Week 6: Vikings pull a close win making Ravens 3-3

A close game that ended with a missed 44yd field goal gave the Ravens another loss. Bumping us to 3rd in the AFC with the Steelers & Bengals ahead of us! This was a hard hitting game where, in the end, we were just outplayed. Our offense played a little better making a couple drives late in the game. Farve destroyed our (already terrible) secondary giving the Vikings an early lead in the first half. The second half of the game new secondary guys came in who don't see the field as often. But I felt they played better than Washington & Foxworth usually do. The first TD was a result of both those guys running into each other as the WRs crossed...isn't that a peewee football move? Washington really needs to be benched & they need to let the Rookies step up. Obviously, he isn't doing his job when we're ranked 25th in the league against the pass. Even the 2nd string Walker came in but he caused 2 critical penalties that gave the offense an easy TD. Rice was our only answer to Andrian Peterson. He had 2 TDs, one a 33yd rush. Petersan ran for 69 yards but had another 60 yards receiving. He also got 1 TD but we did a relatively decent job shutting down him & Chester Taylor. In the end it was really a battle of the kickers Longwell kicked a 40yd field goal earlier which gave them a 3pt lead throughout the rest of the game. Hauschka had the last couple seconds on the clock to kick a win, but kicked wide & gave us another loss. Ray Rice said after the game "It is frustrating,But at the same time, 3-3 going into a bye week is not always the worst thing in the world. I think we were in the same position last year, if I am not mistaken. I don’t like to compare this year’s team to last year’s team. One thing we are doing is establishing our identity. -BR.com

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.