The John Harbaugh Debate Thread (Merged Threads)

[houstonravensfan]

[QUOTE=Ngata Nother Suggs;349122]If he criticizes Cam he lights another fire the week before a really important game. It isn't worth it. They're still in decent shape even though they keep looking ridiculous on the road and now even the defense is falling apart.

Harbaugh has enough problems. He doesn't need to create another one. I doubt he'll do anything about Cameron behind closed doors, but even if he does he wouldn't announce it.

Only seven games left and they just have to try and make the best of it. See how far they can take this yo-yo team. With powerhouses like the Browns, Colts, and Chargers coming up it won't be easy.[/QUOTE]

Two games against the Browns; one each Colts and Chargers. 2-2 sound about right?

[ravensinva]

I can't say I like or support that scenario. They need to fire Cam regardless, BL.

Ur right, I'm still pissed about the game.

[landspeed]

John Harbaugh - the special teams coach turned head coach. But how? Could it be he had the know-how to run a professional football team or could it be because of luck and good personality? Personally, I would like to go with the latter.

Jim Harbaugh was the ravens quarterback in 1998. John Harbaugh is currently the ravens head coach(2008-present). But why? How? After all, hes a special teams coach. How does a special teams coach get a head coaching position with no experience on offense or defense? Simple, his brother was once a player for the team.

John seems to be a very likeable/nice person. And on paper he looks like a very good head coach. But what does he do for this team?

2007, in polite terms, was a train wreck. It was horrible, especially after our near superbowl season in 2006. But in all honesty, what could Brian Billick have done? Steve McNair took us to heights we'd never seen before in 06', but was ultimately hurt the entire 2007 season. Give me a team in the post-Goodell era(aka end all defense era) that has had a winning season with their backup quarterback? If you lose your quarterback, usually you lose the season.

Lets look at the "anchors" on our defense
Ray Lewis
Ed Reed
Terrell Suggs
Haloti Ngata

They are all from Billick

Now lets look at offense
Joe Flacco
Ray Rice
Anquan Boldin
Marshal Yanda
Ben Grubbs

2 of them are from Billick, Q is a FA, Ray rice was an excellent pick and Joe Flacco still has not panned out(albeit a very good quarterback. Consistency though...)

Our drafts have sucked since he has been here.

38-19 in the regular season
4-3 in the playoffs

Regular season, he seems to be great. But how much credit can he take for those wins? Our defense wins our games. Without it, we are nothing.

2008: We went to the playoffs because: Willis McGahee, LeRon McClain and Lorenzo Neal
2009: We went to the playoffs because: Ray Rice had a monster year
2010: We went to the playoffs because: Ray Rice and Joe Flacco was limiting his turnovers
2011: ?

Lets just analyze the wins and losses of this year.
Week 1: Pittsburgh at Baltimore
Baltimore wins 35-7
Defense forces 7 turnovers. This is the key stat. Not Joe Flacco's 3 TD's, not ray rices 2 TD's. I dont care how good or bad your offense may be, if you force 7 turnovers, you will win the game. No matter how you look at it, that is 7 offensive drives that the opponent was unable to score on. You only get so many chances in 60 minutes. Ray Rice had 19 rushing attempts.
Week 2: Baltimore at Tennessee
Tennessee wins 26-13
Kenny Britt and Matt Hasslebeck torches our secondary for 300+ yards and a couple of TD's. Our offense is stagnant. Ray Rice runs the ball 13 times. The ravens lack any pass rush. I am OK with calling this a letdown game and pinning it on the team as a whole. The coach can only do so much to motivate.
Week 3: Baltimore at St. Louis
Baltimore wins 37-7
Torrey Smiths first 3 receptions as a pro are for TD's(all over 20 yards). Why could he do this may you ask? Not being in the gameplan. The ravens lucked out here, because how can you gameplan for something you have never seen the opposition use before? Regardless it was fun to watch but we will never see anything like that again. Ray Rice had 9 rushing attempts
Week 4: NYJ at Baltimore
Baltimore wins 34-17
10/31 163 Yards 1 INT
Thats the statline for ravens QB Joe Flacco. Pathetic. Completely pathetic. This game was won solely on defense. 3 Defensive touchdowns in one game. Not much else to discuss about this game. Ray Rice had 25 rushing attempts.
Week 5: Bye
Week 6: Houston at Baltimore
Baltimore wins 29-14
Baltimore had a pretty good day offensively and Ray Rice set the tone with a 100+ yard rushing performance on 23 carries. Joe Flacco made plays when he had to and the defense did its usual job.
Week 7: Baltimore at Jacksonville
Jacksonville wins 12-7
This game was horrible to watch. The offense was just not there, the coaching staff did a horrible job of preparing and a horrible job of giving rice the football. Joe Flacco played horribly. Ray Rice had 8 carries. Defense does its usual job yet again.
Week 8: Arizona at Baltimore
Baltimore wins 30-27
Nearly another loss to another inferior opponent. The first half was horrible, Special teams and offense. You cant pin this on the defense, when the offense continues to turn it over. Coaches do a good job of adjusting at half time and the ravens squeak out a win. Ray Rice had 18 carries.
Week 9: Baltimore at Pittsburgh
Baltimore wins 23-20
This win is all on Joe Flacco. He had the drive of his career when he marched the offense 92 yards on a game winning TD-drive. Wouldnt you know, Joe Flacco did well out of the shotgun? Ray Rice had 18 carries
Week 10: Baltimore at Seattle
Seattle wins 22-17
This game just about sums up what everyone is angry about. Ray rice had 5 carries. Joe Flacco had 52 attempts. WHAT ARE THEY THINKING? The ravens were NEVER out of this game and to say that they had to abandon the run(looking at you John Harbaugh) is just ignorant, lazy and disrespectful to everyone who watched the ravens coaches squander the game away. Why would you ever waste a timeout on the challenge that NEVER WOULD HAVE BEEN? Why would you only give ray the ball 5 times? Why did you continue to put David Reed on KR when all he was doing was giving the game to seattle(3 KR, 2 Fumbles, 1 15 yard unsportsmanlike penalty)? The only reason the ravens were STILL in this game to the end was the DEFENSE. You cannot fault the ravens D for that last drive. They had stopped them all day long. NFL players get tired just like you and me.

The ravens are 5-1 when Ray Rice has 15+ rushing attempts.

John Harbaugh is not a HC. He doesnt have the balls to make the hard decisions(tell Cam to fuck off), he always wastes TO's(I cannot recall the last time the ravens had 3 TO's in the 2 minute offense) and he has a knack for calling wrong challenges or not challenging at all. Worst of all the team is never prepared for games against inferior opponents.

Like said in another thread, Bisciotti gave Billick his approval 2 weeks before he was canned.

[DColeman]

I think John was trying to put up better stats than his Brothers team against Jim's Divison rival. Honestly I didn't even see the game I was driving back from LA. I heard the Results on the radio. Just saw the highlights. To Quote Jim Lahey "ahh, Fucked er' bud. You Want to get drunk tonight?"

[Tspot-D-Ravenator]

hind sight is 20-20

[Ravenswintitle]

Jim Harbaugh was the ravens quarterback in 1998. John Harbaugh is currently the ravens head coach(2008-present). But why? How? After all, hes a special teams coach. How does a special teams coach get a head coaching position with no experience on offense or defense? Simple, his brother was once a player for the team.

oh snap

[Jayc00]

No, please tell us how you really feel.

[ActualSpamBot]

Between the theory that John got the job because Jim was on the team back when Art owned it and the claim the Flacco hasn't panned out as a draft pick I simply lost the will to keep reading.

This board is utterly unreadable after a loss.

[landspeed]

And you guys continue and continue to defend Joe Flacco for being horribly inaccurate, shitty in the playoffs and horribly inconsistent.

Oh right... his receivers cant get open. How many receivers have we been through now that, "cant get open?"

[Purpleguy]

I do think if Billick was still here we probably would have had another Superbowl these past three years, and would definitely be the favorite to win it this year. Billick was a bright guy. He never had the offensive weapons that Harbaugh has.

[wickedsolo]

And you guys continue and continue to defend Joe Flacco for being horribly inaccurate, shitty in the playoffs and horribly inconsistent.

Oh right... his receivers cant get open. How many receivers have we been through now that, "cant get open?"

In case you haven't been paying attention this ball club has had a problem with the development of receivers since...well...forever.

Travis Taylor, Patrick Johnson, Randy Hymes, Devard Darling, Mark Clayton, Yamon Figurs, Marcus Smith, Justin Harper, Clarence Moore, Demetrius Williams, Brandon Stokely, Javin Hunter, John Jones, Ron Johnson, etc.

The only receivers that Baltimore has ever had were either free agent acquisitions or trades: Marcus Robinson, Derrick Mason, Boldin, and Qadry Ismail.


Ozzie just isn't very good at drafting top notch receivers and they have never had a good receivers or QB coach to really develop the QB/WR relationship. Maybe Jim Zorn was a possibility there, but obviously - for whatever the reason was - it didn't work out.

Boldin isn't bad, but it's a shitty situation because he's the focal point of defenses because Lee Evans is hurt, Torrey drops every other pass, and Cam doesn't seem interested in utilizing Ray Rice anymore.

The jury is still out on Torrey Smith, LaQuan Williams, David Reed, and Tandon Doss. Who knows. Torrey looks pretty decent, but the fact that Doss isn't beating out a UDFA and a guy who is primarily a return specialist doesn't bode well for him.

So, let's just say that Torrey does work out and becomes a good starting caliber WR for the Ravens. That's 1 out of...14 including two 1st rounders (Clayton and T. Taylor).

Every year we just see this coaching staff almost deliberately hold players back. We saw it with Webb's rookie year. Webb probably could have started over Fabian Washington, but the held him back until Fabian Washington stunk so much that they didn't have a choice but to insert Webb.

[darb72]

Okay, I'm curious.

Is this one of those post where I'm going to have a good laugh, or is it going to make me weep for the future of humanity.

Since there are three posters I respect who've read it, I'll ask them. PG, Spam and Solo, would this be worth the effort of taking LandSpeed off the ignore list to read, or is it rambling idiocy?

[Sua Sponte]

Maybe Jim Zorn was a possibility there, but obviously - for whatever the reason was - it didn't work out.

Every year we just see this coaching staff almost deliberately hold players back. We saw it with Webb's rookie year. Webb probably could have started over Fabian Washington, but the held him back until Fabian Washington stunk so much that they didn't have a choice but to insert Webb.

Zorn was getting to vocal with Cam and letting him know how Joe felt and what would work with Joe so they cut the string. I thought that the OC would want to hear from his QB coach and QB about play calling. Zorn was the scape goat for Cam last year.

Players getting held back is something that disturbs me. Finally this year McPhee is getting playing time, but it's not like he is a starter. Chris Carr got paid so they put him in instead of the best player, that seems to happen alot. If you get paid more and have time with the team you play over better players. It's BS.

[wickedsolo]

I do think if Billick was still here we probably would have had another Superbowl these past three years, and would definitely be the favorite to win it this year. Billick was a bright guy. He never had the offensive weapons that Harbaugh has.

Who's fault is that though?


Billick was the HC here. If he really wanted to draft more offensively talented players he could have. It's not like Billick asked Ozzie to draft someone and Ozzie smacked him on the hand and said "No".

2006 Draft - Chester in the 2nd right before Devin Hester and MJD. Pittman in Rd 3 when Owen Daniels, Jason Avant, and Brad Smith were still on the board. Demetrius Williams in Rd 4 with Brandon Marshall, and Marques Colston on the board.

2005 Draft - Mark Clayton in rd 1 with Aaron Rodgers, Roddy White, Jason Campbell, and Logan Mankins. Dan Cody in Rd 2 over Vincent Jackson, Justin Tuck, etc.


Point is, Billick was as much to blame as the next guy for the offensive woes when he was here. Billick's biggest problem was that he thought his offensive schemes and designs could make mediocre players perform better than what they really were able to. The game was evolving and the players Billick had on offense were average at best. Other than JO, Heap, and JLew, Billick really didn't have anyone who was sincerely lights out.

[wickedsolo]

Okay, I'm curious.

Is this one of those post where I'm going to have a good laugh, or is it going to make me weep for the future of humanity.

Since there are three posters I respect who've read it, I'll ask them. PG, Spam and Solo, would this be worth the effort of taking LandSpeed off the ignore list to read, or is it rambling idiocy?

It's pretty dumb.

His whole concept is that John Harbaugh only got the HC job because his brother used to be the QB here and John won't be a good HC because he went from a ST's coach to a HC...nevermind the fact that guys like Bill Cowher and Bill Belichick were also ST's coaches at one point...

[wickedsolo]

Zorn was getting to vocal with Cam and letting him know how Joe felt and what would work with Joe so they cut the string. I thought that the OC would want to hear from his QB coach and QB about play calling. Zorn was the scape goat for Cam last year.

Players getting held back is something that disturbs me. Finally this year McPhee is getting playing time, but it's not like he is a starter. Chris Carr got paid so they put him in instead of the best player, that seems to happen alot. If you get paid more and have time with the team you play over better players. It's BS.

I agree.

You know damn well if Foxworth was healthy he'd be out there over Cary Williams even though Williams is light years better than Foxworth could ever be.

And honestly, I don't understand why McPhee isn't a starter. He's better than Redding is. Put McPhee out there and spell him with Redding.

[JeromeBettis63]

Maybe he will fire him because you guys want him too. If there is anything I have learned about Harbaugh in his last two pressers its that he has rabbit ears. He obviously pays a great deal of attention to what Ravens fans and the Media say about him, his coaches, his QB and the rest of his team. The more closely I have followed the Ravens, the more little hints to why this team has not gotten over the hump begin to surface. His references to what people think him and his team after the big win and the big loss is telling. The gatorade bath is telling. The obsession with refs is telling. I know, I know...I'm a troll. But this is not intended as smack...its an honest opinion. You never hear this stuff out of teams who win championships. Your coach needs to take a few notes from a Bill Bellicheck interview. And he needs to pass that attitude on to his team...including leaders like Lewis and Suggs.

[Sua Sponte]

I agree.

You know damn well if Foxworth was healthy he'd be out there over Cary Williams even though Williams is light years better than Foxworth could ever be.

And honestly, I don't understand why McPhee isn't a starter. He's better than Redding is. Put McPhee out there and spell him with Redding.

You know for sure that Fox would be out there, I was calling for Williams last year and Carr got the start (he did a good job, but Williams is emerging and would have been a better option in that vanilla D.)

[wickedsolo]

You know for sure that Fox would be out there, I was calling for Williams last year and Carr got the start (he did a good job, but Williams is emerging and would have been a better option in that vanilla D.)

Yea, there were a few of us pulling hair out of our heads wondering why Cary was riding the pine when it was obvious that the guy could play. He's broken up more passes this year than any other corner I've seen since CMAC.

[Sua Sponte]

Maybe he will fire him because you guys want him too. If there is anything I have learned about Harbaugh in his last two pressers its that he has rabbit ears. He obviously pays a great deal of attention to what Ravens fans and the Media say about him, his coaches, his QB and the rest of his team. The more closely I have followed the Ravens, the more little hints to why this team has not gotten over the hump begin to surface. His references to what people think him and his team after the big win and the big loss is telling. The gatorade bath is telling. The obsession with refs is telling. I know, I know...I'm a troll. But this is not intended as smack...its an honest opinion. You never hear this stuff out of teams who win championships. Your coach needs to take a few notes from a Bill Bellicheck interview. And he needs to pass that attitude on to his team...including leaders like Lewis and Suggs.

You truely are lost in this thread, if Harbs listened to fans Cam would have been gone 2 years ago. He would have been in Cams ass to run the ball, and so many other things....
Your back on the gatorade bath dude. Seriously? Your better than that. Harbs got a shower last year in week 1 against the Jets. Sorry your team is to cool to have humor.

O'yeah and thats right your team has never had locker room issues from leaders or leaders making absurd comments.
Study and then come back.