Colin Cowherd: “I wanna defend Dan Campbell. During that loss to San Francisco here’s three things that need to be said loudly... He had his team prepared. As an underdog by a touchdown they completely outplayed the Super Bowl-bound Niners and the great coaching staff there. He also – unlike where they did somewhere else – leaned into his team’s strengths. He knows what his team is – great o-line, run-game, POWER... They dominated the time of possession vs. the Niners in the first half. He also remained consistent to who he is. Authentic, real. He’s aggressive, sometimes reckless; that never changed. Beat him up for his aggressiveness and beat up for his play-calling, but let’s go back and look at those three things... Prepared- CHECK, leaned into his team’s strength – CHECK, stayed true to who he is – CHECK. Then there’s Todd Monken, the offensive coordinator for Baltimore. The Ravens were the number one rush offense in the league and Kansas City was the weakest rush defense of the four teams remaining. Gus Edwards’ first carry of the game, he gained 15 yards. He’s really good... He didn’t get another carry until the second half. That is the strangest, AKA worst gameplan I’ve ever seen in a big game. The Ravens were the number one rush team in the NFL defined by their physicality. They had 22 1st and 10’s, and they ran it on five of them. Against the worst rush defensive statistically of the remaining four teams. The last time the Ravens ran the ball on a 1st and 10 was the first play of the second half. They never did it again. Inexcusable. Inexplicable. INSANE. It makes no sense. The rest of the game they didn’t run the ball. They weren’t down 17, they weren’t down 24. The Niners were down 24-7 at home, they didn’t stop running the ball. They never panicked. It would be one thing if Baltimore ran it a lot in the first half and then panicked, but they literally prepared all week to NOT run the ball. The criticism on Dan Campbell is too harshly based just on the results. If Josh Reynolds on that fourth down catches that ball, it's not even a topic of going for it. Even if Baltimore comes back to win that game, the takeaway still would have been – ‘WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY DOING??’ If Lamar led them back It still would have been a bizarre coaching malpractice on display with 55 million people watching. We can beat up on Dan Campbell but that team was absolutely prepared, and unlike Baltimore, leaned into what they do well. What Baltimore did – COACHING MALPRACTICE.”
Watch Colin Cowherd of FS1’s The Herd explain why the 2023-2024 Baltimore Ravens should go down in infamy for putting together the ‘worst gameplan I’ve ever seen’ in their AFC Championship loss to the underdog Kansas City Chiefs, in which run-oriented Baltimore mysteriously went away from their smash mouth style of offense for an ineffective pass-happy style of play.
Check out the segment above as Colin details why he’s giving Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell a pass for the Lions gag vs. San Francisco in the NFC title game, saying Detroit went down with the ship playing as who they’ve been all year, but says the Ravens bizarrely tried a completely new strategy vs. Kansas City despite having one of the most unstoppable run-games in the league.
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