Neal Leaves Baltimore

Lorenzo Neal agreed to a deal with the Oakland Raiders last Friday. This will be Neal's 17th season playing ball. With the Ravens the Fullback played all 16 games making holes for our RBs to get yards & sometimes getting the ball to get 1st downs himself. He was only with the Ravens for a year but the veteran proved he still got value. Neal was previously with SD so hes going back to Cali & we'll see if he helps out Northern Cali as much as he did with us. With Neal leaving, Ravens are saying McClain will be reverting back to his original FB position (which he was drafted to the Pro Bowl for) . McClain ran the ball last year for the most part, along side of Rice & McGahee, but he said “With the success I had last year at halfback, I'm leaning more towards tailback, but you know me, I’m going to play my role and do whatever I can to help the team. I know they've got a plan for us and it involves the whole 11.” We'll see how this move effects out offense, since performance wise I think McClain was better than McGahee & Rice, but if McGahee can ever get to the 100% he was at 2 years ago he should be able to step it up again. I think this will definitely be affecting our run game next year, hopefully our airborne attack gets better with Flacco.

Final Game Concludes a great season

Well, our seasons finally been put to an end. I'm still agonizing over this loss not only was it the end of our season but it was our 3rd loss to the Steelers which was the final nail on the coffin. I feel like this season was reminiscent of our 2000 season when we won the Superbowl. Our defense was playing like they were just drafted & our offense was giving the defense hope by doing better than anyone expected. This game was not the worst we've played but we needed to play 110% & we slipped up a couple times which no one can afford to do in a championship game. I feel the offense started to panic when Flacco threw a horrible pass which Polamalu picked off for a TD. This was the extra twist of the knife already in our hearts. Then with minutes remaining things got even worse when McGahee took a helmet to helmet hit & was knocked unconscious. Later that evening it was announced that he fully recovered & discharged from the hospital but it was a scare when he was not moving & on the gurney.
This season was great but I feel like it was one of our last chances to get another ring. Also, our story would have been so great with a rookie QB & rookie head coach going to the superbowl when no one expected them to accomplish anything. Now we are looking at a huge turnover of coaching & possibly players. Our defensive coordinator Rex Ryan announced his acceptance to be the Jets head coach (only 1hr after our loss WTF). Almost all our best defenders up as free agents: Ray Lewis, Terrell Suggs, Bart Scott, center Jason Brown, Jim Leonhard, Lorenzo Neal, & Matt Stover. Many of these players have said they would love to come back, but I'm positive several franchises would love to pay to aquire them as well. Most of these defenders are getting older & have several injuries so I'm sure retirement is also a possibility. The fact is next year we will be lucky to see what we have seen this year & I only hope we can keep our trademark defensive. For now I'm going to have to root for Warner & Fitzgerald to get the teams first Superbowl championship because the Steelers definitely deserve to loose.