Game 10 - Jags at Ravens

[Ravenchamp]

Baltimore Ravens

2-6, 3rd in AFC Northern Division




Sunday, November 15, 1:00 PM on CBS

M&T Bank Stadium, Baltimore, Maryland






Jacksonville

Jaguars

(2-6)





Baltimore

Ravens

(2-6)

[Evil Yoda]

They ought to win. And you know what that means with this team.

[shutout]

Jacksonville put up some passing yards last week against a much higher ranked defense than the Ravens. They have two good receivers that will give the Ravens problems. The offense will have to light it up.

[Evil Yoda]

As I've said about other teams, I'll say here: their strategy should be based on having Bortles pass the ball until and unless the Ravens make them stop doing it. They have a very bad secondary and a poor defensive coordinator.

[Ravenchamp]

Nov 11, 2015 20:30:58 GMT -5 Evil Yoda said:

They ought to win. And you know what that means with this team.

Lot of ought to this year, that's my concern

[Ravenchamp]

Bortles, Jags aim for playoff push vs. Flacco, Ravens

Andrew Luck's injury has the AFC South up for grabs, and Blake Bortles' squad begins a late-season chase against Joe Flacco's Ravens

[Deleted]

Unfortunately for the Ravens, Elvis was still in the building on that last play from scrimmage.

[Evil Yoda]

Penalties? That's poor discipline. Unable to finish games? Poor coordination? It all points to a coach who has lost the team. I'll grant that there's really nobody on the defense who has done his job consistently well all season. The offense is better, but it's not great. They've been hit by injuries, but coaches need to be able to scheme around that.

Anyone can coach well with quality players. The good coaches can coach well with mediocre players. I think Harbaugh's shortcomings are exposed by this team; he can't coach through adversity, and I suspect it will cost him his job. But we'll see.

[Deleted]

I don't think it has anything to do with coaching; these players are just bad. You are what your record says you are and the Ravens are fortunate to have two wins.

[aponderer]

I think the infractions committed by the Ravens cost them the game.  What was Dumervil thinking when he grabbed that face mask?

[Evil Yoda]

Nov 15, 2015 19:43:57 GMT -5 aponderer said:

I think the infractions committed by the Ravens cost them the game.  What was Dumervil thinking when he grabbed that face mask?

If he wasn't shaving points, he was doing a credible imitation of it!

More seriously, he wasn't thinking. A lot of the penalties were lunkheaded. The only really bad calls were whistling the play dead after the ball came out of a Jag player's hand (forget who); that should have been a fumble. And a ticky-tack roughing call. Lunkheaded penalties point to poor coordination and coaching.

My brother is certain that Bortles' knee was down after time ran out, and that he got back up; he's not sure anyone touched him while his knee was down, but says that to protect quarterbacks plays are often whistled dead when their knees hit the turf whether or not there was contact. I don't know; the only part I saw clearly was Dumb-ervil trying to unscrew Bortles' head.

[Ravenchamp]

If a penalty causes a game loss, fine that player , HEAVY!

[highmc2]

Nov 16, 2015 6:40:31 GMT -5 Ravenchamp said:

If a penalty causes a game loss, fine that player , HEAVY!

LOL!  At least Dumervil was playing hard till the end.  It was a reaction penalty.  A hustle mistake.

Besides, any wins at this point only screws the team from better draft picks.

[Evil Yoda]

If you fine players for playing hard, they will stop playing hard. That's the Law of Unintended Consequences, in this case highly predictable consequences. I think for this reason that's the wrong approach. Dumervil made a stupid mistake, and everyone makes them. Although it's easy to point to Dumervil as the cause of the lose, this particular failure was far from an orphan; it had a number of fathers. Some of them are named Ross and Flacco.

The overall situation with penalties does concern me, for its implication of a lack of team discipline, which is a coaching problem. I was happy to see that Pees *finally* abandoned those stupid schemes that had defenders playing five yards off their man. It took him half a season to realize they weren't working. Trestman still has that new car smell, but what I've seen of his schemes tells me no one will be in a hurry to hire him away this off-season.

Ozzie has a long track record of success, which makes some of his recent failures hard to understand.

I maintain my prediction of 4-12 for the season ending record.

[Evil Yoda]

Ravens actually won the game, league says

Apparently, whoever on Morelli's crew is responsible for calling false starts failed to detect one, and everything that followed from there led to the loss. The officiating hasn't gone their way in a number of cases, but this is inexcusable. IMO, the official responsible for missing this call should be fined a full game check (not paid for that game), and Morelli and his crew should drop to the bottom of consideration for playoff games, so they won't get any this year unless someone else screws up even worse.

But Goodell, among his many failures as commissioner, has made it clear that he does not much care whether the officiating is good or bad. Under his stewardship the only thing that hasn't happened - as far as we know - is scripted outcomes, created in conjunction with DraftKings and FanDuel.

[Deleted]

Nov 17, 2015 11:14:45 GMT -5 Evil Yoda said:

Ravens actually won the game, league says

Apparently, whoever on Morelli's crew is responsible for calling false starts failed to detect one, and everything that followed from there led to the loss. The officiating hasn't gone their way in a number of cases, but this is inexcusable. IMO, the official responsible for missing this call should be fined a full game check (not paid for that game), and Morelli and his crew should drop to the bottom of consideration for playoff games, so they won't get any this year unless someone else screws up even worse.

But Goodell, among his many failures as commissioner, has made it clear that he does not much care whether the officiating is good or bad. Under his stewardship the only thing that hasn't happened - as far as we know - is scripted outcomes, created in conjunction with DraftKings and FanDuel.

In fairness, there isn't much Goodell can do about that specific play. The NFL rule book does give the Commissioner the authority to reverse certain results under Extraordinarily Unfair Acts, but from my reading, I don't think bad officiating qualifies. It's just considered to be part of the game, regardless of how egregiously bad the call was.

[Evil Yoda]

Nov 17, 2015 23:40:25 GMT -5 @mdrunning said:

In fairness, there isn't much Goodell can do about that specific play. The NFL rule book does give the Commissioner the authority to reverse certain results under Extraordinarily Unfair Acts, but from my reading, I don't think bad officiating qualifies. It's just considered to be part of the game, regardless of how egregiously bad the call was.

No, I did not mean to suggest he should do something about this game; he can't, really. That sets a dangerous precedent.

What he can do is, create at least one permanent official in each crew who is responsible for training the rest of his crew, and who does nothing but study rules. He can hold officials responsible for their misdeeds with fines and the denial of post-season games. The officiating, league-wide, has been terrible this year. Morelli's crew apparently allowed nearly 20 seconds to run off the clock in the last two minutes of another game. Oh, and how about if we ease the officials who can't move fast enough to track the game any longer into retirement?