How bout my Ravens

just cause Notre Dame hasnt won at Louisville in 50 years….sheesh.

ok, back to pro football, sorry.

First off the home team is generally -3 just for being the home team.  So -5 isn't that much of a stretch, especially if you watched both teams play this past weekend.

Secondly, if you have been following the Ravens since, oh, I don't know, Day 1, you'd realize that Joe Flacco is indeed special.  The Ravens have been searching for someone like him forever.  Plus the fact that he he's a rookie who played his college ball at unheralded Delaware.  With this defense his job has been to limit mistakes and make a play here and there.  And he has done just that.  Although I feel that they'll need to take the reins off him a bit more in order for them to beat Pittsburgh.

Shemp wrote:
First off the home team is generally -3 just for being the home team.  So -5 isn't that much of a stretch, especially if you watched both teams play this past weekend.

Yep - just ask Arizona…

Shemp wrote:
First off the home team is generally -3 just for being the home team.  So -5 isn't that much of a stretch, especially if you watched both teams play this past weekend.

Secondly, if you have been following the Ravens since, oh, I don't know, Day 1, you'd realize that Joe Flacco is indeed special.  The Ravens have been searching for someone like him forever.  Plus the fact that he he's a rookie who played his college ball at unheralded Delaware.  With this defense his job has been to limit mistakes and make a play here and there.  And he has done just that.  Although I feel that they'll need to take the reins off him a bit more in order for them to beat Pittsburgh.

well, i agree that his job is to not make mistakes and make a play here or there, but thats my point, is that the QB in Baltimore is as important as the QB for say, New England or Indy. 

  The whole game on Sat, the announcers were like "Flacco should be throwing the ball more, Flacco should be throwing ball more" but in reality, you dont want your rookie QB tossing the ball all over a Divisional Playoff game. 

  The key for a Ravens victory is to play just like Saturday.  Run the ball, keep it close and wait for Pittsburgh to make a mistake.  If Pittsburgh doesnt make a mistake, well, you wont beat them anyway.  I dont think Baltimore has to outplay Pittsburgh at all. An opportunistic D like Baltimore can flip a game like Keenan Thompson flips burgers.

  I would love to see Baltimore win …. guarantee there will be no homicides in the city that night.

num wrote:


  The key for a Ravens victory is to play just like Saturday.  Run the ball, keep it close and wait for Pittsburgh to make a mistake.  If Pittsburgh doesnt make a mistake, well, you wont beat them anyway. 

i pretty much agree with this, thats pretty much every steelers game though regardless of opponent

if the ravens are successful in running the ball, keeping it close and not making mistakes thats pretty much out playing the steelers, though

Too bad Kerry Collins isn't Pittsburgh's QB.  Or Chad Pennington, for that matter.

godsshoeshine wrote:
if the ravens are successful in running the ball, keeping it close and not making mistakes thats pretty much out playing the steelers, though

Yes, I agree, but some people have been heard saying that the Ravens won despite being outplayed.

generally, in sports, i feel that unless there was a really bad call, a completely boneheaded play by one player, or a lightning storm , the team who won outplayed the team who lost. 

The Titans controlled the game.  If not for the turnovers they probably would have one.  But turnovers are part of the game, soooooo…..

I think it's fair to say the Titans lost this game more than the Ravens won it.

the turnovers did not happen as fate

if you saw Algee Crumpler spun like a propeller you might have noticed that 2 Ravens were the cause

I was there…the Titans outplayed them when were moving the ball…and then, as Ray sez…you hit them hard enough times, something will happen

it was brutal…they were carting folks out when the teams weren't trying to kill each other

we should've won the last 2 (our own fault)…our best hope for Pittsburgh is them thinking they have us beat already

i thought that RB for the Titans getting hurt was what killed them.

i think i posted this sentiment earlier in this thread, but the Ravens are the challenger and the Steelers are the champ, and to beat the champ you need to beat the champ.  In other words, the Ravens need to make plays, b/c all things being equal they're not equal and the Steelers will win again (eg experienced winning qb, home field, NFL would love to see them in SB).  That may sound like the kind of thing Dan Dierdorf or Joe Theismann would say, but the point is it will be another war, and there are going to be key plays that the Ravens will have to capitalize on to win, and if they don't, they lose again.  On certain blitzes, do they get to Roethlisberger, or pressure him to make a mistake . . . or does Roethlisberger make the play?  Do those occasional painstakingly set up Flacco bombs find their way into Raven/Mason hands to set up a score?  Does McGahee break a long run in the second half after McClain wears down the D (if that's possible)?  Is Heap healthy enough to make his presence felt? 

It seems like the post Super Bowl Champion Ravens don't make the plays and have found ways to lose these games . . . whereas the Roethlisberger Steelers often win them.  The Ravens have champion character guys - Ray Lewis (the heavyweight champ), Ed Reed, Derrick Mason is on fire . . . not to mention Scott, Leonhard, Neal and others (everyone else?) . . . Flacco has shown he's tough and can make great throws (but how consistently?) . . . now its time to step up take the title . . .

that whole post sounded more like John Madden than Joe Theissman.

wait, which is worse

num wrote:
that whole post sounded more like John Madden than Joe Theissman.

you're right . . . the post was pretty madden-y . . . long-winded and obvious . . . but possibly true, or at least could seem true if you read it while drunk. 

Mobius wrote:

num wrote:
that whole post sounded more like John Madden than Joe Theissman.

you're right . . . the post was pretty madden-y . . . long-winded and obvious . . . but possibly true, or at least could seem true if you read it while drunk.   

i enjoyed it!

luckily everyone is keeping their cool about this…  ::)

Mayor's new name: Steelerstahl

PITTSBURGH – What's in a name?

If you're the mayor of Pittsburgh and your beloved Pittsburgh Steelers are playing one of their archrivals for the right to go to the Super Bowl, certainly not "Raven."

So goodbye, Luke Ravenstahl; hello, Luke Steelerstahl.

Ravenstahl – er, Steelerstahl – says he decided to remove "Raven" from his name just as he predicts the Steelers will remove the hated Baltimore Ravens from contention in Sunday's AFC Championship Game.

On Wednesday morning, the mayor began, but did not complete, an official name change petition, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

Civil court staff gave the petition a docket number but said they did not expect to file it, in part because they did not receive the required check for $108 to process the change, the newspaper reported.

Ravenstahl said he did not come up with the idea for the name change, according to the report. That honor, he said, belonged to callers to a local radio station's morning show, who "called in and thought it would be a good idea to change from Ravenstahl, given we are playing the hated Baltimore Ravens this weekend, to Steelerstahl.

"As soon as I heard it, I thought it was a great idea."

Ravenstahl will keep the name at least through Sunday.

Coincidentally, "stahl" is German for steel.

(so his name would be "Steeler steel"?  how awesomely awesome).

heh, he's 28

also a fellow w&j graduate

That was one of the hardest hitting games I've ever seen.

Sorry Raven's fans, but you have to be happy with the season you had - surely better than you expected.  Flacco will get better and those future games will be incredible to watch.

very happy about the season…had a blast

everyone's ends on a loss except super bowl winner

steelers fans as rude as ever…and, after talking to some of them, they really do assume that the rest of the world acts that way in their stadiums

of course, none of them have ever been outside of Pittsburgh, so how would they no otherwise

certainly one of the longest games ive ever watched. steelers are just the better team, at least at this point

ravens just couldnt out tough one team all year