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No one was trying to start an argument, Rob. Chill out, dude.
I implore you to re-read my small and basic response about Manning, because I think you are making way too big of a deal about nothing. There are tons of people on this board who constantly bring up Manning's "lame duck" arm, and yet he seems to do pretty well still, which was my point. I wasn't putting words in your mouth, you can look through this thread alone and see the implication that Manning somehow isn't as good. That wasn't necessarily in response to you, but more to the general thought of homerism. Another popular thought lately is that the DEN OL suddenly isn't any good, due to losing one player in Beadles. People forget that they played the entire year without their franchise LT Clady, so I attempted to clarify that misconception just the same as Manning being 1/2 as poor as some seem to claim. We're on a Patriots related board, so I certainly don't fault those who are fantasizing a bit. At the same time, you can't fault me for trying to keep it real either.
As far as my thoughts on the Ravens last year: I did not say that the Ravens wouldn't "miss a beat and would be a strong SB contender" at all. Talk about twisting words! As far as twisting your words now, I haven't responded to many of your posts, so I'm not sure what you are talking about. Either you are thinking of someone else, or you are generalizing a few instances here and there over the years. I am not known for "twisting words."
I said that you were making way too big of a deal about their losses on defense, and I was proven to be right. Their defense was significantly better last year--by far. I claimed that they very well could end up stronger due to their weak defense in 2012 when they won the SB. I said that they would end up right around the same record that we've known them to accomplish with a prediction of around 9-7, since that was what they won the SB with and have finished around recently. I also said many times that "if they played the season 3 times, we'd likely see 3 different division winners for the AFCN," so please...give credit where due, and let's not take this any further than you've already attempted to take it.
You were responding to my post when you were talking about homerism in thinking Manning sucks. How do you expect me to react.
Although Clady is a far superior player to Beadles, I think the loss of Beadles may be a bigger loss. They seemed to find replacements for Clady and Manning like Brady is susceptible to rushes up the middle. If they cannot adequetly replace Beadles, Manning will be in trouble but he could overcome deficiencies to poor pass protection on the outside. I think the interior line for the Broncos is a question mark right now, but I don't know if it is high on my question mark list.
As for the Ravens, I will say the following and not continue to rehash old arguments:
- Maybe I did mis-remember what you said, but I thought you clearly thought they were a contender.
- On the same note, you are misremembering what I said. I wasn't make as much of a big deal about the losses on defense as much as unimpressed with their additions. But ultimately, the Ravens' defense was middle of the pack last year like it was the year before.
- As for the Ravens' defense being much improved, you are way overstating that and arguably outright wrong. I would say they were slightly better (and only slightly) although the numbers say they were worse (I attribute that to the offense). They gave up 22.0 PPG last year and 21.5 PPG in 2012. So they actually gave up more points in 2013 than 2012, but I will account some of that to decline in offense. They gave 335.5 YPG last year and 350.9 in 2012. Opposing QB passer rating last year was 82.2 while it was 80.6 in 2012. They had 24 take aways last year and 25 in 2012. In 2013, they allowed 25 passing TDs and in 2012 they allowed 15. In 2013, they allowed 7.1 yards per passing attempt and in 2012 they allowed 7.0. I don't know how you can argue the Ravens defense was much better last year than in 2012.
- I do think people think their defense was better because they went through a stretch right before they played the Patriots where they faced a lot of mediocre to awful teams in a row where their defense looked far better than it did the rest of the year.
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