What is your key to game Saturday against Denver?

[AntiMoon]

I've said it for years: when you're the lesser team and you lose the turnover battle not only will you lose you'll get blown out(see week 15). Win the turnover battle and you have a chance.

[NCBirdfan]

Indeed, I always laugh when I hear announcers say that one team will have to "outscore" the other. I know what they mean ("outscore"=score a lot of points), still sounds silly & obvious.

I know it came from OJ Simpson, who later became a public villain. But this was one of the funniest jabs at Howard Cosell (with whom I had the pleasure to meet and talk to a few years before his death) during a Monday Night Football game that have ever heard.

From a Sports Illustrated article:

Unlike Earl Weaver, who served as Cosell's yes-man on the World Series, O.J. also merits a star for not being afraid to get it on with Cosell. Late in the second quarter of that New York-Buffalo game, with the Jets ahead 7-0, Cosell allowed that "if the Bills can get anything going, they'll be right back in this thing!" To which O.J. teasingly responded, "Howard, you've proved once again you've got a tremendous grasp of the obvious—to use one of your lines."

[Ravens2006]

NFL Playbook did a nice piece tonight looking at the Ravens O-line play in that first game against the Broncos. You could see Oher, Osemele, and Reid getting beaten like drums repeatedly. The one play where Osemele lets Miller beat him (as if standing still) on an inside move is absolutely embarrassing. He didn't even do anything fancy, just a head fake outside and a sprint inside. Osemele barely moves. Miller was in Joe's face in about a second, he barely had time to get the throw off (on something that was virtually a quick slant). Reid was getting pushed back routinely. It was really, really bad.

I don't think McKinney is some magic bullet at the position, but you have to hope the alignment now gives them a LITTLE better protection overall. I said it after watching the first match-up on Game Rewind, but the O-line's performance in that game was maybe the worst I can ever remember. Joe's TERRIBLE throw / decision at the end of the half was the last straw, a bad play at the worst possible time that swung the game 14 points. But the line HAS to do better tomorrow. At the very least, the alignment is quite different, so we will see...