Ravens resort to razzle-dazzle

After the Ravens lost in Seattle Sunday, their lopsided run-pass ratio became a primary talking point.

Lost in the shuffle was the fact that offensive coordinator Cam Cameron went outside his play-calling box several times during the game, with great success.

On the Ravens’ first possession, Cameron called back-to-back end-arounds. Torrey Smith picked up 16 yards on the first, and then David Reed also went for 16. The razzle-dazzle plays generated momentum and moved the ball into Seattle territory, but the drive fizzled and Billy Cundiff missed a 50-yard field goal.

Later in the first half, Cameron called a trick play that resulted in a touchdown.

With the Ravens down 10-0 and facing a second-and-goal at the Seattle one, running back Ray Rice took a handoff and headed to his left on what appeared to be an end sweep. But he slowed down, raised his left arm and tossed the ball over the defense to tight end Ed Dickson, who was wide open in the back of the end zone.

“I don’t think too many people knew I was left-handed,” Rice said Wednesday. “I would rather run it in, but to see Ed Dickson get a touchdown and be a part of it was pretty cool.”'

It was just second non-quarterback touchdown pass in Ravens history. Mark Clayton threw one to Derrick Mason in 2008.

Rice revealed that he had practiced the play during the week with a wet ball, simulating the rainy conditions that were expected in Seattle.

“I actually threw it out of bounds in practice,” Rice said. “I didn’t know if (Cameron) was still going to call it or not. It shows a little trust in there. (Ravens coach John Harbaugh) said the same thing. He said he was a little edgy. Obviously, after the touchdown, it was a great call.”

Rice bopped into his weekly interview session Wednesday wearing a baseball cap with the Baltimore Orioles’ cartoon bird logo, which is being re-introduced in 2012. Asked if he expected free tickets in return for the plug, Rice said what he really wanted was to throw out the first pitch before a game.

“I proved I can throw,” he said with a smile, eliciting a roar from reporters. “The fact that it was a pin-point throw, my quarterback rating is pretty high right now.”

Follow John Eisenberg on Twitter at @CSNEisenberg

Flacco to test new Cincinnati CBs

By John Eisenberg
Ravens Insider
CSNbaltimore.com

The numbers don’t lie in this case: Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco has had his struggles against the Cincinnati Bengals.

In four games against them over the past two seasons, he has thrown two touchdown passes and nine interceptions, and the Ravens have lost three of four.

He simply couldn’t master Cincinnati’s pass defense, which relied on a “cover-2” scheme built around cornerbacks Leon Hall and Johnathan Joseph, a pair of former first-round draft picks.

The Bengals are still playing the cover-2 this season, and they’re playing it well, ranked 10th in the league in pass defense. But they’ll feature a different pair of cornerbacks when they face the Ravens Sunday at M&T Bank Stadium.

Joseph signed with the Houston Texans before the season, earning one of the year’s biggest free-agent contracts. And Hall was put on injured reserve, ending his season, after tearing an Achilles tendon against the Pittsburgh Steelers last Sunday.

According to the depth chart on the Bengals’ website, the team’s starting corners are Kelly Jennings and Nate Clements.

Jennings, who is replacing Hall, joined the Bengals this season after spending five years in Seattle, where he was a part-time starter. He has two career interceptions.

Clements, an 11-year NFL veteran, was signed before the season to replace Joseph. He has started all season without grabbing an interception, but has 33 career picks.

Is Flacco happy to see the new faces? If so, he wasn’t letting on when he met with reporters Wednesday.

“Joseph has played well for those guys in the past, and so has Hall. We’ll see two different guys, obviously, this Sunday. But they’re a good defense and they’re going to have guys out there who are ready to play,” Flacco said. “They are going to run their scheme, and it’s going to be our job to put a little pressure on those guys out there when we have a chance and take our underneath stuff when we have a shot.”

WEDNESDAY NOTES

+ Three Ravens sat out Wednesday’s practice – Ray Lewis (foot), Anthony Allen (hamstring) and Arthur Jones (concussion). Dannell Ellerbe (hamstring) and Lee Evans (ankle) were limited participants.

+ The team made a roster move, re-signing 2009 fifth-round pick Davon Drew to the practice squad after the Indianapolis Colts claimed fullback Ryan Mahaffey off of the Ravens’ practice squad and put him on their 53-man roster. Drew is a tight end.

Follow John Eisenberg on Twitter at @CSNEisenberg

Ravens' Rice: Five carries 'isn't going to cut it'

Ravens running back Ray Rice spoke to reporters Wednesday for the first time since rushing the ball just five times in a loss to the Seattle Seahawks Sunday.

He spoke without rancor, saying he “is never going to be a guy who complains about touches.” He also agreed with Ravens coach John Harbaugh’s assessment that Rice’s light load – 13 touches in all -- was largely predicated on the fact that the Ravens were down by 15 points early in the third quarter.

“We found ourselves so deep in a situation (that) we had to climb our way out. We were looking for answers, whether it be run or pass,” said Rice, who declined postgame interview requests Sunday.

But at the same time, Rice also made it clear Wednesday that he wants the ball more – a lot more.

“Five carries isn’t going to cut it,” he said. “You look at it, I know five carries isn’t going to do us any favors.

“Anytime I feel like I get 20, 25 touches running, receiving, whatever you’re going to do, we have a great shot of winning that game.”

Five carries was Rice’s lowest single-game total since Dec. 7, 2008, when he had three against the Redskins. He was a rookie then, and not a starter.

Since he became a starter in his second season, he has produced as consistently as any back in the NFL. He ranks sixth in the league in all-purpose (combined rushing and receiving) yards this season, averaging 114.3 per game. Going back to 2009, he is third in the league in that stat, trailing only Tennessee’s Chris Johnson and Chicago’s Matt Forte.

“That’s our bell cow,” Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis said of Rice. “If that talent right there isn’t touching it 25, 30 times, then you have to question yourself, ‘What are we actually doing balance- wise?’”

It’s an on-point question considering that Rice is averaging 23 touches in the Ravens’ six wins and just 14 touches in their three defeats. With that in mind, Lewis expressed confidence that the team’s offensive braintrust -- Harbaugh, Cameron, and leaders such as Rice and quarterback Joe Flacco – would correct any shortfalls.

“I think our offensive guys will definitely do a better job of getting (Rice) the ball,” Lewis said.

That remains to be seen. Flacco doesn’t believe Rice’s light load in Seattle was problematic.

“What do you think is going to happen when there are five minutes left in the third quarter and you’re down 22-7?” Flacco said Wednesday in his weekly session with Baltimore reporters. “It happened in the Arizona Cardinals game and we won. No one said anything then.” (Fyi, Rice had 25 touches in the Arizona game.)

The controversy about Rice’s touches “doesn’t make sense,” Flacco continued. “Did you watch the game or didn’t watch the game? I understand how our running backs feel. If we were throwing it 10 times I’d be a little upset that I didn’t get to put my stamp on the game. But did you see how the game went? We weren’t perfect (on offense) but we weren’t terrible, either. We moved the ball all game. Things didn’t go our way (but) when you look at the run-pass ratio, watch the football game and you should understand why we threw the ball that many times and why we ran the ball that many times.”

Rice wasn’t complaining about what happened in Seattle, mind you. He just emphasized that he believes – from a unit meeting, apparently – that the Ravens will try harder from now on to establish the run, as Jacksonville (42 carries) and Seattle (42 carries) did against them.

Through nine games, the Ravens are ranked 22nd in the league in rushing. They’ve finished a season that low just one since 1998.

“One thing we’re going to hang our hats on going forward is establishing the running game,” Rice said. “That’s what Seattle did, what Jacksonville did. The team that wants to run the ball, no matter the situation, you’re going to do it.”

Follow John Eisenberg on Twitter at @CSNEisenberg

Harbaugh: 'We're not licking our wounds'

By John Eisenberg
Ravens Insider
CSNbaltimore.com

RAVENS PAGE | RAVENS VIDEO

A day after his team’s third road loss of 2011 to a team under .500, Ravens coach John Harbaugh didn’t care for questions about his team’s psychological state or Jekyll-and-Hyde results.

“I’m not a psychologist. What you do is you look at football. You look at what you can do better as a football team,” Harbaugh said Monday during his weekly postmortem with local reporters. “We’re moving forward. We took responsibility for the loss. We didn’t play well.

“It's not our job to lick everybody else's wounds for them. Licking wounds? No. we're not licking our wounds. We’re moving forward,” he said later.

On Sunday, the Ravens lost, 22-17, to the Seattle Seahawks, who had won just two of eight games coming in. Earlier in the season, the Ravens lost to the Jaguars (1-5 at the time) in Jacksonville and the Titans (0-1 at the time) in Tennessee.

But the Ravens, who are 6-3 overall, also have swept a pair of games from the Pittsburgh Steelers and beaten the New York Jets and Houston Texans -- all playoff contenders.

Harbaugh didn’t see any connection between the three defeats.

“I’m thinking every game stands on its own two feet, like I’ve said many times,” he said. “The comparison that people want to draw between the three games, you can draw that all you want. That’s all hypothetical, theoretical stuff. When you know football, you understand that the schemes that you see and the situations you face are different every single game.

“You play better football, you win football games like that,” he continued. “That goes to all of us. That’s what we have to do. We have to coach better, we have to play better, and we’ll win those three football games. We’ve won some other football games that people didn’t expect us to win against some good football teams. So tie the psychology on that for me.”

He would not be focusing on it, he said.

“I don’t have time to be looking at that. We’re going back to football,” he said. “We’ll study the football as a football team. We’ll have our answers in-house. We’ll have our answers that will be football-related answers and we’ll come out and we’ll play on Sunday.”

The Ravens face the Cincinnati Bengals in a crucial game Sunday at M&T Bank Stadium. The teams are tied for second in the AFC North, a half-game behind the Steelers.

As for what happened in Seattle, Harbaugh did not second-guess the play-calling of offensive coordinator Cam Cameron. The Ravens ran the ball on just 12 of their 66 offensive snaps.

“The way the game went, we had to throw it,” he said. “Based on some (defensive) fronts they were giving us early, we felt like we had to throw it … We definitely want to be able to run the ball and run it well, but the way that game went made it tough for us.”

Ravens running back Ray Rice seemingly was upset after the game about receiving a season-low five carries; he declined to speak to reporters.

Harbaugh said he wasn’t worried about Rice.

“Ray understands football. Ray knows what kinds of fronts we were getting and what the situation of the game was,” Harbaugh said. “Ray caught his passes, too, and made some plays for us that way. Ray and I talk all the time. He knows ball.”

Follow John Eisenberg on Twitter at @CSNEisenberg