Cincy shocks Baltimore and takes sole possesion of first place in the AFC North

I went to the Ravens game yesterday; sometimes when you are at the stadium you get swept up in the atmosphere and it is tough to really analyze the game. That said, here are some thoughts on the loss to Cincy:

Derrick Mason had zero catches. It didn’t even seem like Joe looked his way. This is mind boggling. Mason has been Flacco’s favorite target for the past two seasons but for some reason was completely absent from this weeks game plan.

Willis McGahee had only one carry. What happened to the “three headed monster”? I like Ray Rice, he always seems to pick up positive yardage and is a great dump down option for Flacco, but I would have like to see Willis involved more.

What the hell has happened to the Ravens defense? We all knew the secondary was questionable (and they proved this again by giving a touchdown through the air in the final minute), but since when does this D give up 120 yards on the ground to any running back, much less Cedric Benson? I mean, come on. The Ravens D could not get off the field and they allowed the Bengals to completely dictate the tempo of the game and dominate the time of possession. I am really starting to have serious doubts about Greg Mattison’s ability to come up with an effective defensive scheme that works in the NFL. Maybe we all took Rex Ryan for granted a little bit while he was here. I sure do miss the days of pre-snap “organized chaos”. Carson Palmer had all day to sit in the pocket yesterday. The secondary is suspect, but the front seven are not doing it any favors by allowing opposing quarterbacks to take as much time as they want to find an open receiver. Final thought on the defense: Didn’t that last touchdown drive for the Bengals remind you of the drive the Ravens gave up to Tennessee last season to lose that game?

I don’t want to blame the officiating for this loss, because that would take the onus the poor performance of the players and coaching staff. However, some of the calls that were made against the Ravens D were borderline at very best. This is now two weeks in a row that the outcome of the game has been at least partially decided by the officials.

I am very concerned about the challenge of going to Minnesota next week. If Palmer and Benson were able to make the Ravens defense look that pedestrian in Baltimore, imagine what Farve and Peterson could do in Minneapolis.