Ravens honk

Surprise of the day: Tennessee 25, Craisins 10. It's not surprising that the Tennessee, a week after going to school to study with the best, would play strong and win. What does surprise me is this: Jamal Lewis 10 carries, 9 yards. Chester Taylor 3 carries, 5 yards. Anthony Wright 25-for-40. 13 runs, 40 passes? WTF were they thinking? Was the Titan run defense was that stout?

...just listened to the first quarter. Craven offense inept. First series, three and out. Second series, Lewis fumbled the ball away on the second play. Two penalties on the third drive. Tennessee has possession more that ten minutes. Tenn. announcers swooning about Pacman Jones' debut. Albert Haynesworth doing the gimpy General act. Tenn. announcers saying Ray Lewis has lost a step but remains smart.

On offense, the Titans run screen after screen. Travis Henry running like Eddie George of six-eight years ago. Titans get a long field goal.

... now listening to the second quarter. Ravers with the ball. Haynesworth shoots right through the Ravin' OL, which the Titans are dominating, and buries Jamal Lewis. Wright completes one dink and one dunk--punt formation. Titans drive into Raven territory and turn the ball over. Wright sacked twice; Lewis gets some on a draw; punt. Next possession, Raisins stuffed, sacked, incomplete, punt.

The story of this game appears to be total domination in the first half. The three first-half sacks extinguished Baltimore completely. They got three more in the second half.

I'm downgrading the Ravens after this one. The o-line played terribly. They are old and not fully recovered from injury. Their run-blocking looked as bad as their pass-blocking, which was not even good last year. Anthony Wright looked inept, and the Titans made the Baltimore defense look average. I now grade the AFC North as Pittsburgh 5 stars, Bengals 4, Ravens 3, Browns 1.

I guess Kordell Stewart will start for Baltimore before the end of the season.

The Brownies did well today, but I didn't see much reason to lift them up. I see the Pack as a 3-star team (average), and given the circumstances, I didn't think that upset was a huge shock. The Browns go to Indy next week. I expect they'll do a little better there than San Francisco did in Philadelphia.