RoamingRaven

  2 hours ago, budman said:

  3 hours ago, The Mom Gene said:

I'm sorry... but Aiken sounds like he's whining. He had opportunities. Quite a few times I saw where he was basically hit right in the numbers with the ball and dropped the pass. Come on man....  He had a ton of chances to prove himself.

I loved Juice. As a fullback, and where the position has taken a back seat to RB's and Receivers, you can basically understand where he's coming from. The play at the end of the Steeler's game is one I will not forget. He laid it out to make that TD.

Good Luck to both of them.

Agree. Aiken really isn't THAT good to be honest. He had his chances to prove himself but couldn't out perform a retiring vet or 2nd year rookie. His route running is also suspect. Lets see just how much he actually plays in Indy. He might just live on special teams. Notice just how much interest teams had in him....Ummmm hardly any. When he signed with them it wasn't a long deal so that should tell him something. I hate whiners! Blame everything and everyone but himself. Geez.

Yea, it is hard to envision Kamar getting much time on offense unless someone gets hurt. I don't think that anyone has ever thought that Kamar was THAT good. I had a hard time last off season trying to justify the FO move to tender him as a second round RFA last year. I still cant come up with any logical explanation for why they made that decision. That said I really don't think what he said is as incendiary as you and others are making it seem. I wish him well.

That's exactly my point, people in this thread are acting like Aiken said "Screw Baltimore, I hate them, they suck, I did amazing things in Baltimore, Indy ftw." People talking about him like he spray painted a swastika on the field before he left. Jeezz

No one is saying Aiken was great, never said he was better than Perriman or Wallace- just that when given playing time, he's more dependable to catch the ball.
Keep in mind, all those stats about his 1st down %(which led our receivers) or 4% drop rate came in the year where he saw his reps decrease cause SSS, Periman, and Wallace were 1, 2, & 3 in the depth chart.

Everything Aiken said is valid.
Are there better options, OBVIOUSLY.
But to Aikens point, there is a difference between not playing cause you suck, and not playing cause the front office wanna see what the rookie can do.

Aiken is not that great BUT, when put in his shoes, if in 2015 you led the team with 75 receptions for 944 yards and five touchdowns, then see your self on the bottom of the depth chart for what is in your mind no other reason than some bigger names came in.... tell me you wouldn't feel the same way???

  12 minutes ago, RoamingRaven said:

  38 minutes ago, rmcjacket23 said:

  58 minutes ago, david thomas said:

E David Thomas
agree with Aiken, he deserved more reps or at the very least constructive feedback on what needed improvement to get more play time. my sense is, my beloved Ravens just don['t have a good Reciever Game strategy/route trees/creative plays to take advantage of skills of WR's - they are to predictable and limited to keying on 1 or 2 WR's for any play (lacks flexibility) and simple progression reads that either go to #1 or #2 or very quickly to the dump-off outlet - come on guys, let's get it together for 2017.

I'm pretty sure he identified already that the Ravens were identifying things that he didn't do well or needed to work on. Seemed he just simply disagreed.

The problem with Aiken is that I don't see a particular set of skills that he brings to the table that differentiates himself from his peers, and I think the league knows that.

Aiken's skill set was being sure handed on 3rd down and moving the chains, which he did when he played.
His peers: Perriman- deep threat with no hands
Wallace- deep threat who occasionally had no hands
Ironically, his best shot for playing time would've come with this years Ravens since, with the departure of SSS, he would have had the surest hands on the team aside from getting one of the top 3 WR in the draft.

Apparently, Aiken was not hearing that from management. So it seems Ozzie feels he could do better.

Yeah, I agree, Aiken walking is obviously him reading the writing on the wall from the front office. I also agree that Ozzie can do better than Aiken. Any of the top 3 WR in the draft would be an upgrade over Aiken.
But we don't for sure have any of those guys, they could all 3 get drafted before us in which case Aiken would've found himself on a team where he knows he can catch better than Breshad, and can catch just as good as Mike.
Better the devil you know than the devil you don't.

Is it me or does the tone of Aiken and Juice feel like night and day? Juice sounds more appreciative while Aiken sounds bitter and whiney. 

They're complaining of 2 different situations...Juice's position was underutilized, Aiken's position was crowded and he could catch better than 2 of the 3 people ahead of him on the depth chart. Juice would sound bitter too if there were other FB's getting more playing time with Juice feeling as if he could contribute more than them.

Granted, Wallace and Perriman have other qualities that might have made them rank above Aiken such as better route running, more separation, more YAC, etc., but when your JOB is to CATCH THE BALL, it seems as if the Ravens valued the wrong attributes and maybe Aiken realized that.
You can't blame him for feeling the way he does.

  38 minutes ago, david thomas said:

E David Thomas
agree with Aiken, he deserved more reps or at the very least constructive feedback on what needed improvement to get more play time. my sense is, my beloved Ravens just don['t have a good Reciever Game strategy/route trees/creative plays to take advantage of skills of WR's - they are to predictable and limited to keying on 1 or 2 WR's for any play (lacks flexibility) and simple progression reads that either go to #1 or #2 or very quickly to the dump-off outlet - come on guys, let's get it together for 2017.

I'm pretty sure he identified already that the Ravens were identifying things that he didn't do well or needed to work on. Seemed he just simply disagreed.

The problem with Aiken is that I don't see a particular set of skills that he brings to the table that differentiates himself from his peers, and I think the league knows that.

Aiken's skill set was being sure handed on 3rd down and moving the chains, which he did when he played.
His peers: Perriman- deep threat with no hands
Wallace- deep threat who occasionally had no hands
Ironically, his best shot for playing time would've come with this years Ravens since, with the departure of SSS, he would have had the surest hands on the team aside from getting one of the top 3 WR in the draft.