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.

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.

Recap on the past weeks, Week 16

Yeah, yeah, yeah I haven't been up to date with the ravens progress the past couple weeks. I've been a little tied up with winning/ celebrating the awesomeness that is the Baltimore Ravens. So here's what has happened with the rest of the season, for those of you who already don't know. Cowboys game: close the whole game then, for some reasonm the last 2 plays the cowboys decide to stop playing all defense and let Mcgahee first run a huge 77 yrd touchdown (which was this seasons, & his career high) then immidiately following McLain beat that record with a 82 yrd touchdown. Good way to close out your stadium dallas. Let me know if TO needs a tissue this press conference. I think Romo doesn't care about the game anymore cause he knows he's gonna be laid by Jessica Simpson either way. I don't blame him. Romo just switch to being in a boyband maybe you'll be better at that.