I think it was Bob Feller, who said of Dwight Gooden, “I would rather have his future than my past.“
Looking at today’s pitching environment, I would much rather have the future of our own guys, then hope for a continuation of the past of the other teams’ guys.
I continue to think that pitching is going to be the least of our problems in this season.
The Bills were run-blitzing with zone coverage. You actually can't play man vs Lamar. He just takes off for 25 yards every time.
You also can't really screen with Lamar as your QB, because it doesn't work vs run-blitzes, and they never do normal blitzes like they would vs Aaron Rodgers. Lamar had a lot of success with short passes in the flat vs the Bills. He threw 14 out of 22 non-throwaway passes less than 5 air yards from scrimmage. (this was calculated by me watching, so it might not correlate with any published stats) He completed 10 of them, 1 was dropped, and 3 were off-target (1 was from a bad snap.) I think they attacked the Bills correctly up until the interception. And then on the very next play he got knocked out of the game because our OL had their worst game of the season. If Lamar stayed in the game I think the Ravens could have maybe made it interesting.
So I think that there are 2 extreme camps among sports fans regarding key talent: one side wants nothing more than to keep all homegrown talent, completely blind to their faults, and the other side wants nothing more than to blow everything up every 2 years because everyone sucks. Being honest with myself, I lean toward the first camp, and I was wrong about wanting to keep Flacco after he won us a super bowl. I'd like to think that in the future I won't hold unhealthy nostalgia for questionable players, but one can never be certain.
That said, I think that the fact that we're even debating the talent/skill level of a player that won an MVP as a 22 year old QB is insane. Straight up insane. Yet here we are. Don't take this as me believing that this debate is not without merit. It is. But Flacco had the benefit of proving that he wasn't worth the contract. It's not fair to assume that Lamar, who has been by far the superior player in the regular season, won't be worth a contract just because Flacco wasn't. And given Lamar's age even a lengthy extension isn't going to take him past 28 or 29. That's more or less the same age that Flacco was after he won the Super Bowl.
Before beating the Titans the Ravens had a horrid long streak of losses when losing after the 1st quarter. The win against the Titans improved that by 1 win and I don't think you can dismiss the prior stuff anymore than you can forget he was the MVP in 2019.
Sorry but Lamar doesn't compare to Mahomes when it comes to this category. Last year when they won the Super Bowl it seemed like the Chiefs were down nearly every game.
We did beat the Titans in the playoffs and Lamar does deserve some credit. But, He did throw the interception when the game was still undecided. Thankfully it didn't shift the momentum the way the interception against the Bills did.
Also @Tony-OH was discussing whether we preferred to be wowed during the 17 games during the season and then watching him struggle during the playoffs versus watching Joe Flacco struggle during the season and then becoming Mr Clutch in the playoffs.
So here I am going to acknowledge your valid points. But, The Bills were jailbreak blitzing on nearly every play while using their CBs one on one with any player lined up at WR and a single deep safety in the middle. The linebackers and strong safety took turns blitzing or dropping back to cover zone in the middle of the field.
This defensive approach can be done every week by every team! The reason that it isn't is it can be picked about with short passing and screens. if they did this to Rodgers or Brady they would destroy that defense.
Also there were certainly bad snaps that caused problems and are totally unacceptable. But, there were also times that Lamar also bobbled snaps at his chest. I agree with you on the failure to recognize blitzers but based on the amount of them he needed to go to the outlet . My bigger concern was holding the ball too long at times and trying to scramble away from the pressure and getting sacked for a loss as opposed to throwing the ball away.
Again, there was blame to go around on the offense. I think we can agree that Lamar really didn't play well in the playoffs.
Can you show me where this was mentioned in this thread?
Lamar threw for 2800 yards in 15 games, and most people agree he had a down year. If there's someone who can get open and hold on to the damn ball, there are easily 1100 yards available to a receiver that wants them.
Is Allen Robinson too rich for us? I'd be ok with Godwin or Golladay. I'd lean toward Godwin because he is more comfortable in the slot which plays to Jackson's strengths, and because while Golladay gets contested balls I don't like that he's mediocre at creating separation.
I was (and still am) against addressing WR in the early rounds of the draft, but I'd love a top tier WR via FA or trade. I wasn't really convinced about it until seeing the difference it made for Allen and Kyler Murray. I personally think Allen is only marginally better than he was last year, but the fact that he has Diggs to throw to now has turned him into a pro bowler.