I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.~Jay Gould

ravens is fleetwood mac

by: hhex65

Wed Jan 18, 2012 at 22:20:42 PM MST

The Ravens have been built as a defensive team from day one. First season, 1996, Ray Lewis is drafted and plays. By 2000 they'd won a Super Bowl at the end of a year in which they had a streak of five games where they didn't score a touchdown. They went 2-3 in that span. Defense. The quarterback job that season eventually fell to Trent Dilfer who managed the offense the rest of the way to a championship. The Ravens are a lot like Fleetwood Mac. The defense runs the show, the defense are the Bass and Drums (the McVie and Fleetwood) of the organization. Trent Dilfer was the Peter Green of the Ravens, the frontman template for their future history.

After Peter Green left The Mac had a series of people up front singing and playing including Danny Kirwan, Christine McVie, Bob Welch, Bob Weston, Dave Walker, Bobby Hunt & Doug Graves until they finally hooked up with Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks in 1975. Then they had huge success culminating in the 1976 multi-platinum LP "Rumours."

After Dilfer the Ravens were QB'd by Kyle Boller, Troy Smith, Steve McNair, Anthony Wright, Jeff Blake, Chris Redman and Elvis Grbac with varying results. Then finally in 2008 the estimable Joe Flacco took over. In his rookie year he took the Ravens to the AFC championship. They've made the playoffs ever since. Now they again have a chance to go to the Super Bowl, the NFL equivalent of recording "Rumours." But will the Bass and Drums of the Ravens cede some power to the offensive side? Will they let creativity flow so a "Rumours" can happen?-- or will they kneecap Joe Flacco and remake "Penguin" once again? Let's see:

"They had a lot of guys in the box on him," Ed Reed (the all-pro free safety for the Ravens) said. "I think a couple of times he needed to get rid of the ball. It just didn't look like he had a hold on the offense."

Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco on Wednesday responded to teammate Ed Reed's comments that he was "rattled" in last Sunday's playoff game by saying "it's not that big of a deal."

McVie would never have undermined Stevie Nicks publicly like that. He wanted the whole team to win.

hhex65 :: ravens is fleetwood mac