Before I begin this little tirade, I should start by saying that I am a big fan of the ESPN/Bill Simmons love child that is Grantland.com. Though its articles are typically 8-10x longer than the work that I pen here at BaltimoreSportsReport.com, I always enjoy the wittiness, humor and Grantland‘s mixture of pop culture with Boston-area sports coverage. See what I did there? (To be fair, I appreciate that Simmons acknowledges his love for Boston’s sports teams. I think more columnists should disclose information like that to be taken seriously.)
In my love-fest for Grantland and all of the hard work that their staff has put in, (have I blown enough smoke yet?) I couldn’t help but notice a bit of criticism on the part of staff writer Bill Barnwell. I’ve listened to B-squared on the BS Report and read his mega-NFL preview and thought that he was a little tough on the Baltimore Ravens.
Barnwell’s preview, published last week, was four part series broken up into NFL teams that will disappoint, fail to meet expectations, who are on the way up and contenders. The Ravens fell in the “fail to meet expectations” category with the Indianapolis Colts, Atlanta Falcons, Kansas City Chiefs, New York Jets, New York Giants and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Talk about a hodgepodge group of pro football teams. “If the defense declines, there’s no guarantee that the offense will be able to pick up the slack. While adding wide receiver Lee Evans and offensive tackle Bryant McKinnie to shore up weak spots in the offense during training camp sounds like a great idea, Evans hasn’t produced over the past three seasons in Buffalo, and McKinnie has been out of shape and subpar for two consecutive seasons in Minnesota,” Barnwell wrote in his preview. I mentioned Barnwell’s thoughts in a short piece I wrote about Mike Tomlin last week, but for the most part I let it slide and opted to give the guy the benefit of the doubt even though he wrote that as a worst case scenario the Ravens could finish in third in the AFC North behind the Browns. That’s more like an end of the world scenario in my opinion.
My beef with Barnwell’s opinion of the Ravens escalated to whole new level when he referred to the Ravens 35-7 beat down of the Steelers as “fumble luck.” He points out that history has shown that teams that win with a +7 turnover margin won’t repeat the feat again. “Let that be a lesson to you: The Ravens aren’t about to become the takeaway mavericks of the NFL, and the Steelers won’t be giving the ball away like they don’t want it for the final 16 weeks of the year,” he wrote. Thanks. I don’t think anyone is expecting Baltimore’s defense to cause seven turnovers every game.
Barnwell went on to point out that last season the Ravens beat the Steelers in week 4, but had the tables turned on them in a game they lost against the Steelers in week 13 after they gave Pittsburgh three short fields in another instance of “fumble luck.” The problem with that comparison is that it doesn’t mention the fact that in week 4 the Ravens beat the Steelers without Ben Roethlisberger and barely edged out a victory against third string quarterback Charlie Batch. Look, you can make numbers and statistics tell you anything and easily draw conclusions on something that isn’t there, but if you’re going to make an argument at least know when the biggest starter among the two teams wasn’t on the field. “And don’t assume that the Ravens have somehow exorcised the Steelers demon with this stomping at home in Week 1,” Barnwell wrote.
When it comes down to it, I’m a guy that believes good or bad teams in professional sports make their own luck. Were the Steelers lucky that Troy Polamalu sacked Joe Flacco and forced a fumble deep in the Ravens own territory on week 13 or was it a skilled play made by a guy that would end up changing the momentum of an entire game? As a Ravens fan, even I will choose the latter. I would love to blame luck for the Orioles fourteen straight losing seasons, but I don’t think it’s ever that simple.
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Bill Barnwell
billbarnwell
Every NFL expert or newspaper columnist made bold predictions at the NFL season’s start. A lot of them made numerous bold predictions. Do you know why? Because at the end of the season one of them is bound to hit and they’ll be the first ones to tell you how they predicted it back in August or September. The problem is that for every great prediction, there are 1,000 horrible ones and these guys don’t seem to recognize their strikeouts nearly much as their home runs, despite their ratio being worse than Mark Reynolds’.
But I’ll remember that the Cardinals, Panthers, Broncos, Lions, Vikings, 49ers, Rams and Browns were listed as teams on the way up in the preseason “mega-preview.” So far the Browns got beat at home by a third string quarterback (I’m counting Carson Palmer), the Panthers had over 400 yards passing but lost to the Cards, the Vikings dropped one to the Chargers and the Rams got blown out by the Eagles. The 49ers did beat the mighty Seahawks though. My mistake, that ratio could be even worse than Mark Reynolds’.
Zach Wilt is the Founding Editor of BaltimoreSportsReport.com. You can follow him on twitter @zamwi or send him an email: zach@baltimoresportsreport.com
I agree really strongly with you Zach. These statements, “You’ll note from that list that none of the 28 teams involved in those games repeated the feat [+7 turnovers] during the same season. Let that be a lesson to you: The Ravens aren’t about to become the takeaway mavericks of the NFL, and the Steelers won’t be giving the ball away like they don’t want it for the final 16 weeks of the year.” are not necessary. Expecting any team to produce an incredibly unlikely event twice in a season is silly and I think everyone knows this. People aren’t excited about the +7 turnover margin. They are excited that:
1) The Pittsburgh Steelers gave up one 20-yard run in 2010, and that one run went only 24 yards. On their first run play of 2011, they give up a 36-yarder to Ray Rice.
2) Bryant McKinnie actually looks pretty good so far for Baltimore and had a key block on that Ray Rice 36-yarder.
3) Lee Evans is having an effect in just clearing out coverage for underneath routes.
4) Dickson flat out beat Troy Polamalu in coverage.
The Steelers aren’t done. They are going to be a really good team but that win reflected a lot more than +7 turnover margin.
PS – I actually think Barnwell is one of the best people writing on the NFL today but that Ravens vs. Steelers paragraph was lazy. Plenty of reasons to still like Pittsburgh but he doesn’t hit many of them.
Thanks for the compliments Ross. I read Barnwell’s stuff on Grantland all the time, but as you pointed out I think he lazily assessed the Ravens so far this season. I don’t buy the luck factor. This isn’t roulette, it’s football.
The Steelers will be a good team, but the torch has been passed to the Ravens as the team to beat in the AFC North.
Excellent commentary Z (and one of the best around IMHO, please keep it up!) …
I too read Barnwell’s stuff on Grantland from time to time and sadly he was uncharacteristically “spot-off” on this one… Barnwell appears to be dismissing the Raven’s performance last Sunday to fit some sort of anecdotal convenience. Why? I’m not sure really – but maybe it’s to defend, perpetuate or rationalize his own documentable historical perspective. Whatever the reasoning however, such ramblings should clearly suggest to his readership base that there may be more than a subtle hint of journalistic bias on his part, for whatever the reason. While his overall point that one game does not make the season should serve a cautioning point to all of us Raven fans (truly we don’t know yet if the Ravens were truly that good or if the Steelers were truly that that bad at this early juncture), to dismiss the possible potential implications of the potential shift of power in the AFC North to “fumble luck” or any other unfortunately wreaks of plain bad journalistic ineptness…. The 2011 Baltimore Ravens may truly be for real. Let’s just hope that we all have the last laugh; and that Barnwell learns from his mistakes.
I appreciate the compliments John. Thanks for reading.
Nice article. Can’t agree more with you and the other comments made by posters. The author would have been better off just opining that the lopsided nature of the game (as opposed to the outcome) was an anomaly and shouldn’t be expected again, as opposed to calling it fumble luck. If 7+ TOs is fumble luck, it’s one of the strongest cases of such luck I’ve seen in a while. The bottom line, as Rev. Ray might say, is that the Ravens pressure caused these turnovers; few, if any, were give aways by the Steelers. Should Ravens fans expect to continue at this pace and secure a 16-0 season? Of course not. Should a writer be able to admit that maybe his pre-season analysis needs some readjustment after the Ravens dismantled their rivals in every facet of the game Sunday? I think so.
Thanks for the kind words JMatthews. I agree with your assessment, the Ravens defense forced the turnovers…it wasn’t the roll of the dice.
This response comes from a loyal Steelers fan. I don’t understand “fumble-luck,” especially in this instance because most of the turnovers I saw were caused by a very physical football team winning the battle at the point of attack. The Steelers were dismantled on Sunday. I guess one could say that the larger the margin of victory and the bigger the beat-down, the less likely it is to be repeated in the future. On the other hand, that is little solace for fans on the other side of the field. A team does not have to secure seven turnovers and win by 28 points to secure a victory.
Congrats to the Ravens and their fans for a dominating and well-earned victory. Hopefully, at least from a Steelers perspective, the next one turns out differently.
Thanks Fred. It’s always nice to hear an unbiased opinion from the other side. I think the Ravens weren’t unlucky in their losses to the Steelers, they got beat.
You make you own luck…………
Add Fred to the list of fair minded Steeler fans. Sometimes your team just gets beat – like the 6 out of the last 8 the Ravens lost to the Steelers before Sunday. I think the tide has changed now and the Ravens have built a team to take on the Steelers.
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