Raven's Robbed a Win over New England in Week 4

This was the classic referee calling everything for the apposing team to ensure they would win. Any time we come close to beating a team in their home town the refs have to call every little minuscule thing to make sure it doesn't happen. The main calls I'm referring to are 2 roughing the passers & an unbelievable personal foul: unsportsmanlike comment from the bench (coach Harbaugh). I have never seen a game where the ref's call a personal foul from the bench, especially if it's the coach yelling about the other bullshit calls that we were getting that whole day. I like to see them try that with coaches like Ditka or Butkus. The whole game was one long drawn out penalty. We started the game off terribly with Chris Carr fumbling the kickoff into the Patriots hands at the 20. Luckily out D held them to only 3 points, but these points kept us 3 behind the whole game. Next we had an odd injury from one of our O-Linemen that weakened the line & created more pressure for Joe. We had numerous penalties, which was the main reason the Patriots won, giving them chance after chance. Not to mention just handing them 1st downs, that we otherwise would've gotten punts off of. The game had a slight chance of a comeback with Suggs knocking the ball out of Brady's hand & Dwan Edwards recovering for a TD. But the final shit hitting the fan was Mark Claytons dropping a perfect pass on 4th & almost goal. If he had made that catch we would've probably won. All these little penalties plagued us the whole game, so you can't fully blame Clayton. Although as an NFL WR you have to make the catches that are perfectly thrown into your chest on 4th downs to make that completion. I know he's gonna catch hell for it, so he'll get his punishment. Even with all these factors overall the offense played their usual greatness & the defense played good. The secondary did fairly well, although they needed to tighten up in the second half on Moss like they did the first half. This was a heartbreaking loss but we have to look to next week now vs Cincinnati, who are nipping at our heals with the same 3-1 record as us & a win over the Steelers. We are going to have to shut down Palmer & double up on Ochocinco. This game is at home too, so we will have that advantage, but we will need the secondary to tighten up even more since they are going to pass. Let's Go Ravens!

Week 3 Browns get obliterated...as per usual

This was basically a massacre, we had 4 INT on Anderson & Quinn, everyone got TDs: Rice, McGahee, & Mason. We played well & it was a good redemption game for our secondary, who still aren't quite up to the same level they were last year, but with several key losses you can't expect to see the same exceeding results. Flacoo threw like a champ as usual & the browns did little to shut him down. Overall we were heavily favored & proved why. The Browns lived up to their shitty reputation & continued their loosing streak. Mangini you couldn't do it in NY & you still can't do it in Cleveland. Just because you were under Belicheck's wing for all those years doesn't mean you're going to do as well without him & the Brady, Moss weapons. So great win for us & on to a real threat New England. Let's see if we are up to the challenge.

Week 2: Ravens pull out a close win over Chargers 31-26

This was a great game between 2 similar teams evenly matched. McGahee/Rice vs Darren Sproles, both had huge runs, Sproles more than other doing double time of returning punts. Rice & Sproles have similar builds both are a small bulky 5'7" that seem to find holes for several gains. Both of us have decent QB's able to throw long bombs, but also misfire with interceptions. Both our teams secondaries are less than good, as we saw with Vincent Jackson's TD with 3 Ravens covering him (including Reed who recently reported sat out practice this week). Our defense did a better job shutting their offense down in the redzone than theirs did us. Specifically the game winning shut down by Ray Ray (video shown above), this was huge & Lewis said, "That was probably one of the greatest plays of my career because of my team, because of what we did as a team." That hit ended the game & confirmed the win. Suggs & Ngatat did get sacks on Rivers, but they weren't the usual bone crushing shattering confidence sacks that we needed to shake Rivers up. Our offense played well as usual which is turning our team more into an offensive threat rather than our traditionally renowned defensive. Overall it was a close nail biting game, but in the end Ravens get the win. Coming up next week Cleveland Browns come to Baltimore. We'll see if Anderson can keep his composure in a sea of black & purple. GO RAVENS!

Week 1 Ravens beat Chiefs

Week 1 we beat the KC Chiefs but.. as usual I have some praises & criticisms.

A few notes about the game. First off, Flacco played like a champ & proved he is a leader. He came back this year & played like he did last. He definitely stepped up & rose to the challenge he was given back when he was surprised as starting QB. Flacco was definitely Joe Cool this past Sunday moving & rocketing passes into the end zone. There were several close calls where Joe was deep in a closing pocket but he kept his head up & hit his receivers. The terrible defense from KC also gave Joe massive amounts of time, but even with or without the time he kept his composure.

Second, McGahee & Heap finally step up. McGahee has been battling injuries, seems like for the past 2 years & he didn't seem to come back like his original self til last Sunday. After Rice was announce as starter I think McGahee realized he's got something to prove again & definitely proved it last game. Also, Heap, in the past has been a force as one of the top TE's in the league, but with his battling injuries the last couple seasons we haven't seen alot from him. I think Newsome's draft with Oher gave Flacco the extra protection he needed to open Heap up again & he definitely came through.

Looking towards Game 2 @ San Diego
After our game against KC & SD's game over OAK I'm a little worried.
our secondary played terribly (I'm hatin' mostly on Washington he can never stick with the WRs!) vs SDs secondary played semi-well, granted it was against OAK & they did mess up on the long pass last quarter but, overall they played pretty well shutting down the run game & short passing.

Offense:
We're going to have to pass alot & make most passes long. Doubt we're gonna be able to run much, looked like SD did pretty well stopping that game (then again McFadden & Bush is no McGahee & Rice). Also the short pass game got shut down so if Heap gets the same attention he's gonna have to keeps his hands like glue to get the yards. Overall I think our offense should be fine as long as Flacco plays like he did vs KC. Also if McGahee moves like he did.

Defense:
We gotta shut down Rivers before he gets the bombs off, like 10000x's faster than we did with Croyle. Hopefully Gooden will be able to play, its obvious we really need him. Washington has gotta step up, Foxworth looked fine, but i really feel like Washington needs to be benched, is Rolle gonna heal? Also are we gonna play Kruger? He played amazingly in the preseason they need to get him in there! Overall the D will step up for this game because the lack of D last, but they really gotta step it up we need points from offense & D like the old days!

Then there's special teams... what the heck blocked punt to TD (has that ever happened to us before?!?). I know this wont happen again but seriously.