By Zach Wilt, on March 23rd, 2010 The NFL owners meetings in Orlando have proven to be more busy than I expected, though I’m not sure why that’s a surprise as the NFL is really a year round league. Yesterday, the Ravens signed defensive lineman Cory Redding and we talked about the possible overtime rule changes.
Today, I was disappointed to hear two things from Baltimore’s Head Coach John Harbaugh.
Surprise, surprise.
Jamison Hensley at the Baltimore Sun talked to John Harbaugh about the Ravens’ voluntary offseason workouts and Jared Gaither‘s absence. “I talked to (Gaither’s agent) Drew Rosenhaus and he tells me he’s getting Jared in shape, Harbaugh said. “The last time I checked Drew Rosenhaus doesn’t coach the offensive line in the National Football League. Jared needs to be in our weight room with our players with our offensive line, becoming the player he can become.”
Good point John. Gaither was given a first round tender as a restricted free agent. His absence may be a protest of his contract with the Ravens, either way it isn’t looked upon too highly and rightfully so. You’ve got to think that Michael Oher will eventually move to the left side and Gaither should be doing everything possible to get in shape and stay healthy, as it was a challenge for him in 2009.
Return of “Frank The Tank?”
Bad news for Ravens fans, looks like the team is considering bringing back everyone’s favorite cornerback, Frank “The Tank” Walker. “Frank has got as much talent as any corner in the league,” Harbaugh said at the NFL owners meetings.
No he doesn’t John. he’s played a couple good games, but the guy is a loose cannon that gets burned by good receivers all day long.
Harbaugh does know that the fans aren’t siked about the idea of Frank The Tank returning. “It’s funny you ask the question and the whole fan base, everybody’s going to be like, ‘Don’t do it.’ But Frank’s a better player than what people think,” Harbaugh said.
What do you think?
By Tracy Smith, on February 5th, 2010 For a great part of the season past, mention of the Ravens secondary would draw scorn, derision and many a curse word. Because the defense was a work in progress for much of the season, many of those sentiments seemed deserved at the time. Yet as the play of the defensive unit improved, so did the performance of the defensive backfield, peaking with a great performance against the New England Patriots in the wild card round (if you thought the peak was the home game against the Chicago Bears, remember-Jay Cutler at that time was a pick waiting to happen). That said, here’s the positional review of the Ravens cornerbacks and safeties. READ MORE >>>
By Zach Wilt, on January 11th, 2010 I don’t think any other Ravens blogger experienced Baltimore’s 33-14 beat down on the New England Patriots. While the actual game was taking place, I was sitting in the Towson Center with a few thousand of my closet friends preparing to graduate.
Knowing that I couldn’t ignore the biggest game of the year, I was receiving text messages from everyone, watching the ESPN Scorecenter on my iPhone, and of course tapping that guy in front of me with the earbud in his ear about what was taking place. READ MORE >>>
By Zach Wilt, on December 28th, 2009 The Ravens continue to prove to me that they are no playoff team. Thankfully, if they do make it to postseason play they will have earned their trip as they now control their own destiny.
Baltimore is a team is disarray, full of injuries, gaps in the defense, and discipline issues up the wazoo.
I’ve seen this team self destruct before, get costly turnovers, and of course miss field goals. Realistically, Baltimore was beaten by New England, Cincinnati, and Green Bay, but this team has blown lots of games. This week against Pittsburgh, they beat themselves.
11 penalties for 113 yards. That alone speaks for itself. The Ravens committed some stupid, costly penalties. Oniel Cousins had a dumb late hit penalty, Haloti Ngata drilled a guy after a play was over; that costed Baltimore 15 yards, and of course Frank Walker‘s illegal contact penalty on 3rd and 11 late in the fourth quarter.
But, what are the Ravens to do? Surely you don’t want to bench Haloti Ngata for a dumb play. But Ngata came to the sideline and was visibly laughing after the call. Has John Harbaugh allowed these guys to run rampid? Rather than complaining to the refs every time a flag gets thrown, maybe he should be yelling at Ngata and Cousins.
We know he can’t afford to bench them, but at least express that their poor play is unacceptable.
What do you think of Baltimore’s discipline issues?
By Zach Wilt, on December 27th, 2009 Here are my thoughts on the Ravens 23-20 loss against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
- Never thought they had a chance – Call me a bad fan, but I never saw the Ravens going into Pittsburgh and winning. This team had too many injuries and Ben Roethlisberger versus the Ravens secondary was never a good match up in my mind.
- Harbaugh sucks at clock management - I’d sell my soul to the devil to see the Ravens with three timeouts in under two minutes. Never gonna happen. At the end of the first half the Ravens had a chance to stop the Steelers deep in their own territory with just under two minutes to play if Harbs called a timeout. No such luck. I was calling for it, the announcers were calling for it, why wasn’t our coach? The team blows timeouts in costly situations and doesn’t use them when they need to use them. It’s happened all year and it hasn’t improved one bit.
- This team has serious discipline issues - Baltimore racked up 113 penalty yards and completely self destructed in the fourth quarter. But ignoring the penalties, I’m worried about how the coaches are handling them. Haloti Ngata gets a 15 yard personal foul call and he laughs on the sideline with no one saying anything to him. Frank Walker, a guy who shouldn’t have even made this team, has a costly illegal contact call and the end of regulation and no one says squat. I’m not saying the Ravens should bench these guys, they have no one to step up, but Ngata shouldn’t be laughing about his penalty without someone at least saying something.
- I’m glad Heap is out of the dog house - Todd Heap has four touchdowns in his past two games and I couldn’t be happier. Heap is likely nearing the end of his career and it has been great to see him come back. He was the focus on much criticism last season, started better in the first half of this season, and wrapped up 2009 strongly.
- The Ravens still can’t beat good teams – Even though Baltimore will likely make the playoffs, they still don’t have a good enough defense to beat a good quarterback. I know that the Ravens defeated the Chargers in week 2 and the Broncos after the Bye week in week 8, but the Chargers weren’t the Chargers and the Broncos are one of the weakest playoff contenders at the moment. At the end of the day the Ravens control their own destiny, but I don’t think they are a good enough team to be a real contender and under Harbaugh they are 1-4 against the Steelers, with that one win in Baltimore against the third string quarterback.
By Zach Wilt, on November 10th, 2009 There are clearly parts of the Ravens roster that just aren’t getting the job done.
Do you give up on them? Do you let them grow since the season is likely a wash anyway? Do you put the pressure on them?
It all depends on the player.
Frank Walker - Bye bye. Walker shouldn’t have made the team to begin with. Anyone that followed training camp knew right away what Walker was about. Lots of talk, little coverage. He’s quite possibly the worst part of the Ravens terrible secondary and was so bad that he was benched against the Bengals. He’s taking up a roster spot, which is one of the reasons Baltimore cut Matt Stover. Good riddance Frank.
Domonique Foxworth – Threaten. Two weeks ago I told you that Foxworth was a $28 million bust and I stand by it. He is the Ravens biggest flop since Willis McGahee. Too big of a contract for too little performance. Foxworth is the best of the bad secondary, but for the contract was given he’s not shutting down number one wide receivers.
Fabian Washington – Threaten/bench. Washington covers receivers by grabbing them. I’m convinced his method is to get penalized as many times as possible and it shows.
Trevor Pryce – Cut after season. Pryce has had a great run with the Ravens and an outstanding career, but he’s no longer getting the job done. He gets pressure one time per drive, he’s getting beat in single coverage and gives good quarterbacks too much time.
Kelly Gregg – Cut after season. It would have been a good story is Buddy Lee came back after the knee surgery and stepped up. That hasn’t been the case. He fits into the same category as Pryce, only worse. Gregg is hardly ever putting pressure on QBs and he can no longer stuff the run. He’s part of an aging defense.
Ed Reed – One more big loss and I’d shut him down. Ed might say he’s playing healthy, but come on. He’s undoubtedly playing hurt and if Baltimore wants to hold on to him for future years they need him to get healthy. Whether that requires surgery or just time to recover, Baltimore needs to do what they’ve got to do.
READ MORE >>>
By Zach Wilt, on October 20th, 2009 Lots of hype today surrounding the Patriots’ release of veteran wide receiver Joey Galloway. At 37 years old, his better days are certainly behind him, but many are asking if he would fit in here in Baltimore.
My answer is a question: “can the guy play cornerback?”
If the answer to that is “no” then I’m not interested. Last time I checked the Ravens offense wasn’t the problem. They put up 31 points last week, while the 28 million dollar man, Domonique Foxworth, and Frank Walker allowed Brett Favre to embarrass the Ravens defense.
I’m assuming that Galloway won’t make the switch.
“Pass.”
By Zach Wilt, on October 19th, 2009 A good quarterback/receiver combo is the Baltimore defense’s krptonite. Brady and the Pats, Palmer and the Bengals, and Favre and the Vikings (still feels weird saying that last one).
This off season, the Ravens spent a lot of money to shut down those combinations. They’ve always had good coverage from Chris McAlister and decent stuff from Samari Rolle, McAlister is out of football and Rolle likely will not return due to health issues.
The Ravens’ answer? Domonique Foxworth. Baltimore brought to University of Maryland native back to Charm City from the Atlanta Falcons. All they had to do was drop $28 million bucks.
I was skeptical when the Ravens dropped $28 million on a guy that no one else seemed to go after. Sure, it was a good story, but I couldn’t figure out why they were so interested since he really didn’t do too much in Atlanta and Denver.
So far their four year investment hasn’t quite paid off. Foxworth is getting torched by wide receivers that are 3-4 inches taller than him. His speed isn’t as bad as Frank Walker‘s, but he’s not making tackles after he gives up catches and he just hasn’t stepped up as the number one guy. Kind of reminds me of #23′s contract.
This year Foxworth has 13 tackles and a pick. New England, Cincinnati, and Minnesota have picked on him as he’s averaged just two tackles in those three games. Sidney Rice has six catches for 176 yards, Chad Ochocinco had 7 receptions for 94 yards, and Randy Moss had three catches and a TD.
The high paid cornerback can’t shut down the high paid wide receiver. Unacceptable.
By Zach Wilt, on October 18th, 2009
By Zach Wilt, on August 12th, 2009
By Zach Wilt, on January 21st, 2009 We’ve given you two days to mourn the AFC Championship loss, now it is time to recap the Ravens 2008 season. We want to hear from you Baltimore! Who is the Ravens biggest surprise player from 2008?
[poll=6]
If you voted other leave us a comment of who specifically you mean.
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