The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly for Ravens vs. NE

Fanman, I respect your opinion, but the argument that Boller is a former first round pick and we've invested so much doesn't hold much water with me. It's clear that his 1st round selection did not pan out anywhere near how we hoped. Holding onto him as the backup quarterback is not going to change the fact that he was a flop as a franchise quarterback and 1st round pick. Yes, some of the factors involved in that outcome were out of his control, but it is what it is (now I sound like Billick haha).

I agree that Smith has yet to show that he can be a starter, but that is why he needs the opportunity. Kyle Boller has clearly shown me that he cannot be a starter in this league. If Smith completely flops this year, then fine, we could bring back Boller as a backup (if another desperate team doesn't throw money at him thinking he can start for them). I just think you need to really give Smith a long look.

In all honesty, no decisions or heavy judgment should be taken from last night's game. It was a small sample size for both players. I'm just pointing to the previous 5 years of Boller's play to emphasize that I saw much of the same thing from him last night.

I guess to me, Boller is a known commodity and the jury on Smith is still out.

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Originally Posted by purplepoe

Are you guys telling me we didn't see this stuff in preseasons of the past? Great first drives, good play calling etc....?

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Not like this I don't think we have. We're talking about an offense that in the past thought a screen play was looking up at the jumbotron. There was a different tempo and urgency to the playcalling. They didn't try to play "field position" football or play for the punt on 3rd down.

I may be crazy, and it could all be in my head. But I saw a more efficient-looking gameplan out there. No false starts, no huddle offense before the 2 minute warning? That's new to me! :)

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Originally Posted by A & S Football

Overall I thought the offence actually looked better than last years. Boller did make some nice passes, but he still had 2 turnovers. I don't care how accurate you are, you can't keep turning the ball over like that. If Boller could ever manage to keep from turning the ball over so much, he'd be fine. It was Flacco's first game, so I didn't expect anything. Smith wasn't as accurate as he should have been, but he made some nice passes, plus he didn't turn the ball over. It's only the first pre-season game, so it's still too early to read anything into it all. There a lot of changes on this team, and it will take a little while to get everyone to gel, but I think by September we will be ok.

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Are you giving Troy credit for the linebacker he threw to dropping the ball? If the difference between turning the ball over and not turning the ball over because the defender wasn't expecting the ball to hit him in the chest and therefore didn't hold onto the ball; then Troy Smith was fantastic last night.

Neither of these guys were particulary "awesome" last night. They both had great throws, they both had BAD throws. But seriously. If you complete 70%+ of your passes, the odds are overwhelmingly in your favor to win the game. One did. One didn't.


Next week will be the big test. Let's see if Troy can do well with the 1st team offense against a 1st team defense. And I imagine he'll even have Heap and Clayton back by then. So that should give him even MORE of an advantage. Let's see if he can use that.

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Originally Posted by StingerNLG

Not like this I don't think we have. We're talking about an offense that in the past thought a screen play was looking up at the jumbotron. There was a different tempo and urgency to the playcalling. They didn't try to play "field position" football or play for the punt on 3rd down.

I may be crazy, and it could all be in my head. But I saw a more efficient-looking gameplan out there. No false starts, no huddle offense before the 2 minute warning? That's new to me! :)

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I'll say it again.

We saw this kind of stuff in preseason games every year.

I dunno if people are just happy it's someone else calling the plays or what but from what I saw last night, it wasn't nearly as different as many say. JMO.

Again, the amount of injured/non active guys makes what I saw last night virtually meaningless.

I gotta think that the new coaching staff has made this game more meaningful than it really is.

PP

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Originally Posted by Purpleguy

I thought Cam had some really questionable playcalling. On 3rd and long he runs the ball and then 4th and inches he throws it. You folks have had Billick's head for doing that kind of stuff in the past. He also seemed to shut down the offense and go conservative in the redzone. I really saw absolutley no difference between last night's playcalling and last season's playcalling

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This is preseason. Play calling doesn't mean a thing.

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Not sure how anyone can look at Smith being 5 fo 12 (41%) vs. Boller 11 of 15 (73%) and be excited about Smith as the favorite.

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I can agree with that but that's not the only thing you have to take into account when evaluating the two. They had the same passer rating, mostly cause Boller threw an INT, plus he had a fumble. My personal take is that neither one had an outting superior to the other. I'm of course extremely concerned that neither one had a good outting, and think it's gonna be a long year at QB.

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Really is a matter of whether or not you're in the anybody-but-Boller camp, or the its-an-open-competition camp, and impartial enough to look at this straight up.

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I think the problem I see is that Boller has shown me absolutely nothing to make me think he's going to be any better this year than he has in any other year. The question in my mind is if you (or anyone) thinks Smith is going to be better or worse than the Kyle Boller we all know. Cause Kyle offers absolutely no up-side at all...

I certainly think it's possible Smith is worse than Boller. But I don't think that's likely. I'd actually say it breaks down like this:
10% he's worse than Boller.
45% he's the same.
15% he's a little bit better than Boller.
30% he's a lot better (QB rating > 80) than Boller.

Something like that. I feel like we've got nothing to lose by sticking Smith in there.

I mean, seriously...does anyone here that's supporting starting Boller over Smith SERIOUSLY think that Boller is likely to be at all better than his career 72ish passer rating?

- C -

For people saying we've not seen drives like this in pre-season before, check back to McNair's first drive against the Giants in his first pre-season game with us and the response that got. May have been more about the player than the play calling, but the effect and response was probably bigger than this drive.

There's one problem with 16-3 Jonboy. It's not relevant to Boller's performance because they only scored 10 with him on the field. Realistically he only lead them to 3 as the touchdown was more about the return than anything Boller did.

73% completion rating with 10ypc is all well and good but 3points in nearly a half of football with 2 turnovers is a bit worrying. He looked great on the first drive and was mediocre to bad the rest of the half.

While Troy didn't complete at a high rate they did score 6 points with him on the field. Account for the dropped interceptions and he looks a little worse then Boller but I can't see how anyone can conclude one was light years ahead of the other.

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Originally Posted by UKRavenStockers

For people saying we've not seen drives like this in pre-season before, check back to McNair's first drive against the Giants in his first pre-season game with us and the response that got. May have been more about the player than the play calling, but the effect and response was probably bigger than this drive.

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Bingo.

People are gonna see what they want it seems.

PP

I see what you guys are saying about the playcalling. It's true that it was only one game, and yes, we did have past moments in the preseason where we'd put together a good drive (McNair's first drive against the Giants).

When I saw that drive in 2006, I was feeling good about Fassel's ability to call plays. My point in giving praise was that it was a good start for Cameron given all of the personnel that was missing last night.

Just because we've seen good drives in the preseason doesn't mean it shouldn't be praised, and on the flip side, it doesn't mean that we're heading to the Super Bowl and a top 10 offense this year either. It was one preseason game, no more and no less.

The real story will be how the offense looks during the regular season. Billick's offenses would look vanilla during preseason and then folks say, "Well want until the regular season." Only then we'd get more vanilla.

I will say this; are there that many differences between offenses? I think it is about execution. I will say that our offense was more aggressive last night, though. The WR routes were longer (WRs running 10 yards out instead of just 5 yards out). Otherwise, offense is offense. In the end, it is about talent and execution.

Troy Smith would be a turnover machine if defenders could just hold on to the ball. I think the problem is that the defender is just so amazed that an opposing QB threw him a pass right at the numbers that their hands can't catch up to their brain. Guys are used to having to make a break on the ball, or a jump to get an INT. Smith just throws it right to them. It takes them off gaurd.

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Originally Posted by purplepoe

Bingo.

People are gonna see what they want it seems.

PP

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Guilty as charged! I saw an offense that ran plays that were never run on this team, including preseasons past. That's just the way I see it.

You know PP I came back just to argue with you. :D. Damn it Football season is HERE!!!


One more thing. For those who expect Troy Smith to start and is forgiving his playing yesterday, if that is the case and Harbaugh is lying to everyone about this being an "open" competition, then Harbs should just stop jerking Troy, Kyle, Joe, and everyone else around and name Smith the team's QB and be done with it.

I know the press in this city will be ecstatic.