NFL Playoff Thread

Yeah, but remember, that was the early Tebow game where Fox and staff actually saddled him with running something resembling a conventional pro offense -- and we all saw how that came out, at the time.

 

MileHigh, don't tempt me ...

Nah. This is the playoffs thread. We're here to talk about Joe Flacco!

 

Speaking of Bert Unibrow:

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/01/18/flacco-on-ed-reeds-comments-its-not-really-a-big-deal/

 

Joe Biden in SF today. Tries to loosen up the crowd with a San Francisco sports reference -- but mixing up his baseball and football, he tells the crowd "the Giants are on their way to the Super Bowl." Whoops.

http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2012/01/18/bidens-oops-moment-in-sf-giants-on-their-way-to-super-bowl/?tsp=1

 

Heard the local weekly radio segment with Steve Young and he was pretty strong about the Ravens situation. He said the pervading mood throughout the Ravens organization is that the Defense dictates to the offense "don't screw it up." He said this hamstrings the offensive players, play callers, everything. Instead of telling the offense "go ahead do your thing, we'll take care of it if you mess up", the defense scares everyone into the Flacco you see now. Young said the Ravens have the talent, Flacco, Bouldin, Rice, Smith, Heap, OL, but they essentially play scared. He added that whereas a defense is supposed to cause chaos, that does not work with offense. Young said he talked to Biscotti about it and Biscotti said he'd taken care of that pervasive culture. Guess not. (Steve Young was hilarious as well.)

 

I still think one of the biggest reasons for the Ravens struggles on offense is trying to figure out what they want to be. Ray Rice paced the entire NFL in total yards from scrimmage so the offense obviously goes through him but there seems to be this sense that if Rice carries the load that Flacco isn't developing as quickly as everyone would like. The fact is their wideouts are pretty average and the two talented tight ends are second-year players. As the previous post mentioned about Steve Young's take, I do think there is this culture that takes not only Flacco being a game manager to the entire offense operating in that manner. I also think that the Ravens offense is better than perceived. It was a top 15 offense that faced a brutal schedule of defenses. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Ravens went out and scored 30 this weekend.

 

Ha --another classic Biden moment. Right up there with "stand up Chuck" .

 

Sammy Souzer and Mike McGwire wonder what the big deal is ...

 

I've heard Young float that theory about the Jets, too. He basically said that we will never get a proper evaluation of Mark Sanchez with the current system in place.

I'm not sure if I buy it, but it is an interesting theory.

Did Young actually mention Heap as part of the talent on the Ravens? I'd wonder if the concussions were messing with his memory on that one since Heap is now with the Cardinals.

 

My mistake, he said young TE and I thought of Heap.

Young did say that the same mentality was pervading the Jets and that its non-functional with respect to the offense.