Quote Originally Posted by Haloti92 View Post
Completely agree with everything here. But another thing that changed after 2010 is that Joe is being asked or allowed to throw it a lot more. He had 53 more attempts in 2011 over 2010 (489 to 542, an increase of 10.8%) and only had 6 more completions to show for them (and 5 less TDs and 2 more INTs).

We played better defenses overall in 2011 so that could be part of it along with Zorn getting fired as you said, but I think the going pass happy (relatively) might have been by design to see if it could be handled. Obviously with Cameron, no Zorn, different supporting cast, tougher defenses, it didn't pan out.

And this year he is on pace for a further increase to 568 attempts. I have no idea why we are throwing so much more, but it could be to evaluate Flacco before the big contract committment. But as you and others have mentioned, the coaching may (probably does) prevent any fair assessment of his abilities. Simply passing more in a flawed scheme is not a good test. In this case it has lead to more incompletions (lower completion percentage) and therefore a lower QBR, but what does that really tell us considering our scheme/coaching?
I think one of Joe's problems is that he is telegraphing his plays. Defenders are sitting on his routes. He is getting more experienced, but his tendencies are starting to show more as well.

I don't like to compare Joe to a guy like Peyton Manning, but look at part of what makes Manning so successful. You don't know what that guy is going to do. His team looks like they are going through a chinese fire drill at the line of scrimmage while he is barking out all sorts of crazy jibberish. Most of that is just for show. Their #1 priority is to confuse the defense. Even if they do end up in a regular set and run a regular play after the show, they have managed to create some confusion and misdirection in the defense.

The Ravens defense used to do something similar back in its hey day. Jumping around, changing positions, you didn't know where the blitz was coming from. Did it give them an edge? It certainly seemed like it.

Maybe this team needs a little organized chaos on the offensive side of the ball. Like Peyton.