The Ravens close out the preseason with a game against the Rams in St. Louis. While the starters will probably play very little, the game is still important in finding out who makes the final 53-man roster. Several jobs and roster spots will be up for grabs, as this game gives those fighting for . . . → Read More: Preseason Week 4: Ravens vs. Rams
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College football, the only sport where I don’t like how the champion is determined, begins a new season with a slate of games beginning on Thursday with the immortal matchup of Presbyterian against Wake Forest. That matchup, and many others similar to it, can be found all over the sport’s opening weekend, which is filled with five days of FBS football games. The FBS universe as we know it was on the verge of imploding over the course of a few days in the summer, as teams either made plans to move, made threats to move or planned or announced moves to different conferences. At the end of the shakeup, only a few teams moved, with those moves set to take place (for the most part) next season. So, as we begin to enjoy the last season of FBS football as we know it, a few thumbnail previews of some of the more interesting matchups of the first weekend of the season: Position: Cornerback Analysis: Hawkins was signed by the Ravens just a few weeks ago after being cut loose by the Jacksonville Jaguars. He was not drafted coming out of LSU. He adds another body to look at in the secondary, as the cornerback position has been universally hailed as the team’s weak spot. He has made five tackles, defensed one pass and downed one punt on special teams in two preseason games.
Let’s get this part of the post out of the way: it’s just the preseason. That said, there were somethings to like and some things to be concerned about regarding the pass defense of the Baltimore Ravens after two preseason games. While two preseason games are not a true measuring stick, the Ravens have been playing quite a bit of “bend but don’t break” pass defense. Saturday’s game against the Washington Redskins found the Ravens getting a decent amount of pass rush, but still having problems breaking up pass plays. Last season, at the beginning of what became the last season for Bobby Bowden as head coach of the Florida State Seminoles, Bowden was asked at ACC media days why the ACC has not been a factor recently in the BCS National Championship chase. Bowden replied in essence that the conference, while competitive from top to bottom and balanced, wasn’t going to have a team challenge for the national title if there wasn’t one great team that could compete at the highest level of FCS football. Position: Defensive Tackle Analysis: The second of two second round draft picks in the 2010 draft, Cody was acknowledged coming out of college as being one of the top two or three best defensive tackles in the draft. At Alabama, he performed very well at the point of attack, making it difficult for opposing teams to run on him. Late last week at the Ravens Insider blog at the Baltimore Sun, I ran across a very interesting item. The title of the post says it all: Harbaugh said decreasing penalties are “big emphasis” (their quotation marks). Read the post if you haven’t already. Position: Offensive Tackle Michael Oher may be one of the few Ravens players who has as much notoriety off the field as he has on it. Oher’s life story was the subject of the hit movie The Blind Side which starred Oscar-winning actress Sandra Bullock, and the book of the same name, written by Michael Lewis. While the movie was becoming a box-office smash, Oher was winning rave reviews as a rookie starter at right tackle for the Baltimore Ravens. The Ravens’ first-round pick in the 2009 draft had a solid rookie season playing mostly on the right side of the line, while subbing for Jared Gaither at left tackle, his natural position, for a few games while Gaither was injured. Monday it was announced that the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN) and the Baltimore Ravens could not close a deal to continue to carry Ravens programming this season. While this isn’t exactly a loss of epic proportions, and has little to no effect on how the Ravens will play this season, it does create a void in the area of Ravens news coverage. The team is left with few options to carry its football related shows, none of them quite the fit that MASN provided. READ MORE >>> First off, let’s hope for a speedy recovery. Surely, we would much rather hear about Sergio Kindle signing his contract and coming in to camp to prepare for his first season with the Ravens. However, there is some doubt as to whether the team will get anything out of Kindle this year after his accident late last week. READ MORE >>> Looking back at the 2008 U.S. Open, as Tiger Woods outlasted Rocco Mediate and his own injuries to win his 14th major golf title, it appeared that the question was when, not if, Woods would surpass Jack Nicklaus’ record 18 major titles. Fast forward to right now, and note that Woods still has 14 majors. . . . → Read More: Tiger Woods: A Climb Stalled You live in a city that has been the butt of jokes for quite a while. No pro team in your town has won a championship in 46 years, and no titles appear to be coming any time soon. Your football team was stolen (your words) from you, and while it has been replaced, winning seasons have been few. And now, the one player that you thought you could call your own, who claimed to want to bring the city a championship that it has long craved, just walked away to join his friends down in Miami. . . . → Read More: Does LeBron Leaving Get Art Modell Off The Hook? If LeBron James can make his “announcement” in 10 minutes, why does he need an hour of prime time television? Call it ego, hubris, or ESPN attempting to take advantage of its breathless, unceasing coverage of almost every move James has made in the last week, there is a press conference scheduled to air on ESPN at 9 PM tonight for the expressed purpose to give James a platform to announce which team he will play with for the next few seasons. The speculation has run rampant ever since James’ season ended with a conference semifinal loss to the Boston Celtics. Several suitors have lined up with presentations and wallet in hand, with ordinary citizens and politicians getting in on the fun by “wooing” James to their city’s team. All of the hoopla reaches a crescendo tonight when James announces his plans. . . . → Read More: LeBron James: The Decision Hour When I was younger, so much younger than today…the Major League Baseball All-Star game was must-see TV. I always looked forward to watching the Midsummer Classic, and it was great that it happened in the middle of July, either before or just after my birthday, and since school was out, I could stay up and watch until it ended. When I was a child, the National League held sway in the All-Star Game; I always counted on them to win-even though I was an Oriole fan, I liked the NL style of baseball better in those days. Slowly, the American League gained ground to where now they win more often than not. . . . → Read More: The MLB All-Star Game: Worth Watching? If Oriole fans were counting on Matt Wieters to single-handedly carry the team back to the top of the baseball heap; the results so far have been nothing short of heartbreaking. Coming off a solid 2009 at the major league level, which found Wieters hitting his stride as the season ended, the carryover has been non-existent in 2010. Wieters is part of a team-wide regression that has occurred at the same time to all the young players that were counted on to start bringing the Orioles into contention. Wieters, along with Adam Jones and Nolan Reimold have all seemingly fallen off a cliff from where they were just last year. . . . → Read More: Matt Wieters – Pushed Too Fast? |
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