The Maryland Sports Blog

By now we all know that now former Baltimore Ravens great Ed Reed has signed with the Houston Texans.  The Ravens released this press release talking about Ed Reed and his impact in Baltimore.  Enjoy

Ravens General Manager & Executive Vice President Ozzie Newsome:

“Our hope is that the Hall of Fame players we drafted could play their entire careers with us, but we understand why Ed is moving on to the Texans.

 

“He’s not the first Hall of Famer to move to another team. Tony Gonzalez is playing with the Falcons. Joe Montana played with the Chiefs. Shannon Sharpe and Rod Woodson played for the Ravens.

 

“How fortunate we were to have Ed with us for 11 seasons. He is one of the Ravens’ and NFL’s all-time greats. Words cannot measure what he did for us, including helping us win a second Super Bowl. We thank him for all he did for Baltimore. Ed will always be a part of the Ravens family.”

 

 

Ravens Head Coach John Harbaugh:

“Ed has had a major impact on our organization and our community. He is a great player and a great friend. We will always be thankful for what we accomplished together.”

The Baltimore Ravens have lost one of their longest tenured Ravens in Ed Reed as news just broke that he is joining the Houston Texans. Details have not yet been announced about the deal but here is a tweet from Jeff Zrebeic about the it.

Ed Reed is done as a Raven. @jasonlacanfora reports that Reed is signing a deal with Houston.

— Jeff Zrebiec (@jeffzrebiecsun) March 20, 2013

This is a stinger for Ravens fans as Reed is a sure fire Hall of Famer and has spent his entire career with the Ravens.  I was expecting this to happen, the Ravens could not or would not match the Texans offer.

At this stage, Reed is not at his best.  He misses a lot of tackles and is slow to get up a lot.

Last week was a busy week for the Baltimore Ravens and myself, so I was unable to get to the report cards.  With a week away from report cards lets get right back into them.

Quarterback: Joe Flacco’s final numbers were terrible, his final quarterback rating was 45.4. His poor performance was not all his fault, on both of his interceptions the ball was tipped. Flacco was sacked four times and rarely had time to go through his reads. On plays Flacco did have time he was not on the same page as his receivers. Grade D

Running back: The Ravens were down just about the entire game and had a lot of three and outs. Ray Rice did not get to see the ball much, he had nine carries for 42 yards. Rice was not a factor in the passing game. Grace C

Receivers: The receivers had trouble getting open and all struggle to make big gains. The average pass only went seven yards, that is not good. The Houston Texans defenders were getting away with holding most of the game and had a lot of contact. Tandon Doss had his first career touchdown, which was one of the few bright spots of the game. Grade D

Offensive line: The offensive line was terrible. Four sacks of Flacco including a safety that is not good. On the safety Flacco had no time to even defend himself. They allowed constant pressure and did not open up big holes in the running game. This unit has to improve. Grade F

Skip Bayless hates the Baltimore Ravens and Terrell Suggs does not like that.  Watch this!!

Update: Skip Bayless has been talking smack about the Ravens all week. So, I am challenging all Ravens fans to Unfollow Skip Bayless if you follow him on twitter. If you do, tell me about it and you will have a chance to win a bumper sticker. The original rules still apply, share this to help spread the word around. Please help support Maryland Sports Blog by clicking an ad, until we get an advertisement deal it is our only revenue. The cost of keeping a website has increased by 7% so any help it much appreciated. Many of our fans know that just about 100% of the revenue that we generate goes right back to the fans, writers and website. Thanks again and GO RAVENS!!!!

For full contest rules and a picture of the bumper sticker go here.

Quarterback- Do not let the completion percentage lie to you, Joe Flacco was on target most of the game. Several good throws were dropped or were slightly off. Flacco did not turn the ball over and did not have much time to make plays. Overall, I thought he had an effective game. He finished the game with a 97.1 quarterback rating. Grade B

Running back- The running game never got going. Ray Rice’s longest run was nine yards and Ricky Williams’ longest run was five yards. The Texans made a clear effort to stop the run and they did. Rice finished the game averaging 2.9 yards on the ground. Grade C

Receivers- Too many drops for a post season game. Anquan Boldin had the best game of the group with four receptions for 73 yards and a touchdown. Lee Evans and Kris Wilson also contributed in big ways. Ed Dickson has great hands but needs to be more consistent on the easy catches. The officials let the Texans get away with a lot of contact, missing some pass interference calls. Grade C

Offensive line- Lets be honest, they got manhandled. Even Pro Bowl guard Marshal Yanda got beat. They allowed five sacks and six quarterback hits.  Some of the sacks were from good coverage but most of them were from bad blocking. Grade D

Defensive line- They had trouble containing Texans running back Arian Foster, who ran for 132 yards. They also had problems pressuring T.J. Yates, who only got sacked twice. Grade C

Linebackers- Ray Lewis had a good game leading the Ravens in tackles. Terrell Suggs also had six tackles. Grade B

Secondary- This unit won the game for the Ravens. Lardarius Webb had two interceptions and four tackles. Ed Reed had the interception that pretty much ended the game for the Texans, and had six tackles. Cary Williams was the player that made the hit on Jacoby Jones that forced him to muff the punt, and Jimmy Smith was the player that recovered the football. Bernard Pollard also had a some solid tackles. Everyone contributed for this unit. Grade A++

Special Teams- Billy Cundiff was on target making two 40-plus yard field goals. Sam Koch made some monster punts averaging 49.3 yards per punt. The kick coverage unit could still use work but the two specialists were great. Grade A

Coaching Staff- The Ravens again saw an early lead nearly fade away. The team needs to find a way to play hard all four quarters if they want to beat the New England Patriots. There were some very questionable play calls once again by Cam Cameron in short yardage situations. Grade B