To continue my traditional footblogging, albeit a little late this week: my comments on the Raven’s KC game and the upcoming game against the Chargers.
The KC game was an absolute blowout. KC scored 14 points on a blocked kick and a 70 yard INT run back, take those out, it’s 38 – 10, and could have been worse.
How can I say that? Because I think the Ravens were treating it like another preseason game with the offense, testing out the passing game a bit more. Flacco was great in the first half, a little off in the second, but there’s no worries. The running game is solid, I think they were still trying to work out some passing kinks.
The defense looked solid, although didn’t get much airtime due to the lopsided (almost 2:1) time of possession.
One thing I noticed is how wrong some people who get paid to talk about sports can be. Witness Pete Prisco at CBS, who says the Ravens D gave up too many yards and points.
Joe Flacco had a huge game with 307 yards and three touchdown passes. This is his team now. They’re not a running team anymore. The defense gave up a lot of yards and too many points for a Ravens defense, especially to a backup quarterback.
KC had a total of 188 yards. 29 total rushing yards. Larry Johnson had 20 yards on 11 carries. 2-10 on third downs. The Ravens average yards against per game in 2008 (when they were ranked 2nd in the NFL) was 261. I don’t see how giving up 188 yards is ‘a lot’. And I know 10 points isn’t ‘too many’. But somehow he gets paid for his opinion, and I just blog and have 6 people read it.
Whatever.
Anyway, looking forward to this week, at the Chargers. I predicted this would be a loss for the Ravens, but now I’m not so sure. The Chargers got pretty banged up against the Raiders. LT might not play. I think if the Ravens are their usual physical selves and can overcome the SoCal heat and travel, they might pull this one out. It won’t be a 38-10 blowout, though, they need to stick to the running attack and play outstanding defense, and come out with a 17-14 something like that.
2-0 would be a great start!
Windy Recycling Day 