Throughout the years, the Ravens have been forced to make transactions and lose fan favorite players, but they have excelled at replacing them. A strong defensive core has always been at the heart of the Baltimore organization and no matter where the guys in the Ravens system seem to go, they are never as success on other teams as they were donning purple.
Over recent years, Baltimore has lost a few key players from their roster to the New York Jets. After the Ravens second ranked defense took them to the AFC Championship in 2008, they lost their defensive coordinator Rex Ryan as he accepted the Jets head coaching vacancy to replace the recently fired Eric Mangini. Ryan took with him a talented and beloved Baltimore linebacker Bart Scott and a safety that helped keep together Baltimore’s shaky secondary, Jim Leonhard. READ MORE >>>
I think of the future quite a bit. Especially when it comes to sports. If you play Madden long enough or daydream far enough, you see the Baltimore Ravens existing without Ray Lewis.
It’s odd to watch the Ravens play without number 52. It’s not glaring if you miss the pre-game introductions, and sometimes you don’t notice it immediately. In late 2005, you could flip on a game and conveniently forget Ray was out for the season for a couple plays. Then something feels off. The rhythm of the defense changes. The run-stopping happens deeper and deeper in the secondary. The intensity drops a few degrees. Tight ends get a little more brazen coming across the middle and quarterbacks start to relax their eyes downfield. For the first time in 57 games, it’s doubtful we’ll see Lewis on the field for Baltimore’s pivotal division game against Cincinnati. It’s going to happen eventually. Let’s use Sunday to mentally prepare, and think about who could possibly dream of stepping into Ray’s shoes one day. READ MORE >>>
Terrell Suggs is ready to take on his former teammates in New York in front of a national audience and 77,000 Ravens fans at M&T Bank Stadium. Today the Ravens linebacker showed up to his press conference donning a “Can’t Wait” t-shirt in honor of “his brother and mentor” Bart Scott. Suggs joked that he hopes Scott doesn’t sue him.
“It’s not as friendly as you think, it’s more personal,” Suggs told Aaron Wilson of the Carroll County Times.
When asked about his former teammate Derrick Mason, who was cut by the Ravens and signed to play with the Jets during the offseason, Suggs told Wilson, “He don’t wear our colors anymore, he’s the enemy.”
Get ready folks because I anticipate the smack talk between the Ravens and Jets to be heavy heading into their Sunday night matchup. So does John Harbaugh.
“It will be good laughs listening to what comes out of New York, and we will be looking forward to it because it is always funny,” Harbaugh said in his Monday press conference. The Ravens head coach grinned when talking about the chatter between the two teams. ”We don’t tell them not to say anything,” he said.
Though no talk between the two teams has yet been reported, Ray Rice did tell the media on Sunday that the Ravens will be ready for the Jets and specifically Bart Scott next week. ”Bart’s a character, but we’ll be ready for him.”
Harbaugh was confident that the Ravens will keep it fun and won’t cross the line. ”I’m sure our guys will have fun with it. I don’t think you will hear too much malicious [words] coming out of our guys.”
After a dominant performance in week one, the Ravens fell asleep against the Titans and lost a very winnable game 26-13. Yesterday, they rebounded and cruised past the Rams 37–7 in a game that they dominated from start to finish.
With the New York Jets coming to town next week, the Ravens want to ensure their fan base that they will be ready for Rex Ryan and the boys and won’t be caught with their pants down.
“Big game [against the Jets], sort of like playing against our own defense.” Ray Rice told Aaron Wilson of the Carroll County Times. ”It will be a challenge for us.”
A number of Ravens have migrated north to for the Gang Green including one of the biggest smack talkers of the them all, Bart Scott. “Bart’s a character, but we’ll be ready for him.”
When fans and analyst refer to the NFL’s “parity,” they are usually talking about a balance of competition among the league’s 32 teams. One of the things I appreciate about the NFL so much is actually its parity in the most basic sense. 32 divided by two, divided by four, divided by four – a perfect equation for a mathematically balanced grouping of teams. With this harmonious balance, you begin to see patterns develop. The divisions, while different in the details, fall into similar dynamics. Each one is kind of a bizarro version of the next, like on “Seinfeld” when Elaine found the other group of guys to hang out with. So, who are the Ravens’ “Feldman” in the other divisions? READ MORE >>>
To the Ravens, this is another crushing blow. After putting all of their eggs in the Floyd basket, they missed out when he signed back with San Diego. Their backup, 37 year old veteran Derrick Mason now chooses to leave his former team and join Rex Ryan, Bart Scott and the Jets. Baltimore is missing a speedy and proven wide receiver, time is running out and cap room is not on their side. This could be their biggest loss of the offseason.
Even during the offseason the New York Jet’s linebacker Bart Scott finds ways to take jabs at his former team, the Ravens. In an interview with Metro New York, Scott said that “the Ravens aren’t loose anymore,” like they were in his playing days in Baltimore.
“Harbaugh changed everything,” Scott said. “The Ravens don’t operate like the Ravens anymore.” While Bart is clearing just stirring the pot and I hate to give him any credit for actually thinking through his ridiculous insult, he may actually be right.
During Bart’s days Baltimore was one of the most feared defenses in the league. They wore down even the best running backs and slammed their opponents quarterbacks into the turf. The Ravens were always the bad boys of the NFL and they won a championship with that underdog, us against the world mentality. In a lot of ways, that is gone.
Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs chimed in on Bart’s comments, but in my opinion he didn’t really address what Bart was actually talking about. READ MORE >>>
Well the madness of March is upon us as the tournament kicks off today at 12:15. In the immortal words of Bart Scott, “CAN’T WAIT!” I am looking forward to the close games, buzzer beaters, and upsets as they destroy my bracket and rip it to shreds. So who are some teams that could spring an upset to outperform their seed.
Morehead State (24-9): Hailing from the Ohio Valley Conference, Morehead State is an in state rival of their first round opponent, Louisville. The crazy part is that both teams met two years ago when Louisville was a 1 and Morehead was a 16. Morehead played them close for about 30 minutes in that game before falling to the high powered Cardinals. It is also quite possible that Morehead will have the best player on the floor in senior Kenneth Faried. Faried is the all time leader in rebounding and was on the floor the last time they played in the tournament. READ MORE >>>
Jets linebacker and former Raven Bart Scott compared Mark Sanchez to Kyle Boller in quotes from an article in the New York Daily News. “Come on, man. I played with Kyle Boller for six years,” he said.
Scott was reacting to the recent offensive issues the Jets have faced in their last two games that caused head coach Rex Ryan to tell the media that he nearly benched Sanchez against the Dolphins.
“You think I haven’t seen anything like this before? I’ve been on teams that struggled offensively. It’s not my job to farm their land. It’s my job (for opponents) to not put points on the board.”
Scott also insisted he supports Ryan despite the coach’s critical comments about the defense.
“Things don’t always go the way you want to, but you don’t stop believing,” Scott said. “I bought in. I bought that ocean-front property. I bought into Rex, and I’m in it for the long haul.”
Is it any wonder that one of Rex Ryan’s first moves as head coach of the New York Jets was bringing fellow loud mouth linebacker Bart Scott?
Thursday after Rex and the Jets scooped up waived defensive end Trevor Pryce, Scott told the media that the Ravens were jealous of Pryce’s situation. “I guarantee you that there’s probably guys in the same spot right now jealous as hell.” Scott went on, “Trevor probably gets texts like, ‘Man, come get me too.’I guarantee you there’s at least 15 other players over there that’s praying to God that they get released for a half a day too, so they can come over here. They won’t admit it. But I guarantee you.”
Scott, who had one big season in 2006 with 78 tackles and 9.5 sacks, has never hit more than 67 tackles and 1.5 sacks since, though he seems to run his mouth as though he’s a ten time pro bowler (he’s been once, in 2006). He’s on a team that won two playoff games last season with the Jets against teams whose kickers went 0 for 5 allowing the Jets miracle run through the playoffs to take place. That is until they faced Indianapolis, a game in which Scott recorded just two tackles. READ MORE >>>
Unfortunately the Ravens season has come to an end. Here are my thoughts on Baltimore’s 20-3 loss to Indianapolis in the divisional round of the AFC playoffs.
Don’t ask what went wrong in Indy – Instead ask what went right in New England. At the end of the day Baltimore performed like an average team against a far better team. Their weaknesses were exposed and they were defeated head on. With that said, fans shouldn’t wonder why the Ravens played so poorly against the Colts. Instead they should be impressed with the punishment they put on the Patriots the previous week.
Good game plan, bad game plan - Indianapolis knew that Baltimore was going to stop the big play, so they beat Baltimore in the middle of the field. Domonique Foxworth looked like the Domonique Foxworth from earlier in the season. He got torched left and right. Worst of all their offensive game plan (run, run, run) was nothing short of poor.
I was wrong about Bart, Jim, and Rex – I guess this bullet point has more to do with the Jets 17-14 defeat over San Diego than Baltimore’s loss on Saturday, but I’ll run with it. Maybe the Ravens should have given Bart ScottRay Lewis‘ deal, given Jim Leonhard some of Domonique Foxworth’s money, or maybe even given Rex Ryan the head coaching job. Maybe the last one is a stretch. But I think Baltimore misses these three guys more than we imagined.
This team will look fundamentally different in 2010 – Ed Reed announced he’s 50-50 on returning next season, Derrick Mason is 60-40, and Baltimore has a whole slew of free agents including every wide receiver, Le’Ron McClain, and vital parts of the defense.
It hurts seeing Stover in blue and white - Matt drained a 44 yarder and was 2 for 2. It hurts watching Stover win with Indy.
With a tough stretch of games glaring at the Ravens over the next couple weeks, Sunday’s game against the Broncos was virtually a must-win. And if the first snap of the game was any indication of how the game was going to play out, the Ravens had to like their chances of handing the Broncos their first loss. Jarrett Johnson blasted through the line untouched and absolutely leveled Kyle Orton, reminding fans of the similar hit Bart Scott put on Big Ben a couple seasons ago. That hit started a day of the most dominant and inspired defense the Ravens have played all season. They held Orton and the Broncos to just 200 yards of total offense, but most importantly kept standout wide receiver Brandon Marshall from hurting them down the field. The Ravens came out hungry and ready to play, and as a result, improved their record to 4-3 heading into Cincinnati next week.
The POG
The entire team dominated every facet of the game from start to finish, so there’s no possible way I could just pick one player for this award. The offensive balance was remarkable and the defensive pressure was suffocating, but the stats tell the real story. The Ravens offense was an eye-popping 11-for-18 on third downs against the league’s top-ranked defense, and they didn’t turn the ball over despite the Broncos owning a plus-7 turnover differential. In their previous six games, the Broncos had outscored their opponents 76-10 in the second half. The Ravens changed that fortune rather quickly by taking the second half kickoff to the house and continued the 24-7 outscoring onslaught to end the game. The defense only allowed the Broncos to cross into their territory three times the entire game and they only stepped foot in the red zone once.
The “Oh, S***” Moment
To be continued next week…
The “Way to Step up, Young Man” Award
Lardarius Webb may have made one of the biggest plays of the season, but it wasn’t without a little motivation from a seasoned veteran. Ray Lewis pulled Webb aside in the locker room at halftime and told him that he was going to run back the second-half kickoff for a touchdown. It was an unlikely prediction at the time considering the Broncos had only given up 10 points in the second half all season. But Mr. Motivator did what he does best and Webb responded with a 95-yard run back, the first touchdown of his career. Not only did Webb’s touchdown put the Ravens up 13-0, but it ended the second half invincibility that the Broncos seemingly had up to that point. You picked a good time to step up, Mr. Webb.
Throughout the years, the Ravens have been forced to make transactions and lose fan favorite players, but they have excelled at replacing them. A strong defensive core has always been at the heart of the Baltimore organization and no matter where the guys in the Ravens system seem to go, they are never as success on other teams as they were donning purple.
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