Room for Improvement - Flacco

[UKRavenStockers]

Now this is obvious, he's in his third career game and he's making a big step up so there's bound to be room for improvement and it's incredible that he's as far long as he is, but I think the biggest area he has for improvement and the most pivotal for the team with how much we're running the ball is his work on play action. I think the whole area of his play action play needs some big improvement.

The first thing that I don't like is that I could always tell on every dropback when he was going to fake the handoff. His play action dropback is different to his dropback when he hands the ball off, the more effective you can make a play action fake, the better. Look at the likes of Peyton Manning (extreme yes, but aim for perfection, settle for excellence) their dropbacks on play action look exactly like their dropbacks to hand the ball off, this adds to the fake and keeps the defence up or flat footed for longer. Flacco is tipping the defences off early to the fact that it's going to be a pass.

Secondly he's got to get the ball up sooner on deep passes, his cannon of an arm gives him a chance to stay in the game on these deep balls but he's waiting for the deep throws rather than anticipating them and he's allowing defenders back in on the rare occassions that our receivers are actually getting some separation deep down the field.


Again, this isn't ragging on Flacco, he's light years further along than even the most purple tinted wearing Ravens fan had thought he would be, but work off of play action is going to be vital for him, we're going to do everything in our powers to make teams respect and fear our running game. So everything he can do to make passing off of play action easier is only going to help improve the effectiveness of his passing game. This is an important area for him to improve in my opinion.

[Jeremiah W]

You are right, but Boller was just terrible at ball fakes and he is a 6 year pro. I think some of the fakes were very effective like the TD to Wilcox, a few of them did not look crisp, but it happens to the best of them from time to time. The Eagles lost in Dallas because McNabb botched a handoff or playfake exchange with Westbrook. Peyton even puts a few of them on the ground or throws them to the wrong team.

I thought Flacco looked like the better Qb most of the night. Ben just made a few less fumbles and couple of incredible plays to avoid a sure sack. That is why is a one hundred million dollar man, but I really like our guy.

That was his 3rd game. He looked incredible at times. The TD he threw to Mason that should have been challenged and over turned, and the TD to Wilcox were picture perfect, Dan Marino style throws you just can not teach.

They will teach him to get the ball out sooner and on a lower trajectory on his deep throws. I have seen him do it, but those things do take time to perfect. I thought the throw to Williams was pretty good but Demerius tried to make an incredible catch instead of adjusting to the flight of the ball and cutting in front of the DB, he just tried to go over him.

He would have had a couple TDs on better deep throws, but I like the fact that he at least made the right read and was pretty close to making something happen. He has shown dramatic improvment on alomst every series, and than I think he will make the adjustments and connect on some long Tds off playaction this week. He played well enough to win the game. the defense made made more mistakes than Joe did overall. They were just trying to take down Ben with a big hit instead of breaking down and wrapping up when they got close. They did that more times poorly than Joe did something I did not like.

[Lee Van Cleef]

I agree Ben. Watching the game last night he was telegraphing the play-action like no one's business. He doesn't sell the fake by getting his head down and "watching the ball" back into the hands of the back, he seems to be concentrating more on his throwing spot after the fake which is understandable at this point in his young career. It's definitely something to work on, however the PA was still fairly effective as a weapon.

They were just trying to take down Ben with a big hit instead of breaking down and wrapping up when they got close.

This is what I've been saying on the Scout board. Last night we saw Burger get skittish under pressure at times, but in the second half he seemed more confident in his ability to side-step or find the lane to step-up into. If Zbikowski can slow up a bit, and break down on his failed blitz then he has the chance to put Ben down. If you connect on plays like that it makes a difference to how he sees the pocket when he's under pressure.

There are lots of areas for improvement for sure.

[Jeremiah W]

The good thing about both issues is that they are coachable corrections. If they can get just a little better at the vertical passing and the wrapping up of Qbs who they get to, I don't know how can lose without giving the ball away or commiting a bunch of mental mistakes.

They are getting to every Qb we faced, and McNabb and Romo are the only 2 guys on the schedule even close to capable of avoiding the sacks Ben did last night, and the Eagles are the only team on the schedule who can create that type of pressure with scheme. The Titans may have the best pure pass rush we face, but at home the tackles should handle it better.

[Ravenswarrior19]

Flacco, being a rookie, needs to improve on everything. Nothing wrong with that, I think it applies to every rookie.

To name the 1 area that is most important to his development, and us winning -- - I'll say his ability to read defenses.

Quickly decifering the coverage is what gets the ball out quicker on those deep throws. Quickly finding the hot man on blitzes is what prevents sack-fumble-TDs.

I may be in the minority on this - I think the protection was good on the big fumble play. The balls needed to come out, but Flacco couldn't find anywhere to go with it.

The sooner he's able to recognize coverages, spot blitzes, get through the progression, and get the ball out fast -- the sooner we'll be celebrating festivus miracles.

[RavenScallywag]

he needs to improve and refine his internal timer...He made some spectacular plays yesterday that shouldn't have happened, like the miracle side to side scramble with the long completion to Mason. A better defender would've had him during that scramble, and we get a stupid sack.

He needs to sense when to give up on a play and chuck it. He does it now sometimes, and he does it well, but he's still trying to hold it too long, trying to make a play happen when everything is collpasing around him. Case in point, one of his sacks or fumbles, he was still patting the ball when the defender was getting his hands on Flacco, trying to look downfield to complete a pass...THROW IT AWAY!

[RAVENOUS52]

He must develop his pocket awareness. That can't be taught and it's vital to his health and ability to get the ball downfield.

For a minute there, he had the "deer in the headlights" look on his face, but the storm passed and he got back into a nice comfort zone.

Awesome stuff to see out of a rookie.

[StingerNLG]

I agree Ben. Watching the game last night he was telegraphing the play-action like no one's business. He doesn't sell the fake by getting his head down and "watching the ball" back into the hands of the back, he seems to be concentrating more on his throwing spot after the fake which is understandable at this point in his young career. It's definitely something to work on, however the PA was still fairly effective as a weapon..

One thing I notice is that everytime he goes PA, it's the two-handed move. I don't think I've yet seen him use a one-handed fake. Defenses will stop biting on that pretty quickly.

The other thing Flacco needs to do is start at least glancing at his other reads. For the second time in two games Heap opened up with no one around him, and Flacco didn't see him. Last night he was open in the middle and Flacco threw it to McClain with a defender on him. Granted he completed the pass, but instead of just a first down Heap had some big room to run.

And last, he does need to get the deep ball out quicker. He's got to trust that the receiver will get there. 3 seconds and launch. And the coaches have to make sure they teach him that a deep ball doesn't necessarily automatically mean it's 50 yards downfield.

Again, all will come in time. What he does have that is already light years above our past QB's is a sense of pocket awareness and fairly accurate passing. He has not thrown the ball too many times directly at an opponent.

He's going to get there. And the fact that he shook off a devastating fumble-six to get the team tied back up and into overtime tells us a LOT about the type of Quarterback Joe Flacco is going to be for us.


Now, about that #1 receiver?

[festivus]

His pocket awareness isn't bad; there were times I thought it was excellent.

Ball security + throwing the deep ball accurately were my two concerns. The first is more costly in the short term, the latter potentially more costly in the long term. I hope they are both rectified sooner rather than later.

Concerning the #1 receiver? Put Randy Moss back there, those deep balls are mostly caught. Oh well.

[RAVENOUS52]

His pocket awareness isn't bad; there were times I thought it was excellent.

Ball security + throwing the deep ball accurately were my two concerns. The first is more costly in the short term, the latter potentially more costly in the long term. I hope they are both rectified sooner rather than later.

Concerning the #1 receiver? Put Randy Moss back there, those deep balls are mostly caught. Oh well.

His ball security issue stemmed directly from him not sensing the defender baring down on him from behind. No time to brace or react at all on the fumble, leading to...well, you know.:(

[Jeremiah W]

His ball security issue stemmed directly from him not sensing the defender baring down on him from behind. No time to brace or react at all on the fumble, leading to...well, you know.:(

I don't think vet qbs get the old Peter Parker spider sense tingle when the protection breaks down. Perhaps they just hear the hush of the crowd right before they get hit or something, but when a guy who is supposed to be blocked comes clean from the blindside the Qb is usually going to fumble no matter who he is or how long he has played.

The pass protection was good sometimes, but really bad on most of the Qb hits. On one of them he was completly at fault, but not most of them.

[festivus]

His ball security issue stemmed directly from him not sensing the defender baring down on him from behind. No time to brace or react at all on the fumble, leading to...well, you know.:(

Three lost balls, if I remember correctly. Two we recovered. His pocket presence seems pretty good, for the most part, though it was tested more last night than it had been the previous two games.