Good stuff from Greg Cosell on Cam after his dismissal

[NCRAVEN]

I have been saying for a while that I don't think Bisciotti is anywhere near as attached to Harbaugh and Flacco as many posters think he is. I think Bisciotti is sold on Flacco, but not at the price Flacco wants, unless Flacco can drastically improve his consistency. I also think that Bisciotti is going to hold Harbaugh accountable for not correcting what was wrong with the Ravens offense sooner. If Biciotti concludes that the reason the offense was not corrected sooner was because Harbaugh wasn't knowledgeable enough to do it (since he has never been a coordinator), or because he wasn't strong enough to get Cam to comply, then I think that there is a good chance that he will eventually fire Harbaugh.

But...but...but...

We've made the playoffs every year since he's been here.

[Corey]

I have been saying for a while that I don't think Bisciotti is anywhere near as attached to Harbaugh and Flacco as many posters think he is. I think Bisciotti is sold on Flacco, but not at the price Flacco wants, unless Flacco can drastically improve his consistency. I also think that Bisciotti is going to hold Harbaugh accountable for not correcting what was wrong with the Ravens offense sooner. If Biciotti concludes that the reason the offense was not corrected sooner was because Harbaugh wasn't knowledgeable enough to do it (since he has never been a coordinator), or because he wasn't strong enough to get Cam to comply, then I think that there is a good chance that he will eventually fire Harbaugh.

I still think that's bullshit because in the NFL the ONLY thing that matters is winning. Which Harbaugh does a lot of. Biscotti isn't going to can Harbaugh if the results remain the same. Winning supersedes everything, especially stats.

[Haloti92]

Winning supersedes everything, especially stats.

Unless you are Cam Cameron.

[Captain Silver]

I still think that's bullshit because in the NFL the ONLY thing that matters is winning. Which Harbaugh does a lot of. Biscotti isn't going to can Harbaugh if the results remain the same. Winning supersedes everything, especially stats.

Tell that to Marty Schottenhiemer, fired after a 14-2 season! Dungy in Tampa! There is a precident for firing a winning coach.

[Dirt1]

I still think that's bullshit because in the NFL the ONLY thing that matters is winning. Which Harbaugh does a lot of. Biscotti isn't going to can Harbaugh if the results remain the same. Winning supersedes everything, especially stats.

I am not sure Bisciotti thinks that way. Didn't Bisciotti make his money through a staffing company (Aerotek)? When you get into staffing (HR), how you get things done (organizational behaviors) are often seen as being just as important if not more important than the final outcome. That is because the final outcome could be attributed to a number of factors ouside of the HC's individual performance.

[NCRAVEN]

I still think that's bullshit because in the NFL the ONLY thing that matters is winning. Which Harbaugh does a lot of. Biscotti isn't going to can Harbaugh if the results remain the same. Winning supersedes everything, especially stats.

I'm not sure how you can stat that with certainty when the OC was just fired on a winning team with only one more game needing to be won for a second straight AFCN title.

It's well known Steve B wants to win a Super Bowl, as does every owner, but I think he feels (As do most of us) that this team has had the pieces to go to or win a Super Bowl. If Steve and OZ feel the pieces are in place andwe're not getting there (to or winning a SB) he's not going to keep Harbaugh because he is stocking the trophy case with AFCN titles.

[Haloti92]

I agree. Perspective is everything... why do you think the media, by and large, has been against the Cam move, calling it a "panic reaction" and bleating over and over again "this team is 9-4, 9-4 teams don't do this, 9-4, 9-4, 9-4...."

Because of cognitive bias, specifically a kind of outcome bias... mistakenly assuming that the outcome of a decision or event tells you all you need to know about whether the correct decisions were made and actions taken. The problem is that decisions made with imperfect information (which is 99.999% of all decisions) can't be evaluated that way.

I'm sure it's already been done before, but the cognitive psychology of coaches is definitely worthy studying. They seem particularly prone to unnecessarily risk averse thinking and biased decision-making.

Exactly my thoughts. The losses apparently give enough "cover" to make a tough decision that already should have been made had the decision-maker not been affected by unrelated outcomes (wins).

[Jsmoove]

I have been saying for a while that I don't think Bisciotti is anywhere near as attached to Harbaugh and Flacco as many posters think he is. I think Bisciotti is sold on Flacco, but not at the price Flacco wants, unless Flacco can drastically improve his consistency. I also think that Bisciotti is going to hold Harbaugh accountable for not correcting what was wrong with the Ravens offense sooner. If Biciotti concludes that the reason the offense was not corrected sooner was because Harbaugh wasn't knowledgeable enough to do it (since he has never been a coordinator), or because he wasn't strong enough to get Cam to comply, then I think that there is a good chance that he will eventually fire Harbaugh.

Dirt I think you may be right, I think Steve B forced this move and harbs is taking a lot of heat for it and now. I think Harbs may have screwed Joe's career in the process by sticking with cam when it was way over due, now its flacco's contract year and there are still questions marks, Flacco should be having the kind of season Matt Ryan is having, granted Ryan has legit weapons, but there is still good talent on this offense we don't have slouches at skill positions anymore. FO is not short of blame either we keep drafting tackles to play gaurds and paying for cheap Oline men all the time, that has been a big part to play in Flacco's development as well. They mis-handled this whole thing from Flacco's 2nd season up to this date.

[bensmotorcyclehelmt]

Saw the post game presser with Harbs, Caldwells introduction as OC, and the comments from Flacco. The small items that kept coming up?

Tweaking the offense incrementally and "listening to everyone." Based on those two main points this wasn't a knee jerk firing of Cam.

This was a cumination of a few years worth of Cam "knowing better than everyone."

It wasn't that Cam was a BAD offensive coordinator, He wasn't. He was decent enough and helped the ravens improve. But each year there was no new scheme, and the "explosion" everyone expected never happened. Despite the added offensive weapons and extra years working together. You still had Cam "outthinking everyone" by running on obvious passing downs and vice versa. Ray Rice gashes the Skins for 10+ yard runs? "Lets put the ball into Flacco's hands to win it!"



Cam didn't seem to have a good feel for game flow. It often felt like he was calling whatever type of game he wanted to instead of riding the hot hand and palying to what was working. How often did we see a first half (or set of plays) work ridiculously well, only to never see those plays again? Cam did what he wanted.

In the pressers Harbs said it was all about tweaking the offense a tad. The plabook won't change. The order and how the game is called likely will. Hopefully for the better.

It seems that the team believes the talent is there, but the odd decisions to do whatever he wanted, even when it was obviously not working or SMART was wearing thin. Cam was stubborn and didnt take advice. He sure as hell wasn't going to do what legions of ravens fans wanted him to do and feed the ball to Ray Rice 10 more times a game. But that was just another example of his stubborness. Given what Harbs said, it sounds like Cam didn't even listen to his assistants. It was not listening to his assistants AND likely Harbaugh (who was likely listening to Ozzie and Steve) that ultimately got Cam fired.

Caldwell often gets criticized for his quiet demeanor and deer in the headlight appearance. But I wouldnt judge a book by its cover in this instance. No one here is priivy to what he knows, how he coaches, what happens during the week or the practice field or what the players think of him.

I'm willing to give Caldwell a chance because Cam couldn't get the job done.

[The Excellector]

Steve Bisciotti believes in Joe Flacco and recognizes that he is going to have to pay Joe Flacco a significant amount of money, one way or the other. I think that Steve recognizes that you don't pay a QB what you are about to have to pay Flacco, to not have an offense tailored more around him and to deal with the inconsistency that you have dealt with.

Think about it. If we see the picture, we can only imagine what Bisciotti's stance is on the issue.

To be honest, I don't even think the question is money with Bisciotti. That just seems to come with the territory for him. He had a number in mind for Ray Lewis and didn't back off of it. He had a number in mind for Ray Rice, but was flexible. Now, Ray Rice is the guy that we all should have figured would have the least trouble getting paid quickly, from a talent perspective. Yet, his deal came down to the wire.

[bensmotorcyclehelmt]

Steve Bisciotti believes in Joe Flacco and recognizes that he is going to have to pay Joe Flacco a significant amount of money, one way or the other. I think that Steve recognizes that you don't pay a QB what you are about to have to pay Flacco, to not have an offense tailored more around him and to deal with the inconsistency that you have dealt with.

Think about it. If we see the picture, we can only imagine what Bisciotti's stance is on the issue.

To be honest, I don't even think the question is money with Bisciotti. That just seems to come with the territory for him. He had a number in mind for Ray Lewis and didn't back off of it. He had a number in mind for Ray Rice, but was flexible. Now, Ray Rice is the guy that we all should have figured would have the least trouble getting paid quickly, from a talent perspective. Yet, his deal came down to the wire.

Like you said, Stevie B knows he has to pay Joe. It's just a matter of how much.

The record and big games have shown that Joe is a good, capable NFL starter (that can play well in tough games) and deserves a new contract.

Its those inconsistent games that are trying to be figured out.

The concensus seems to be that Cam, although decent enough, had too strong a personality and role in the offense and may have been the cause for the ups and downs.

Caldwell is not a proven OC. But he's been around pro football enough and long enough to likely be good enough, possibly VERY good, if he plays to team strengths and rides the hot hand. I imagine this is a move to see what Joe can do with an OC that understands the offense, and is willing to play to the team
strengths instead of ego.

Now Steve is letting joe "prove it" to see how flexible he needs to be come contract time.

[wickedsolo]

Tell that to Marty Schottenhiemer, fired after a 14-2 season! Dungy in Tampa! There is a precident for firing a winning coach.

It is a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately league.

Step 1: Get to the Playoffs. Harbaugh has shown that he can at least get his team into the post-season.
Step 2: Get to the Super Bowl. He hasn't achieved this yet, but has come very VERY close.
Step 3: Win the Super Bowl.

If he can't get them over the hump, then it is time to make a change and get fresh eyes on the situation.

[Shas]

> Flacco has a strong arm, but does not have a good "internal clock".
> Deeper throws to receivers who are not winning in man coverage = a not-very-mobile QB standing in the pocket waiting for receivers to get open. This leads to the inconsistent results.

I had previously suggested that the scheme (i.e., forcing Flacco to stand in a pocket and wait for the nine-route to be unfurled) leads to getting hit in the pocket and leads to claims he has no internal clock. I don't know the answer, but I wondered if the playcalling was ignorant of the clock more than Joe was.

> Can always help receivers vs. man coverage, and what he never saw, were those kinds of things (bunch formations, stack releases, shifts, motion, etc.)
> Instead saw isolation routes (which required receivers to win their matchups, which they frequently didn't).
> Suspects that the bunch formations, stack, releases, etc. are in the playbook (all teams have them). So it comes down to how and when to use them, which should be based on game-planning versus an opponent's tendencies and making in-game adjustments..

This is not a defense of Cam, but I found it curious to hear Derrick Mason's comments on 105.7 FM this morning. When asked if the offense was too vanilla, with the definition suggested by Steve Davis being the same predictable routes over and over again, Mason sort of defended Cam by suggesting that Torrey is limited in the type of routes he can run effectively, and Cam limits the play calling to work within those constraints.

Maybe Mason is biased/egotistical in thinking few others have his talent to run all the routes in the route tree. Maybe Mason's view is based on a raw Torrey Smith when he was fresh out of college. Maybe he knows something we don't want to admit. (He also mentioned that in his opinion Brian Billick refused to consider the limitations of his receivers and was trying to install the kind of vertical passing attack he favored, without consideration of the fact he had receivers who were not capable of executing it).

We kind of heard the same suggestion in the past that Joe Flacco was not being allowed to throw between the hashes because Cam didn't think he could be trusted. Eventually that changed, but I do wonder if one of Cam's problems was not trusting his playmakers to make plays. Maybe Cam thought he already knew the negative outcome of going in a certain direction, and was too stubborn to try it. We have been led to believe he wasn't good at receiving input.

I'd rather he try and fail than never try at all.

[Raveninwoodlawn]

I had previously suggested that the scheme (i.e., forcing Flacco to stand in a pocket and wait for the nine-route to be unfurled) leads to getting hit in the pocket and leads to claims he has no internal clock. I don't know the answer, but I wondered if the playcalling was ignorant of the clock more than Joe was.

I along with others have long railed against this scheme which is based on really long developing routes/QB drops. The infamous "all 9" play call has kind of taken a life of it own...it's called way too much, but it's not called as much as we like to assume...but they are long developing routes. Cam called a lot of double moves, 15 yard in/out and comeback routes...sometimes off of 7 step play action with Joe's back to the defense for up to 2 seconds. Those plays, while they have a place in many offenses, were too much of our base. Cam...and Harbaugh (it remains to be seen if Harbaugh tries to stick with this) were huge proponents of "chunk" plays. All of that hurt Joe.

That being said, I don't think there is any question Joe doesn't have a great internal clock (it remains to be seen how much this can be improved), blitz recognition (I think this can be improved quite a bit) and ball security (he will need to improve his internal clock to really improve this)

This is not a defense of Cam, but I found it curious to hear Derrick Mason's comments on 105.7 FM this morning. When asked if the offense was too vanilla, with the definition suggested by Steve Davis being the same predictable routes over and over again, Mason sort of defended Cam by suggesting that Torrey is limited in the type of routes he can run effectively, and Cam limits the play calling to work within those constraints.

Maybe Mason is biased/egotistical in thinking few others have his talent to run all the routes in the route tree. Maybe Mason's view is based on a raw Torrey Smith when he was fresh out of college. Maybe he knows something we don't want to admit. (He also mentioned that in his opinion Brian Billick refused to consider the limitations of his receivers and was trying to install the kind of vertical passing attack he favored, without consideration of the fact he had receivers who were not capable of executing it).

We kind of heard the same suggestion in the past that Joe Flacco was not being allowed to throw between the hashes because Cam didn't think he could be trusted. Eventually that changed, but I do wonder if one of Cam's problems was not trusting his playmakers to make plays. Maybe Cam thought he already knew the negative outcome of going in a certain direction, and was too stubborn to try it. We have been led to believe he wasn't good at receiving input.

I'd rather he try and fail than never try at all.

Regarding Torrey, I don't think he is a very good route runner. I think while he can definitely improve, he isn't a guy who is going to consistently beat his man in man coverage a lot unless it involves pure speed. I think the world of him, but that's why when some people were talking about him becoming a #1 WR, I seriously have my doubts...not a defacto #1, but a real #1.

[steelerhater]

Like you said, Stevie B knows he has to pay Joe. It's just a matter of how much.

The record and big games have shown that Joe is a good, capable NFL starter (that can play well in tough games) and deserves a new contract.

Its those inconsistent games that are trying to be figured out.

The concensus seems to be that Cam, although decent enough, had too strong a personality and role in the offense and may have been the cause for the ups and downs.

Caldwell is not a proven OC. But he's been around pro football enough and long enough to likely be good enough, possibly VERY good, if he plays to team strengths and rides the hot hand. I imagine this is a move to see what Joe can do with an OC that understands the offense, and is willing to play to the team
strengths instead of ego.

Now Steve is letting joe "prove it" to see how flexible he needs to be come contract time.

Another consideration is that, since our defense can't stop anyone, we have to win on offense. Bisciotti can no longer have a "game manager" as a quarterback. We win or lose with Joe and the offense now.

[BigRob]

I have to say this is pretty ironic and funny.

Before the season (when Mike Tomlin was "interviewing" Caldwell) Ravens' fans were laughing and hoping he became the Steelers OC. A bulk of this board was cutting the Steelers down for even considering this guy.

Now he is the Ravens OC, he's going to be GREEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!

[Captain Silver]

I have to say this is pretty ironic and funny.

Before the season (when Mike Tomlin was "interviewing" Caldwell) Ravens' fans were laughing and hoping he became the Steelers OC. A bulk of this board was cutting the Steelers down for even considering this guy.

Now he is the Ravens OC, he's going to be GREEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!

Really? I don't recall that at all. Bulk is a lot of people.

[Dirt1]

Another consideration is that, since our defense can't stop anyone, we have to win on offense. Bisciotti can no longer have a "game manager" as a quarterback. We win or lose with Joe and the offense now.

The other reason the Ravens can no longer have a "game manager" at QB is that Bisciotti has to decide if he is going to pay Flacco what Flacco wants. You don't pay a "game manager" a $100+ million contract. The Ravens offense has to be the explosive offense that we saw in Week 1 on a consistent basis for Flacco to be worthy of such a contract.

[Ravenswintitle]

so.... we can thank Charlie B-atch and Kirk Cousins for getting rid of Cam? Never really thought of it that way but there's some truth to it.

[Jsmoove]

The other reason the Ravens can no longer have a "game manager" at QB is that Bisciotti has to decide if he is going to pay Flacco what Flacco wants. You don't pay a "game manager" a $100+ million contract. The Ravens offense has to be the explosive offense that we saw in Week 1 on a consistent basis for Flacco to be worthy of such a contract.

THIS^^^ it's time to know what we have in Joe, Harbaugh fucked up for keeping that dummy Cam this long into joes career, bad move by Harbaugh I bet thats why his ass may very well be on that hot seat.