It’s Time To Start Questioning & Doubting Ravens’ Coaches
Watching Baltimore suffer a heart-breaking 17-15 loss to the unbeaten Indianapolis Colts Sunday and drop to 5-5, an observer could draw a strong parallel between the primary needs of the Ravens and the Orioles, their hometown baseball “”cousins.’
Like the Orioles, the Ravens are hoping to find players who will provide a significant upgrade at the corner positions. Both teams will also be looking to secure a “deep’’ threat, be it a home-run hitter or a wide receiver who can outrun the secondary for a long reception.
And both the Birds and Ravens are searching for a legitimate “closer.’’ In the Orioles’ case, Jim Johnson failed to prove he could do the job. The same might be said for second-year quarterback Joe Flacco. Despite the immense popularity he gained here as a rookie after the Ravens made a surprising late playoff run, this season Flacco has too often failed to produce a critical game-winning touchdown despite repeated opportunities in the red-zone (inside the 20).
Although he played an error-free game for more than 57 minutes, Raven fanatics and radio talk show hosts will spend the week leading up to a showdown with Pittsburgh second-guessing Flacco on his third-and-7 pass over the middle to diminutive running back Ray Rice that was intercepted by the Colts’ alert linebacker Gary Brackett.on the 13-yard line.
With or without hindsight, it was a dumb call. There were several options that would have proven far less risky. If Flacco felt his best chance of achieving a first-down or securing a touchdown was passing the ball, then targeting Derrick Mason had to be his choice. The wily, old wide receiver had repeatedly left young Colt defenders flatfooted with his precise routes, finishing with a game-high 9 receptions for 142 yards.
Or, as a second option, there was Todd Heap, who could use his size and weight to out-maneuver the Indianapolis secondary which was playing without its usual starters.
And then there was the “play-it-safe’’ option of running the ball and most likely giving new place-kicker Billy Cundiff an opportunity to kick a sixth field goal from inside the 35 to give the Ravens an 18-17 lead with just over two minutes left.
Offensive coordinator Cam Cameron accepted the blame for the final blunder. “When you’re already in field goal-range, you have to make a better call,’’
Cundiff, who was signed last week to replace shaky Steve Hauschka, had converted from 46 44, 38, 36 and 20 yards in his debut, but missed wide right on a 30-yard attempt in the third quarter that might have proved the difference.
But the Ravens, perhaps fearful that even a successful Cundiff kick might leave Peyton Manning, the unquestioned master of the two-minute drill, too much time to put his team in position to win the game, elected to gamble on the pass play to Rice, who did his best to get Cameron off the hook.
“I knew they would double me on that play,’’ said the all-purpose back who combined for 142 yards running and receiving. “I was trying to clear out for an underneath route to Todd (Heap. I took two guys with me. I’m not sure if Joe (Flacco) had pressure on him, but if I took two defenders with me, somebody’s got to be open. That’s the moral of the game.’’
If Flacco and the Ravens had only failed this one time, it might have been forgivable. But Baltimore had the ball four times inside the 20 and could not cross the goal line.
Surely, the most frustrating of these blown chances came early in the fourth quarter when a 12-yard reception by Mason made it first and goal from the 1-yard line. A sneak by Flacco and two up the middle runs by Willis McGahee resulted in a loss of two yards, and Ravens coach Jim Harbaugh had to again call on Cundiff.
Doing the game color, Dan Dierdorf said that Flacco had informed him earlier in the week that he would be given a chance to call his own plays rather than looking for direction from the sidelines. But in the post-mortems, Cameron again took responsibility for the play-calling.
“We have to find a way to score touchdowns. When we don’t. that’s my fault,’’ he reiterated. ‘When we ran three straight plays after having a first down on the 1, we wanted to knock them off the ball. We didn’t get it done, so again, that’s my fault.’’
But Rice again came to Cameron’s defense, “You have to score in that situation,’’ he said. Having three chances from that close, you can’t make excuses. The Colts probably played their worst game of the season, but we didn’t capitalize.’’
Rice was on the money. Manning, who had produced 21 points in the fourth quarter to stun New England a week earlier, had a sub-par performance despite completing 22-of-31 passes for 299 yards.
Manning made the Ravens quickly regret their decision to play defense after winning the coin flip by marching the Colts 87 yards on 7 plays in his first possession, culminated by Dallas Clark’s three-yard reception. But two of his first half passes were picked off by safeties Dawan Landry and Ed Reed, nullifying excellent scoring chances. And a third quarter fumble on the Ravens’ 5-yard line by reserve tight end Tom Santi after being sandwiched by Ray Lewis and Reed, cost the Colts another golden opportunity..
Manning, the Ravens’ chief tormentor who has whipped them seven straight times, looked all too human in producing only three points in the second half. So, one must wonder aloud, if the Ravens, who are still feared far more for their defense than the inconsistent offense, should have been granted the chance to stop Manning from staging one of his patented comebacks.
But the Ravens, who were minus top pass rusher Terrell Suggs, are being asked to do too much as usual. Amazingly, for the sixth straight game, the offense failed to produce a first-half touchdown. Cameron insists he has to devise a better game plan to end this disturbing trend.
The critics say the reasons for the slow starts are all too obvious. Flacco is relying heavily on Rice as a security blanket in the hope he’ll convert bail-out passes into significant yardage. If Rice is covered, Flacco will throw short tosses to Heap or Mason. Attempting a long pass is as rare as an Oriole pitching a complete game.
But Harbaugh must share some of the blame with Cameron for losing another nail-biter. After Brackett’s interception, he wasted his team’s last two time-outs disputing an obvious first down.
This led to Reed’s desperate attempted lateral in the waning seconds. He could not be blamed for the gamble since so little time remained on the clock. And now the second-guessers are wondering aloud if a former “special teams coach’’ is overmatched as the chief honcho.
But any two-bit fortune teller could have predicted what would unfold on Sunday. You had to know that Matt Stover, the clutch place-kicker who got away, would return to Baltimore wearing the hated Colt uniform and boot the game-winning 25-yard field goal in the fourth quarter.
And all the signs had to point to Cundiff making five 3-pointers, but missing one that could have provided the margin of victory.
As Joe E. Brown in “Some Like It Hot’’ told Jack Lemmon, after discovering his prize catch was a man, not a woman, “Nobody’s perfect!’