keep McPhee and the pass-rush isn’t so terrible or keep Torrey and use that 1st-rounder elsewhere. Or maybe he signs another competent veteran WR or CB that mitigates some of those injuries. These are all what-ifs that don’t change anything, but the cap situation has been a factor. The fact that Ozzie gets a ton of money to play with next year is exciting though, but that’s a discussion for another day.
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6. Dumb Luck: This is kind of a copout, but when you take all of these terrible things that the Ravens have brought upon themselves and throw a big ol’ cherry called Bad Luck on top, you get a 1-5 sundae. You can’t avoid things like Tucker’s plant foot falling into a fucking sinkhole at Levi Stadium or Gary Barnidge catching a ball with his thighs. Sometimes those things happen in your favor, sometimes they don’t. Maybe it’s cost us a game or two and we still have life at 2-4 or 3-3, but that’s not the case. That’s just sports. Some say you earn your luck, and we certainly haven’t. Is what it is.
So now, I’m all aboard the tank train. I guess technically, I said they still have life if they split the SF/ARI west coast swing, but it would be so silly to suggest the Ravens might beat the Cardinals in Arizona next week. This team is dead and I await 1-6 with open arms. And then I hope Harbs puts all his young guys in there to get some reps. The Carl Davis’s, the Tray Walkers, the Maxx Williams and Nick Boyles of this team should get max game reps so that they can develop and ensure that Ozzie gets a top 10 pick. Can’t wait to find out who our next Hall of Famer is next April.