Whether it’s sports or business or even at home one of the more important things that a teammate, co-worker or family member should possess is accountability.
Everyone makes mistakes and the only way any of the above gets better as a unit is to identify, admit to and work to correct those mistakes.
Humility is an understated quality. Some are afraid to admit mistakes because they believe it represents weakness which ultimately leads to disrespect. It’s quite the opposite if you ask me. Having the guts to man up and admit the error of your ways and commit to correcting them shows far more character than sticking your head in the sand and pretending the screw ups either didn’t happen or fail to acknowledge their occurrences.
What does that accomplish?
We’re all very well aware of the puzzling dearth of touches for Ray Rice during the team’s 3 road losses. In Tennessee Rice had 18 chances to advance the ball (13 rushes, 5 receptions); in Jacksonville the number fell to 13 (8,5); and then this past Sunday the number again hit 13 touches (5, 8).
Harbaugh vowed after the debacle in Jacksonville that Rice would run it more but that hasn’t really happened.
Down by 12 at half to the 29th ranked offense in the league that puts up an average of 16 points a game, the Ravens ran the ball just once – ONE TIME in the second half during the 34 offensive snaps taken after intermission.
During his weekly Monday presser a chippy John Harbaugh defended the team’s decision to shut down the rushing attack.
"I don’t know how you would do it any differently," Harbaugh said. "We were in a situation where we lost two possessions. When you don’t have very many plays, it’s hard to build up your running game. And when you’re down, you’ve got to throw it to get back in the game.”
Down 12 coach to the Seahawks…THE SEAHAWKS and TAVARIS JACKSON! And you are really trying to justify 33 throws v. 1 run?
Really?
No one is buying what Harbs is selling and let’s just hope he’s more humble in front of his players.
After the game Ray Rice declined interview requests, saying he would reserve his comments until Wednesday. "I don’t want to say the wrong thing right now.”
Naturally everyone is blaming the play caller Cam Cameron. Did Cameron miss all those open receivers? Did Cameron drop all those passes? Did Cameron fumble 2 kickoff returns? Did Cameron fail to force a punt when the Ravens had the great Tavaris Jackson on the ropes facing a first and 20 from his own 10 yard line?
Rhetorical questions for sure and I’m not here to defend Cameron’s play calling or his handling of Joe Flacco. There’s plenty of blame there.
But if John Harbaugh is more involved in the offense this year as he promised during the offseason it stands to reason that if Cameron truly was directing the offense and ignoring his playmaker running back that Harbaugh at any time could step in and say, “Hey Cam, we need to get the ball in Ray’s hands.”
So if we’re to take Harbaugh at his word – that he’s more involved in the offense and that he believes the game situation necessitated the play calling that went down, then the Ravens are in trouble.
If he’s just giving lip service to the media and in turn the fans, then he’s disrespectful and is lacking in accountability.
And if he delivers this same insulting spin to his players and means it, how can he ask them to be accountable when he is not?
