GAMEDAY YO

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I am in game mode. We have to have this game. I have a bet with my co-worker that if the pack win, i have to wear his driver jersey at work all day tomorrow and he has to wear my ray lewis jersey if/when the ravens win, plus lunch.

We know our season rides on this game and we are going to come out like a pack of wild dogs. (steelers losing gets us extra charged) I hope Aaron Rodgers has life insurance, he's gonna need it. Also, for his kids sake (if he has any) I hope he kissed them before the game.

"damn, that ray rice is good." thats what millions will be thinking during and after the game tonight.

Aaron Rodgers has been sacked quite a bit this year but the Ravens haven't shown any special ability in getting to the QB. For them to have any chance in this game they must have their best pass rush of the year.

yeah, the pressure hasn't been there on the ravens part, and no suggs doesn't help. need a hero effort on part of the d, otherwise i have faith in flacco and rice. he is miles ahead of any other RB in the pass catching department.

****ing horse****

all the ridiculous penalties both ways were just dumb, but we just had nothing on offense all night, especially the first half. wow that was painful to watch. and flacco had one of his worse games yet, the collins and williams picks were especially poor. so annoying to have to watch this team lose these games with suggs and reed out, they are much better than a 6-6 team.

In reality the Ravens are not better than a 6-6 team. I often hear fellow Ravens fans will say they should have beaten Minnesota but they could have just as easily lost to San Diego.

They will finish no better than 8-8 this season and it will be an accurate reflection of their ability. They have virtually no shot in Pittsburgh and will likely lose one of the remaining games against Chicago or Oakland.

Defensively, this is the least talented Ravens team since the Marchibroda era.
It is becoming more apparent that Joe Flacco has not been 100% since injuring his ankle in the Minnesota game. The offense has devolved into a one man gang of Ray Rice. Plus, this team has no discipline at all. Excessive penalties, repeated blown assignments, horrible timeout management and questionable game planning are all signs that this team is poorly coached and ill prepared.

disagree almost entirely.

i think we should take last nights game with a grain of salt, one of the most penalized in history. 300+ yards combined? did you watch the game? two of those three raven's DPI's were pretty flimsy calls, one of them being just terrible. green bay got away with murder on a few non-DPI calls too, like the one deep to clayton. not to say the ravens didn't get it back, green bay got penalized too, but this was not a well called game. i'm not taking anything away from the packers, though. ravens did not get much pressure and when rodgers was flushed he still hit his man.

come pittsburgh in what, 3 weeks, we (hopefully) should have reed and suggs back, besides lewis they are our two biggest impact players on defense imo. ngata is also great, too. of course, we beat pitt with dixon at the helm, not ben, and no polamalu either, but they still outgained them by a hundred yards while being outpenalized.

my point is that they've had a pretty tough schedule for the first 12 games, and of our six losses, they've only really been out of the game twice (the 17-7 loss to the bengals and this packers loss). they were driving and an easy first down pass was dropped late against the pats, they could have kicked the field goal to beat the vikings, were in the game the whole way against the colts and the bengals in the first match, and they've handed denver a pretty good beating.

i will agree though that they need to stop taking these terribad penalties, and definitely the defense isn't what it used to be. i don't know if changes need to be made, though.

I watched this game and every game this season. There is a reason that the Ravens get called for pass interference so much. It is because the corners are so bad it is their only hope of breaking up a pass.

Suggs was not playing at his best prior to his injury. Due to him missing most of training camp his conditioning and timing were suspect and it showed. Even when Ed Reed was playing, the secondary was highly suspect. He does at least give the team a punchers chance by his ability to cause turnovers.


Sure their schedule has been tough. When you play teams that are better than you your schedule is going to be tough. Every game they have lost has been to a superior opponent. The Ravens have regressed as much as Cincinnati has improved. The Bengals were superior to the Ravens in every aspect of the game in both contests.

Mark Clayton dropped the pass against New England for a reason. He is an average receiver at best. Average players drop passes in clutch situations. True they could have kicked a field goal against the Vikings but as I said earlier they were extremely fortunate to escape with a win against San Diego. So that is a wash.

Even though the score of the Colts game was close, it never seemed like the Colts were in danger of losing the game. The game was reminiscent of a horse race where the winning jockey rides his horse with a hand ride and the second place jockey whips his horse furiously but still can't catch the winner.

The Ravens are comparable to about a dozen other teams in the NFL. They are not an elite team nor are they horrible. Their 6-6 record is indicative of their mediocrity. They can beat a team like Denver because Kyle Orton has a candy arm similar to Chad Pennington who the Ravens pounded in the first round of the playoffs last year. Against one dimensional rushing offenses they can still play a dominant game. Against any QB with an above average arm and decent receivers they are basically helpless.

hmm, i don't think you appreciate how much cincinnati has really improved

we're not talking about braylon edwards here. mark clayton may not be randy moss or reggie wayne or whatever elite reciever, but saying he didn't catch it because he was in a clutch situation has no bearing here. from what i've seen of clayton, he's not prone at all to dropping easy passes.

totally disagree. ravens played them incredibly hard, and their redzone offense was horrible, which was the difference. 5 field goals, the missed FG chip shot, the pick in the endzone, and i believe there was a redzone fumble as well? not saying the ravens are redzone specialists but they're going to make a couple of touchdowns out of all that more often than not. but my guess is you chalk the close score up to manning having a bad game.

they are better than an average team. going into this week they were 6th best per dvoa with an estimated 7.9 wins. dvoa isn't the be all end all but i think it's a good indicator of teams over or under performing. do you feel the Ravens would be underdogs to the Jets (6-6), Dolphins (6-6), Jaguars (7-5), Titans (5-7), or the 49ers (5-7)? I don't think they'd be underdogs to any of them.

No, I do appreciate that Cincinnati has improved. They are clearly better than the Ravens and Pittsburgh.

What you describe here is exactly how mediocre teams perform. Good teams come away with touchdowns. Mediocre and bad teams settle for field goals or less.

I have no clue as to the odds in any of the matchups that you listed and don't really see the relevance. If I were to guess they would be slightly favored against each team at home and be a slight dog on the road. They were favored against Cincinnati even though we have come to learn that Cincinnati is the stronger team offensively and defensively.

I am a Ravens fan but I try to be objective. I hear what you say from almost all of my friends who are Ravens fans. But, they are viewing them from the perspective of having elevated expectations based on reaching the AFC championship game last year. If it were possible to play 16 games between 2008 Ravens against the 2009 edition the results would be lopsided in favor of the 2008 team.

i don't even know what to say to this

edit: see last sentence

you were the one who claimed the ravens are comparable to a dozen other teams, so i picked a few within a game of their record. or are you going to just continue to compare them to 9-3 or better teams?

i'm not trying to live through a different season of the team. it seems like you're looking at the result and deciding that because they're 6-6, they are decidedly average, when record or a final game score can be misleading. i can fully accept the fact that while i think they are good enough to make and contend in the playoffs, that it might not happen. you do know there is a lot of variance involved in the NFL, right?

I actually guessed that the spread would be a field goal either way depending on who is at home and who is away.

I am looking at the entirety of the season which includes results and the components thereof. If somehow they improve their play and win at a minimum every game other than against Pittsburgh I will be willing to reassess.

If they somehow get into the playoffs their only shot at winning a game will be if the opposing quarterback has below average arm strength. But based on how they have played up to this point I will be quite surprised if they finish higher than 8-8.

I agree there is variance in the NFL. A component of this variance is that a football team's profile and complexion changes more drastically and quickly than any other team sport. Over the course of an NFL season a team's entire makeup can change several times. The trendline for the Ravens' changes this year is not encouraging.

fair enough to all. although i think you're in the minority for thinking they're not favoured to win both oakland and chicago games.

just guesstimating from here, i would say they're no lower than a touchdown favourite over the raiders, and probably about 6 vs. chicago.

Yea, I think they'll definitely finish better than 8-8. They will have to win all their remaining games to make the playoffs, but they have lost to the right teams, as their conference record is very good. Can't say the same about the Steelers.

Winning in Pitt will be difficult, and impossible if they keep playing the way they are.

I didn't say that they wouldn't be favored against Chicago or Oakland. I just feel that they will lose one of those games.

either one in particular, oh great swami?

No game in particular. My basis is that the Ravens just have the look of a .500 team. In order to achieve this destiny they just need to lose one of the games along with the likely loss in Pittsburgh.

always like seeing steeltown lose, but thinking about it, the steelers loss tonight really isn't THAT important. regardless of the result the ravens still really need to win their game @ PIT. tonight might have affected that game in that maybe the steelers rest players but i doubt that... maybe if they lose vs. green bay next week, it can happen. regardless, ravens still gots to win.

that was fun today

okay, epic smackdown of the bears.

so we're now in the best position we've been in since what, 3-0?

8-6 tied with broncos, now holding the first wild card spot as virtue of our head to head tiebreak over them broncos. a game ahead of 6 (!!!) 7-7 teams: dolphins, jets, jaguars, texans, titans, steelers. virtually everybody has a shot here to get these last two spots.

our remaining schedule: @ PIT, @ OAK

going to be a tough game next week. if we come out of pittsburgh with a win, huge. we will probably be able to say we will be in the playoffs. if we lose, still have @ OAK although obviously that's not been a cakewalk for several good teams (PHI, CIN).

schedules of the notables:

Denver Broncos: @ PHI, KC
Pittsburgh Steelers: BAL, @ MIA
Miami Dolphins: HOU, PIT
Houston Texans: @ MIA, NE
New York Jets: @ IND, CIN
Tennessee Titans: SD, @ SEA
Jacksonville Jaguars: @ NE, @ CLE

and as you can see:

New England Patriots: JAC, @ HOU
Cincinnati Bengals: KC, @ NYJ

based on these... very small chance we win the division, even though we've crawled back to just one game down. Cincy's got a cakewalk at home and then possibly a Jets team that might be out by week 17 if they lose against Indy.

noteworthy matchups are obviously BAL @ PIT, HOU @ MIA and PIT @ MIA in 17. will decide at least one of the wild card spots.

unless Broncos and us win out, at least one team is getting in at 9-7.

as far as tiebreakers go...

if we tie with PIT for a wild card spot, we hold the tiebreaker over them. 1-1 head-to-head but we would have a 3-3 division record and they would be 2-4.

if we tie with DEN, we are in on virtue of head to head record.

if we tie with TEN or HOU, we would be in on virtue of better conference record.

if we tie with JAC, we'd probably be behidn them as at that point, they'd have a better conference record than us.

if we tie with MIA, i think we'd probably be ahead as our strength of victory would be better (same conference record, don't have 4 common non-divisional opponents)

if we tie with NYJ, i think we'd also probably be ahead on strength of victory.


really, i think we if tie, we're in alright shape, but i'd rather just win out

With the Broncos having to play in Philadelphia next week it looks like a good chance that both of the AFC wild card teams will be 9-7 with the Broncos likely on the outside.

Well hopefully we can make the playoffs

<insert rant about ravens being better than 8-7 followed by maxh saying they aren't>

This post should save me some writing.