Glenn Younes: One Of Those Games
It's hard for me to write this because it goes against my natural instincts but the Ravens 34-14 loss in San Diego to the Chargers is just one of those things that happen in sports. It's like the Packers losing in KC, it's just part of sports… it happens. The problem is it seems to happen to Baltimore too often on the road.
Several things had to happen for the Ravens to lose and they all did Sunday night in front of the entire NFL watching nation. 1: Baltimore's #1 sack attack would go missing (check) 2: Young corners get tested and fail (check) 3: Points by Chargers to put pressure on Ravens and Flacco (check) 4: Ravens offense gets into passing mode to play catch up, which limits run game & play action (check). The Ravens are a well-balanced machine but like any machine when a part is off it throws off the rest, which is just what happened. Throw in an early Cundiff 36 yard field goal miss (a rapidly increasing and scary pattern) and a pair of late Flacco interceptions and you've got an almost no show by Baltimore.
With that said I feel like it took a perfect storm to beat the Ravens and that perfect storm won't strike often, for several reasons. Mostly because I can't imagine Suggs, Ngata, Kruger, McPhee, Cody, Redding et al playing poorly often, can't see the secondary getting burnt like that because of pressure and most teams can't score like that on Ray Lewis & Ed Reed. The Chargers just did it, I understand, but I'm chalking this one up to "one of those games". At least that's what I'm hoping it was because this team has too much at stake to play like that too often. Things got to change and I think it will, it starts with pressure from the D-line and goes from there.
34-14 San Diego is not how SNF was to finish but it did and a short week starts now… Bring on the Browns.
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