Give it to me straight

Dumb turnovers??? The Ravens made plays that forced us into turnovers, stripping the ball, crushing hits and believe it or not a beautiful blitz that forced our QB to throw the ball way before he should have. I don't think our turnovers put our Defense in bad spots at all. The INT, they got the ball on their own 22 yd line, the LenDale fumble was right before the half inside their 15. Alge's fumble was inside their 5, if anything our Defense should've had an advantage because each was after a long sustained drive and we flipped field position and had them pinned back deep in their own territory. Yet we still let them do anything they wanted to on offense, never forcing them to put the weight on their ROOKIE QBs shoulders. You do understand that we do have the ability to force turnovers as well?? Not just accept that they may turn the ball over to us, right?

 

You can't gameplan on forced turnovers. You can make it a priority and try, but it comes down to Flacco finally making the dumb decision or bad throw. He didn't. and it wasn't because our defense played badly. Our guys did. Crumpler could've not gone vertical for no reason. Lenwhale could have had the ball tucked in and not flailing out. And Collins could've thrown it out of bounds, not just out into the field of play for anybody to get.

 

So as long as the other team has a good defense, then it's no longer our offense's responsibility to score points? :hmm: You've got to be kidding me. I haven't done the actual numbers on this, but I'm willing to bet I can count on one hand the number of NFL games won this year by less than ten points.

 

Drive Chart via NFL.com
http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/drivechart?game_id=54459&displayPage=tab_drive_chart&season=2008&week=POST19

1st Quarter
[Start Time] [Time Poss] [Drive Began] [# of Plays] [Net Yards] [Result]
15:00 1:58 BLT 20 3 5 Punt
10:32 2:23 BLT 20 3 0 Punt
04:38 3:18 BLT 20 8 80 Touchdown

2nd Quarter
13:31 1:26 BLT 38 4 20 Punt
04:07 1:43 BLT 12 3 0 Punt
00:25 0:25 BLT 16 1 -1 End of Half
3rd Quarter
14:00 2:16 BLT 10 5 10 Punt
10:01 1:45 BLT 41 3 8 Punt
07:20 2:47 BLT 39 5 16 Punt
01:46 2:36 TEN 41 6 38 Field Goal
4th Quarter
08:57 1:34 BLT 1 3 0 Punt
04:23 3:30 BLT 24 9 51 Field Goal
00:12 0:12 TEN 40 1 -1 End of Game


Wow, their offense really did whatever it wanted. Only two drives over 50 yards. One was on Finnegan's fall and the other was aided by the missed call on the delay of game.

You know the best way to put it on his shoulders? Make him play catch up. Make him pass every play. And the only way to do that is to get a big lead. But the defense didn't have the luxury of that. Why? Because the offense couldn't convert their success into points.

 

You summed up my point earlier much better and with more data than I did. Thanks. I would high five you, but I can't seem to figure out how.

 

You're giving Flacco way too much credit here. You go after him and make him turn the ball over, you don't sit back and HOPE he does. That's pathetic if that is your strategy. Wish in one hand and chit in the other, and see which one fills up first. The defense that made the bigger plays won the game, not the offense who didn't score enough.

 

The overall goal of your defense is to stop teams from scoring points. We allowed less then two TDs on D. They did their job. The offenses job is to score. We turned the ball over (3) on more plays then we scored (2, a TD and FG). They did not do their job. It's the offense fault, cut and dry, and KB had every right to be as upset as he clearly was after the game. What if Flacco did throw a pick? What if we did sack him 3 times? As long as we turn the ball over ON OFFENSE every time we get close to scoring none of that matters. It may have helped our odds, but if you look at the whole stat sheet, our odds were pretty damn good and we still blew it

Pass Yards
Ten- 281 Bal- 161
Rushing
Ten-117 Bal-44
Possession
Ten-34 Bal-26
Turnovers
Ten-3 Bal-0

 

The only thing i had a problem with, was i would of liked to be more agressive against a rookie QB. There were some situations where i thought we should of brought the heat instead of staying in the famous 2 deep zone defense that Schwarts loves to play so much. Watching Pitt knock him around all game just made me more pissed off knowing that we are just as good as they are on getting to the Qb and we couldnt do it.