through 45 minutes of football.
Seattle has a nice home-field advantage but the special teams led a breakdown in all three phases of the game yesterday. Reed’s fumbles and gaffes were obvious. Flacco and the offense couldn’t get a first down to continue drives to put kicker Billy Cundiff in better position to hit 50-plus-yard field goals. And the defense couldn’t get off the field at the end when it mattered the most against the likes of Tarvaris Jackson.
What’s so special about the Ravens’ special teams?
I’m sure Brendon Ayanbadejo will discuss this tonight at High Topps with Glenn Clark and Luke Jones but missed field goals, fumbled kickoffs and a revolving door of returners and leaky coverage will always draw the ire of Harbaugh, who despite his angst will always be known as a special teams coach because he never ran an offense or defense at this level.
This is an area of the game where the Ravens should excel and they’re simply not.
Had Cundiff hit two very difficult field goals yesterday the Ravens would’ve won 23-22 even with all of the many, obvious gaffes and blunders and we’d be talking about a 7-2 football team and sole possession of the No. 1 seed in the AFC right now.
I remember when the Ravens were the “King of the Road”
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What I’ve seen in Tennessee, Jacksonville and now Seattle has me wondering what a traveling Ravens team would look like in January. I know they’ve won playoff road games in Miami, Tennessee, New England and Kansas City – they’ve also lost in Pittsburgh twice and Indy once — over the past three years under Harbaugh but I can’t fathom that this particular team is built to win three in a row this year as they’re constructed now with friction, aging and a running game that’s virtually non-existent as we approach Thanksgiving.
Is Ray Lewis “losing a step”?
He sure looked rough at different points late in the game yesterday after playing brilliantly many times earlier in the season. No. 52 is now 36 years old. The grind of 16 games is long and he’ll be the first one to tell you that.
But when the Ravens are getting shoved backwards with the game on the line in a pin-drop silent stadium against an otherwise pedantic offense and an ordinary running back, I’m always concerned.
You can voice and write your concerns below.
It’s going to be an antsy week in Baltimore. Three bad road losses against awful NFL teams will do that to the fan base and the team inside The Bellagio in Owings Mills.
