QUARTERBACK 
|
|
First the good news. Kyle Boller threw a couple of outstanding passes, feathering the ball perfectly and dropping it in through tight coverage. Now the bad news. Outside of those couple of passes, he was awful. His pocket presence resembled a game of pin the tail on the donkey. In his defense, he spent way too much time on
his donkey and it’s difficult to assess his performance without considering the barrage of pressure he was under throughout the game. The Ravens will need to stay with Boller despite the ugliness. "I don’t have the answers," Boller said. "We have a lot of stuff to work on, that’s for sure." Talk about an understatement! Boller’s QB rating for the day was 30.1, about 9 points less than that of Randy Hymes last week when he was 0 for 1. Maybe the Ravens should consider the wishbone?
The balance of the season is needed to determine if there’s any hope that Boller will be the QB of the future or if he’s simply another in the long line of first round quarterback busts. For the moment, it looks like KABOOM!
RUNNING BACKS 
1/2
Nice to see Musa Smith on the field. His perseverance is admirable. The performance of this group was not. Jamal Lewis looked like an over-caffeinated Ickey Woods behind the line of scrimmage. I can’t wait to hear the spin on why Chester Taylor wasn’t in the game.
RECEIVERS 
1/2
Last year, we regularly took shots at the receiving corps. This year it is arguably the best unit on the team. What a difference a year can make. There’s hope for the offensive line after all. I just hope Derrick Mason doesn’t retire. When asked if the Ravens could crack the elusive 20 point barrier, Derrick Mason said, “How many games do we get?” Surely I jest. What he actually said was "That’s something you have to ask Billick. I have no answer. I don’t know what more we can do."
Duck?
Mason has shown incredible toughness over the middle of the field while his quarterback hangs him out to dry on ill conceived passes.
OFFENSIVE LINE
Offensive!
When there’s a leak in the levee, it only gets worse if it’s unattended. And if it keeps on raining the levee’s gonna break. It’s still raining and guess what? Is it now time to see Adam Terry on the field? How about Jason Brown? How about a paramedic for Kyle Boller?
DEFENSIVE LINE 
This was a tale of halves for the defensive line. During the first half they dug in and played decently. In the second half it looked as though their will to compete failed them. Did Terrell Suggs go on vacation?
LINEBACKERS 1/2
The Ravens need to give some love to Bart Scott in the off season. He has the instincts of a play maker on defense. Tommy Polley did ok while again playing out of position. Polley should be on the edge and Scott in the middle. Scott is much stronger fighting through blockers and is a more solid tackler than Polley. After a long string of outstanding games, Adalius Thomas was very quiet yesterday. Did he accompany Suggs?
SECONDARY
No less than once per game, it seems as though this unit fails to communicate. Couple that with the mismatches created by Matt Jones’ physicality and the ample protection given to Byron Leftwich and it spells trouble for the secondary. McAlister for all that money consistently fails to make plays in the passing game yet he is an excellent tackler. If it weren’t for the big dollars spent on McAlister as a so called cover corner, his career might be better served as a safety. Juggle the letters
around in Sanders first name and you get “I Done.” And guess what? He is.
But Matt Jones was impressed: "Deion is probably one of my favorite players ever since watching him as I was growing up. It was awesome to make the catch on him. He’s going to be in the Hall of Fame someday and to be able to say you played against him and caught a pass on him is something that I’ll remember forever."
I wonder what Darrell Green is doing these days?
SPECIAL TEAMS
Musa Smith was active on punt coverage and recorded two special teams tackles. The punting teams outplayed the Jaguars. The Ravens netted 36.1 yards per punt compared to the 27.4 yards of the Jaguars. The Ravens kickoff teams were outplayed. Aaron Elling’s kickoffs reached the 9 and 7 yard lines while Josh Scobee reached the end zone three times forcing two touchbacks. Of course Scobee did get more opportunities given the 30-3 score. B.J. Sams is a better punt returner than he is a kickoff returner. Why not try Mark Clayton there?
COACHING
You can send your resumes to Spherion. Spherion helps more than 300,000 individuals put their talents to work every year. Call Bill Pisano at 410/752-8367
Upon Further Review
* A statement of the obvious from Brian Billick: "We’ve got to get him protected better certainly if we expect him to play better."
A statement of the not so obvious: "Whether he’s staring down a receiver or not, I don’t have that level of expertise to make that comment yet."
* The Ravens had eight first downs.
* Was that Matt Jones or Jimmy Smith?
* Nice pass to Clayton for minus 2 yards. Clayton touched the ball 3 times yesterday and racked up a total of 3 total yards. I’m no math major but that is 1 yard per touch. If the Ravens could only get him the ball another 126 times, he could match the total yardage of the player selected one pick ahead of him in this year’s draft, Matt Jones. Jones had 129 yards on his 7 touches. Let me get the calculator…hang on….that is………18.42 yards per touch.
* The Ravens had a 6 game winning streak against the Jaguars snapped yesterday. Up to that game, 12 of the 14 games between the clubs were decided by a touchdown or less.
* Good news….Ravens only failed once in the red zone yesterday. Bad news….they only made it there once.
