Posted by Vic king on 10/24/2009, 5:52 pm
karl paymeh didn't play great, but he wasn't that bad either. I counted 2 poor attempts at tackling, and a slew of others with perfect form. His missed tackles came later in the game, with little to no knee bend. he looked stiff. in other words, I think karl was gassed. he's certainly not used to that many reps. This week, if pressed into play, I think he will be more ready.
On his coverage. I counted 4 passes completed to his side. the 1st one, derrick mason blatently pushed off. It was the play that dierdorf gushed over Flacco's ability to drop the pass into a tight spot. I rewound the play 3 or 4 times and it is clear as the ball approaches, mason shoves karl to gain speration. On the deep ball for the td. Paymah actually had very good coverage, just poor technique. He needed to get turned around and swat the ball out. In the same situation down the road, i thnk karl would play it more aggresively.
On ray Rices 1st td, OMG!!HOLDING!!! derick mason had both hands on Cedric griffins arm, tugging him back, which did infact create the hole that Rice used to run for the 6. Trailing the play after mason let go, griffin is waving in the air for a flag. None is called. On the other ray rice td run, EJ meets him in the hole. Ej dives into rice and rice stiffarms ej into the face mask, just about ripping ejs helmet off. rarely is offense called for a face mask in these situations, but it could have easily been called. Johnson comes in a second later and totally whiffs on his tackle attempt. Infact, johnson whiffed on a number of tackles. he seems tentative and perhaps scared he's gonna get hurt. Not That I blame him. These guys hit hard. but if thats the case tyrell. retire now. give sanford, frampton or abdullah a chance at the starting spot.
Cedric griffen had good coverage most of the day, flacco was just tossing the ball perfectly. There was however one play where griffen got beat deep. badly it appeared. mason is open deep, and flacco misses the reciever, overthrowing by about 6 inches. upon closer review, it wasn't griffens man! it was tyrell Johnsons man to cover, and per usual, johnson is late getting over.
Todd heap was held to 2 receptions, however both were huge! the 1st came early in the game and lead to the ravens 1st points. it was a 3rd and long and flacco flushed from the pocket finds heap for almost a 30 yd gain. A 5 yd pass and 20+run. the safety was so far out of position it isn't even worth discussing. bad bad play! But that's what happens when plays break down and sandlot rules take over. That's nearly impossible to scheme against.
the second heap catch was on the goal line. greenway failed to get a deep enough drop in coverage, and the safety was late getting over. boom 6 easy points on a 20 yd pass.
what doesn;t show up in the stats, were the numerous downs the vikings had good to great coverage with winfield out of the game. Most of what the ravens did to almsot win the game was a ton of YAC. deep into the 3rd qtr, the ravens were avging 1.1 yds per carry. and only 3 of 10 on 1t downs. If you had told me that would be the stat line with 20 minutes left in the ball game, and the BF would have 3td passes and AD 140 yds rushing, I would tell you BLOWOUT was the outcome. Even moreso when you take into account the unreal pressure the vikes were putting on flacco. the vikings knocked the ball out of flaccos hand on 3 seperate occasions. On this day, the ball bounce favored Joe. A game of inches indeed!
More than anything, what I came away with after rewatching the game, is the vikings got overconfident in the 4th qtr up by 17 and 10 minutes left. Beveldress got predictable, and after a few 3 and outs, flacco and rice played outstanding...and derrick mason used his savvy vet knowledge to cheat them into the endzone.
A near mirror image is what we play sunday. Ben is similar to flacco. he will stand in and deliver. Hines ward is every bit as savy as derrick mason, and will use every trick he knows to help his team score. but the steelers do not posses a rb like Rice. I came away even more impressed with ray Rice than I was before the rewatch. Rewatching the same play 3 or 4 times, and seeing how great his balance and vision are? wow! I'd take ray rice on my team anyday!
The viking players need to learn to GO TO THE GROUND in obvious holding situations. fall to the ground when the reciever pushes off! Draw the flag!
But more importantly! play all 4 flippen qtrs!
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