What is this team's identity? (Merged)

**wickedsolo** · 09-19-2012, 02:03 PM

It's easy to chalk up bad play to Cam, Flacco, Harbs, Dean Pees, etc.

However, after a few days to really think about it and read some of the media coverage I think that the consistency issues run a lot deeper than just the above mentioned.

This team, especially the offense, has no identity. They don't know what they want to do. Sometimes they want to pass a lot, other times they want to be conservative and traditional, they want Flacco to be the focal point, no wait...they want Rice to be the focal point...

Defensively, according to Ray Lewis' comments, Dean Pees is still trying to figure out what type of schemes he wants to run.

Folks, this team has had an identity crisis for a few years now (lots of NFL pundits and analysts said this last year) and it continues into this season.

They really need to figure out what they want to do and just go with it. This back and forth is just perpetuating inconsistency across the board.

**GOTA** · 09-19-2012, 02:07 PM

Offensively they want to throw the ball a lot. In the preseason the kept on talking about limiting the amount of touches for Ray Rice but keeping the yardage about the same. They're thinking the Kurt Warner Cardinals offense. That's the vision but I don't think Cam has any clue on how to achieve it.

**leachisabeast** · 09-19-2012, 02:09 PM

We need to do what the 49ers are doing.

**Jsmoove** · 09-19-2012, 02:11 PM

Im with Leach on this one.

**Raven 555** · 09-19-2012, 02:15 PM

Wicked that sounds like a Head Coach problem.

**GOTA** · 09-19-2012, 02:19 PM

Originally Posted by leachisabeast

We need to do what the 49ers are doing.

They're going in the complete opposite direction of that.

**s.r.genovese** · 09-19-2012, 02:23 PM

Originally Posted by GOTA

They're going in the complete opposite direction of that.

To be fair, so is almost the entire league. Not sold that you can win a Superbowl in today's NFL playing like the niners.

**GOTA** · 09-19-2012, 02:51 PM

Originally Posted by s.r.genovese

To be fair, so is almost the entire league. Not sold that you can win a Superbowl in today's NFL playing like the niners.

No one's be able to do it since they started changing the rules to pump up passing. For us old timers though it's nice to see. The 49ers and Texans are the only teams running that heavy.

**Terpsfan82** · 09-19-2012, 02:44 PM

Originally Posted by GOTA

They're going in the complete opposite direction of that.

Exactly. Including the winning.

**JMUpurkfool** · 09-19-2012, 02:55 PM

Originally Posted by Terpsfan82

Exactly. Including the winning.

Yeah we lose one game and all of a sudden we are losers. "Identity" is bullshit. Every game presents a different challenge and a team has to be able to adapt. Win at any cost. This team was built to win any type of game.

Identity isn't the issue. In game adjustments are the problem. I know we had the personnel to beat the defense in the second half. (We did)

**cbaywolf** · 09-19-2012, 02:22 PM

I think "Identity" is just something for talking heads to pontificate upon. If we're good at running and throwing the ball, why does one or the other need to be our identity? FYI- people want to point to last game and say "the ravens stopped pounding the ball in the 2nd half" when actually Ray got more carries in that half. Philly just started shutting him down, and taking that away. Joe needed to be better- not sure if it was the ribs or what, but he just needed to hit more passes in the 2nd half- he was something like 12 for 15 in the first half, and then about 2 for 10 at one point in the 2nd half. It was bad execution that lost this game, not lack of identity.

i don't care if we win one week by throwing for 350 yards, and the next week having Ray run for 200 yards- whatever works against a particular defense is the identity that we need to have for that week. The problem seemed to be lack of adjustments again.

Our Defense is much more worriesome than any lack of offensive identity. Our line and linebackers are not even close to what they were last year. Those boys need to grow up fast- and shame on Ozzie for not bringing in some sort of stop-gap after Sizzle went down right after the draft. Again, in that last game, people want to blame the offense, but if the D could have made one stop on Philly's last drive (freakin anywhere on the field) we wouldn't be talking about our "identity"- but it looks like this is going to be a major concern- and the offense is going to have to light up the scoreboard to stay in games.