Thibous-Creative Commons
Upon looking at the Baltimore Ravens v. Washington Redskins game I thought I would concentrate on one player who stood out in the passing game. However this same player failed to do his job in the run-game. Everything in a game starts up front in on the ground and if you don’t have an effective running game due to a certain FB who doesn’t know how to block properly, there may need to be a position change. We came out of this game knowing exactly what we already knew about the FB situation. Kyle Juszczyk has nice hands but should not be labeled a Fullback.
I’ll start off with the good news. The Harvard TE has great hands, as he caught five passes for 53-yards against the Redskins Saturday. It appeared Joe Flacco and even Tyrod Taylor had developed a trust in his route running underneath. He currently leads all Ravens this preseason in receptions with 10 and is only second to Steve Smith in yards with 90. He will continue to grow throughout the season as a receiver and can help this team tremendously in the passing game on play-action passes. Now that I have given him his pat on the back, for his efforts in the receiving game lets get to calling the baby ugly.
Juszczyk is just not a Fullback. Vonta Leach was called back last offseason because of this fact. It did not help the Ravens due to Juan Castillo’s abysmal zone-blocking scheme. Even in the new scheme, Kyle is not great at making holes for his Running Backs. One example is Juszczyk’s missed block on the weak side in the first quarter of the game Saturday. This is the main reason Bernard Pierce is going through concussion protocol right now. Brandon Meriwether was already on a mission to wreck all of Baltimore with his vicious hits, which landed him a two game suspension; however, this hit could have been prevented had Juszczyk done his job.
I know the Ravens have probably given him an earful and are working hard in practice to see such errors eliminated from the game, but when do they waive the white flag on this experiment? Maybe they should look at bringing in a real bruiser and label the Harvard grad exactly what he is, an H-Back.
Jermaine Lockett is the CEO and a Writer for Couch Rider Report. Follow us on twitter and like us on Facebook.