nj_ravens

  2 hours ago, nj_ravens said:

  2 hours ago, steelcityraven said:

  2 hours ago, nj_ravens said:

  3 hours ago, steelcityraven said:

  4 hours ago, bioLarzen said:

It was, indeed, painful to see how often Flacco threw to targets yards short of the yellow line on third downs. TRhis, and his apparent utter reluctance to speed up things in the 2-minute drill periods, casually jogging to the line like there were minutes left, when the clock showed 35 seconds, with one timeout - only to throw a pass short ofd the first down marker, to the middle of the field, leaving no chance for the target to step out of bounds stopping the clock... It genuinely seemed like he couldn't care less if he tried... And I'm not saying it was the case - but it certainly seemed so.

Unfortunately.... our FO and HC stated after the season that they thought Joe's injury hurt him this year. I think that survival does (just as you mentioned) to people. They don't make the decisions that are best for the team but the best for survival. Get the ball out of your hand ASAP and hope for the best. That is what Joes season looked like. I guess that I get that from Joe's end... the problem that I have with it... is that if the FO and HC knew that he was unable to perform at the necessary level and that he was simply making survival decisions... why was it allowed to continue.

Why not play Mallet a few games and give us a chance? That is in no way suggesting that Mallet is better then Joe -just say that Mallet is better then a 50% Joe- who cannot go through his progressions bc of the injury that he has or bc of the fear of exacerbating his injury.

because where do you draw the line? was he 50%? Was he 65%? I don't think they knew, I think the HC and FO were speaking in hindsight.

I don't know what % - I just know he wasn't 100% and couldn't go through his progressions. Wouldn't stand in the pocket and give plays the necessary time to develop and refused to manipulate the pocket enough to give a less then perfect play the chance to work.

Not sure how any OC of offense for that matter can be successful when the QB is holding the offense hostage. Like I stated before. I am a Joe Flacco fan and when confident and healthy.... I think we have a guys who has and can win us super bowls.

But when he is not healthy... why not give us a chance to win and at the same time allow him to get healthy and re-gain his confidence... not set him back!

Again, my opinion is that because there was no reinjury, they didn't really know he was still not healthy until they watched him play for an extended period (hindsight). And even Joe said he wouldn't really know how he would feel until he went out there.

If his problem was confidence, I STRONGLY disagree that BENCHING him would be beneficial for his confidence. If they had started Mallett week 1 and waited for Joe to feel better that would be a different story. But as soon as Joe decided he was ready for week 1, that option goes out the window.

Agreed that benching him 1/2 way through the season would have been a disaster. I do think that he should have been evaluated more thoroughly in the pre-season. Allowed to play more to either get his rhythm back, to re-gain confidence and to give the coaching staff a better gauge on where Joe was at.

Since that didn't happen.... the only option would have been to announce that he aggravated the knee further, play him on the injury list -assuring him that when healthy the position is his but at the same time... allowing us a chance to win and Joe a chance to heal.

Confidence was an issue and that was evident in the way he would simply check down and not allow plays to develop (survival). But not confidence in his ability but in his health.

He clearly looked uneasy in the pocket and I think his lack of confidence in his knee caused him to quickly check everything down and make decisions that were out of survival.

I hear what you are saying and agree that just benching him would have been the wrong move... but I am also saying that knowing that Joe was coming off of a serious injury should have prompted us to do our homework more and we should have been more vigilant... not needing hindsight but honest evaluation based on preseason reps and game situations.

We also should had the foresight, once we knew where he really was to be able to handle this without causing a storm of controversy and further damaging the credibility of our franchise QB...(which is ironically what we ended up doing anyways).

Lets just hope that we can put the pieces around him this year to keep him upright and successful.

"Since that didn't happen.... the only option would have been to announce that he aggravated the knee further, play him on the injury list -assuring him that when healthy the position is his but at the same time... allowing us a chance to win and Joe a chance to heal. "

This is exactly my point. That is not an option. He didn't reinjure himself. I know we do some IR magic with low level roster guys but you can't just say your QB is hurt if he's not. Plus, then you get all the questions about "is it a full tear? Are you going to see dr andrews? blah blah" What your suggesting is a benching based on performance even if you word it some other way.

Otherwise we agree.

Curious if we could make something work with the Skins as far as trading Flacco if their arrangement(or lack there of ) with Cousins falls through. Joe's contract is beyond absurd, cant wait until we are no longer held hostage by it and captain back foot lob pass.

There is exactly 0% chance this will happen. It's not even worth speculating.

Joe is simply not worth the money he is getting paid and should be cut......we could fill soooooo many holes with all that money and it's joe's time to go....Now please....

We could fill absolutely no holes because of the dead money we would incur. Even if the front office agreed with you, they literally cannot do that this year the way the contract is. So suck it up and cheer for your team.

Joe Flacco set record for ‘failed completions.’ What else is new. He's not called "old 3 and out Flacco" for winning games. the owner and Ozzie have to start looking for his replacement NOW!!!!!

nobody calls him that.

  24 minutes ago, nj_ravens said:

  42 minutes ago, steelcityraven said:

  1 hour ago, bioLarzen said:

It was, indeed, painful to see how often Flacco threw to targets yards short of the yellow line on third downs. TRhis, and his apparent utter reluctance to speed up things in the 2-minute drill periods, casually jogging to the line like there were minutes left, when the clock showed 35 seconds, with one timeout - only to throw a pass short ofd the first down marker, to the middle of the field, leaving no chance for the target to step out of bounds stopping the clock... It genuinely seemed like he couldn't care less if he tried... And I'm not saying it was the case - but it certainly seemed so.

Unfortunately.... our FO and HC stated after the season that they thought Joe's injury hurt him this year. I think that survival does (just as you mentioned) to people. They don't make the decisions that are best for the team but the best for survival. Get the ball out of your hand ASAP and hope for the best. That is what Joes season looked like. I guess that I get that from Joe's end... the problem that I have with it... is that if the FO and HC knew that he was unable to perform at the necessary level and that he was simply making survival decisions... why was it allowed to continue.

Why not play Mallet a few games and give us a chance? That is in no way suggesting that Mallet is better then Joe -just say that Mallet is better then a 50% Joe- who cannot go through his progressions bc of the injury that he has or bc of the fear of exacerbating his injury.

because where do you draw the line? was he 50%? Was he 65%? I don't think they knew, I think the HC and FO were speaking in hindsight.

I don't know what % - I just know he wasn't 100% and couldn't go through his progressions. Wouldn't stand in the pocket and give plays the necessary time to develop and refused to manipulate the pocket enough to give a less then perfect play the chance to work.

Not sure how any OC of offense for that matter can be successful when the QB is holding the offense hostage. Like I stated before. I am a Joe Flacco fan and when confident and healthy.... I think we have a guys who has and can win us super bowls.

But when he is not healthy... why not give us a chance to win and at the same time allow him to get healthy and re-gain his confidence... not set him back!

Again, my opinion is that because there was no reinjury, they didn't really know he was still not healthy until they watched him play for an extended period (hindsight). And even Joe said he wouldn't really know how he would feel until he went out there.

If his problem was confidence, I STRONGLY disagree that BENCHING him would be beneficial for his confidence. If they had started Mallett week 1 and waited for Joe to feel better that would be a different story. But as soon as Joe decided he was ready for week 1, that option goes out the window.

  1 hour ago, nj_ravens said:

This "failed completion" is exactly the type of stat I have been looking for. For a QB, sure just completions will do. But you could do the same type of stat for the offense and for the defense. Just apply the same percentages for rushing. Then it's a measure of "effectiveness per yards needed."

1st down: Offensively, did you gain 45% or more of the yards needed for a first down. Defensively, did you allow less than 45% of the yards needed?

Same calculation all the way down the chart.

You could have subsets of data and it would give you information of who is really good on 1st down, how well those plays set you up for the next downs, how often do you even get to third down or do you convert early, do you suck on third down but kick butt on 3rd, measure of how effective the bend but don't break method is, etc. There is so much valuable data there.

Sounds like a good 'fantasy football' stat

How so? I think it would be absolutely useless in fantasy, and actually has real world applications.

  1 hour ago, bioLarzen said:

It was, indeed, painful to see how often Flacco threw to targets yards short of the yellow line on third downs. TRhis, and his apparent utter reluctance to speed up things in the 2-minute drill periods, casually jogging to the line like there were minutes left, when the clock showed 35 seconds, with one timeout - only to throw a pass short ofd the first down marker, to the middle of the field, leaving no chance for the target to step out of bounds stopping the clock... It genuinely seemed like he couldn't care less if he tried... And I'm not saying it was the case - but it certainly seemed so.

Unfortunately.... our FO and HC stated after the season that they thought Joe's injury hurt him this year. I think that survival does (just as you mentioned) to people. They don't make the decisions that are best for the team but the best for survival. Get the ball out of your hand ASAP and hope for the best. That is what Joes season looked like. I guess that I get that from Joe's end... the problem that I have with it... is that if the FO and HC knew that he was unable to perform at the necessary level and that he was simply making survival decisions... why was it allowed to continue.

Why not play Mallet a few games and give us a chance? That is in no way suggesting that Mallet is better then Joe -just say that Mallet is better then a 50% Joe- who cannot go through his progressions bc of the injury that he has or bc of the fear of exacerbating his injury.

because where do you draw the line? was he 50%? Was he 65%? I don't think they knew, I think the HC and FO were speaking in hindsight.

This "failed completion" is exactly the type of stat I have been looking for. For a QB, sure just completions will do. But you could do the same type of stat for the offense and for the defense. Just apply the same percentages for rushing. Then it's a measure of "effectiveness per yards needed."

1st down: Offensively, did you gain 45% or more of the yards needed for a first down. Defensively, did you allow less than 45% of the yards needed?

Same calculation all the way down the chart.

You could have subsets of data and it would give you information of who is really good on 1st down, how well those plays set you up for the next downs, how often do you even get to third down or do you convert early, do you suck on third down but kick butt on 3rd, measure of how effective the bend but don't break method is, etc. There is so much valuable data there.

  45 minutes ago, Ravensfan23 said:

I think what people miss about the whole Flacco contract is that It was the Ravens decision to structure it the way it is. This time last year Flacco went back to the table with the Ravens and said his reason was to create cap space for the team to continue to keep/add players. The Ravens choose not to structure the contract to create much cap space over the first 3 years and instead keep the cap hits level over the duration of the contract. 

Flacco banked on himself in 2013 and won. Now the Ravens are banking on the fact that Flacco will not necessarily get back to being a top 10 QB but get this team back to being in contention for a championship consistently over the next 5 years. Matt Ryan is about to break the bank and set the market again(rightfully so) and then you have younger players in their mid-late 20s that will set the market as well. Wilson, Carr, Winston, Mariota, Wentz, Dak and maybe even guys like Tyrod and Jimmy G will be getting paid over the next 3 years while Flacco is still under contract and their cap hit will almost surely surpass Flacco's cap hit. This is not to compare Flacco or his play to any other player because I think everyone including Flacco will say he's under performed, it's more to show the thinking behind why the Ravens signed Flacco to the contract extension they did in 2016. Those new contracts will push Flacco's contract down to the 7-12 range and maybe even lower should a few other younger QBs find a way to get paid. Not saying it's right or wrong, but imo this was the Ravens thinking on Flacco. Keep his cap number level and as the market and cap space increase over the years, his deal will be a bargain of sorts. 

Joe's first deal was a mistake by the FO in terms of STRUCTURE, not in terms of total compensation. This I agree with. I think the FO didn't know how to handle a contract that size, and the way they spread out the cap impact and backloaded in tremendously definitely didn't help the franchise in the long run.

However, the new restructured contract is what I think you see is the new norm for NFL teams. In the past teams would try to backload these deals, but teams are figuring out that flatter cap structures for the larger contracts are the better long term approach, even if it means sacrificing winning in the short term.

You're probably right about the structure being wrong. They tried to compete the following year by making his cap number low, but didn't make it. Then the money starts coming and we hit injuries and dead money. It could have worked, just didn't. Now they're back to a little bit of a longer term rebuild, which I think should hit it's stride this year or next. By then, Flacco either rights the ship or regresses.

Keep in mind, with the different practice rules, getting rookies up and running is different than say back in 07-08. I think some of our draft picks that have been marked as misses will come into their own this year and next. It just takes a little longer to develop these days.

1 hour ago, Azzi22 said:

1 hour ago, ibleedpurpleandblack said:

  24 minutes ago, Azzi22 said:

as a GM.. id pay Flacco DOUBLE of what he's making.. he has been the best option we have had in RAVENS HISTORY and the current best option we can have.. yea he blows leads.. yea hes a dumb thrower sometimes, yea hes not always on point... but IMAGINE where we would be without Joe... go ahead...ill wait

Flacco blows leads?? So now he plays defense or gets blamed for the defensive faltering giving up leads?

Has he ever added to a lead we had in the 4TH? hes MR 3-out at the end of games.. that's what I meant

except for that time when he had two different 14pt leads in the 4th qtr vs the pats. I'm sure there were other times. Stop speaking in generalities.

Webb should've been cut 5 years ago. He must have some dirt on someone for him to stay on this team this long. Only Oz and Harbs would let him stay this long. I think we need Doom on this team. Without him, Suggs is even more ineffective. Let's face it, we need to get younger, but we cant' get younger right away due to poor drafts and us not having a young foundation. Who knows. maybe it's also the coaching staff that can't develop players either. i think Bisciotti told Harbs he needed to make some coaching changes to save his career (e.g. adios Castillo). We still dont make the playoffs this year.

The team is already really young. Young guys need reps. Cut Dum.

It has been proven that we can neither draft nor develop wide receivers... why do we maintain the status quo?

This was true before Engram, before the previous coach Hostler, before Harbaugh. Sure, maybe a great coach could fix it, but I don't think coaching is necessarily the problem.

With these coaching changes I don't see any difference from last year. That being said we will have the same problems in 2017 that we did in 2016. Mornhinweg is not a winning coordinator an we will essentially have the same offense we did last year which was ok at best and was very inconsistent from week to week. But the run game was a key missing factor in 2016 an the hiring of Greg Roman is a good first step but will he alone be enough to bring the run game back to baltimore that might be the biggest ? going into the 2017 season, in my opinion I don't think so but anything can happen. As far as the Defense goes its just pitiful to watch Dean play soft zone coverage having the CB 7-12 yards off the line which gave AB all those big plays to knock us out the playoffs and you could say the same when we played the cowboys an they gave Dez 10 yards of space almost everytime he lined up.And as far as the pass rush goes it all ties to the same problem until we have a good secondary that can cover for at least 4-8 seconds we will continue to lack in the pass rushing category. But ultimately nothing will change an we will not hold another Lombardy up until the Harbaugh era is over.

" we will essentially have the same offense we did last year which was ok at best and was very inconsistent from week to week"

This is inherently not true, since it was Trestman's offense.

  31 minutes ago, The Beak said:

Biggmack is 100% correct , This is not coaching changes, it is blowing smoke up the fans backside, the only hope we have is that G Romans can impose his will and take control of the OC job, Morningwig is just plain awful, his late game ineptness nearly cost us 2 games in which we were clearly in control of. Morningwig is Cam Cameron all over again, soooo tired of wimpy herbaugh hiring his cronies, every fan knows the last Super Bowl we won was RAY's Super Bowl not herbaughs, I hope I am wrong , but without a miracle just can't see past 8-8 again this year.......

Giving Ray too much credit. He didn't even play the whole year. Missed games due to injury. Don't remember him playing offense either. I love the guy but no way does he get ALL the credit.

If anyone's it was Joe's.

Im not going to hold my breath on Perriman he has flashes but just isn't consistent I hope he becomes a playmaker but I see him being like Torrey Smith another good but inconsistent WR But just like every other Ravens fan I think we need a new WR coach until then nothing will change an we will be in the same predicament again an again

You're right about WR coach, but I will say that Coach Engram has been much better than Hostler.

  23 minutes ago, ByTheBay said:

Man I hope Wagner gets signed. If he leaves and Flacco has another bad year this will be the excuse we hear all season. Of course if he stays and flacco has a bad year it will be Marty's fault so pick your poison. 

Is there any scenario where Flacco and the Ravens have a good year? Just wondering.

Asking this question is pointless snark. Yes. There is a scenario. We've already won a superbowl with this QB. It's not impossible.

  14 hours ago, RavensDieHard21 said:

Banner would be an interesting project if he were available at our 3rd round comp. he apparently is very competitive and isn't lazy like McKinnie was. He comes in between 330-340 and continues to work on his foot work and he could be a tank in the run game, if he's too clunky at RT he could be moves inside to guard if Lewis is the better option--I have 0 faith we will sign Wagner lol. 

If Wagner is so good, why was he mentioned more last season? Why didn't he win the RT job outright? He has not distinguish himself as a starter. We have all these potential player that don't pan out.

I'd put my money on Brandon Williams, we know what he can do.

"Why didn't he win the RT job outright?" He did. What are you talking about?

"He has not distinguish himself as a starter." He has. What are you talking about?

"why was he mentioned more last season" Nobody is perfect. Also, at a certain point Yanda moved to the right side and he had Ducasse next to him. That can cause some issues with assignments and chemistry.

  49 minutes ago, RaRaRavens said:

And roster fillers is what you get when you trade back in draft and skip on the likes of Myles Jack, Noah Spence and Sterling Shepard, and then draft KC.

Yeah you're right.... Myles Jack who had a whole 24 tackles his rookie season... Noah Spence who only had 5.5 sacks while Matt Judon the team's 5th round selection got 4 sacks almost as many behind Suggs and Dumervil most the season.... And Sterling Shephard a #3 receiver. 

Think of the selections the team got while trading back... Kamalei Correa may not be an immediate impact but look at the 4th rounders the team got in return that DID have a huge impact. They wouldn't be in Baltimore if not for the trades.

Matt Judon was a 5th round pic obtained by trading back and not picking Mack. Just saying.

  22 hours ago, sami said:

  22 hours ago, fluffy201 said:

  On 2/7/2017 at 1:58 PM, whobilly said:

Translated. Correa was a second round bust.

There has been too many second round busts. Max Williams, Correa, Arthur Brown. Not to say Williams and Correa don't have potential but very concerning they have seen barely any playing time, luckily we do pretty well in the mid rounds and un drafted. It would be nice to see our fist two picks in the secondary and the two third round picks go towards our O Line. We always do well with line backers and D line men, so I am not too concerned, but the secondary and O line has been trash for years. I really hope Correa steps up next year, and for Williams I am just not sure if I see him beating out Watson/Pitta (one will be cut) or Crockett if healthy, there is also a reason we still have Boyle, I thought he looked really good his first year. This team still has a ton of holes, which won't be filled in one year unfortunately. Feels like we are in the same position as last year unfortunately, except with more cap room.

Maxx Willaims was hardly a second round bust. He broke most of the rookie records for tight ends and weve had some good tight ends. How can you say our O-line has been trash?  We have drafted some excellent talent like Stanley and Alex Lewis this year and Rick Wagner not so long ago.

 

Maybe so, but Zutta has proven to be a weakness, and Alex lewis is hardly a run mauler like a lot of good tackles. We did seem to get hits in Lewis and Stanely which are great, but when those guys are injured we have serious problems, we lack depth big time. Jenson and Urschel must not be as good as we thought? Ducasse played in front of both of them right?

Uschel is more of a left guard. Jensen is not that great.

Translated. Correa was a second round bust.

Ravens writers don't speak for management or front office.

Translated. This is a speculation piece.

Translated. Suggs and Dumervil are old.

Translated. Correa is probably actually going to play inside linebacker and this article is talking about an edge defender, so they have little to do with one another.

Translated. You have a preconceived notion that Correa is a bust, and for some reason, despite being a fan of the team, want him to fail to prove yourself right.

  2 hours ago, budman said:

If the Patriots only played in a REAL division like the AFCN.

I'm 100% sure they were 4-0 against our division this year....

AND we lost to the Jets.

  3 hours ago, Gorgee3 said:

   Bill Bella cheat, Tom shady and the patriots have had internal support from major sources financially, to cheating,  from the commissioner Goodell to their owner Kraft. To me, obviously the patriots and NFL plan to get two more Super Bowl's before retirement is even an option. Even their retirement could be orchestrated.  Very sickening to think.

The NFL is becoming more and more like WWE- it's more about entertaining and less about playing the freakin' game. With all the billions that are tied up in the league, each week and especially the Super Bowl- there's no way I'll believe that a lot of what we're seeing ain't scripted. Heck, we're probably just a few years away from entire seasons being choreographed.

If you think the NFL is rigged FOR the Pats AFTER deflate gate, well, idk what to tell you. That literally makes no sense.

IF the NFL is rigged, and I wonder this often, it's rigged for entertainment. They don't want blowouts (parity). That's why the officiating changed after Pats scored. Let them back in it, because ratings. Outcome doesn't matter. You either get Falcons winning finally, going into their new stadium, or you get the Brady and Belichick being the best ever.

They want specific team matchups for specific weeks. They want storylines. And the Pats always winning is not good for business. Why would they let them win? It's all about ratings.

  1 hour ago, rmcjacket23 said:

  9 hours ago, sizzlingdoom said:

"people on here still think....." LOL he averages over 22 a year. That is too much. No way around it

Well, that's the problem when you're averaging money that he will likely never make.

And at the end of the day, when you say he's making "too much", you're really saying he makes about $2-3M too much, because there's really not much argument that he's less than a $19-20M QB. Pretty much any metric you can come up with puts him in that range.

So its cute to argue about him being "overpaid" by $2-3M, but not really sure how you think you are going to take $2-3M and turn that into multiple quality players that will make this team a contender.

In short, you really can't.

So what exactly is the argument over?

It was also "cute" losing KO to a couple extra mil a year eh? Weenies. Just admit his contract blows

They were never going to pay him that money, regardless of Flacco. They gave him top 10 tackle money to play guard, and didn't even kick him out to tackle when Penn went down.

Yeah we REALLY need another TE , it would be a wasted pick, We all know we need CBs, but if D Cook is there it could be tempting...

He looks like he could play reciever, tbh.

In order for a "playmaker" to make plays, you have to give them the opportunity. Camp is a playmaker but they only use him for end arounds.

because he gets hurt. You're right though. He should be our Welker or Hogan. In the game where Joe threw 5 touchdowns in the first quarter against the Bucs (remember that game, haters?), I think camp had 2 TDs.