As the Ravens travel to the West Coast to take on the Chargers, the team has some serious game planning to take care of.
After a 13-10 squeaker in Pittsburgh, the offense will look to get on track against the nose-diving Chargers. Joe Flacco and the offense didn’t click in Pittsburgh, as they couldn’t find the end zone. While the top-ranked Steelers defense did a decent job, a few things have to change to get the offense back on track.
Many back-and-forth fans will blame Flacco for the poor offensive performance at Heinz Field, but the problem clearly lies within the play-calling and the schemes.
Here’s a classic Cam Cameron statistic:
The five times that the Ravens faced 2nd-and-6 or more, he called a running play. Each time, the following play was a 3rd down, and 4/5 were not converted. So what does this say? It says that against a #1 Steelers defense, a run play will almost never get you 6 yards, and you almost automatically put the team in a tough 3rd and short play.
If you can’t convert 3rd downs in a football game, you aren’t going to win! Pathetically, the Ravens only converted 21.3% of 3rd (3/14).
You could say that players didn’t do their job up front and receivers didn’t get open, but we have seen this same offense for 4.5 years now. During the game, fans are livid about the idiotic play calling that comes from the sidelines. But once the game is over we tend to forget, and just move onto the next game.
Can you imagine what this offense could be if something was done about it?
The next part of the schedule is absolutely grueling and gets tougher and tougher. Guys like the Manning Bros will tear our secondary to shreds. If we can’t put up close to 55 points every game, it will get ugly!
Changes have got to be made to avoid another 13-point (and the 9-point in KC for that matter) performance.
As long as the defensive scheme stays the same, Phillip Rivers should be shut down.
New corners like Chykie Brown and Corey Graham have stepped up big time. Rivers has the big arm, but the SD Receiving corps isn’t what the Steelers are. Put a little pressure on Rivers, and he will make the mistakes we need!
Even though we saw the D slow down early, they have picked up as of late. The offense is again the problem. Let’s fix this, get us to 9-2 and welcome the Steelers at home with WIDE OPEN ARMS!
