Week 15: In there stepped a stately Raven of the Saintly days of yore-- Nevermore!! (2 Viewers)

[St. PJ]

I don't worry about Ngata too much. I like the match-up with Nicks. I just think Nicks is more excited to show what he can do against Ngata than the other way around. And the same way many worried about the match-up between Bushrod and Jared Allen/Demarcus Ware, I think Bushrod will handle Suggs. My worry is on the other side with Goodsen coming by Stinchcomb/TE/RB.

I think Drew had this game circled. I think he will be getting the ball out very quickly, and I think the Ravens will tire with the way Sean Payton will stretch the field horizontally and vertically.

I'm not scared of the Ravens pass rush because as the game goes on, it will be less of an issue. I'm not scared of the Ravens rushing attack, because despite them wanting it to be their centerpiece, they only rank right above us, and we throw for more than they do because that's our bread and butter. They want to be a dominant run team and fail. We want to be a balanced enough team to keep the other guy guessing, and we succeed. In other words, their failure in the rushing game hurts them worse than ours.

I see the Saints forcing Flacco into mistakes, and I'm not worried about Baltimore's possession recievers. Sure, they got 3 guys who caught a lot of balls, but they don't compliment each other. They're pretty much the same reciever at different ages. The only wild card is Stallworth, but they don't play Donte too much. Their TE's could be a great duo/trio, but Pitta and Dickenson are inconsistant and haven't learned at the pace of Graham, and their lack of blocking ability pretty much cues a tendancy when they are in the game.

 

[St. PJ]

With Heap out, the Ravens two TE's (Pitta and Dickenson) are not good at run blocking. They're down right bad on the NFL level. Still have much to learn. When they are in the game, it's usually a pass, and when it IS a run, they don't do much to help.

With Zbikowski out, the Ravens are thin again at safety. I actually prefer Drew going after a Dawan Landry who he now has plenty of tape and plenty of axe to grind on.

I don't think the loss of Roby hurts this week. It's not like Roby has consistantly given us good returns this year. Not knocking him-- there's too much that goes into a successful return than just the returner, but what I'm going about the long way to say is that it won't hurt us much.

It sucks that Dave Thomas is out because he is versatile and does a great job that goes mostly unnoticed, but I've been waiting quite a while to see Shockey and Graham on the field at the same time, and now we'll see it in places other than the goalline.