Coaching and coordinating, good and bad

First, hats off to Lebeau. He had his D firing on all cylinders, and the team that put up 55 last week was almost shut out by the D. Great plan, great execution. Flacco looked confused all night.

As for the offense, I liked the approach at the start of the game. An opponent with a banged up secondary, especially corners, and you use your backup QB with the cannon arm. Makes sense. But, unfortunately, your QB is either rusty, hurt, or just plain off, and can't get into a rhythm. I liked the rolling pocket to give Lefty time, but he just wasn't very good last night, I think because he was hurt.

Then the second half is where I think the coaching fell apart. Yank Lefty because he was hurt? Maybe, but you wouldn't do that to Ben, even if he was underperforming. So you go to the running game, which was firing with Dwyer. But you keep going back to Mendy, who was unimpressive. Dwyer kept taking himself out of the game for some reason. Was he hurt? Then the stupid time outs being wasted. In a Ravens game? That is inexcusable. And where was Heath all night? Was he blocking to protect Lefty? He is your go to guy, and should have torn the Ravens up.

I think one issue was that the style Haley had put in place all year, which was working, he thought he couldn't do with Lefty, and the change so disrupted the flow of the rest of the team that everything was out of sync. It might have worked with a healthy or accurate Lefty, but it failed.

Disappointing.

I am never sure who is responsible for stuff as far as coaching goes. Sure, Tomlin is the head coach and the buck stops with him, but I often wonder about the true inner workings. How much do the coordinators do, in practice and during games, and what does Tomlin do? Love to be a fly on the wall some week.

 

defense A+ everbody else as far coordinators and coach t D-

 

Yeah, I think there is a lot of blame to go around. I think DL had a great game plan. Our ST's coach is not any better and may be worse than the guy Tomlin fired in August. Why we went away from the running game with Dwyer is beyond me. And, just like you said, where the hell was Miller??

 

I never supported leaving an injured QB in when it was Ben either, but I figured he had more pull since BA pretty much let him do whatever he wanted. I thought for sure they'd pull Leftwich after he was hurt.

In the end, I have to believe the head coach is ultimately responsible, and it's one of the reasons I'm so dissatisfied with Tomlin in general the last year or two. The BA firing was a perfect example where the Rooneys had to step in because Tomlin basically didn't address a glaring issue. If Tomlin won't make these decisions, then to me, he isn't doing his job.