The Good And The Bad (Week 9)

[skimmy]

Why didn't Billick kick the field goal to go up by 9 at the end and clinch the game? I was at a bar without sound, but no one could figure it out.

I think he was worried about the block scenario. The Cowboys lost today when Vanderslice's attempt got blocked to setup the Skins for another shot at a game winner. Also, last year the Eagles stole a game from the Chargers by blocking and returning a field goal the distance. I think Billick made the right choice here, but he should have had someone do the math on the clock and ran the ball instead of kneeling it down... if they had gotten the first down then the game is over or at least it would have pushed the ball further down in their end (instead of taking those senseless delay penalties) to make it harder for them to go the distance for the TD to win.

[AZRAVEN]

Still not terribly impressed with the offense, I wonder if anyone has ever told Billick that it's not a mortal sin to play for touchdowns not just field goals. If our offense had played with some intensity coming out after the half we could have put them away and not let them be that close at the end. I hate the prevent offense we insist on playing. That said, it's a win and I'll take it gladly.

[52decleetzu]

The good:

1. We are two games ahead in the division.

2. Jamal was huge running the ball. He did not get huge yards today, but he ran that ball much better than he did last week.

3. Mark Clayton. This kid is coming into his own.

4. Todd Heap. What more can be said about HEEEEAAAPPPPP.

5. Demetrius Williams. You can see the talent in this kid. He may not be having a Marques Colston type season, but DW could have just as huge a huge career in the NFL.

6. Steve McNair. He is the QB we have lacked over the last couple of seasons.


The bad:

Nothing really. Was not a perfect game, but nothing stood out as a major concern.

Why didn't Billick challenge that Mason endzone catch? It looked close enough to at least challenge. Oh well.

WE WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1)In control!

2) The time jamal didnt get any yard he ran into a brick wall of defenders.I dont care who was back there no holes were there.

3)Clayton has hands that have glue on them.There were at least 3 balls that were high that he just pulled in I dont know how.

4)Play action to Heeeaaap!! was working ALL DAY,and it was to the other recievers as well.We absolutely killed them with those 10-12 yd routes all day.

5)D Will,the man can move after the catch,bright future ahead of him.

6)The difference with McNair is he will stand in the pocket and deliver regardless of the pass rush.He was great all day!!!!

[52decleetzu]

Spot on. A win and I will gladly take it but Billick's conservatative play calling in the redzone deserves an "F" grade. His play calling overall I would give a D but only because of the nice play action plays executed by McNair and Heap.

374 yds and we moved the ball at will and you fools still arent satisfied.Do me a favor,take your bitchin and moaning somewhere else,we are 6-2 and we have balance on both sides of the ball.Ke\ep hatin Billick,looks like he is going to be around for a few more years.

[RockyMRaven]

Spot on. A win and I will gladly take it but Billick's conservatative play calling in the redzone deserves an "F" grade. His play calling overall I would give a D but only because of the nice play action plays executed by McNair and Heap.

Overall, a D, and redzone an F. :grbac:

Where's the "ignore" button?

[MrPoeJangles]

I don't think we were settling for field goals. We may have kicked 4 field goals but I don't think we settled for them.

On one of them Mason did not get his foot down or it would have been a TD and we were throwing on 3rd and 3.

On one of them we got 8 yards on first down and I can't disagree with trying to run it to get the first down.

On one of them McNair almost threw a pick 6, if not for Mason making a great play to horse collar the defender. I am glad we were able to settle for 3 on that one.

On the first field goal, it may have been fun to go for it but it is hard to argue with taking the 3 at that point in the game to put us up by 17.

It felt like we were attacking them in the Red zone. We just were not converting. In the past it always felt like we were settling, but I didn't feel that way today.

[StingerNLG]

I'm seperating into Good, Passable, and Bad in this one.

Good:

1) 6-2. A 2 game lead in the division, and Pittsburgh looks like it's on it's way to losing yet again. Life in the AFC North is good these days.

Hey Big Ben, a note. You can throw for 350 yards every Sunday. But if you throw 1 touchdown and 2 interceptions, you're not going to win.


2) Chris McAlister. Damn right I'm saying it. And I'll tell you why; hear me out. It's becoming more and more apparent that the officials seems to simply have it out for McAlister this year. I've never seen someone draw this many non-interference interference calls. But while the old McAlister goes nuts and gets his head out of the game, he kept his cool and made some key plays, including the last drive before the meaningless INT. At the end of the game, it was the Houshmondzadah who drew the Unsportsmanlike Conduct flag, and not C-Mac. In the end, C-Mac even got the last laugh.


3) Matt Stover. They say Defense wins Championships. With the Ravens you always add "and Matt Stover" to that. While the offense once again couldn't finish a drive, Matt Stover was there to boot 4 field goals and at least forced Cincy to get a touchdown to win the game instead of a field goal.


4) Special Teams. Cincy didn't do a whole lot of kick returning today. The Ravens had them pinned and twice kept the Bengals from breaking big plays. Kock did muff another punt, and that is a little concerning. But overall, good stuff.


5) Offensive Line. Today was a good day for the OL, with the exception of Flynn once again tripping up a Ravens QB. There was one McNair throw to Heap where he literally had 6 seconds to throw the ball. It's a pretty well known fact that if you give a QB time to throw, he's got a better chance of completing. Run Blocking was pretty decent today, and there were hold for Jamal to run though. Now if Jamal could only hit those holes more.



Passable

1) Offense. Sorry, but you can gush all you want over McNair's 245 yards. And for what it's worth, he had an effective day, but 0 throwing touchdowns and only 2 catches by Mason. Some of his throws were dynamite. But he also threw the ball into the hands of three Bengals; two who dropped a sure interception, and one where Mason had to play defender. And on that particular throw he stared down Mason so long we all knew where it was going. And on the one drive that stalled with a throw to Heap, Clarance Moore was so wide open that literally no one covered him and it would have been an almost easy touchdown, but McNair started down Heap the whole way.

Another thing that continues to bother me is that we went back to not finishing drives and playing for the field goal instead of the touchdown. And there were again no shots taken downfield. That's not all on McNair, Billick gets some of that credit for going conservative with a 17 point lead. One offensive touchdown the entire game is unacceptable, sorry. We kept letting Cincy climb back into the game and all of a sudden shades of 2004 were coming. Thankfully the defense held this time. So a passable game for the offense, but the defense could have faltered and we could have been in trouble quick.


2) Defense. They gave up 20 points, but the refs helped that a bit. Still, they made plays when they needed too, and a nice interception by Rolle made a nice 14-0 start to shut up Ocho Stinko.


3) Billick. He tried some trickery early with the Mike Anderson runs from the shotgun and the Jamal in Fullback play again. And play-action on the first play was great. But for the most part once we got up a little bit Billick went back into grinding mode. We should have been putting our foot on the Bengal's throats. There were 2 or three places where a PA pass would have been great. Instead we had to hope Carson Palmer didn't have any of his own last minute drive magic in his bag.


Bad:

1) Ocho Stinko. 4 catches for a mighty 32 yards. And I thought you were going over the middle there sparky? In the end you didn't want a piece of him. Hell, you couldn't even really handle Samari Rolle today tough guy.

That's about it. Nothing really "bad" for the Ravens perse. Just a little flatter than we saw in New Orleans.

In the end, a game we needed to win and we did. If this keeps up, I might be at a home playoff game.

[PurpleRulz]

I'm seperating into Good, Passable, and Bad in this one.

Good:

1) 6-2. A 2 game lead in the division, and Pittsburgh looks like it's on it's way to losing yet again. Life in the AFC North is good these days.

Hey Big Ben, a note. You can throw for 350 yards every Sunday. But if you throw 1 touchdown and 2 interceptions, you're not going to win.


2) Chris McAlister. Damn right I'm saying it. And I'll tell you why; hear me out. It's becoming more and more apparent that the officials seems to simply have it out for McAlister this year. I've never seen someone draw this many non-interference interference calls. But while the old McAlister goes nuts and gets his head out of the game, he kept his cool and made some key plays, including the last drive before the meaningless INT. At the end of the game, it was the Houshmondzadah who drew the Unsportsmanlike Conduct flag, and not C-Mac. In the end, C-Mac even got the last laugh.


3) Matt Stover. They say Defense wins Championships. With the Ravens you always add "and Matt Stover" to that. While the offense once again couldn't finish a drive, Matt Stover was there to boot 4 field goals and at least forced Cincy to get a touchdown to win the game instead of a field goal.


4) Special Teams. Cincy didn't do a whole lot of kick returning today. The Ravens had them pinned and twice kept the Bengals from breaking big plays. Kock did muff another punt, and that is a little concerning. But overall, good stuff.


5) Offensive Line. Today was a good day for the OL, with the exception of Flynn once again tripping up a Ravens QB. There was one McNair throw to Heap where he literally had 6 seconds to throw the ball. It's a pretty well known fact that if you give a QB time to throw, he's got a better chance of completing. Run Blocking was pretty decent today, and there were hold for Jamal to run though. Now if Jamal could only hit those holes more.



Passable

1) Offense. Sorry, but you can gush all you want over McNair's 245 yards. And for what it's worth, he had an effective day, but 0 throwing touchdowns and only 2 catches by Mason. Some of his throws were dynamite. But he also threw the ball into the hands of three Bengals; two who dropped a sure interception, and one where Mason had to play defender. And on that particular throw he stared down Mason so long we all knew where it was going. And on the one drive that stalled with a throw to Heap, Clarance Moore was so wide open that literally no one covered him and it would have been an almost easy touchdown, but McNair started down Heap the whole way.

Another thing that continues to bother me is that we went back to not finishing drives and playing for the field goal instead of the touchdown. And there were again no shots taken downfield. That's not all on McNair, Billick gets some of that credit for going conservative with a 17 point lead. One offensive touchdown the entire game is unacceptable, sorry. We kept letting Cincy climb back into the game and all of a sudden shades of 2004 were coming. Thankfully the defense held this time. So a passable game for the offense, but the defense could have faltered and we could have been in trouble quick.


2) Defense. They gave up 20 points, but the refs helped that a bit. Still, they made plays when they needed too, and a nice interception by Rolle made a nice 14-0 start to shut up Ocho Stinko.


3) Billick. He tried some trickery early with the Mike Anderson runs from the shotgun and the Jamal in Fullback play again. And play-action on the first play was great. But for the most part once we got up a little bit Billick went back into grinding mode. We should have been putting our foot on the Bengal's throats. There were 2 or three places where a PA pass would have been great. Instead we had to hope Carson Palmer didn't have any of his own last minute drive magic in his bag.


Bad:

1) Ocho Stinko. 4 catches for a mighty 32 yards. And I thought you were going over the middle there sparky? In the end you didn't want a piece of him. Hell, you couldn't even really handle Samari Rolle today tough guy.

That's about it. Nothing really "bad" for the Ravens perse. Just a little flatter than we saw in New Orleans.

In the end, a game we needed to win and we did. If this keeps up, I might be at a home playoff game.

That is an excellent way to do the good and bad.

[Mr OC]

What's Billick's record when the team has a 14 point lead? I think he might know a little bit about holding on to a lead.

[StingerNLG]

What's Billick's record when the team has a 14 point lead? I think he might know a little bit about holding on to a lead.

That is a good and fair point OC. I think that record is something like 45-1 or something spectacular like that.

The problem today was that lead is not always insurmountable with a team that has two high-powered receivers and an explosive QB. Down to the last drive there was a chance for the Bengals to win that game. 2004 was the same way, with a 20-7 lead the defense pissed away and lost at the end of the game on the very last drive.

At some point Billick has to re-shift into a better gear and deliver a knockout punch to the opposing team. I don't want to try and field goal our way through the playoffs if we get there.

[Sephy]

Mason TD was definitely not a TD. Clearly didn't get his second foot in.

Wasn't a big fan of those two direct snaps in a row.

[Heap86]

Offense. Sorry, but you can gush all you want over McNair's 245 yards. And for what it's worth, he had an effective day, but 0 throwing touchdowns and only 2 catches by Mason. Some of his throws were dynamite. But he also threw the ball into the hands of three Bengals; two who dropped a sure interception, and one where Mason had to play defender. And on that particular throw he stared down Mason so long we all knew where it was going. And on the one drive that stalled with a throw to Heap, Clarance Moore was so wide open that literally no one covered him and it would have been an almost easy touchdown, but McNair started down Heap the whole way.

Well, it still looks like we are nitpicking again :grbac:

Come on Stinger, give it a rest!!! Does McNair need to have a 100% completion rating with 4 TD's to satisfy you? Mac did'nt take many shots in the end zone today, but the one to Mason was just slightly off. Of course Mac did throw a few bad passes, but was on target most of the day, he isn't Peyton so I will cut him some slack. Mac's comfort level with this Offense is right were it should be, and Billick is calling the plays to suite his strengths.

Its not about stats, its about wins for GODS SAKE!!!