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Thread: CB Situation

  1. #1
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    CB Situation

    As we begin to recover from yesterday, what would you do with our CB situation, which is definitley in our top 3 or 5 of issues in the coming weeks...

    CMac was apparently trying to play yesterday, or rather he wants to get out there and play, but obviously we don't want him to get hurt worse. Another factor was the natural grass field of Pitt, which is supposedly bad for injured players (hence why Heap didn't go last night either). Could be back soon, but several people on the radio said he'll likely need surgery, would you rather do it now and get him back full strength next year, or do it in offseason and have CMac getting back into shape around week 1?

    Rolle, who knows what's going on there. He's the only Raven who actually DOWNGRADED during the bye week. Whatever this illness or reaction is, it's making his availability totally unpredictable, so in my opinion, we should move on. He's a decent CB when healthy, but something is nagging with him and we can't count on him to be a starting CB anymore.

    Our backups are, frankly, just backups. Ivy can play a decent nickel, but he's not going to be able to matchup against a #1 receiver and do anything more than play damage control. Martin showed promise, until that 1st Holmes TD catch, at which point he looked like he had never played CB before. Pittman, has he proven he should've even made the team, much less deserves playing time?

    I can accept that maybe, this season is a wash, in that the playoffs are likely going to be a "run the table" situation from here on out. But if we keep our secondary the way it is, we're going to see blowouts from the Pats, Colts, possibly Chargers, definitley Bengals, and likely the Browns...not to mention we get the Steelers again at year's end. We need to improve SOMEHOW...whether it's properly preparing Martin and Pittman to play "damage control" so we only give up 1 or 2 TDs or bringing in someone who, in a week or two, should be able to play better than they can.

    Thoughts? Anyone know where Ronnie Prude is? Or is he more a S conversion?





  2. #2
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    Re: CB Situation

    I think Pittman is still on the team because: A) we invested/wasted a 3 round draft pick on him. B)We gave him a $500K signing bonus so we have to get something back to justify that. Just my 2 cents on him.

    Martin was a 6th round draft pick last year, enough said.

    Ivey is maybe a decent nicklel, but not a #1 or #2.

    These guys would not be on most teams rosters.


    My youngest son Kyle w/ Michael Phelps after the Browms game 12/24/11

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  3. #3

    Re: CB Situation

    Quote Originally Posted by PARavensJeff View Post
    I think Pittman is still on the team because: A) we invested/wasted a 3 round draft pick on him. B)We gave him a $500K signing bonus so we have to get something back to justify that. Just my 2 cents on him.

    Martin was a 6th round draft pick last year, enough said.

    Ivey is maybe a decent nicklel, but not a #1 or #2.

    These guys would not be on most teams rosters.

    That's silly. if you watched other teams play more often against teams besides the Raven's, you'd see that cornerbacks get beat more often then not. Champ Bailey was Roasted by Detroit. There is no such thing as a sshutdown corner anymore. A guy that only gets beaten a couple of times is GOOD.
    You do realize that Baltimreo is still top 10 in pass defense as far as yards go don't you? These guys would be on other teams.





  4. #4

    Re: CB Situation

    These guys would not be on most teams rosters.
    You're going a little overboard there -- as you implied yourself in the same post, Ivy is fine in the nickel package. The problem is that he's not starter material, and unfortunately they have no choice right now with Rolle and CMac out.

    A lot obviously went wrong last night, but the inexperience of the corners really stood out. We can't win with these guys, but there's really no solution. Well, an improved pass rush would help, but we're basically in a situation where we know they're going to get burned, so we have to outscore the opposition, and obviously we don't look like we can do that.

    I suddenly feel even more depressed after writing that.





  5. #5
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    Re: CB Situation

    Quote Originally Posted by jonboy79 View Post
    You do realize that Baltimreo is still top 10 in pass defense as far as yards go don't you? These guys would be on other teams.
    It's not hard to keep the passing yards down when they are starting from inside our 30! Sorry, couldn't resist :(





  6. #6
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    Re: CB Situation

    Fact is that Martin and Pittman are not ready to play in the NFL without significant help (i.e. an Ed Reed at safety and at least CMac shutting down one side).


    WORLD CHAMPIONS 2000 * 2012





  7. #7
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    Re: CB Situation

    The young guys are still on the roster for one reason and one reason only. As poorly as they played last night, they're better than any street free agent right now.

    As for what I'd do at corner, McAlister I would shut down for the season and have him get surgery and get ready for next season. With Rolle's illness this leaves in this situation of last night once again. So what I'd do is see if Reed can play corner (I've suggested it before and been widely told by folks here that it's a bad idea so let's see what the response is) with Ivy and Martin rotating as the #2, then have Sapp start at safety with Landry.

    My rationale for this is that we're better off with Sapp at safety than Martin and Ivy starting at corner, and Landry is the better of our two starting safeties in terms of sure tackling playing responsibily within his role in the scheme. We'd lose Reed's big play ability, but I think that's the best option we've got without McAlister and Rolle.





  8. #8

    Re: CB Situation

    I've given this a lot of thought all week. These guys can play in the NFL, just not with our scheme. You can't expect Martin and Ivy to cover reciever man to man all night, especially when the QB is escaping the pressure.

    I go back to the Patriots in 2004. They lost something unthinkable like 6 DBs that year. Troy Brown famously filled in at nickel. Asante Samual came out of nowhere (4th rounds Draft Pick 03). The Pats seemingly never missed a beat. Why? They played Cover 2 all year. The corners primary job was to jam receivers throwing off timing, then cover underneath and make clean tackles.

    Our defense has succeeded due to a lot of interchangable parts. One place where players aren't interchangable is in the secondary. When you try to bring up inexperianced corners to cover Santonio Holmes downfield, you get what we saw last night. Holmes not jammed coming off the ball, Ben not pressured, timing is perfect, Derrick Martin is running wildly through the endzone with his hands up, looking for Divine Intervention while the Steeler celebrate.





  9. #9
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    Re: CB Situation

    I am not ready to give up on Martin yet. Did he get beat, badly? Yes. Was it his first start in the NFL, on Monday Night Football, against a very good WR? Yes. I mean jeez, the guy came from Wyoming, he'd never played in a game like this before. The Steelers made him look silly last night but they made alot of our players look silly. I think he can be a good #3 guy, probably not a starter though.

    Pittman is a bust. Nothing else really needs to be said about him. I'd be surprised if he is still on the team next year.

    Ivy is what he is. A good nickelback that looks lost outside.
    ''You'd love to go on the first day but I'm glad for the situation I'm in,'' he said. ''Baltimore knows how to play defense.''





  10. #10

    Re: CB Situation

    The scheme has to change to help the corners. We need to play more zone so the corners have safety help. If we had any kind of pass rush...we don't..., the secondary would not be under the pressure that they are now. Also, coverage is not exactly the forte of our LBs either.





  11. #11
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    Re: CB Situation

    I thought I heard one of the commentators talking about Rolle say it's his spleen but I'm not positive on that. If it is it could be a long term situation. I think CMac should have the surgery now so he is fully ready next season. As for the rest of the keystone kops corps let them play and see if they get any better, at least then we'll know what we have going forward. Only other option is to play without corners, not sure that would be much worse than what I saw last night.





  12. #12
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    Re: CB Situation

    I thought I heard one of the commentators talking about Rolle say it's his spleen but I'm not positive on that. If it is it could be a long term situation. I think CMac should have the surgery now so he is fully ready next season.
    Seriously, I wish this speculation would stop. That's all it is. This dude has been "diagnosed" with everything from AIDS to a bad case of hemmoroids. It's ridiculous.

    And RE: CMac, does anyone really know the extent of his injury, to the point of being qualified to discuss whether he needs surgery? Obviously it's not been released to the public. Of course, if the Ravens were upfront about it from Day One this wouldn't be an issue.

    Sorry for the rant, I'm just irritated about the whole damn shell game.


    WORLD CHAMPIONS 2000 * 2012





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