OTL: Coach Speak Platitudes Fall Flat

Following Sunday’s last-minute loss, like many of you, I had no words. Fortunately for us, in times when words just won’t suffice, there are memes. For this particular occasion, I went back to the well for the meme source that keeps on giving: SpongeBob SquarePants.

The Ravens every time they had an opportunity to seize a win today. pic.twitter.com/Aodml1Nqrt

— KMack Sports (@KMackSports) September 25, 2023

What else is there to say, really? I watched that final kick from Section 134, rain coming down, voice completely shot, and in that moment, I was racking my brain on what I could write in this piece that could capture what a disaster that game was. Was this comeuppance for the 2021 Colts game that the Ravens had no business winning? Is this the football gods balancing the scales by having the Ravens lose a game in which they were unanimously favored, the week after winning a game when they were a unanimous underdog? Is it all just a sequence of randomness on a spinning ball of mud and water hurtling through the cosmos?

Existential crisis aside, no, none of the above were the case. What truly unraveled the Ravens on Sunday was an inability to deliver on their opportunities, and a failure to do the little things correctly.

After Zay Flowers' fair catch late in the fourth, the Ravens' win probability was 88.5%.

And when the Ravens got near midfield late in the fourth quarter? 66.8%.

And when they took over in Colts territory in OT? 73.2%.

So how the heck did they lose?https://t.co/bPyp9uyvsL

— Jonas Shaffer (@jonas_shaffer) September 25, 2023

"Unbelievable mismanagement of the clock by the Ravens"

16th year head coach

— D.Baby ⚾🏈🥍🎣 (@BMoreBirdsNest) September 24, 2023

One common mantra (sometimes so common it becomes cliché) that you’ll hear from high-level coaches is “Practice the way you play.” I can tell you from having been within earshot of coaches like Todd Monken, Joe D’Alessandris and Keith Williams during Training Camp that they hold their position groups to that standard, so I can only imagine what this coming week of practice is going to be like. If Isaiah Likely comes up with a late grab for a first down, the Ravens probably win that game. If Sam Mustipher doesn’t cough the ball up on a bad snap, the Colts don’t come away with points. If Kenyan Drake hangs onto the ball at the end of a long run, Baltimore at least comes away with three, if not seven.

But they didn’t. None of that happened, and here we are lamenting a razor-thin loss. I could list more examples, but then it would essentially be a play-by-play breakdown of the game, and this article would end up being six thousand words. It’s one ugly loss that you hope they can leave behind, but we’ve seen in the last two seasons how much one of these ugly losses can derail you. There are two major concerns that stick out to me following this loss, and they’re both eerily reminiscent of the flaws that plagued the team in recent history. The first is straightforward: this roster is the walking dead. Again.

RAVENS CURRENT INJURIES:

𝙊𝙁𝙁𝙀𝙉𝙎𝙀:
•RB JK Dobbins
•RB Justice Hill
•RB Gus Edwards
•RB Keaton Mitchell
•WR Odell Beckham Jr.
•WR Rashod Bateman
•WR Tylan Wallace
•C Tyler Linderbaum
•OG Andrew Vorhees
•LT Ronnie Stanley
•LS Nick Moore

𝘿𝙀𝙁𝙀𝙉𝙎𝙀:
•CB…

— Ravens Nation LIVE (@LIVERavenNation) September 24, 2023

We have placed WR Tylan Wallace on Injured Reserve. pic.twitter.com/1bmxos8OCh

— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) September 25, 2023

The degree of randomness involved in some of these injuries makes it hard for me to heap blame on anyone, though I know the training staff has been under the microscope for a while. The odds of this number of injuries on a single roster in Week 3 are astronomical, and it doesn’t allow any degree of consistency or cohesion when you’re constantly changing personnel.

My second concern, and this one is more open for interpretation, is the messaging.

Harbaugh: "We did a good job against the run, except for four plays." Said they allowed a few runs to bounce inside.

— Jeff Zrebiec (@jeffzrebiec) September 25, 2023

“Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?”

In another post, Jeff gave some context on this quote when talking about how chunk plays accounted for most of the yardage, leading to a lopsided number. In that vein, I’ll concede that the Ravens defense had a pretty good game in a lot of elements, and Kyle Hamilton and Roquan Smith were everywhere. There was very little room toward the interior, and they generated some good pressure. Otherwise, though, the flat was open for dump-off passes more often than not. The EDGEs produced a total of 0.5 sacks on the day, courtesy of Jadeveon Clowney. To cap that off, you’re talking about giving up over 100 yards and a receiving TD to Zack Moss, a running back that the Buffalo Bills and their anemic running back group deemed unworthy of keeping.

Yes, those chunk plays were few, but they shouldn’t have happened at all, and that’s the issue. In the clip below, Coach Harbaugh talks about continuing to “chase perfection,” which is why the message above sticks in my craw the way it does.

"It's a long season for a reason… You don't crown a champion in Week 3. It's all about where you go from here." pic.twitter.com/g3Uon6kTyx

— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) September 25, 2023

I get the politician-type face that head coaches have to show to the media, and I don’t envy the responsibility of having to answer questions under pressure after a game like that. Still, can you imagine if Bears Head Coach Matt Eberflus comes out today and says, “Well, except for the first half, we outscored the Chiefs”? Therein lies the rub about the beautiful game we love; you don’t get to pick and choose the parts you like. I don’t think it would kill anyone to see a departure from the milquetoast “Oh, we’ll learn and get better.” I truly think it would have done me some good to see the Head Coach half as angry about losing that game as I was while watching it from the stands.

Harbaugh said obviously he should have called a timeout before free kick, but he thought he and the staff communicated to everyone that the fall-catch call was off once the clock was upped to 2:03. "That's on us, 100 percent. I take full responsibility for it."

— Jeff Zrebiec (@jeffzrebiec) September 25, 2023

Harbaugh on fair catch decision: "We'll take responsibility for that. It was chaotic." Harbaugh said the determination was made in huddle to fair catch the free kick. But that was when they thought 2 minute was cleared. "We did not do the job we needed to do to communicate"

— Jeff Zrebiec (@jeffzrebiec) September 25, 2023

I don’t want to take away from accepting culpability here, but that’s the bare minimum as a coach. Failure to communicate with a player in a game-winning situation is less than the bare minimum. I don’t know if there was truly a “right” thing to say about giving a game away in such sloppy fashion, but I’m finding myself saying something I’ve said repeatedly the last couple of seasons: don’t tell me you care, show me. The players have done that publicly following the loss, and hopefully they’re ready to move forward as they stare down the barrel of a rough stretch of the schedule.

The Ravens won’t return to M&T Bank Stadium until Oct. 22.

Baltimore’s next three games are on the road:

At Cleveland
At Pittsburgh
At London (vs. Tennessee) pic.twitter.com/D9KA7cbvGX

— Jamison Hensley (@jamisonhensley) September 24, 2023

Here’s hoping the Ravens can break out whatever the secret sauce was last time they played a division opponent.