Originally Posted by
bmorecareful
Nothing worked against the Steelers offensively for a few reasons, no particular order:
1) Ray Rice had a bad game running the football, 2) Cam Cameron called an inconsistent game, 3) Joe Flacco was inaccurate, 4) the OL opened no holes in the running game, 5) our WRs could not beat man coverage, and 6) Dennis Pitta missed all but the first series of the game.
Those are A LOT of things to go wrong in one game. Not only did you have Cam Cameron's usual problems with putting together a workable game plan and adjusting it on the fly, you ALSO had every offensive position group play a bad game--Rice was bad, the OL was bad (at least in the run game,) and Flacco was bad. Cam Cameron has always been an anchor holding this offense down, but with all those other factors coming into play there was NO WAY this was going to be a good game particularly given the nature of offensive synergy--Rice's bad game worsened Flacco's game and vice versa, etc.
With this offense, when it rains, it pours. Very rarely does just ONE thing go wrong--it's usually several things, particularly in the passing game, and you know perfectly well by halftime what the character of the game is going to be.
The thing is, losing Dennis Pitta is getting underrated, IMO. We know that offensively the Ravens struggle to use the middle of the field on the road, the reasons for that are probably multiple and complex. Dennis Pitta has been the one pass catcher who has earned Flacco's trust over the middle and consistently gets open, even if only for short gains. Losing Pitta from the gameplan very well may have been huge, and we shouldn't underrate how significant of an effect that could have had. We don't know the gameplan so we can't know for sure, but it's worth mentioning.