Give it to me straight

Then why are you blaming our defensive strategy for the loss? Win as a team, lose as a team.

I didn't leave it out. That was my point. That's why we lost. Not because we didn't blitz Flacco enough.

 

What if the other teams Defense plays better and allows ZERO points, should we still win? Doesn't seem like our Defense did enough to win there?

Pittsburgh's Defense came up with at least 3 HUGE turnovers, how many did ours come up with??? Pittsburgh got 3 sacks on Flacco, how many did we have??? That is a big difference in the grand scheme of things, wouldn't you think? That is what you do to a Rookie....and supporting that thesis comes with it a WIN.:grrr:

You can support the Passive style all you want, but eventually someone has got to make a play. We didn't make plays, we allowed them to dictate what they wanted to do, instead of imposing our will on them.

 

Blaming them for the loss? No no. If I conveyed that, I apologize.
The defense didn't lose the game, the team did. BUT, the defense did not do what Pittsburgh's defense did either.
Had we gotten a bit more pressure on Flacco, I doubt they would have even scored 10 points, let alone 13.
And if they were max protecting, and Flacco was getting the ball out quickly, that leaves mainly short passes; our secondary should have been blanketing their WRs; especially considering they couldn't send many guys out on routes if they are back on the line protecting Flucco's ***.
And the play where Finny and Hope were all over Mason on that left side route yet, Finny fell down and Hope couldn't get there quite in time...you tellin me that that was a 'scheming issue'. Nope. Finny and Hope both blew their coverage.

 

If our offense can't score, then we shouldn't win. That's what I'm saying. You are trying to blame a lack of blitzing for a loss in a game where our defense only allowed 13 points. Should we win if our offense can't score 14 points?

It's a big deal. Turnovers are important. But what do they mean if Pittsburgh's offense doesn't turn them into points? Our offense had just as many opportunities to score as Pittsburgh's, even without the turnovers. It's not the defense's fault that our offense couldn't score more than 10 points.

We made plays all year long playing that way. We were number 1 in the NFL in turnover ratio. We imposed our will on nearly everybody we played, using that system. But we are supposed to ditch all of that and do something different in the playoffs? :hmm:

 

I can agree with this.

This is all just assumptions. Blitzing may have been effective. Or it could have left us vunerable to more big plays. They could have scored less than 10 against that scheme. Or they could have scored 30.

I agree 100%. The scheme placed our players in position to make the play. It just didn't happen.

 

Also, we killed ourselves by never forcing the Ravens to make Flacco be the guy. We took that lead, then they hit the Mason play (I STILL CANT BELIEVE IT) and from there we never took a lead due to our dumb turnovers. Say we hit a field goal right at half time, and maybe even a field goal on the drive Collins threw the interception, we're up 13-7. If we then get the Alge Crumpler touchdown, its either 20-7 or 20-10 at best. They would have been forced to stop max protecting Flacco and make him make a play, just like the Steelers did. And what happened in the Steelers game? Pick Six and they cement the win. We, because of our turnovers, never forced them to make Flacco take chances. He could play it safe all game with no worries.

 

Great first post.
Welcome to the forum..

btw.. I don't agree with the Haynesworth blog your sig is linking to. We've all seen first hand how our defense goes from dominant to average without him.

 

Thanks man, and thanks for the comment, but I don't want to encroach on this site with comments about my blog, so I will just say I respectfully disagree and thank you for the high five.

 

You're exactly right, it's our Defense's fault that they allowed more than 10 pts to a terrible offensive team. It's not our offense's fault they couldn't score more than 10 against a superior Defensive team.

 

Oh Come on. Our offense had 391 yards. We just had dumb turnovers. And you think our dumb turnovers didn't put our defense in a bad spot? Our defense did everything it should have, and our offense did most of what it should have except not turn the ball over. The Ravens aren't a terrible offensive team! They are limited, but not terrible. As I posted earlier, if our offense comes through, it would've forced the Ravens to open it up and mistakes would've happened. Alas, we turned the ball over, and the Ravens could keep Flacco bottled up with only 1 or 2 reads and maximum protection schemes. Our defense was fine, it was stupid turnovers that did us in. 81% of the time the team that wins the turnover battle wins. That's why we lost.