Rob Long: How Can This Go On?
The Baltimore Ravens have one of the best offensive weapons in the National Football League, yet they lose a game by five points in which that weapon only touched the ball 14 times. Oh, he did throw a touchdown pass. The only problem with that is he's a running back.
Ray Rice had five carries. Yes, five carries for a Pro-Bowl running back. If the Ravens were to beat the Minnesota Vikings 22-17 while Adrian Peterson had five carries, you'd laugh at Vikings' offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave and rightfully so.
While Cam Cameron keeps getting the blame, he has a boss and that is the guy I'm holding responsible. John Harbaugh is watching this mess but what is he doing about it? At some point you'd think the Head Coach would question the fact that his best offensive player went seven consecutive plays between the first and second quarters and then nine straight plays again later in the second quarter without touching the football. How is that acceptable? It's almost as if they're trying to make Rice irrelevant. I'm not sure why you would do such a thing, but it's almost looking that way.
Chris Johnson has had a horrible season. In fact, he's averaged fewer than three yards per carry in five out of his nine games played this year but he hasn't had fewer than 10 carries since the first game of the season (9). The Tennessee Titans gave him 22 carries in a game against the Ravens where he averaged only 2.2 yards per carry. The Titans won that game. You have to feed the monster and Rice is this offense's monster.
How can this go on? Who's in charge? Is anyone going to address this so that it won't happen a third time?
Rob Long
