By Zach Wilt, on February 3rd, 2012  Well the Ravens have their man. The team announced on Thursday afternoon that Don Martindale will be Baltimore’s new linebackers coach. Martindale replaces Dean Pees who was promoted to defensive coordinator after Chuck Pagano left to coach the Colts.
We all should have known that Jack Del Rio wouldn’t reunite with the Ravens. I cited “different eras” as my reasoning when first discussing candidates to replace Pagano. Del Rio came from the Brian Billick era Ravens, a team and method that the front office and ownership have decided to put behind them.
Martindale comes to Baltimore with 18 years of coaching experience in both the NFL and at the college level. Not surprisingly, he was on Jack Harbaugh’s coaching staff at Western Kentucky.
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By BSR Staff, on February 2nd, 2012  AskMen.com votes Sofia Vergara hottest woman of 2012 It’s Super Bowl week, but in Baltimore there’s nothing Super about it — besides maybe the strange 65 degree weather.
The guys discuss the biggest topics going down in Indianapolis this week, make some Super Bowl prop bets, put a bow on the Ravens season and discuss playoff expansion in Major League Baseball.
You can get in touch with the BSR Podcast by sending your emails to podcast@baltimoresportsreport.com or leaving a voicemail at 443-379-4BSR (4377).
Here are some of topics discussed in this week’s show:
Super Bowl Week
- Bernard Pollard knocked Tom Brady out for an entire season, now his hit on Rob Gronkowski in the AFC Championship could could keep him out of the big game.
- Who is bigger news: Peyton Manning or Eli Manning? Will Peyton Manning ever play again and if he does with who?
Recapping The Ravens
- Steve Bisciotti promises to keep both Ray Rice and Joe Flacco
- Cam Cameron is back as the Ravens offensive coordinator. Is bringing Cam back the best move for the Ravens going forward?
- Jim Caldwell joins the Ravens coaching staff as the quarterbacks coach.
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By Zach Wilt, on February 1st, 2012 
Prior to the AFC championship, Joe Flacco was criticized more than any quarterback who made the postseason during his first four years in the NFL.
To be fair, Flacco did put the bullseye on his back when he told reporters that he didn’t feel he got enough credit or that Tim Tebow was receiving too much national attention.
During his annual State of the Ravens press conference, owner Steve Bisciotti acknowledged Flacco’s critics and took the side of his franchise QB. ”I don’t think I’ve ever seen a guy as maligned as him,” Bisciotti said according to Jeff Zrebiec of the Baltimore Sun. ”We believe in him.”
Bisciotti added that he plans to sit down with Joe Flacco and “start grinding out contract terms.”
By Zach Wilt, on January 31st, 2012  After spending a season without a quarterbacks coach, the Ravens decided Joe Flacco could use a little love.
The team officially announced on Monday that former Colts head coach Jim Caldwell would be mentoring Flacco. Former Ravens wide receiver and WBAL radio analyst, Qadry Ismail, spent a season with Caldwell in Indianapolis and he thinks that adding Peyton Manning’s former coach will be very beneficial to J-Flaccolicious.
“Jim Caldwell shall enhance your level of play,” Ismail tweeted to Flacco.
He shall, shall he?
Ismail later tweeted that “Caldwell really helped Peyton” during his tenure as the Colts quarterbacks coach from 2002-2008.
The last time the Ravens hired a former head coach to work with Flacco, it didn’t end well. Of course that guy was Jim Zorn.
By Zach Wilt, on January 30th, 2012  UPDATE 2:20 PM: The Ravens announced on Twitter that it’s a done deal. Jim Caldwell is the team’s new quarterbacks coach.
Think of it as a trade.
The Ravens give the Colts their best coach, defensive coordinator Chuck Pagano, and return they get Indy’s Jim Caldwell, who was fired after a 2-14 season. Awesome.
7:00 AM: ESPN’s Adam Schefter is reporting (in a suit from a library) that Caldwell met with the Steelers over the weekend and he “plans to join” the Ravens offensive staff. ”Likely as a QB coach,” Schefter tweets.
Could this be the Ravens first step in luring Peyton Manning?
Haha. No. But that’s a fun topic to discuss during a long offseason.
By Zach Wilt, on January 30th, 2012 “That’s my team. That’s my quarterback,” Terrell Owens famously whined.
Out in Hawaii, former Ravens running back Willis McGahee caught some smack talk from a Baltimore fan about Tim Tebow. ”If you had a better quarterback you could have gone further,” the fan yelled to McGahee.
“That’s like saying if they [had] a better kicker they would have won right,” McGahee said back.
Ouch.
By Zach Wilt, on January 30th, 2012  The only person more surprised than Ravens fans that Cam Cameron is back as Baltimore’s offensive coordinator is Cam Cameron.
At 11 o’clock on Friday, Baltimore let out a collective grumble both verbally and on the Twitter as John Harbaugh announced that Cameron would be returning to call the Ravens plays.
Matt Vensel of Baltimore Sun posted some interesting comments from Cam-squared after the announcement. Apparently, Cameron told “some co-workers” that he didn’t believe he’d be back as his contract was due to expire and the Ravens had yet to reach out to him to renew it.
“I called Ozzie and said, ‘Hey, I’m just thrilled to be back,’” Cameron said according to Vensel. “Ozzie said, ‘Cam, in our minds, you were never gone.’
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By Dave Gilmore, on January 30th, 2012  Time to wipe the board clean. The wounds of the 2011 Ravens may still be fresh, but the seconds are already ticking away until the 2012 Ravens break training camp. While the number of free agent decisions the team needs to make might be minimal in quantity, the re-signing or lack thereof by some key pieces may affect the puzzle greatly. Matt Lund and I broke down every potential new deal and decision not to renew.
If you need to brush up on unrestricted vs. restricted free agency, please feel free to do so and then leave your calls in the comments. (Player ages are in parentheses.)
Skill Positions
———————–
RB Ray Rice (25)
D: If a long-term deal is inevitable for Rice, I’d be happy if the Ravens took care of it now rather than franchising him and waiting a year. I don’t love long-term deals for backs as it obviously exposes the team to much more risk than most positions. Whatever you gotta do, Keep.
M: Absolute no-brainer. It would be in the Ravens best interest to sign Rice to a long-term deal to avoid the hassle of franchising him and also having both he and Joe Flacco as impending free agents in 2013. The guy is your workhorse, and led the NFL in yards from scrimmage this season. He’s worth every penny. Keep.
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By BSR Staff, on January 26th, 2012  What do Heidi Klum and the Ravens have in common? What a crappy week. The Ravens gets bounced from the AFC Championship, then lose Chuck Pagano, the Orioles miss on Prince Fielder and Maryland loses to Duke.
If you need something to brighten your day, the BSR Podcast is the best we can do.
It’s not necessarily a positive spin on all the terrible news, but it should have you laughing and ignoring a terrible week in Baltimore.
You can get in touch with the BSR Podcast by sending your emails to podcast@baltimoresportsreport.com or leaving a voicemail at 443-379-4BSR (4377).
Here are some of topics discussed in this week’s show:
Breaking Down The AFC Championship
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By Zach Wilt, on January 25th, 2012  Joe Flacco hopes that no one wins Super Bowl 46, Bernard Pollard hopes that the Giants mercilessly pound the Patriots. Perhaps that isn’t a direct quote, but I don’t think Pollard would disagree based on his interview with KILT in Houston.
“My opinion? I really hope the Giants – I just hope they just put a thrashing on the Patriots. I really do,” Pollard said according to the transcription from Sports Radio Interviews. ”To lose to a team like that the way we played. We played a good game.”
Pollard has quickly become one of the most hated players in the New England area after he sidelined Tom Brady for an entire season and knocked Rob Gronkowski out for a series on Sunday.
“Oh man that is fine and dandy. Like I said to a lot of people it is part of the game and this is what happens. If you don’t like it? So what. I am going to go out there and I am going to play me.”
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By Zach Wilt, on January 24th, 2012  A somber and Fu Manchu-less Joe Flacco talked to the media on Monday as the Ravens QB still appeared distraught after the Ravens last second loss in the Foxborough.
Flacco has received credit around the nation for outplaying Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, but the Ravens came up short in the only column that matter as time expired.
“I wish [the season] would just end and nobody could win a Super Bowl,” Flacco told BaltimoreRavens.com.
That’s how I feel. In 2009 after the Steelers edged the Ravens in the AFC Championship, I informed my friends that I had no interest in watching the Super Bowl. I’m sure two weeks will change my mind, but right now I can’t stomach the thought of Boston or New York winning a championship.
By Dave Gilmore, on January 24th, 2012  It’s been an emotional 48 hours. Let’s call it a “cooling off period.” If you said anything bananas on Facebook or Twitter or to an entire room full of your friends, so be it. All is forgiven, tensions were running high, after all. It was an abnormally stressful situation in perhaps the biggest game in a decade for Baltimore Ravens fans.
Now that the cooling off period is over, and you’ve perhaps retracted or rethought some of the things you said or wrote, how do you feel towards Billy Cundiff? If you’re not experiencing something nearing “empathy” by now, that’s a problem.
I’m not saying you can’t be frustrated or wring your hands over the should-haves and what-ifs. That’s natural when you’re so invested in a cause that fails, especially one you have no direct control over. However at this point, the deconstruction of the Ravens 23-20 loss needs to be about the game and the playoff run in its entirety, not a single play (which happened to be the last play of the season).
Billy Cundiff did as we all should and will do in life: he tried and failed. There is literally no reason for Cundiff to have not given his best effort under the circumstances. Things could’ve gone down differently. A timeout could’ve been burned, a catch could have been made, a block could’ve been sealed just a bit longer – nobody is faultless on an NFL Sunday. Nobody. AFC Championship games included.
So ruling out the fact that Cundiff didn’t try and make the kick, what are we left with? The answer is that we are forced to confront our own doubts, fears, failures, and fallibility. If you’re screaming at Billy Cundiff still a day or two later, Google mapping Lee Evans’ home or a deranged Niners “fan” sending death threats to Kyle Williams via Twitter, you have a lot more going on than fandom. READ MORE >>>
By Zach Wilt, on January 23rd, 2012  Despite the final score, Joe Flacco was the better quarterback in the AFC Champion on Sunday. I don’t care that Tom Brady hoisted the Lamar Hunt trophy with Patriots owner Robert Kraft in that same blue shirt and pink tie that he wears every time I see him on TV. (Seriously the guy is worth a billion dollars and he wears the same freaking thing to every Patriots game.)
As I mentioned in my Quick Hits post, statistically Joe Flacco outperformed wonderboy Tom Brady, but he came up short in the end thanks in part to a dropped pass by Lee Evans and a shank by Billy Cundiff.
Flacco begged for more love from the media during the postseason. He told them that he didn’t get the credit he deserved and when the Texans kept him quiet last week, Ed Reed publicly said that he had to perform better in New England.
After the game Flacco’s teammates addressed his performance. Bernard Pollard told Dan Kolko of MASNSports.com that Flacco “played his butt off.”
“For everyone that keeps dogging him, shut up.”
Just to be clear, does that include Ed Reed?
By Zach Wilt, on January 23rd, 2012  On Sunday morning I approached the Ravens matchup against the Patriots like a passenger in a car that was about to be struck head on by a bus. I saw it coming, I tensed up, put my feet on the dashboard and braced myself for the disappointment. But, as three o’clock loomed closer and I had shared my doubts with fellow football fans, I began to grow confident.
For some reason I thought that Joe Flacco could turn the page and go from mediocre game manager to AFC champion. I thought that John Harbaugh could out think Bill Belichick and that the Ravens secondary could contain the Pats tight ends.
In the end, Ravens fans had their hearts ripped out after Lee Evans dropped a game winning touchdown and Billy Cundiff missed a game tying touchdown. It was right there. They were so close. The Super Bowl was in Evan’s hands, on Cundiff’s toe. But instead the Ravens flew home empty handed.
Here are my thoughts on the Patriots 23-20 win over the Ravens in the AFC Championship:
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By Matt Lund, on January 22nd, 2012  In a match-up of two teams with very contrasting styles of play, the AFC’s #2 seeded Baltimore Ravens traveled north to take on the #1 seed New England Patriots for the AFC Championship.
The Ravens played the role of spoiler before, handing the Patriots a 33-14 loss at Gillette Stadium in the 2009 wild card playoffs, but that particular match-up was different than this one.
The Patriots didn’t have a young duo of TE’s in Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez. They also didn’t have Wes Welker, who was injured during the Patriots playoff run that year.
Still that did not faze the Ravens as they confused and frustrated Patriots QB Tom Brady in the game, much like they did in 2009. The Ravens defense picked off Brady twice and sacked him once.
The Ravens had an offensive and defensive game plan that on most afternoons contributes to a Ravens victory. Despite that however, it came down to the right foot of kicker Billy Cundiff to tie the game and send it to overtime when Cundiff missed a 32-yard field goal wide left giving the Patriots the 23-20 victory and an AFC Championship in front of the home crowd. READ MORE >>>
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Well the Ravens have their man. The team announced on Thursday afternoon that Don Martindale will be Baltimore’s new linebackers coach. Martindale replaces Dean Pees who was promoted to defensive coordinator after Chuck Pagano left to coach the Colts.
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