SPECIAL TEAMS  

Wade Richey continues to fall short of the end zone on kick offs -- his sole reason for occupying a roster spot. Obviously, the coverage team was poor on the opening kick. The unit collapsed to the middle of the field prematurely. Chad Williams was caught up inside leaving the coverage unit’s left flank completely exposed with only Wade Richey out there to make a tackle. Richey reminded no one of Ray Lewis. 

Dave Zastudil average 46.6 yards on 5 punts, 3 of which were inside the 20 and 2 of those 3 were inside the 10, which in my opinion is a better measuring stick for productive punters -- inside the 10. Another that bounced into the end zone should have been fielded and downed inside the 5 by Ray Walls. Unfortunately, Walls looked like Jose Canseco tracking a fly ball in the outfield. He should take note of the effort of B.J. Sams whose effort at the 1 enabled the Ravens to down one of Zastudil’s punts inside the one. Together with his special teams mates Chester Taylor and Chad Williams, the punt team pinned the Browns at their one, forcing them to take on 99 yards of green and decibel levels at The Vault that rank right up there with the highest in the stadium’s history. This was the pivotal play of the game. When the Browns failed to move the ball an inch, the succeeding punt from Frost proved to be disastrous. Pressure from Bart Scott up the middle rushed Frost. Had Scott not been tripped by Kelvin Garmon, a blocked punt was a near certainty. 

A curious decision on the part of the Ravens is to have Ed Reed back as a lead blocker for B.J. Sams on punt returns. Reed is one of the league’s best punt blockers and forces punters to rush their kicks. Gary Zauner seems to be doing opponents a favor by dropping Ed back as a lead blocker. 

COACHING  1/2 

The offensive game plan once again was off the mark. We hear time and again from Brian Billick of the team’s profile -- run and protect the football, play great defense and solid special teams, win the game. No rocket science here. Yet they failed to get Jamal untracked against a team that has been a regular victim of Jamal Lewis and the offensive line. Last year, Jamal Lewis ran for 500 yards against the Browns. Three hundred forty-six of those yards came on 6 carries! The other 46 carries against the Browns amounted to only 154 yards, a 3.35 per carry average. This speaks to the heavyweight prize fighter analogy we used above. You have to stay with the run against the Browns -- particularly when you have Jamal Lewis with fresh legs. It’s only a matter of time. The Ravens ran Jamal only 22 times last night and way too many of those carries were on pitches or sweeps to the short side of the field. The Browns are fast to the ball but they are small. Run right at the Browns. It’s their weakness and by the way, it’s the Ravens “profile.” 

It also remains a mystery why the Ravens don’t use play action more often. When they throw deep, they get the single coverage they are looking for yet they won’t throw deep down the middle to allow space to make plays. The offensive formations are questionable. To counter the 4-4-3 alignment, the Ravens should have used more 3 and 4 receiver sets to force linebackers into pass coverage against quicker and faster receivers. The few times the Ravens did use such sets, they bunched the receivers just outside the tackles and tight ends instead of spreading the field and forcing the linebackers into open space.  

The Ravens failed to involve Chester Taylor and they failed to involve B.J. Sams. They preferred to throw to a ball to Deion Sanders before even handing it to Jamal Lewis. Is that the profile? They also chose not to call the rollout play that usually works once or twice per game. Nor did they employ that kick out pitch to the weak side to Jamal Lewis.  

The sequence of offensive plays to close the first half should be documented in a football textbook in a chapter entitled, “How Not To Run a Two Minute Offense.” Here is the sequence of plays that took place after the Ravens forced a Jeff Garcia fumble that enabled the Ravens to take possession at the Cleveland 48 with 1:04 remaining in the half with 3 timeouts remaining: 

1-10-CLE48 (1:04) C.Taylor up the middle to CLV 45 for 3 yards (E.Ekuban).

2-7-CLE45 (1:00) K.Boller pass to T.Taylor to CLV 42 for 3 yards (C.Crocker). Timeout #1

Now, this pass to Taylor was questionable. Not only did it burn a down it took the clock down to 39 seconds and with such a short pass, you would expect Taylor to get out of bounds. He did not. A wasted play and a wasted timeout.

3-4-CLE42 (:39) K.Boller pass to T.Taylor to CLV 33 for 9 yards (C.Crocker). Timeout #2

1-10-CLE33 (:34) K.Boller pass to K.Johnson ran ob at CLV 24 for 9 yards (K.Bentley).

2-1-CLE24 (:28) K.Boller pass incomplete to R.Hymes.

Nice call here if only Boller had put the ball in an area where Hymes could have made a play IN BOUNDS!

3-1-CLE24 (:23) K.Boller up the middle to CLV 23 for 1 yard (G.Warren, E.Ekuban).

The referee called for a measurement and gave the Ravens a first down. Instead of preparing the offense and having them ready for the next play, the Ravens shockingly went into a huddle. The Ravens ran the clock down to 9 seconds before throwing a 5 yard pass to Wilcox.

1-10-CLE23 (:09) K.Boller pass to D.Wilcox to CLV 18 for 5 yards (A.Henry).

2-5-CLE18 (:03) M.Stover 36 yard field goal is GOOD, Center-J.Maese, Holder-D.Zastudil.

Now I will grant you that the coaches do not run the plays. But Billick has told us before that Kyle Boller receives instructions from the sidelines throughout the 2 minute offense. High school teams would have put this 2 minute drill to shame. For someone as organized and anal as Brian Billick, you would think that this team would run a precise and efficient 2 minute drill. Instead it is amateurish and inefficient. It’s been this way for quite some time and there is no sign of improvement. I don’t want to hear that it’s Kyle Boller and his youthfulness and inexperience. This offense has never been efficient in the 2 minute drill. It reeks of poor preparation.

Defensively, Mike Nolan came in with another solid plan and changed it up a bit in the way he used the secondary in support of the run. Once again, Nolan saves this overall grade. 

FINAL THOUGHTS  

* The crowd at The Vault gets better and better and really understands its role. Props to all of you. Do yourself a favor. Go to the 12th Man Challenge and vote for yourself as the NFL’s best. You deserve it! 

* A disappointment in the crowd however, was the lack of black in the crowd. The Ravens should have promoted the “Pitch Black” better. A black clad crowd along with white towels would have shown very well on TV. And speaking of which, I loved the uniforms. They showed up better than I ever would have thought. Those vibrant white numbers set upon the jerseys and the black helmets looked great.

* With each passing game, the number of times that Dwan Edwards appears on the inactive list grows.  It's one thing for a second round pick not to start or get extensive playing time.  But one would think that a second round pick would at least be part of the rotation.  Granted, time has a way of changing things but at the half way pole, Dwan Edwards is an absolute bust.   

* With 1:00 left in the game, Paul McGuire said: “Well we’re now going to see what this (Ravens) defense is made of -- the #1 scoring defense in the league. Fifteen game seconds later, Ed Reed intercepted Jeff Garcia. 

* Jeff Garcia earned my respect last night. He made plays out of nothing despite constantly being harassed. He reminded me of a point guard that sees the court very well. He doesn’t have a big arm and he can’t see over tall defensive linemen. But the man can make plays. I hope he continues to do as much not only against Pittsburgh, but against the rest of the league as well if for no other reason than to stick it to T.O.