Hmm...internet fans huh? So the fact that I spent a good deal of my youth growing up in MD makes me an internet fan?

Stats mean absolute crap when it comes to playoffs. Look a the Denver Broncos who had a perfect season...or Buffalo Bills who went to the big game multiple times but never quite finished number 1.

Spend less time reading NFL.com and more time worrying how your team is gonna do next year...since you're obviously butt-hurt (still) about that.

 

u still havnt said who your team is.... i guess they were in the bowl for the number 1 pick?

 

WTF are you talking about? The Colts left in the middle of the night and took the history with them. Modell left Cleveland because they wouldn't build a new stadium and he owed the NFL money. He left ALL OF THE BROWNS 'HISTORY' IN CLEVELAND. The Ravens were essentially a new team, just players that were left over from the Browns' team. (Do you know who is the only remaining player from that team?)

Anyways, no fan that I know is really happy about getting the Browns' team, but the situation is different!

 

perfect season? denver broncos? maybe you should go read nfl.com, i have no need to. the denver broncos have never had a perfect season, the closest they came was 15-1... wanna guess who the lose was to with looking it up? and the bills... well they shouldve won one... best qb of all time to never win a superbowl... cant imagine the heartbreak he felt everytime he got so close... anywayz...

actually, (a history lesson for you...again) the browns did offer a new stadium when modell showed he was serious about leaving. look it up, its true. and also if you want to be picky, the nfl stepped in and TOLD modell if he left that he was to leave everything behind, he had wanted to take it with him... it being, names, records etc. etc. in essence he didnt have permission from the nfl to move his team (not that the nfl could do much about it.)

dunno to too much about the colts situation, as there is a thin line between what stayed and what didnt.

and yes, its matt stover... easy question, lol. im not some half witted fan who just looks at stats, im well aware the game is played on the field. (can i have a tougher question please, lol?... wait then the thread might become a trivia thread, lol)

my team isnt important in this discussion, as its about the ravens, ill also say that they were not even close to the #1 pick this year, thank you.

let me clarify my earlier post about the wins and losses as reading it again i didnt say what i wanted to express, so to speak. i was merely saying that i have no respect for the ravens "ranking" as #1 defense, when they have played horribly incosistant this season. and as such, with them having the 2nd easiest schedule i think the stats are also a little skewed...

we shall find out this weekend how good the pass defense is. ill bet u 10$ the ravens were thinking (glass jaw) jamal would run all over the colts and set up the play-action pass... but if the colts play the way they did today, its going to be a tough ball game. this is the reason i think the bye will hurt them... against the colts you need to start out the gate engines roaring... it all depends on the how fast they can catch up to game speed... also, before this game, the colts were demorilized by thier run defense and dropped passes and such... now they have confidence and a renewed defense so to speak...

heres the key matchups... manning against the ravens defense, and any wr against rolle. studying the bengals win on thursday back in the season revealed a small if glaring concern... rex ryans defense is not suited to play against a hurry up, auidable all the time qb. if you go back and watch the game, the game plan was simple, take the ravens out of thier comfort zone, wear them down.

what carson did, and payton surley will as hes much better, is call 2 plays in the huddle, and basically have the line set with as much as 20 seconds on the play clock (if in the few times they did huddle). he let the defense set and then auidabled out or into another play, with all the moving around its easy to get matchups where they wanted them.

while i do not think there will be very many deep passes in the game, at least no on mcallister's side (with ed reed helping), you have to worry about rolle. rolle has shown flashes (albiet very small ones) of his former ability before all the back injuries. now he can still play, but he is a liability in coverage and has been all season.

the other key matchup is ogden against freeny. ogden has never been able to contain freeny and i imagine the ravens will keep a back in to help, or add another lineman for double coverage. this is a problem as the ravens (recently) like to employ a couple 3 wr sets with 1 back, sometimes 2 backs. if you add the extra defender this changes thier offensive scheme through some of the game completly, and might be an advantage somewhere down the line (to which team, i have no idea, lol)

in the end, it will be a good game... hell, i might even go, just because i hate watching it on tv... to many damn commercials...

 

I don't think we'll see Jamal as much as you think. Remember, we've got Mike Anderson as well. Plus, I don't think it will be half-way through the 3rd quarter before they get their first '1st' down either

It was a Thursday night, 'away' game and they had one day of practice to go against a division rival. Whoever at the NFL came up with Thurs. night games has never played football and should have their head examined! As a side note, before the season started, I penned that game as a loss!(No BS)

I bet the Ravens set every play on defense in a standard 4-3 (unless long down plays), then with about 6 seconds left on the play clock, everyone on the Ravens shifts! payton can't change his play at the last second, plus he won't be able to hear cause it is gonna be 'loud' at M&T!! At least thats what I would do on defense!

Good, let him come flying around the corner. McNair will just roll out to the right side or run for 15 up the middle. freeney cant do that all day if Mcnair can just run.

We come to an agreement!!

 

Yes they are...

And being a Steeler fan of course we don't like anyone in are division.. but we will see what will come out of the playsoff.. there are alot of over rated teams..

We will see the best Offence vs the Best defence.. Time will tell

 

very good post on breaking mine down 4g63, i like a good convo

crowd noise i dont think is going to be a problem... manning usually uses silent counts in situations like this, and his offensive line (#1 in the league) is steller in any protection. and manning really doesnt have to change the entire play, marvin and manning are damn near telepathic when it comes to reading defenses... not to mention, most of his play calling at the line takes only 3 seconds... so 6 seconds might be too long...

also, watching the ravens games on tv for years, even in bars and such (when i venture out on sundays during a bye week or boring games)... fans (at least to me) here seem like they are waiting to cheer... not just cheering to cheer, but need a reason too... ive notices plenty of times when they give up 7 or are down 10 or something the stadium is almost dead quiet.. i dont exactly expect that to be the case this week, but if they get down by 14, im sure there wont be enough noise to cause manning any headaches...

the main problem is, if this game becomes a shootout (slim, but could happen), advantage colts... also, something i havent seen the ravens play a lot of, is cover 2. this defense (oddly enough) slows them down somewhat, but usually is the best choice to keep the deep throws in check, which is what the chiefs practically did saturday. but with dallas clark and addai and rhodes catching out of the backfield, cover 2 isnt a good idea.

i dont think a 4-3 alignment is going to work, even if they just "set into" it and set out. 1st, no way is payton that dumb to not see what players are on the field. 4-3 has certain limitations as what you can turn into. you dont want to line up in 4-3 with ur normal 4-3 set and shift into a nickle defense with 3 lbs.... no matter how athletic they are because the colts wr's are going to be faster...

you also dont want to shift from nickle to 4-3, or 3-4 because then you would have corners playing lbs etc etc... the point im making is, manning will know whos on the field and what defense they should be in with the personal they have.

on the other side of the ball, the colts almost all the time run a tampa 2, which is very vunerable to play action and short passes... sometimes youll get a seem route open, but its rare. this bodes well for the ravens (though i think dungy will design some different looks as well as ryan) because thier passing game is perfectly suited for this style of defense. mcnair this season isnt much different from dilfer of 2000, make the throws when we ask, and dont turn it over.

i believe the colts have an advantage on mcnair as they played him so much, they will have a lb spy almost all the time, (they usually do), so crossing, corner and flag patterns are the key here, and the colts know that as well as the ravens, lol.

it will be interesting to see, normally the #1 defense (historically) holds top ranked offenses in check, but im still not sold on samarii... this is essentially the same defense with a new cord, different saftey, and a new lineman whos a rookie, and i remember marvin and reggie burning holes through them after half time opening day 2 years ago (i think it was 2... or was it last... either way... )

like i said, it all depends on how fast the ravens offense can get up to "game speed" and how close the game is at half... colts are usually money after halftime after they have had time to sit and check out the defensive alignments and whatnot... on the flip side, the ravens, too are money on defense after seeing the offensive alignments... but i can scheme more offensive routes then anyone can defense... so, it shall be a good game...

good thing you dont have to face the pats, would have been much much tougher, lol

 

^^ 1st constructive things you said all week. finally telling things as they are instead of bashing. what you gunna do when the ravens win? still doubt them?

 

of course. they would still need to beat either new england (which i think has the absolute best chance of beating the ravens if it came to it) or traveling to SD to face the chargers...

the chargers got caught playing martyball in the 4th quarter in the week 2 matchup. if marty knew what he had in rivers prior to week 2 i dont think they would have run LT as much as they did if rivers wouldve started more then 1 game, lol. give credit where credit is due, but both the pats and chargers have more weapons on offense and have top ranked defenses to go along with them... more complete teams is what im saying.

like i said, its going to get very interesting this weekend...

 

maybe true ^ but, we still have a good chance. it will be def good to see. i will be in 501 seat 9 watching so we will see come sunday

 

"WHAT'S AHEAD -- This leaves Manning and his three interceptions and Joseph Addai, and his fine running that bailed out an erratic offense, to face the bloodthirsty Ravens in Baltimore. I saw their games against Manning last year and the year before. Defensive coordinator Rex Ryan, like his father before him, hates fancy quarterbacks. He wants to make them cry.

So in both games he threw the most ungodly assortment of blitzes at Peyton that he'd ever encountered. Now I have seen Manning have games that were nearly perfect, statistically, but I thought that for sheer courage, these were two of his greatest. He stood in there boldly and faced the horns of the beast and found his hot reads, time and again. And Indy won both contests and he was not sacked.

Will this be No. 3? Well, there seemed to be something definitely off in his game last Saturday. Can it be fine tuned? I think so. Will the Colts' pinching defense, with its big boy linebackers, be able to control Steve McNair and Jamal Lewis the way it did the Chiefs? No, but I think Indy will outscore them. An interesting sidebar is Freeney against Pro Bowl LT Jonathan Ogden, whom he routed two years ago, first indicating that all was not right with the big tackle."


interesting article, thought i would share... off of yahoo news sports

 

^u still havent said who your team is lol. i bet deep down u admire the majestic ravens.

first of all, i dont think the colts defense is gonna play nearly as well as they did last saturday against the chiefs. if u take a look, when they are home there defense has been pretty good but on the road it has been a totally different story. and its pretty safe to say that the ravens coaching and both sides of ball is much better and deeper than what the chiefs had. i didnt watch the whole thing but kc's d kept them in it almost the whole game. herm edwards is a moron for sticking with trent green because he should not have been in there. this is a game i think the ravens win and bring a little comfort to the hearts of long-time baltimore fans.

btw, if anyone needs a pair of playoff tickets, i still have an extra set that i'm trying to get rid of. havent put them on ebay yet so let me know if you're interested.

 

i agree mostly... i dont think i said the chiefs were equal to the ravens, i just merely stated if the colts play as good as they did saturday... (which is about the best they looked all season, lol) it would be a close game...

 

I know you got this from Yahoo sports, but that person seems to forget that we had a 3-4 alignment then and were unable to get pressure on Manning. I don't forsee having a game at home against the Colts like we did earlier in the year against the Steelers. (man would it be nice though!) But I do think that if they can get to him early once or twice, it will change the way Manning calls the game.

As for JO and Freeney- Freeney is the only player I've seen in the NFL have success against Ogden. He owned him a few years back at Indy (Monday night game i think). Sean "Conehead" Merriman couldn't do $hit against him earlier this year. (yeah I know he had a sack, but that was a blown play and had nothing to do with Ogden). Anyways, I think Ogden looks at it as his personal mission to stop or slow down Freeney. But if his foot problem flairs up, we could have problems!

 

IMO their best game this year came against Cincy!