WHAT WENT WRONG IN WASHINGTON?
The Ravens blew their second 4th quarter lead in the last two weeks and lost yesterday in overtime to a mediocre Redskins team. No, the Redskins are not a great team. They certainly have done a great job in the last month with their current personnel, but they're 7-6 and have a rather pathetic defense. The Ravens had numerous chances to put the game out of reach and did find themselves on the losing end of some rather questionable calls, but a team can't dwell on what they can't control. People always want to blame Cam Cameron, and an ever-increasing number of fans seem to want to find reasons to blame Dean Pees. I simply can't blame the Ravens coaching staff this time as they put together a winning game plan that featured a lot of running from Ray Rice and Bernard Pierce, three touchdown passes from Flacco, and a defensive plan that contained and harassed RG3. It was, instead, a series of blunderous errors by Ravens players that let to a stunning loss at FedEx Field.
The first of such errors can on the Ravens first offensive drive of the second half. The Ravens started to move the ball well on the ground, but it wasn't long before we watched Flacco stand in the pocket and cock his arm back only to have the ball batted out of his hands for the second week in a row. The Redskins recovered the ball, but the Ravens defense stoutly held the Skins to a field goal. One could blame the offensive line for not giving Flacco enough time to get the ball off, but I would instead place the blame on Flacco as he neglected to simply step up into the pocket to make that throw.
On the very next offensive possession, the Ravens drove deep into Redskins territory on the shoulders of great running from Ray Rice and Bernard Pierce. The Ravens found themselves easily in field goal range on 3rd and 6, but this time Ryan Kerrigan sacked Flacco. Joe felt the need to release the ball in what was most likely an attempt to make the play and incomplete pass rather than a sack. In doing so, however, Joe send a wobbly ball into the hands of London Fletcher for an interception. The Ravens lost a chance to score 3 easy points that would have won them the game in the end.
The offense certainly shouldn't take most of the blame for this loss as the defense allowed a team with a 6-6 record to 31 points. There were countless missed tackles, and the Redskins moved down the field at numerous times in only a few plays. The inside linebackers looked absolutely atrocious in pass coverage and almost everyone struggled to tackle Alfred Morris. Ed Reed missed plenty of tackles, but this time he scared me more as he seemed nowhere to be found in coverage when the Ravens needed him the most.
On their final drive in regulation, the Redskins completed nearly all of their passes including a touchdown in the corner of the endzone. The Ed Reed of only two years ago would absolutely FEAST on rookie quarterbacks, and this time the Ravens weren't even contending with RG3 but his BACKUP!! Ed Reed and his secondary allowed Kirk Cousins to complete all of his passes and beat the Ravens when they enjoyed a comfortable 8 point lead with less than a minute left in the game. I know this sounds like total blasphemy, but I'm beginning to wonder if Ed Reed should even come back next season if the Ravens can draft or acquire a a younger, more aggressive replacement.
BREAKING NEWS AND A SILVER LINING!
After writing the first section of this post yesterday, I learned that the Ravens fired Cam Cameron and promoted Jim Cadwell to offensive coordinator. This is a bold move, and I certainly did not see them making this fire before the end of the season. The more I think about it, however, the more it makes sense. The Ravens need only one win to lock up the division and a 4th seed in the playoffs. It makes more sense to have Caldwell get his feet wet with three games to get used to calling the plays and making offensive adjustments before the Ravens go into the playoffs. Beyond that, if the Ravens beat either of the Manning brothers in the next two weeks, they can sit their starters against the Bengals to give some much needed rest to a host of injured players. Jim Caldwell would be wise to look at every loss this season as they're great indicators of everything Cam Cameron did poorly. I know I stated earlier that I couldn't place this loss on the coaches, but I neglected to mention a major error that may have just been the straw that broke the camel's back.
Just before halftime, the Ravens found themselves up by a touchdown with the ball back around their own 30 yard line, 29 seconds on the clock, and one remaining timeout. I assumed the offense would either kneel the ball out or take a couple of shots downfield to get within field goal range and then stop the clock to set up for the kick. I was wrong. The Ravens didn't kneel--nor did they take shots downfield. Cam, instead, called a couple of run plays and ran down the clock that way. Apparently that was when Harbaugh became perplexed and rather furious at him. There's no reason NOT to take deep shots downfield because the Redskins have one of the worst pass defenses in the league. John Harbaugh is reported to have argued with Cam on his way into the locker room, and the fact that the Ravens offense only score 7 second half points likely only further solidified the decision between Harbaugh and the owner to let Cameron go.
Some commentators and analysts have labelled the move to fire Cam as an act of "desperation", but I would argue that it was actually well thought out. It's quite clear that the Ravens brought in Caldwell as insurance in case Cam Cameron proved once again unable to take the Ravens offense to the next level. The Ravens prefer to promote from within when it comes to choosing coordinators, so hiring Caldwell initially as a quarterbacks coach enabled the Ravens organization and staff to get comfortable with Jim before promoting him in the wake of Cam Cameron's departure. Jim Caldwell has not been an offensive coordinator in the NFL, but he should prove more than capable of calling plays as he got a reputation for promoting the no-huddle offense while working as Peyton Manning's quarterback coach and head coach. Caldwell also does not play to change the Ravens playbook this season, but instead will simply tweak aspects of the existing offense and hopefully call plays at more appropriate moments. He'll also hopefully give Joe Flacco more authority to use the no-huddle and sugar-huddle offenses that the Ravens had so much success with early in the season and more recently in late game heroics against the Chargers. For those reasons, the move should be referred to as calculated and wise rather than desperate.
PATRIOTS SPANK THE TEXANS
The Texans appear to be falling off from their early season dominance much in the way the Ravens have. The major difference between the two teams is that the Ravens lost their last two close games while the Texans squeaked their last two close games out with clutch comeback wins. Both teams face a tough final three weeks. It appears as though the teams with truly elite quarterbacks in the AFC took a little while to find their footing early in the season, but are now hitting their stride at the right time.
The Patriots' quarterback is the personification of elite. Then again, so is the Broncos' quarterback. Both men have lightning fast releases and total control of their offenses. They have the experience of multiple superbowl appearances, and over a decade of consistent regular season dominance. I give Peyton Manning an edge over Brady because of how hard Manning's team fell without him in comparison to the 11-5 record that the Patriots achieved when Brady last suffered a major injury. With that said, watching Tom Brady last night I was reminded of why I loathe him so very much. He's good. he's really quite good. His release takes a little over a second, he is able to look off his receivers, he spreads the ball around, and he continues to make great throws despite getting hit over and over by vicious D linemen. Brady does sit on the field after getting hit with his legs out and his head down like a five year old who just got put in timeout, but that's about the only embarrassing thing about his play. If Tom Brady wasn't good, I certainly wouldn't despise him. My level of respect for his talent is appropriately high.
The Patriots no longer have to rely solely on the talent of Tom Brady and his receivers to win games. The Pats now have a respectable defense that held the Texans' vaunted offense scoreless in the first have and only allowed them to score 14 points all game (7 of which came in garbage time). The Texans defense had no answer to the Patriots balanced offensive attack. Teams seem to know now that if you double team J.J. Watt then the Texans don't have enough of a pass rush aside from him to really stop even mediocre or bad teams. The Texans barely squeaked by the Lions and the Jaguars, and I knew it would only be a matter of time until they got flattened by a serious playoff team.
There's little point in going over the statistics and details of last nights' game. The Patriots did almost everything well. They made Donte Stallworth appear useful once more, they got tons of use out of Wes Welker, Danny Woodhead, and Aaron Hernandez, and they put on their most dominant performance of the season against the team with the NFL's best record. Oh, I almost forgot--they did it all without Rob Gronkowski. Vince Wilfork is playing well enough to get defensive player of the year consideration, and the Patriots secondary halted Texan drives with interceptions and fantastic pass coverage.
Even the best teams in the league have been dominated once or twice this season, but I fear for the Texans that it will soon be widely accepted that they're no longer of of the NFL's top teams. My real fear is that the same continues to prove true for the Ravens over the next three weeks, but the return of Ray Lewis and possibly Terrell Suggs and Dannell Ellerbe along with the changing of offensive coordinators will hopefully provide the Ravens will a big enough boost to beat a team led by Peyton Manning for the first time since Manning was a rookie...in 1998. I haven't lost faith in the Ravens, in fact I've gained faith in the organization after Harbaugh and Stevie B. decided that enough is enough and canned Cam Cameron. We've got a big game this week, Baltimore. Keep the faith!
AS ALWAYS, GO RAVENS!!!!
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