The INT's yesterday

[Justlovemybirds]

From the horse's mouth:

“I just tried to throw it out there and get lucky, but if anything, it’s just a throwaway,” Flacco said. “[The defender] got his eyes back to the ball and made a good play.”

http://yi.nzc.am/cow5nz

Now, I'm not arguing the point about Givens not fighting for the ball - he absolutely didn't (and all but a small handful of Joe's receivers ever have, in his entire career) - but we can put the "back shoulder throw" theory to rest.

It's the same exact throw he threw to Aiken about 3 times (incomplete, no harm no foul) in the game and to Givens (completed) in the Chargers game. The only difference is Givens didn't look for the ball and House did.

[callahan09]

Anyone that has ever played knows that if the ball hits your hands, you should catch it. Period.

Drops happen. It's part of the game.

Let's quit trashing the QB that got the ball to Aiken (and <insert the dozen other receivers this has occurred with>) and start focusing on the real issues: WR's that can get open and can catch.

The Aiken INT is pretty silly to trash on Flacco over. Aiken tried to get the ball, it went through his fingers and was going to land on the ground, he then reached back for it again as he and the ball were both falling, he bats the ball forward, and then it bounces off of another defender and to the defender who caught it. It's a fluke. It's the very definition of the ball not bouncing your way. It bounced off of Aiken twice and then another player before it wound up in the hands of the defender (and it bounced off that guy a couple of times as well as he bobbled it before completing the catch).

The throw to Givens shouldn't have been intercepted either. Givens didn't come back for the ball? It's even worse than that... he overran the ball. He was 25 yards away from where the ball was intercepted when the ball was thrown. He had 25 yards to find the ball in the air and try to run to that spot and make a play on it. He didn't. He never found the ball in the air and just kept running past where the ball's trajectory took it. The defender actually found the ball and made a backwards diving catch to grab it from that spot. If Givens had found the ball, he easily had a play on it, and at the very least, he would have had his body in the way of it and that defender can't do a backwards diving catch.

In my opinion, neither one of those balls should have been an interception, the first was bad luck, the second was the wide receiver not playing it.