lol Flacco

[Michael Jordan.]

Thats what 4 interceptions?

[benefactor]

I was just about to make this thread. Looks to be in regular season form tbh.

[benefactor]

:lol Carolina up 21-7 with 57 total yards

[Trill Clinton]

Horrible dress rehearsal for the ravens starting offense

[Clipper Nation]

:lol Flacco saving it for the postseason, per par....

[Chinook]

Not worried here.

[Bill_Brasky]

Boredom.

[Blake]

Flacco looking in super bowl hangover form.

No surprise if they don't even make the playoffs, tbh.

[Spur|n|Austin]

I think the teams kept their starters in a bit too long last night - I was waiting for an injury.

[spurraider21]

Baltimore is clearly taking a step back this year, and Flacco going all Kobe with his new contract isn't helping :lol

While Jacoby Jones made some of the biggest plays for them (the hail mary vs Denver, the kickoff return as well as the big touchdown catch in the superbowl) I honestly felt like Boldin was more critical. He made almost every big 3rd down play for them, caught damn near every ball thrown in his direction, often with a defender RIGHT there. Every jumpball, etc. They lost him and now have no true possession receiver.

Dennis Pitta is out for the season and they don't have a viable replacement. Ed Dickson is solid, but he's more of a blocker while Pitta is one of those new breed athletic tight ends.

They replaced Ed Reed with Michael Huff. meh. Huff is the definition of average. Sure, Reed lost a step, but he always seemed to be at the right place at the right time, and had multiple playoff interceptions yet again.

They replaced Kruger with Dumervil. This was their 1 win over the offseason.

Failed to adequately replace Ray Lewis or Ellerbe. I know you can't "replace Lewis" but they could have at least tried. We all know that Lewis was a shell of his former self, when talking about his on the field play, his speed, strength, etc. But he was still the quarterback of the defense, and much like Ed Reed, was always one of those right place - right time players. Ellerbe really came into his own, but Jeff Ireland surprisingly overpaid him to pry him out of Baltimore. The Ravens only attempt to address their sudden lack of ILB's was Rolando McClain (:lol at replacing Reed and Lewis with Huff and McClain) but he retired.

The AFC North looks like the most wide open division in the conference, with Houston, Denver, New England clearly atop their own. The Bengals are the obvious choice, but they're not exactly wowing anybody. Nobody knows what to make of the Steelers, but they'll hover around 8-8 which should give them a shot to take the division. The Browns are one of my favorite darkhorses this year. Solid defense got better with additions of Kruger and Desmond Bryant (probably the only bright spot on the Raiders defense last year). Weeden expected to make a leap this season, as well as Jordan Cameron/Josh Gordon. If Trent stays healthy, they could push for 9 wins

[Chinook]

Baltimore is clearly taking a step back this year, and Flacco going all Kobe with his new contract isn't helping :lol


All right. I'll play. Flacco's deal wasn't really that bad (and the cap hit is pretty low this season), considering how much Ryan and Rodgers got. I don't think that had anything to do with the Ravens losing talent, especially Boldin, whose contract was expiring.


While Jacoby Jones made some of the biggest plays for them (the hail mary vs Denver, the kickoff return as well as the big touchdown catch in the superbowl) I honestly felt like Boldin was more critical. He made almost every big 3rd down play for them, caught damn near every ball thrown in his direction, often with a defender RIGHT there. Every jumpball, etc. They lost him and now have no true possession receiver.

I'm not going to say that losing Boldin isn't going to hurt, but his impact last season is overrated. He stepped up against bad coverage in New England and made a good catch against the 49ers. His main problem is that he can't get separation, which means that Flacco had to throw the ball high to let Boldin outmuscle his man. The lack of a physical possession receiver is something to look out for, but the Stokley addition can help offset that.


Dennis Pitta is out for the season and they don't have a viable replacement. Ed Dickson is solid, but he's more of a blocker while Pitta is one of those new breed athletic tight ends.

It's actually the opposite. Dickson is a downfield threat and pretty athletic for a tight-end, while Pitta is just a solid Dallas Clark type of player. Pitta has good hands and better chemistry with Flacco, which makes him the more-valuable player. But he's not in the mold of Gronk or Graham or Eiffert (or even Gresham). Dickson's also a below-average blocker. He put up pretty good numbers (54/528/5) his only year starting. If he can get there again, the Ravens should be fine.


They replaced Ed Reed with Michael Huff. meh. Huff is the definition of average. Sure, Reed lost a step, but he always seemed to be at the right place at the right time, and had multiple playoff interceptions yet again.

They replaced Kruger with Dumervil. This was their 1 win over the offseason.

You know more about Huff than I do, but I've heard good things about him his whole career. I don't think he's the center-fielder than Reed is at all, but if he's not scared to tackle like Ed, then it will be more of a wash than you give it credit for. I actually think that he, Ihedigbo and Matt Elam will play a lot of three-safety coverage together. That's going to be interesting to see.

Dumervil and Canty are major upgrades to the front seven. Brandon Williams coming in along with getting a healthy Suggs back has me pretty excited as well.


Failed to adequately replace Ray Lewis or Ellerbe. I know you can't "replace Lewis" but they could have at least tried. We all know that Lewis was a shell of his former self, when talking about his on the field play, his speed, strength, etc. But he was still the quarterback of the defense, and much like Ed Reed, was always one of those right place - right time players. Ellerbe really came into his own, but Jeff Ireland surprisingly overpaid him to pry him out of Baltimore. The Ravens only attempt to address their sudden lack of ILB's was Rolando McClain (:lol at replacing Reed and Lewis with Huff and McClain) but he retired.

First, the Ravens drafted Arthur Brown and signed Daryl Smith to be their MLBs. I don't know where you've been. Second, it's always hard to replace a HoFer, even if their physical skills are declining. But Smith and Brown should be much better than Ray in coverage. In fact, it's not a stretch so say the Ravens could have the best nickle linebackers next season. Ellerbe is just the next in a pretty long line of Ravens UDFA LBs whom the team replaces with another UDFA after he gets overpaid on another team. Josh Bynes is replacing him on running downs (Brown on passing downs), and I honestly don't expect the team to miss him at all.


The AFC North looks like the most wide open division in the conference, with Houston, Denver, New England clearly atop their own. The Bengals are the obvious choice, but they're not exactly wowing anybody. Nobody knows what to make of the Steelers, but they'll hover around 8-8 which should give them a shot to take the division. The Browns are one of my favorite darkhorses this year. Solid defense got better with additions of Kruger and Desmond Bryant (probably the only bright spot on the Raiders defense last year). Weeden expected to make a leap this season, as well as Jordan Cameron/Josh Gordon. If Trent stays healthy, they could push for 9 wins

:lol 8-8 won't win the AFCN. 10-6 probably won't. They'll send two teams to the playoffs, and at least one will make it to the conference championship. That's just their way. I am definitely biased, but I pick the Ravens to win the division, and possibly the conference if they get any production out of receivers who aren't Torrey Smith and Ed Dickson. Their defense should be much better this season, and the running game should be stronger with actual line continuity. The passing game just has to stay on target.

[spurraider21]

Flacco is making something like 62 million in the first 3 years of his contract, making him the highest paid player in the NFL. It's been known that Boldin has lost separation skills, but it didn't seem to affect his production, especially when it mattered. 5 catches for 145 yards in the wildcard round, 6 catches (5 of which were for first downs) in the divisional round, 5 catches for 2 td's in the conference championship, and 6 catches for 104 yds and TD in the superbowl. the dude won pretty much every 1 on 1 battle for the ball. he and pitta were 2 guys that didn't have to necessarily be open for Flacco to throw to. I don't think the same can be said for jacoby jones, torrey smith, or ed Dickson. I apologize for the paragraph, but my enter button is currently not working :lol. Huff always seemed like a centerfielder who was playing in the warning track the whole time. never was much of a ballhawk and seemed content with letting the guy make a catch then tackling him. he actually seemed better off when he was forced to play corner last year, as it forced him to be more aggressive and he used his length/wingspan to his advantage. he's not afraid to tackle, but he whiffs quite a bit. ravens pass rush should be fine, but i'm not sure you can count on daryl smith and Arthur brown to fit in seamlessly. and least smith is a veteran and has been solid for a while, though he's on the wrong side of 30. i'm actually a Flacco fan and had the ravens as my preseason favorites last year, so i'm not trying to go out of my way to bag on them, but I don't think they're as strong as they were last year

[Michael Jordan.]

Yeah. Huff is garbage.

[Chinook]

Getting paid $62 Million does not mean that he counts for that much against the cap. In fact, he counts for less than $7 Million this year and less than $15 Million next year. The owner has plenty of money, so the actual dollar figure isn't as important as the cap hits. Do I think he's overpaid? Yes. But I think quarterbacks in general are massively overpaid. At least Flacco has a ring.

Boldin had a good playoff run (against bad coverage but still good), but he wasn't the regular-season receiver he was with Arizona. He averaged 882 yards and 5 TDs the past three seasons. That's definitely replaceable. He was clutch this past post-season, but that wasn't the case in prior years. He has a Lee Evans-- like drop against the Steelers two years ago (not the TJ one). He wasn't a true number-one guy or anything. In fact, he only exploded in New England after Talib went out. Was he more proven and probably better than the Ravens current receivers? Yeah. But if Flacco is going to be worth his contract, he's going to have to start making young receivers better the way that other "elite" quarterbacks do.

As I said, I don't know too much about Huff other than that he put up good advanced stats at FS NCB and CB three consecutive years. If he fails, the Ravens have young safeties behind him. We'll see what happens. Smith has been getting rave reviews since the team signed him in June. He's been good in all three aspects (run defense, pass rushing and coverage). From what I've seen in pre-season, he's a physical upgrade to Ray. Smith just needs to stay healthy. Brown is being brought along slowly. I think the plan is for him to only play in the nickle until he shows he can hold up against the run. (He looks like a big saftey out there.) He may not ever start until Smith leaves, as Bynes has been on fire so far. In general, it's always wise to give the Ravens the benefit of the doubt when it comes to linebackers. Their track record of finding good players there (AD, Scott, McClain, BA, Ellerbe and now Bynes) is just too good to doubt them.

[spurraider21]

Yeah, I never said I think the Ravens are going to be a bottom dweller, but I don't see them as a big favorite in the AFC or even in their own division. A lot of question marks and a lot of "hoping player x steps up," including Flacco himself

[Chinook]

Sure, and that's reasonable. But that's no different than the Broncos hoping someone is going to step up on their defense or than Welker is going to fit in with Manning. There are a lot of question marks for most of the top AFC teams. For some reason, people assume that the Broncos, Texans, and Patriots are going to be fine while projecting the Ravens to fall flat on their faces. On paper, the team should be even better than they were last year, at least in the regular season.

[spurraider21]

The Broncos secondary looks weaker than last season and they "replaced" Dumervil with Shaun Phillips. Although you sort of have to assume that Manning can make Welker effective. If he once had Brandon Stokley come up with 1,000 yards, I think he can do the same with Welker, tbh. The Patriots are a different story. Their defense will have to pick up the slack like they used to back in the early/mid 2000's