With the Baltimore Ravens offense underperforming for another season, head coach Brian Billick finally gave offensive coordinator Matt Cavanaugh his walking papers yesterday.
But is the right man getting the boot out of town? Mike Lupica thinks that it's too easy to create a convenient scapegoat out of an offensive coordinator:
Do you really think that Charlie Weis would have the run of the Patriots' playbook if Bill Belichick didn't like the way he was calling plays for Tom Brady? Do you think that Ron Erhardt's vision of the Giants' offense in the old days was somehow different from Bill Parcells'?Brian Billick got his job with the Ravens, after being offensive coordinator with the Vikings, because he was supposed to be one of the best offensive minds in the whole sport. Now he tries to win without an offense in Baltimore and his offensive coordinator, Matt Cavanaugh, is about to take the fall there.
Perhaps it's time to wonder out loud who is really responsible for the success that Billick has enjoyed in Baltimore. After all, he inherited the core of the incredible defense that's kept the Ravens competitive the past few seasons. If anything, the success of the Ravens has to be attributed in large part to the presence of the man who was in Baltimore before Billick arrived, and that's Vice President and General Manager Ozzie Newsome.
To be fair to Cavanaugh, he had to labor all season with a quarterback who was essentially a rookie (Kyle Boller), a starting running back who wasn't always available (Jamal Lewis) and a leading receiver who was injured for nearly the entire season (Todd Heap).
Mix in a group of receivers who only showed intermittent ability to 1) get open and 2) catch the ball on the rare occassions that they managed to get open, and Cavanaugh's performance looks a little more understandable.
If you have to point your finger at the one reason the Ravens didn't make the playoffs, don't you have to take a hard look at their home-field loss to the Bengals back on December 5, 2004? The game where the Ravens watched a 17-point lead evaporate in a fourth quarter where the defense yielded 200 yards passing and three touchdowns to Carson Palmer?
With a convincing win on that Sunday, one that looked locked up at the start of the fourth quarter that day, we'd be delving deep into the NFL tiebreaking procedures to see whether Baltimore or Denver would get the postseason invite.
Just something to think about.
Eric,
Actually, you wouldn’t have to be delving into the tie-breaking procedures on that one. If Baltimore had won that Cincinnati game (and assuming all the rest of their games played out as they did), they would have finished 10-6, just like the Broncos and the Jets. Because of their earlier season victory over Gang Green, the Ravens would be playing this weekend and Chad, Herman and Co. would have started their off-seasons.