theduug

The blame for the past few years is simple........bad drafts, bad contracts. Since 2010 we lost most of our all-pro players to age. During that time we've had very poor drafts and we've also given out some very bad high dollar contracts that tied up tons of money (Monroe, J Smith, Webb, Ngata, Flacco). So all it's gonna take are some good drafts in general (offense or defense) and to cut loose some of these salaries (we've already begun that process).

Bingo.

  16 minutes ago, designermaryland said:

They have at least 2 gaping holes on the O line with no quality starting caliber replacements. You have at least 5 adequate to above average receivers/hybrids already on the roster. Wallace, Perriman, Moore, Campanaro, Waller, Woodhead. The immediate need is O line or DB. If they draft another WR thinking this is the answer to their offensive ineptness, I would not expect any improvement in the record this year.

If they do not grab at least 1 RT early, Flacco is going to be on his back or throwing a lot of incompletions to the wasted first round picks (assuming they take a WR) all year again. I am prepared to be underwhelmed by their selection in the first round. Guessing they will do something bizarre like draft a safety or RB, when there is absolutely no need.

1. A quality RT even interior lineman certainly doesn't need to be found exclusively in round 1 or even round 2. Could very easily see somebody taken in round 3 or 4 and come in play right away and play just fine. The guy we just let walk for a boatload of cash did this exact thing.

2. I don't think anybody can honestly say that Camp, Waller, or even Moore at this point have any track record whatsoever of being above average pass catchers in the NFL. They actually have to show that on the field at some point before they can come close to being given that label.

3. We're obviously not taking a first round pick just to fill an immediate need. Almost impossible to build a contending football team that way. You pick a player who you think can be a quality player for you for a decade.

If that's a safety, so be it. Eric Weddle ain't going to be here much longer, and if you wait to draft a safety until you absolutely need one, you'll be screwed, because its not really a position you can just walk off the bus and play well in as a rookie.

We could use upgrades at every single group of positions on this team, with the exception of QB. We are NOT set at Safety, Corner, ILB, OLB, Dline, WR, TE, or RB. We could use a better player and every single one of those positions, both now and certainly in the future.

You take the best guy that's there. Fans need to stop kidding themselves thinking that we're a draft away from being a SB contender.

spot on. every single position could use an upgrade. we will take best player available.

Flacco and Wallace are saying what they need to say in order to pay respect to their teammates. Fact is this team has a below-average receiving corps as-is. There's a reason our FO was close to signing Alshon Jeffery (according to RSR).

this is spot on. it's not like flacco and wallace aren't going to tell the media that our WR corps / their teammates are below average.

harbaugh said it himself, we are banking on Perriman to be a beast. if not, we are in trouble at the position again.

  3 hours ago, theduug said:

i think we are a great drafting team, and i am an Ozzie supporter. we just haven't been as successful as we used to. no way you can deny that. we have been great lately at our middle/late picks.

yea its too early to close the book on them, i agree. but if your second round pick literally isnt good enough to see the field, even as a backup, that's not good. what did he have this year, 3 tackles? the scarier part is we viewed him as a pass rusher. how did we mis-evaluate him so dramatically?

totally agree on the freak accidents. have had our share of terrible luck...pitta breaking his hips, Zach Orr having to retire, kindle falling down the stairs. sucks.

the drafting of old receivers has worked great. wasn't knocking it, just pointing out that we have never had the luxury of a young one developing with joe. have we ever had a #1 receiver in their prime? literally ever?

Secondary dumpster diving....shareece wright, kyle arrington, kendrick lewis to name a few. carr sounds good on paper because of his consistency but i dont think he is going to be a game changer.

In Joe's first contract, i would say you are right. This year, Joe's cap hit is literally the largest in the entire NFL...soo.....

Its pretty hard to be as successful as this team was at drafting considering we drafted JO and Ray Lewis in the same round, two of the best of all time at their positions, then Reed who is also one of the best of all time at his positions, Suggs, Ngata, Rice, etc.  Its a hard track record to keep comparing to.  That being said, I agree, its obvious we have missed on game changing players. 

Trust me, you most likely wont find someone who hates on the KC pick more than I do, but im still willing to give him time to develop.  Hopefully this year he gets more snaps, especially considering Orr has retired.  there were plenty of players I would of taken than KC, but hey....lets wait and see. 

Agree, Torrey is the best WR we have ever drafted, we got good production out of him, but he never really progressed, hence why we let him walk and get his money.  Hence, this is why Mike Williams is the number one guy I want this year. 

Carr wasn't really brought in to be a game changer, just a good starter that will do his job.  Imagine if we didn't sign those players though, who would we have had?  its a catch 22. 

Im not able to do the math and look things up right now, but I would be interested to see the percentage of our salary cap that Joe's contract takes up between the two with the inflation of the cap going up.

yep. everyone wants to crush ozzie for not drafting another ed/ray. i don't think they realize how insane / lucky / awesome that was. literally two of the best ever at their positions on the same team. clearly not a sustainable track record.

yea, can't give up on KC just yet. he will certainly get his shot this year for some more playing time. lets just hope he steps up. or if kaufusi can contribute that would be nice too. have to manufacture pass rush somehow.

definitely like the carr signing and we'd certainly be worse without it. the best thing about it is that it frees up tavon to play more in the slot. and webb as a backup has to be one of the best backup safeties in the league there right?

i want mike williams or the best pass rusher available. whoever is better at 16...gotta trust the front office obviously. just hope for entertainment sake i dont watch 4 hours of the draft to see us trade back into day 2 lol.

  3 hours ago, theduug said:

yep agree that goes without saying. of course we need offensive line to be better.

but i would rather ineffectively run the ball then roll out whatever offense that was last year again. would rather run crappily 40 times then have joe drop back 40 times. gives him more of a chance to get injured too.

LOL, I certainly wouldn't rather run it 40 times if we're not good at it. Pretty much no scenario I see where that yields more points on the scoreboard. And at that point, you're not concerned about keeping Joe healthy, because we're not scoring which means we're not winning.

And lets be clear... Joe's going to throw it 35+ a game in whatever offense we run, and that includes a more effective one at running the ball. Even in Kubiak's offense, he was throwing it 35 times a game. 40 might be a stretch, but there's no scenario where we go back to an offense where he's throwing it 25-30 times a game.

Heck if Joe averages 5-6 yards per attempt, which is pathetic for a QB, he'd still be moving the ball better than a crappy running game will.

agree to disagree. never saw anything that suggested our passing game was any more effective than our run game.

lets just agree that both need to be way better lol. bottom line is we need a better run game / oline or were looking at the same offense or worse as last year.

  3 hours ago, theduug said:

Harbaugh put the 2017 season squarely on his shoulders when he decided to retain Marty. Bisciotti will not tolerate missing the playoffs 3 years in a row, and 4 out of the last 5 years. Whether it is the right move or not, that is what is going to happen if we miss the playoffs and Joe/the offense doesn't take a major step forward this year.

The Ravens biggest problem has been the draft. We've missed on way too many first/second round picks lately: Perriman, Correa, Maxx, Elam, Arthur Brown, Kindle, Cody to name a recent few. We are not able to reap the benefit of having an impact player playing on a cheap, rookie contract (ex: Dak and Zeke). This forces us to look to FA to fill the rest of our holes. But due to Joe's large cap # and some other older dead money, we've been pretty limited. Hence the dumpster diving on CBs, only signing 30+ WRs, etc. Our later round picks have been good, but take 4 years to develop, and then we can't afford to retain them. Other picks have been good to mediocre: Jimmy Smith only plays 50% of the time, we traded Jernigan a 24 yr old 2nd round pick because he quits half way through a season, Upshaw (we used our first pick in the draft on an edge setter??? Cmon.)

The offensive coaching has probably been one of the worst I've ever seen, and really makes no sense to me. How can Joe Flacco throwing 50 times a game and averaging 4 yards a throw? That is literally insane, he is not Drew Brees. Run the freaking ball 30 times a game and then rely on deep play action for your big chunk, splash plays. He's obviously not accurate enough to be doing other wise (this is why I don't want to draft John Ross FYI). We have a QB with a cannon, two super fast deep threats, a potential pro bowl LT, and the best guard in the game. Figure out how to run the [profanity deleted]ing ball and have a play action offense.

Defense has been solid but can't close out games because we haven't had a pass rush in like 5 years. I don't care who your corners are; if you're giving Ben and Brady 15 seconds to sit and chill in the pocket, you are going to lose.

Last year's draft was probably our best since 2008 and we got 3-4 potential starters out of it in Stanley, Lewis, Young, and Dixon. Now we need to add an explosive playmaker, who makes an immediate impact, to help us close the gap vs. the steelers and pats.

1. If you're running the ball 30 times a game just for the sake of doing it, you're making your offense worse, not better.

Newsflash: the running game wasn't effective when it did run the ball. The solution to that problem doesn't involve running it more. Teams can be incredibly effective running the ball 20-25 times a game. We weren't, and so we didn't run it more. I'm not knocking the coaching staff for that, because I wouldn't continue to trot out a running game that was ineffective.

2. Because the running game isn't effective, and teams know they can stop our running game with a base formation, play action is irrelevant. It achieves nothing. The entire concept is to get defenders to come towards the line of scrimmage to open up the field. When they don't do that because they don't have to, then you're not opening up anything. All you're doing is drawing up a play that takes longer to develop, behind an inconsistent offensive line (perhaps the biggest issue).

Running it 40 or 50 times won't change that.

If you want to fix the offense, you get better up front on the offensive line and especially in run blocking, where we struggled big time. That will open up plenty of things.

The secondary fix is getting WRs who can actually run routes and get open in man coverage.

yep agree that goes without saying. of course we need offensive line to be better.

but i would rather ineffectively run the ball then roll out whatever offense that was last year again. would rather run crappily 40 times then have joe drop back 40 times. gives him more of a chance to get injured too.

  3 hours ago, theduug said:

The Ravens biggest problem has been the draft. We've missed on way too many first/second round picks lately: Perriman, Correa, Maxx, Elam, Arthur Brown, Kindle, Cody to name a recent few. We are not able to reap the benefit of having an impact player playing on a cheap, rookie contract (ex: Dak and Zeke). This forces us to look to FA to fill the rest of our holes. But due to Joe's large cap # and some other older dead money, we've been pretty limited. Hence the dumpster diving on CBs, only signing 30+ WRs, etc. Our later round picks have been good, but take 4 years to develop, and then we can't afford to retain them. Other picks have been good to mediocre: Jimmy Smith only plays 50% of the time, we traded Jernigan a 24 yr old 2nd round pick because he quits half way through a season, Upshaw (we used our first pick in the draft on an edge setter??? Cmon.)
 

Perriman is coming into his third year, without even having a TC with Joe, while I will say this is the year he needs to show why we drafted him, I don't think you can legitimately say we missed on him yet.  Maxx and Correa, its still too early to judge, and im a huge critic of Correa but even I know we have to give him some time to develop.  Kindle was a freak accident, just bad luck on the FO and for Kindle.   I do agree we need to draft our early picks, but lets not act like we are the only team that has drafting issues with their first pick.  Also, we normally nail our mid-round picks

Joe's cap hit is not as big as an issue as people make it out to be.  Also, what dumpster diving CBs are you talking about?  And  yea, signing 30+ year old WRs has really worked out poorly for us....what were we thinking. 

i think we are a great drafting team, and i am an Ozzie supporter. we just haven't been as successful as we used to. no way you can deny that. we have been great lately at our middle/late picks.

yea its too early to close the book on them, i agree. but if your second round pick literally isnt good enough to see the field, even as a backup, that's not good. what did he have this year, 3 tackles? the scarier part is we viewed him as a pass rusher. how did we mis-evaluate him so dramatically?

totally agree on the freak accidents. have had our share of terrible luck...pitta breaking his hips, Zach Orr having to retire, kindle falling down the stairs. sucks.

the drafting of old receivers has worked great. wasn't knocking it, just pointing out that we have never had the luxury of a young one developing with joe. have we ever had a #1 receiver in their prime? literally ever?

Secondary dumpster diving....shareece wright, kyle arrington, kendrick lewis to name a few. carr sounds good on paper because of his consistency but i dont think he is going to be a game changer.

In Joe's first contract, i would say you are right. This year, Joe's cap hit is literally the largest in the entire NFL...soo.....

Some people think that the WR creates separation but it's the routes that get it done! Another WR like Campy is all we need! 5ft 10 maybe and got heart! 6ft WRs are a thing of the past! Pats and squeelers are my examples Edelman and AB! Their size is with the TEs and we have "PLENTY"!

you need a QB with pinpoint accuracy to make the Edlemans and ABs of the world effective. we do not have that. this is also why i am against drafting John Ross.

Harbaugh put the 2017 season squarely on his shoulders when he decided to retain Marty. Bisciotti will not tolerate missing the playoffs 3 years in a row, and 4 out of the last 5 years. Whether it is the right move or not, that is what is going to happen if we miss the playoffs and Joe/the offense doesn't take a major step forward this year.

The Ravens biggest problem has been the draft. We've missed on way too many first/second round picks lately: Perriman, Correa, Maxx, Elam, Arthur Brown, Kindle, Cody to name a recent few. We are not able to reap the benefit of having an impact player playing on a cheap, rookie contract (ex: Dak and Zeke). This forces us to look to FA to fill the rest of our holes. But due to Joe's large cap # and some other older dead money, we've been pretty limited. Hence the dumpster diving on CBs, only signing 30+ WRs, etc. Our later round picks have been good, but take 4 years to develop, and then we can't afford to retain them. Other picks have been good to mediocre: Jimmy Smith only plays 50% of the time, we traded Jernigan a 24 yr old 2nd round pick because he quits half way through a season, Upshaw (we used our first pick in the draft on an edge setter??? Cmon.)

The offensive coaching has probably been one of the worst I've ever seen, and really makes no sense to me. How can Joe Flacco throwing 50 times a game and averaging 4 yards a throw? That is literally insane, he is not Drew Brees. Run the freaking ball 30 times a game and then rely on deep play action for your big chunk, splash plays. He's obviously not accurate enough to be doing other wise (this is why I don't want to draft John Ross FYI). We have a QB with a cannon, two super fast deep threats, a potential pro bowl LT, and the best guard in the game. Figure out how to run the [profanity deleted]ing ball and have a play action offense.

Defense has been solid but can't close out games because we haven't had a pass rush in like 5 years. I don't care who your corners are; if you're giving Ben and Brady 15 seconds to sit and chill in the pocket, you are going to lose.

Last year's draft was probably our best since 2008 and we got 3-4 potential starters out of it in Stanley, Lewis, Young, and Dixon. Now we need to add an explosive playmaker, who makes an immediate impact, to help us close the gap vs. the steelers and pats.