“God Has Never Made a Mistake” — Ray Lewis

It mystifies me how people around the country view Ray Lewis as some type of thug or evil person.  I understand his serious incident with the law way back at the start of his career when he made the mistake of covering up for a friend who had stabbed someone to death rather than coming clean to the authorities immediately.  But he was not the perpetrator of that attack.  He was definitely...
read more

Super Bowl Shot Slips Out of Ravens Grasp — 23-20

This loss against the Patriots is too painful for much comment. [However, I need to moderate the strident initial tone here as I edit this after a day's cooling off period!]   As always the play calling was too conservative and Cam did not let Joe Flacco compete until it was too late.  Instead of starting the game strong, we called running plays on first down on the initial three drives.  But...
read more

Turf Toe Continues to Trip Up Ravens

Certain injuries seem to become the nemesis for a particular team.  Sometimes you experience a rash of hamstring injuries; lately in baseball it seemed like we were seeing a lot of oblique problems.  Now with the Ravens the seemingly innocent Turf Toe continues to afflict our major stars.  Until it caused the retirement of Jonathan Ogden, I can’t say that I had ever given this injury...
read more

Ravens Roll in Playoff Rout of Chiefs

Ravens: 30    Chiefs: 7 You want toughness?  You want aggressive play calling on both offense and defense?  You want to see the training wheels taken off Joe Flacco?  You want to see a team finish a game rather than let someone get up off the mat and pressure you?  You want to win the turnover game?  You want to see the players appreciate their offensive and defensive coordinators?  You...
read more

Game #6: Vanilla Offense Features Too Much Rice

Ravens: 20   Patriots: 23 For some reason this season ends up being all about the Ravens offensive coordinator.  At some point we have to trust our offense and Flacco to make plays and cut them loose.  Our two losses can both be attributed to overly conservative play calling.  We have the weapons.  Let’s deploy them.  Against the Patriots today we played right into their gameplan by...
read more

Game #5: Smash Mouth Football Bloodies the Broncos

Ravens: 31   Broncos: 17 For some reason the Ravens have a history of being able to exert their will against the Denver Broncos.  It was no surprise to see the vaunted early season passing attack of Denver be reduced to a couple of meaningless long scores at the end of each half.  The toughness of Baltimore earned them another double digit victory against the visiting Broncos. For a change,...
read more