I’m loving this game! I expected the Ravens to have a pretty good offense, but nothing like this. Aside from the skill guys, I’m particularly encouraged by the play of the Ravens patchwork offensive line - that was a pretty glaring question mark, and they’re handling the Bengals D-line pretty well.
Man, the Bengals were inept last night. I had a 8 point lead in my fantasy game, and my opponent had the Ravens D. I knew I was in trouble, but they manhandled Dalton and company. Men against boys.
Very ouch, baby. I don’t know what happened to our pass rush, but Flacco had all day for tea and crumpets back there. And FFS, overplay Ray Rice much? They were biting so hard on the play action because they were so afraid of Rice torching them.
Ugly, ugly, ugly. Dalton didn’t play too badly. The defense lost us this game.
In fairness, he did get out of the Buick to play.
It was confusing because they kept showing a replay of the wrong block. The one they showed was pretty borderline. The one that wasn’t called was much worse.
Yes. That was very funny. Welcome to the league, rookie!
I didn’t form an overall impression, but ESPN did bring up a couple of stats that I thought were worth noting: in the Sunday games, the refs this year called 25 pass interference penalties, which was as many as the regular refs called in week 1 of 2010 and 2011 combined. Overall there were about 14 penalties called per game in the Sunday games, down from about 16 in week 1 2011. I don’t know how much variation there is from game to game, but that’s a pretty significant difference.
Will you all think less of me if I admit to having watched some of the Raiders game?
It was an interesting opportunity to ponder the careers of Philip Rivers and Carson Palmer. At one point it looked like Palmer and the Bengals were headed for success, but then it fell apart. Was he a great quarterback stuck in a crap system, or was he a good quarterback who overachieved for a while? Or was it the hit on his knee that sent him into a downward spiral?
And what’s the straight dope on Rivers? Always has fantastic stats, but too often the team disappoints. Is he one of the greats, or something less? Would he be winning bigger if he weren’t coached by Norv Turner?
No, because I watched it too (I needed 15 points from Gates and Kaeding to win a fantasy game).
Rivers has never been the problem in San Diego. He’s not one of the greats, though, although his great numbers have always come despite never having all his receivers healthy.
RE: Carson Palmer.
I vote crap system, specifically Bob Bratkowski’s offense after 2006. Although several years of bad o-line play and injuries didn’t help.
Rivers is very good, but like Favre I think his stats are inflated by playing in such a crap division. Over Rivers’ career, how many cupcake divisional defenses has he faced? Similarly Favre got to feast on the hapless Lions, Viking and Bears (oh my!) and Bucs throughout the late 90s and into the 2000s.
The Buccaneers were ranked in the top 10 in pass defense four times while we were in the NFC Central.
The AFC West also hasn’t been bad against the pass lately, either. The Broncos and Raiders were third and seventh against the pass in 2009. The Chiefs, Broncos and Raiders ranked fifth, seventh and eighth in 2007. The Raiders were #1 and the other two were in the middle in 2006.
The only time the division was bad against the pass were his first season as starter in 2006 (all in bottom half), and 2008 (Raiders tenth, other two in bottom half).