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The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly - Ravens game 1


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 Good: Vinnie Rey was very good. Run defense was strong. Pass defense was mostly good. AJ had a good game

 

  Bad: special teams were weak, Huber had trouble all day, Nugent missed easy FG attempt. O-line got overrun at times. Officials were bad both ways.

 

 Ugly: Dalton's accuracy. Offensive playcalling and decision making. Bengals should have won this game.

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I can't get over the fact that we gave up 9 penalties for 134 yards. Then we didn't call timeout before halftime to stop the clock and try to score some points before half. Third down efficiency was dismal (5 for 19). Not all of these fall squarely on the shoulders of Marvin Lewis, but this team is very undisciplined and that is the fault of leadership.

 

I don't fault going for it on 4rth down although the first time, QB sneak for 2 yards? Really?

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I think Whitworth is still hurt and is playing gimpy. I think other teams have figured this out. We really can't underestimate the blocking of Gresham, at least compared to a WR, RB, or Eifert.

 

I also think that until the QB can make the deep throws, The opponents are going to blitz every down and push the WRs to short routes. Run blitzes to fill gaps reminds me of how they stopped Jeff Blake and Carl Pickins.

 

If there is one area of improvement that Dalton can do, it is quit hanging on the ball so long. He got sacked, what 5 times yesterday? A couple of those could have been avoided by dumping the ball. He did pump fake a couple times, but needs to do that more.

 

Because the Miami game was on a Thursday, this is almost like a bye week, and Marvin's teams have traditionally come out from bye weeks flat. Bad news is we face an improving Browns team and then have our BYE, so this streak could go two more games.

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I think Whitworth is still hurt and is playing gimpy. I think other teams have figured this out. We really can't underestimate the blocking of Gresham, at least compared to a WR, RB, or Eifert.

 

I also think that until the QB can make the deep throws, The opponents are going to blitz every down and push the WRs to short routes. Run blitzes to fill gaps reminds me of how they stopped Jeff Blake and Carl Pickins.

 

If there is one area of improvement that Dalton can do, it is quit hanging on the ball so long. He got sacked, what 5 times yesterday? A couple of those could have been avoided by dumping the ball. He did pump fake a couple times, but needs to do that more.

 

Because the Miami game was on a Thursday, this is almost like a bye week, and Marvin's teams have traditionally come out from bye weeks flat. Bad news is we face an improving Browns team and then have our BYE, so this streak could go two more games.

 

 

Bernard was also clearly hurting.  He didn't try to bounce any of his runs outside.  They also showed him once wincing on the sidelines.

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Bueno: Defense.  V-Rey in particular playing out of his mind.  Holding it together in the face of injuries, turnovers, and some really fucked up officiating, too.  They weren't perfect & that's not a very good offense but the D still looked better than they had any right to, considering. IDK if Zimmer as HC/Marvin as GM is at all realistic but it sure sounds good. 

 

You may want to sit down for this but..  AD.  I can not believe the amount of shit this dude is taking. If he's not perfect on every throw it's like OMG CLOWNFRAUD.  Sacked, hit, or at the very least hurried on just about every pass.  WR's dropping balls, getting re-routed, letting DB's take the ball away from them.. Flacco throws an INT though and it's the wind.  If he met the standard he's being held to right now he'd be the greatest QB in the history of the game.  It's horseshit.  He got rattled as the day wore on but who the fuck wouldn't? Most people would've been limping for the sideline and he's scrambling for a first down.  Oh yeah and how far did that Hail Mary travel through the air? 

 

Bad: Rest of the offense.  Line was getting destroyed. Dumervil was having his way with Whitworth. Lost count of how many passes were dropped.  I have no idea what Jay's gameplan was but it clearly wasn't working.  That swing pass on 4th & 2 was way too cute.  30+ mph winds and we're out there in trips half the time.  WTF?  Worse, you could tell the other team wanted it more.  Zimmer had his MASH unit ready to play yet our offense is missing one guy and look like refried shit. 

 

Ugly:  Those officials.  I don't know what the fuck was going on there but it stank like shit. At one point the ball had been spotted on a close 3rd down and one of them came running in late, leans down and moves it for no apparent reason. Saw another check his phone before making a call and suddenly there's a flag on the field.  Again, long after the whistle.  So either the NFL is incapable of finding 50-100 people every weekend that don't absolutely suck at their jobs, or there's another agenda.  A win yesterday and the season's basically over for the rest of the division & their fans starting tuning out.  But, yeah, I'm sure that had nothing to do with anything right? All the refs are just a bunch of dumbasses, incapable of seeing things from 5 feet away in person that are obvious to people watching at home. We should just curse their ineptitude and shake our fists at the TV.  

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You may want to sit down for this but..  AD.  I can not believe the amount of shit this dude is taking. If he's not perfect on every throw it's like OMG CLOWNFRAUD.  Sacked, hit, or at the very least hurried on just about every pass.  WR's dropping balls, getting re-routed, letting DB's take the ball away from them.. Flacco throws an INT though and it's the wind.  If he met the standard he's being held to right now he'd be the greatest QB in the history of the game.  It's horseshit.  He got rattled as the day wore on but who the fuck wouldn't? Most people would've been limping for the sideline and he's scrambling for a first down.  Oh yeah and how far did that Hail Mary travel through the air? 
  

Agree completely with this!
And for the record it travelled approx. 57yds...in windy conditions. Brees couldn't even toss it but 48yds last night when he slung it...in a dome. Not saying Dalton is a better QB than Brees but am saying this arm-strength talk is blown way out of proportion.
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Bueno: Defense.  V-Rey in particular playing out of his mind.  Holding it together in the face of injuries, turnovers, and some really fucked up officiating, too.  They weren't perfect & that's not a very good offense but the D still looked better than they had any right to, considering. IDK if Zimmer as HC/Marvin as GM is at all realistic but it sure sounds good. 

 

You may want to sit down for this but..  AD.  I can not believe the amount of shit this dude is taking. If he's not perfect on every throw it's like OMG CLOWNFRAUD.  Sacked, hit, or at the very least hurried on just about every pass.  WR's dropping balls, getting re-routed, letting DB's take the ball away from them.. Flacco throws an INT though and it's the wind.  If he met the standard he's being held to right now he'd be the greatest QB in the history of the game.  It's horseshit.  He got rattled as the day wore on but who the fuck wouldn't? Most people would've been limping for the sideline and he's scrambling for a first down.  Oh yeah and how far did that Hail Mary travel through the air? 

 

Bad: Rest of the offense.  Line was getting destroyed. Dumervil was having his way with Whitworth. Lost count of how many passes were dropped.  I have no idea what Jay's gameplan was but it clearly wasn't working.  That swing pass on 4th & 2 was way too cute.  30+ mph winds and we're out there in trips half the time.  WTF?  Worse, you could tell the other team wanted it more.  Zimmer had his MASH unit ready to play yet our offense is missing one guy and look like refried shit. 

 

Ugly:  Those officials.  I don't know what the fuck was going on there but it stank like shit. At one point the ball had been spotted on a close 3rd down and one of them came running in late, leans down and moves it for no apparent reason. Saw another check his phone before making a call and suddenly there's a flag on the field.  Again, long after the whistle.  So either the NFL is incapable of finding 50-100 people every weekend that don't absolutely suck at their jobs, or there's another agenda.  A win yesterday and the season's basically over for the rest of the division & their fans starting tuning out.  But, yeah, I'm sure that had nothing to do with anything right? All the refs are just a bunch of dumbasses, incapable of seeing things from 5 feet away in person that are obvious to people watching at home. We should just curse their ineptitude and shake our fists at the TV.  

I don't know why you're receiving so much negative rep for this post but I bumped you up one. I pretty much agree with everything you have said here.

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You may want to sit down for this but..  AD.  I can not believe the amount of shit this dude is taking. If he's not perfect on every throw it's like OMG CLOWNFRAUD.  Sacked, hit, or at the very least hurried on just about every pass.  WR's dropping balls, getting re-routed, letting DB's take the ball away from them.. Flacco throws an INT though and it's the wind.  If he met the standard he's being held to right now he'd be the greatest QB in the history of the game.  It's horseshit.  He got rattled as the day wore on but who the fuck wouldn't? Most people would've been limping for the sideline and he's scrambling for a first down.  Oh yeah and how far did that Hail Mary travel through the air? 
 


You win my Post of the Month Award.

And on a side note lmao at the people who said he under-threw the Hail Mary. The players practice playing the tip on that play as much as anything. If that scrum is in the back of the end zone AJ has no room to run it down. If we won that game that would be remembered as one of the great plays in team history.
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I don't know why you're receiving so much negative rep for this post but I bumped you up one. I pretty much agree with everything you have said here.


 
Ugly:  Those officials.  I don't know what the fuck was going on there but it stank like shit. At one point the ball had been spotted on a close 3rd down and one of them came running in late, leans down and moves it for no apparent reason. Saw another check his phone before making a call and suddenly there's a flag on the field.  Again, long after the whistle.  So either the NFL is incapable of finding 50-100 people every weekend that don't absolutely suck at their jobs, or there's another agenda.  A win yesterday and the season's basically over for the rest of the division & their fans starting tuning out.  But, yeah, I'm sure that had nothing to do with anything right? All the refs are just a bunch of dumbasses, incapable of seeing things from 5 feet away in person that are obvious to people watching at home. We should just curse their ineptitude and shake our fists at the TV.

I have an uncle who is a real old-timer who swears that most sports are fixed. I've always laughed him off but the last two weeks -- but especially this last one-- has turned me. There's too much money involved. More than the entire NFL generates. I mean, if the fact that these refs still work games after such blatantancy doesn't say it all I don't know what does.
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That's partly a matter of most other teams having had their bye weeks already.



9th in attempts per game, more 40+ yard completions than any of the teams ahead of us & the 5th-best QB rating of the bunch. Manning & Brees are 100+, Ryan & Stafford are both in the 90's. It's worth noting that Manning is the only other one that doesn't play in a dome. Only half these pass-heavy teams have winning records.
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I have an uncle who is a real old-timer who swears that most sports are fixed. I've always laughed him off but the last two weeks -- but especially this last one-- has turned me. There's too much money involved. More than the entire NFL generates. I mean, if the fact that these refs still work games after such blatantancy doesn't say it all I don't know what does.


Most of the time it looks to me like they're only trying to work the over/under or shave a couple of points. Then you have games like that one where whatever they are trying to do is so hamfisted I have a hard time taking it seriously.

To be clear, this isn't "blame the refs" so much as wondering why they called the game the way they did & why they aren't being held to a higher standard. The offense did more than enough to lose the game outright.
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That's partly a matter of most other teams having had their bye weeks already.

 

 

its also an issue with playcalling and the inability to consistently run the ball though.  The Bengals continually put themselves in 3rd and long situations Sunday because they struggled to consistently run the ball successfully, and in some cases, even try.  They'd run on 1st, get 3yds, then throw deep into the wind on 2nd, and be left with a 2rd and 7 into the wind.  

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Disclaimer: I thought dalton played bad today and didn't play nearly as well as he could have.

But...is it just me or were our wrs and tight ends getting literally 0 separation. I felt like every play the receivers were completely blanketed and dalton had no were to throw.

They also had several drops, guys not fighting for the ball on slants, and several miscommunications. Not to mention the oline not playing great.

Once again dalton played bad, but the rest of the offense really did nothing to help him IMO.

 

It's not just you.  I noticed that too.

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My observations at the game.

 

AJ was invisible most of the first half, but had an amazing second half.

As I said above, our WRs seemed to get very little separation Sunday.  Almost every pass Dalton threw was challenged it seems.

Whit had one of his worst games ever yesterday.  Not all the way healed yet, or starting to decline?

You could hear a pin drop in that stadium when AJ caught the hail marry.

You know it's going to be a bad day when Huber has an awful game.  He has been one of our most reliable players the past 2+ years.

Most of the Ravens fans were pretty cool.  There was only 1 guy who was obnoxious, and he was so drunk he was being obnoxious to fellow Ravens fans as well.

That wind was really strong, and often seemed to kick up at just the wrong time.

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My observations at the game.

 

AJ was invisible most of the first half, but had an amazing second half.

As I said above, our WRs seemed to get very little separation Sunday.  Almost every pass Dalton threw was challenged it seems.

Whit had one of his worst games ever yesterday.  Not all the way healed yet, or starting to decline?

You could hear a pin drop in that stadium when AJ caught the hail marry.

You know it's going to be a bad day when Huber has an awful game.  He has been one of our most reliable players the past 2+ years.

Most of the Ravens fans were pretty cool.  There was only 1 guy who was obnoxious, and he was so drunk he was being obnoxious to fellow Ravens fans as well.

That wind was really strong, and often seemed to kick up at just the wrong time.

 

 

good insight.  yea the 16yder WITH the wind by Huber was just mindblowing.

 

This game was all about field position, and the Bengals just consistently lost it whether it was the offense, defense, special teams, or coaching staff.

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My observations at the game.
 
AJ was invisible most of the first half, but had an amazing second half.
As I said above, our WRs seemed to get very little separation Sunday.  Almost every pass Dalton threw was challenged it seems.
Whit had one of his worst games ever yesterday.  Not all the way healed yet, or starting to decline?
You could hear a pin drop in that stadium when AJ caught the hail marry.
You know it's going to be a bad day when Huber has an awful game.  He has been one of our most reliable players the past 2+ years.
Most of the Ravens fans were pretty cool.  There was only 1 guy who was obnoxious, and he was so drunk he was being obnoxious to fellow Ravens fans as well.
That wind was really strong, and often seemed to kick up at just the wrong time.


I was at the game as well, fans were fine. Granted I was in the club area where fans typically are well behaved.

Funny how fans were booing both flacco and rice and different points in games. Makes you realize every fan base does that stuff not just ours.

I did have some conversations with ravens fans about how dumb the league was getting with some of this overprotection stuff. A few admitted the call on burfict was bad but made sure to point out that he got away with one a few plays earlier by pushing jones down before drawing a flag by getting pushed himself.
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Bueno: Defense.  V-Rey in particular playing out of his mind.  Holding it together in the face of injuries, turnovers, and some really fucked up officiating, too.  They weren't perfect & that's not a very good offense but the D still looked better than they had any right to, considering. IDK if Zimmer as HC/Marvin as GM is at all realistic but it sure sounds good. 

 

You may want to sit down for this but..  AD.  I can not believe the amount of shit this dude is taking. If he's not perfect on every throw it's like OMG CLOWNFRAUD.  Sacked, hit, or at the very least hurried on just about every pass.  WR's dropping balls, getting re-routed, letting DB's take the ball away from them.. Flacco throws an INT though and it's the wind.  If he met the standard he's being held to right now he'd be the greatest QB in the history of the game.  It's horseshit.  He got rattled as the day wore on but who the fuck wouldn't? Most people would've been limping for the sideline and he's scrambling for a first down.  Oh yeah and how far did that Hail Mary travel through the air? 

 

Bad: Rest of the offense.  Line was getting destroyed. Dumervil was having his way with Whitworth. Lost count of how many passes were dropped.  I have no idea what Jay's gameplan was but it clearly wasn't working.  That swing pass on 4th & 2 was way too cute.  30+ mph winds and we're out there in trips half the time.  WTF?  Worse, you could tell the other team wanted it more.  Zimmer had his MASH unit ready to play yet our offense is missing one guy and look like refried shit. 

 

Ugly:  Those officials.  I don't know what the fuck was going on there but it stank like shit. At one point the ball had been spotted on a close 3rd down and one of them came running in late, leans down and moves it for no apparent reason. Saw another check his phone before making a call and suddenly there's a flag on the field.  Again, long after the whistle.  So either the NFL is incapable of finding 50-100 people every weekend that don't absolutely suck at their jobs, or there's another agenda.  A win yesterday and the season's basically over for the rest of the division & their fans starting tuning out.  But, yeah, I'm sure that had nothing to do with anything right? All the refs are just a bunch of dumbasses, incapable of seeing things from 5 feet away in person that are obvious to people watching at home. We should just curse their ineptitude and shake our fists at the TV.  

Upon re-reading this, I'm going to have to disagree completely after all. Andy couldn't block for himself for shit, Andy couldn't run between the tackles for shit, he couldn't catch his own passes to himself for shit, couldn't return punts, kick the ball, play in the secondary....SHIT SHIT SHIT!

 

Andy Dalton is SHIT!

 

I'm plugging my ears now. "LA-LA-LA, I'm not listening to you!"

 

:lol:

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One last thought on AD. His spiral was not tight on many throws, including the Hail Mary. To get the ball through the wind you have to have a tight spiral as the ball wobbling will get caught by the wind and moved around.

 

 

You're really hung up on this spiral thing.. I don't suppose you have a patented karate swim move you could teach the defensive linemen?

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Lapham pointed out earlier that Dalton has more pass attempts than any QB in the league. It's not like they're playing from behind every week so IDK why the hell we're throwing it so much.


They have played from behind plenty this year, including being down double digits in the 3rd quarter of the past two games. That is the main reason we saw Dalton have over 50 attempts the past two weeks in addition to both games going to OT.
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They have played from behind plenty this year, including being down double digits in the 3rd quarter of the past two games. That is the main reason we saw Dalton have over 50 attempts the past two weeks in addition to both games going to OT.

 

 

first, welcome back.  

 

 

I don't think its just that though.  They've abandoned the run early in games far before they've had to.  Yes they've trailed in the third quarter of the last two games, but as they've shown, neither deficit was big enough that they couldn't overcome.  As Zins pointed out in another thread, they ran it 12 times in the first quarter against Baltimore, but no more than 5 runs in any other quarter the rest of the game, even though they were never truly out of the game.  They continually put themselves in third and long situations by not sticking with the run. 

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