Calls to fire Harbaugh are ridiculous (Merged)

[PerpetuallyBored74]

No, he shouldn't.

Yet.

But he better realize he is in danger of losing the player's faith in him by constantly blaming them to cover for his and Cam's deficiencies.

No more "the players need to execute"
The players have reached the point where they don't want to hear that BS anymore.

[Ravenblue]

I don't think you can make a credible argument to fire him after the extenuating circumstances that have been our ridiculous injuries this season.

Every team deals with injuries, but it's rare that nearly every 'star' player on a team gets hurt and misses a lot of time, to the extent we've been starting so many low round picks and bargain basement FA's. You could even make the argument that to do so and still remain competitive is actually a positive for Harbaugh.

I do think there are a lot of things he has done wrong (not least retaining Cam, but that's for another thousand threads another time), but when it all boils down to it he's done a pretty decent job. And you can't punish a man responsible for raising the standards so high in terms of consequtive playoff appearances that they are on the best run in the league.

[RavenScallywag]

Look, I'm a huge Harbaugh supporter. I think he's been exactly what we needed to turn things around after Billick...

If we lose six straight, he won't get fired, that's not Bisciotti's MO. But, he'll be on the hot seat. That kind of collapse is one that transcends normal circumstances. If we had battled all year, going back and worth, and ended up 8-8, we would've said "okay, we were due for a tough year. Let's just try and come back next year"...

This team was 9-2. Let that sink in. We sat at 9-2. Yes, I know we face a murder's row at the end, but does that really matter? Do you want to think of your coach/team like "Well, they could've won if they faced easier teams, but they faced good ones, so oh well?" NO! You want to look at your team like "win or lose, let's make sure we've got a shot each week and play with some level of pride". Now, these Ravens, on some level, HAVE done that. We've only been blown out once, by Houston. Vs Steelers and Redskins, we were in it until the last drive or two. We had some good moments in those games. But in the end, you have the same piddly mistakes that continue to cost us games. If we have a coach who, rather than take those mistakes by the horn and wrestle the bull to the ground, instead goes "well, next time, maybe those mistakes don't matter. Instead, let's keep doing EXACTLY THE SAME THING WE DO EVERY WEEK and see how it turns out"? Then it could very well be time to start thinking about change.

Either him changing his views/ways he coaches, or finding someone who WILL address those problems.

[JAB1985]

I really dont get the hate for Harbs. Even those that say "its because he hasnt fired Cam", as much as I hate Cam, you cant fire him when you have a lock out and cant get a new offense in place, and you cant fire him when hes gotten you 1 dropped/defended pass away from the SB. Even this year as much as I dislike the guy, we have the 9th highest scoring offense. Those 28 pts we put up, should have been enough to beat, on average, every team in the league except the Pats. the inconsistency is infuriating but hes still getting results that should lead to winning football. If half of our starting defense wasnt out, maybe Pees would be better, or at least good enough to win these last two and were looking at 11-2 instead of 9-4. we end up 12-4 or even 11-5 (one game off last year), with the injuries we have, Harbs probably gets an extension not fired.

[wickedsolo]

Ya know, I've had the OP on ignore for quite some time now so I can't read anything he's posted in this thread.

Bet I can guess.

-Ravens need to lose in order to get rid of Harbaugh.
-Harbaugh sucks.
-He really hopes the Ravens lose the rest of their games so Harbaugh will get fired.

That about sum it up?

As a side note, this forum used to be one of the most intelligent places on the net for Raven's talk. Now we have idiotic threads like this one popping up all over the place.

Willis McGahee probably informed him that Harbs should be on the hotseat while they were practicing the 40-yard dash so that Boulder can beat Anquan Boldin.

[Ravenous1]

4 straight years in the playoffs
3 years since back to back losses.
Lost Redding, Grubbs, JJ, to FA
Lost Webb, Suggs (never 100%), Lewis, Smith for large chunks
Reed, Ngata, Ellerbe, Yanda, McPhee and others have spent lots of time being gimpy
Current record with all that considered 9-4
Yea lets fire that guy

What is the OP smoking????? Seriously??? Even if he were 5-8 considering the number injuries to key players ...I would let that slide this year.
Honestly I think if you really really sit down and look at the losses this team has taken since last season....9-4 with this squad might be his best coaching job yet....but yea lets fire him.

[HoustonRaven]

We don't need two threads that are about whether or not to fire Harbs so they've been merged ....

[JAB1985]

The Ravens rushed the ball 30 times (not counting Flacco's rushes) against the Redskins, but drives stalled out in the second half because when we did have to make a third down, every route was either a slower-developing out route or down the field. There's no misdirection, no quick routes, and it doesn't look like the Ravens have any "hot reads" for Flacco and the receivers to miscommunicate on. Even when a blitz is obvious, the receivers are still running a curl, out-route, or streak.

There are problems in execution, but that's not the entirety of the problem. Simply executing isn't enough: the coaches have to put the players in a position where they can succeed.

I think the 3rd and 6 in OT, where the line breaks down (again) and Flaccos scrambling for his life to find a WR, any WR, and its plain as day that there isnt one within the 15 yards on the screen, let alone open is a good example of whats going on. Why the hell we keep sending everyone deep on 3rd and manageable and obvious blitzing situation is beyond comprehension.

Flacco 16/21 182 3 tds 1 int
rice 20 121
pierce 8 53

pretty obvious the offense was working but failed in critical situations because of the above scenarios where we werent put in position to succeed.

[wickedsolo]

I think the 3rd and 6 in OT, where the line breaks down (again) and Flaccos scrambling for his life to find a WR, any WR, and its plain as day that there isnt one within the 15 yards on the screen, let alone open is a good example of whats going on. Why the hell we keep sending everyone deep on 3rd and manageable and obvious blitzing situation is beyond comprehension.

Flacco 16/21 182 3 tds 1 int
rice 20 121
pierce 8 53

pretty obvious the offense was working but failed in critical situations because of the above scenarios where we werent put in position to succeed.

How many damn times are we going to see 3rd down situations where the only open guy is Pitta, Rice, or LEach on bleed out routes that are substantially shorter than the 3rd down marker? There were at least 3 3rd down situations yesterday where Flacco went right to Pitta and/or Rice/Leach and they couldn't pick up the 3rd down.

I'm just saying, the situation is kind of fucked from the start. The OL can't give him more than 3-4 seconds on avg to get the ball out and the receivers aren't getting open down the field, so he HAS to get the ball out quickly...and more often than not that is to Pitta or Rice.

This has been a big problem all year.

[srobert96]

I like the way that Harbaugh runs the team. I am not a fan of his offensive philosophy. He and his brother want to run Big Ten offenses Circa 1980.

I would be thrilled to death with Harbaugh if he brought in an OC to implement a modern offense and left his fingerprints off of it.

Not sold on Pees. He does not seem to make good in game adjustments. Defense plays well and then other team makes adjustments and he does not seem to be able counter.

That being said if Harbaugh truly is a top 10 coach he will fire the OC, Oline coach and wr coach immediately after the season. If he brings Cam and Moeller back he is not a top 10 coach.

[bmorecareful]

How many damn times are we going to see 3rd down situations where the only open guy is Pitta, Rice, or LEach on bleed out routes that are substantially shorter than the 3rd down marker? There were at least 3 3rd down situations yesterday where Flacco went right to Pitta and/or Rice/Leach and they couldn't pick up the 3rd down.

I'm just saying, the situation is kind of fucked from the start. The OL can't give him more than 3-4 seconds on avg to get the ball out and the receivers aren't getting open down the field, so he HAS to get the ball out quickly...and more often than not that is to Pitta or Rice.

This has been a big problem all year.

It's a coaching failure. I get all the injuries, I get all the additional adversity this team is facing, but they HAVE THE SAME ISSUES GAME AFTER GAME and they NEVER make progress on them.

On defense, even when we were 100% healthy, you could drive a truck through the holes in the zones, nobody could tackle, and the entire defense played soft as sheep's wool.

On offense, when not running the no-huddle, they continue to look lethargic, they take far too long to get up to the line, the QB doesn't audible or change protections, Birk's snap routine is unchanged, they still average 4 OL penalties a game, miscommunications on stunts and zone blitzes are rampant (on at least 3 occasions yesterday a tackle doubled an interior rusher while allowing a free runner on the edge) the playcalling is pathetic, the receivers run bleed outs well short of the sticks and can't get open downfield anyway, blah blah blah...

It's the coaching, stupid! When was the last time you can honestly see this team had a glaring deficiency that was summarily addressed and solved? There are none! When Belichick lost Hernandez and later Gronkowski, he moved away from 2TE alignments and back to moving the offense through Wes Welker and the run game. When the Jets lost Darrelle Revis they asked Cromartie to step up and play the shadow corner role, and lo and behold they're 3rd in pass defense.

The Ravens will point to injuries and execution issues, but the reality is that I cannot remember a time in which they out-coached or out-schemed a problem. I'm not sure the John Harbaugh Ravens have ever won a game primarily due to coaching excellence. I don't put a ton of blame for that on Harbaugh because he is strictly a motivator and knows little to nothing about X's and O's and football gameplay, but for a coach like him he NEEDS to have genius coordinators and he does not, and he needs to bear the blame for choosing them.

[psuasskicker]

Some of us thought the same thing when they brought Zorn in. How did that work out?

I have literally no idea who thought Zorn was brought in to be Cam's prospective replacement. I never heard that once.

It's a coaching failure. I get all the injuries, I get all the additional adversity this team is facing, but they HAVE THE SAME ISSUES GAME AFTER GAME and they NEVER make progress on them.

On defense, even when we were 100% healthy, you could drive a truck through the holes in the zones, nobody could tackle, and the entire defense played soft as sheep's wool.

Pretty tough claim given that the defense hasn't been 100% healthy for a game yet this season.

BTW, with Cam gone, one of the major complaints about Harbaugh's deficiencies has been taken care of.

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