Cabache's Corner

I have been fortunate as a Ravens fan. In that within a year of me choosing the Ravens they won the Super Bowl. It may have been in the early days of my fandom, and I didn’t know a lot about the sport that I do now, nevertheless, I got to witness my team win a Super Bowl. Something that only four other fan bases have experienced since the Ravens won in February 2013. However, having made the playoffs in the four years before I was a fan and the year I became a fan, the Ravens have gone on to make the playoffs just once since winning the Super Bowl. Two 8-8 finishes, a 5-11 finish, and a 9-7 finish last year has left most Ravens fans feeling pretty down. This isn’t the level of success we’re used to. After all, since their inaugural season in 1996, the Ravens have played in and won two Super Bowls, they have two first ballot Hall of Famers, with a third on the way, they have made the playoffs 10 times and they have an all-time win percentage of .539. That’s pretty good. H...

Nike are celebrating the 30 th anniversary of their famous “Just do it” campaign with a new message and it isn’t very subtle. On Monday 3 rd September Nike dropped an image and two sentences that sent a very powerful message to announce their 30 th anniversary campaign. A black and white photo of former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick with nine words plainly typed across it: “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.” Within minutes of being posted it had undoubtedly earned immense numbers of interactions, and can we really be surprised? Such a high profile company, the sole official uniform provider for the NFL no less, had just blatantly endorsed a man who had been kept out of the NFL, disgraced by the President of the United States and targeted with hate by millions of people in America, and even some around the world. In fact, Nike hadn’t just endorsed him, they had made him the face of their newest and celebratory “Just do it” cam...

As is customary in the lead-up to new college football seasons, players are studied in immense depth in preparation for their evaluation for the NFL Draft. This is particularly true for players that had breakout seasons the year prior. Will they fall back down to earth? Can their success continue? Could they possibly improve? These are all questions that need answering for fans across the nation. One of the targets of a lot of hype stemming from last season is Boston College true sophomore running back AJ Dillon. Since Steve Addazio took over at the Heights, the Eagles’ offense has been based heavily on a power-run scheme. In his first year it worked beautifully. Andre Williams, a senior, took over the team and ran for a whopping 2177 yards and 18 touchdowns – he had just 1562 yards and ten touchdowns in the previous three years combined. He finished the year with the fifth most rushing yards in a single season in NCAA history, he won the Walter Camp award and was a final...

Jon Gruden has started his second tenure with the Oakland Raiders by trading away his team’s best player. Khalil Mack is now a Chicago Bear. It’s no secret that Gruden wanted to have a big role in choosing his roster. Though personnel decisions are supposedly “a team effort” between Gruden and GM Reggie McKenzie, Mack’s trade suggests Gruden has a lot of pull, Mike Freeman’s and Scott Blair's respective tweets certainly seem to confirm as much.  From one team executive who spoke to Raiders about Mack, speaking of Reggie McKenzie: “It was crystal clear to me that Reggie didn’t want to trade Mack.” — mike freeman (@mikefreemanNFL) September 1, 2018 McKenzie said Mack trade "will sting" in the locker room..."They're going to miss Khalil. I'm going to miss Khalil. Let's make that point known now." — Scott Bair (@BairNBCS) September 2, 2018 So what does this move tell us? Gruden has a plan  What is that plan? Well, it has something to d...

The NFL’s preseason is over. The 2018 regular season starts in six days on Thursday night, with the Philadelphia Eagles hosting the Atlanta Falcons. Before that, though, every team has to go through the arduous task of trimming their rosters’ of 80+ down to 53 players. Over next two days, 1,184 NFL players will be fired from their jobs. Some will return to practice squads, but many will have no choice but to move on. There is no busier transactional time in the NFL than this weekend. For many it is a brutal weekend they won’t forget. — Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) August 31, 2018 The Baltimore Ravens are about to embark on a crucial season. After failing to reach the playoffs in each of the last three years, the pressure is on the staff and many players to get back this year. To do this the Ravens have to pick the right 53 to kick the season off hot. With many new faces and a hell of a lot of depth after a 5-0 preseason, the competition for roster spots has been fier...

The Philadelphia Eagles are World Champions. That is a sentence that has never before been typed in the Super Bowl era. The night of February 4 proved to be the third time lucky for the Eagles, as they knocked off the dynasty that has ruled over the NFL for 16 years: the New England Patriots. It was a glorious display of football. Enjoying the game as a neutral was a blessing as it lived up to all of the hype of the Super Bowl. Even considering recency bias, this game has to make an immediate claim to be one of the top ten or better Super Bowls. Dare I say it was better than the Patriots’ victory last year? The Eagles ultimately prevailed, 41-33, thanks to one of the only big defensive plays of the game. Brandon Graham and Chris Long pressured Brady, enough to allow Graham to get the first sack and the first Patriots’ turnover of the day. The Eagles took over with just over two minutes left and hit a field goal with just one minute and five seconds remaining. The Patriots, ...