Dear Coach ****head,
The Balmer Ravens never should have fired Brian Billick.
Even if they did, Rex Ryan should have taken his place. See how much his team likes him?
You should be out selling used cars, John.
...
Had I written this letter last week, coach, it might have read something like that. But luckily I've sobered up after a full seven day binge and come out of it no worse for the wear. Aside from losing my job, gambling away my savings, alienating my family and killing a drifter in Waverly. It was a long week without football, John.
But I came to the realization that you did a hell of a job coaching this year, and your team did a hell of a job getting into and winning in the playoffs when, frankly, you didn't have a team that should have been good enough to do either of those things.
The cry of www.thebaltimorons.com (tell your friends!) all year was that this team underachieved. It went 11-5 the year before, made it to the AFC Championship Game, and anything short of the Super Bowl this season ought to be considered a failure.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the playoffs, John. Other teams were simply more talented. More disciplined. Maybe better coached for at least a portion of the season. You and your team still did basically what you did last season: You beat the teams that were quite obviously inferior, usually handily, and kept things close against the elite and against division opponents. It was usually a dropped ball here, an interception there, a fumble way out yonder or a missed kick right over there that killed your Ravens, John. One play each game, a critical error made in the waning seconds.
Not to say that other errors weren't made each game, of course. You coaches always like to say it's not one play that makes a game. But your logic is faulty.
Big-time players make big-time plays when the game is on the line. When the season is on the line. They don't falter and make the killer mistakes in the fourth quarter that so often killed Balmer this year. You needn't look further than the team that beat your Ravens to see that, John. Consider the AFC Championship Game yesterday, in which Indianapolis was down 17-6 at one point.
The NFL's best player (yeah, John. I've seen enough now. I'm going there even though I hate quarterbacks), Peyton Manning, put together touchdown drives at the end of the first half and the beginning of the second half. He put together another late-game drive that set up a field goal, which was converted by big-time kicker Matt Stover. Big-time Pro Bowl tight end Dallas Clark made huge plays down the stretch. They didn't falter. And it's because they were smarter and better prepared than anyone else on the field.
You don't have those players offensively, John. You have Ray Lewis and Ed Reed -- in that order -- on defense, but even Reed made a critical error by poorly protecting the ball when he picked Manning in the divisional round. But take the full body of work, and give a hustling wide receiver credit for chasing down Reed and making a momentum-saving play.
But you don't have those guys on offense. Ray Rice is your finest offensive player and a guy who defenses could fear for a long time, but he fumbles at inopportune times, as he did in the divisional round. Joe Flacco is a second year quarterback who, frankly, doesn't have any down the field passing options, doesn't yet read a blitz any better than I do, and didn't have mobility at the end of the season to elude players when he didn't recognize the rush scheme. Derrick Mason is a very good possession receiver and Todd Heap is a matchup nightmare in many situations, but none of these guys are making the field of play any larger. You can only gain yards with dump-offs and out-routes for so long.
After two years, it looks like those days are finally over, as the passing game's terrible performance over the season's final four games demonstrated. Flacco and Rice are probably too young and too poorly complemented by offensive skills players to be the big-time, late-game players that you eventually need them to be, John, and that's neither your fault nor theirs. I take the opposite approach.
I applaud you, Flacco and Rice for making such progress in your sophomore seasons. I applaud you for making the playoffs for the second year in a row and beating the team of the decade on their home field in the first round. Quite simply, Joe Cool isn't quite good enough yet, he can't throw late game interceptions like he did against the Colts (twice) and the Packers. Ray Rice isn't quite good enough yet, he can't fumble late in games after giving us hope with a huge run.
John, you're not quite good enough yet, either. You can't use two timeouts on one play. You can't let your offensive coordinator out-think himself, Cam Cameron's greatest weakness.
You can't toss away one of the top kickers in NFL history, automatic points, before knowing -- knowing -- that you have a comparable replacement.
So I'm not upset about the loss, John. I guess I never really was. I'm proud because it honestly feels like you're building something. It feels like you have a direction and a vision, one that can be fulfilled by finding a stable of reliable if unspectacular receivers -- you don't need a big name, John, just reliability! -- and a guy who can kick the ball through the uprights with great accuracy not just in a 17-0 game, but down three in the waning seconds.
Yeah, John, it seems that you're building something. And you're not that far away.
Your goal now is to achieve that vision, or close to it, before Ray Lewis and Ed Reed untie their cleats for the final time. Doing it with those two will be a hell of a lot easier than without.
Your pal,
ap
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