I waited a few days to write this column, following what was for all Ravens fans one of the bitterest losses ever suffered by a Baltimore sport team. It helped that I had to leave for Atlanta on business early Monday morning, sparing me what I was told later was several days of excruciating Baltimore radio sports talk. It’s all a matter of perspective; my colleagues in the Southland, Falcons fans all, said to me “Your team went to the Conference Championship game and you’re complaining?”
Well, let me get my licks in here and be done with it. I don’t want to disparage what was a great, great year. It was exciting, we won every game that we played at home, we had a 1st round bye, we beat 7 teams that made the playoffs. But….
Coulda, shoulda, woulda!
A good friend of mine, a former Ravens PSL owner who now lives in Indiana, wrote me earlier this week to offer his condolences and he paraphrased the former Kentucky and Maryland coach Jerry Claiborne, saying ”It don’t do any good to play the if’n game.”
That’s excellent advice for all of us.
I’ll take it when the hurting stops.
Let me get this out of my system: I can’t hang Billy Cundiff in effigy. I can’t put Lee Evans on the shot list for the waiver wire. If I were to hold anyone or any unit to blame, it would be the Ravens, collectively as a team, for incurring all four of their losses against teams with losing records. The 12-7 loss on National TV to a horrid Jacksonville team is particularly galling. That’s what should stick in our collective craws. Why? A win in any of those games would have assured the Ravens of home field advantage throughout the playoffs and hosting the AFC Championship game at the Purple Vault.
Is there any doubt the Ravens would have been victorious over the Patriots if the game was played at The Bank?
In addition to dealing with a bitter loss, Ravens fans will now watch the team go through one of the most volatile off seasons since the salary cap purge following the 2001 season. Our defensive coordinator, Chuck Pagano has left for Indianapolis. Ed Reed and Matt Birk are on the cusp of retirement. A bunch of unrestricted free agents (UFAs) and restricted free agents (RFAs) will be on the market, including starters Jarret Johnson, Jameel McClain, Ben Grubbs, Lardarius Webb, and Ray Rice, as well as a host of special teamers led by Tom Zbikowski and Haruki Nakamura.
To be honest, all this was coming no matter how the season ended, but somehow it would have been more palatable if I was writing about it on February 6 instead of today.
To make matters worse, now that the Ravens have lost the one coordinator worth keeping, we learned on Friday that they’re keeping the one coordinator who should be walking the plank. Cam Cameron will be back. Terrific! The news just ruined my weekend. Mr. Unimaginative Offense will return for 2012 and maybe longer, depending on how his new contract is structured. I’ve heard and read all the reasons for keeping him, but my reasons for dumping him are forthwith: Jacksonville, 7 points; Tennessee 13 points, Seattle 17 points, San Diego, 14 points. Uninspired play falling. Vanilla, easy-to-defense pass routes. Predictable series. And that’s the losses! I won’t mention the times the offense stank when we won the game!
John Harbaugh said it was a “no brainer” to bring Cameron back. Really? Maybe it was a slam dunk to promote Dean Pees to replace Pagano, but he gave no thought to replacing Cameron? Why? Because he didn’t want to replace both coordinators? Because he likes the job Cameron has done? Because Norv Turner was not available? Because he couldn’t find anybody better?
Maybe so. I wonder how much of a no brainer it will be when the offense underperforms again in 2012. Somebody else’s brains might be on the chopping block by then and it won’t only be the offensive coordinator.
Would it be too much to ask for a quarterbacks coach next year?
Enough already. On to 2012.
But from a fan’s perspective, all that is a discussion for another day and another column.
