Ravens_Flock

Joe Flacco hasn't played Championship Caliber football since the 2012 playoff run. And while he DID play well, we didn't go on that run because of him. We went on that run because of Ray Lewis. The rest of that roster played for Ray, not for Joe. And outside of a run-heavy, solid 2014 campaign, Joe has been, to put it mildly, pretty bad.

I don't want us to waste another first round pick on a WR, especially when we've ignored CB for so very long. But I also would like to see us stop bringing in aging veteran cast-offs at the end of their careers. Steve Smith had one solid season with us in 2014, and even then he dropped off near the end of the season and in the playoffs. We do not need to overpay for some washed up vet. We NEED to develop our own talent, and actually keep them. But we can probably grab quality WRs past the first round. Our top priority needs to be shoring up a secondary that has been awful since Ed Reed left.

A ball-hawking corner to start opposite an injury-prone Smith? Sound good to me. In all honesty, we need to eventually move on from Jimmy altogether. He has shown flashes in his career, but he's honestly never been 100% consistent in a full healthy season, of which he's basically only had two. Injuries aren't his fault, but what it really boils down to is the fact that he just isn't reliable. We should never find ourselves in the position we have these last few years, where without him on the field, our secondary suddenly sucks. That's a massive lack of depth. I think that Tavon Young looked really solid at times. But I also think he might be too small consistently go up against NFL WRs that many teams prefer to be 6'1" and taller. Young might do better in the slot. So IF we could somehow draft King, and IF Jimmy could actually stay healthy (hoping Young and King don't prove to be injury prone too, of course), we might actually have a sold corner group. Just get a decent #4 and #5 behind them, and we might actually be okay in the corner department for basically the first time since 2012. As for Safeties? Yeah, we need to look for young safeties of tomorrow, too. I'm still disappointed that they never really gave Matt Elam enough of a shot at his natural position (SS), but I guess sadly it's time to move on from him, and restock with new talent.

Good on Ray. Also, it's already been said, but if the Ravens were truly committed to winning next season, we wouldn't be keeping either of our coordinators. Harb's behind better be on the "hot seat" finally, I'll say that.

If Ray is ever going to coach NFL football, it has to be with HIS team, the team he made, the Ravens. A defense led by a DC Ray, or better yet, a future Baltimore TEAM led by Ray Lewis, the franchise's greatest player? Yes. That is the best possible option. In fact, just for the hell of it, give me a team with HC Ray Lewis, and DC Ed Reed. I'm sold. Sorry Harbs.

I always liked McClain. The knock on him was that he was "weak in coverage", yet they always yanked him in favor of another player during coverage situations, so they never really gave him the time to grow in that area. But he was a hard-nosed, humble guy, who always played hard, and as a sure-tackler. Very good against the run. I wish he had stayed a Raven longer, to be honest. And I never really understood why he only lasted one season in NY, and wasn't picked up by any other team, when to my mind, he was one of the best free agent linebackers at the time. I guess perhaps he chose to retire, because otherwise it just doesn't make sense. It's awesome that he has a ring with us. But it's unfortunate, same with Webb, that they were on IR during the actual playoff run, and didn't get to play in the actual SB game. He was still a great Raven though. Not outstanding like a Bart Scott, but very dependable.

I know "a lot of teams passed on him", but to think that the Ravens took Jimmy Smith in the first round in 2011, when they could have had a guy like Richard Sherman all these years. It's insane. Smith is good, but he's not first round good. He has flashes of greatness, and then frequent bouts of inconsistency. And his injury issues have held him back from ever truly improving. I'm not say we need to move on, but we do need to plan for a Post-Smith, Post-Webb world. I know Weddle will be around for a couple of years yet, probably, but we really need to develop a whole new secondary. I think Young fits in, but not really as an outside starter. Not long-term, not against these tall WRs the league favors.

Our corners behind Jimmy Smith are either inconsistent or flat out suck. And Jimmy is unreliable, as he is also inconsistent, and often hurt. Tavon Young had really good flashes, but I think he is better suited as a nickle/slot corner. We would be best served by drafting a big corner with good coverage skills and an eye for the ball to start on the outside. We do need to improve at safety as well, but I corner is a more glaring need, and has been our main issue for the last several seasons.

Sad for the kid. We really need to bring Ed Reed in as a secondary coach though.

In all fairness, Chris Redman was actually a very solid QB, who were it not for injury issues, might've made a good starter in the league. He certainly played pretty well for us, and continued to play well when he came out of retirement to play for the Falcons years ago. And to be equally fair, nobody knew that the king of arrogance and cheatness, would amount to what he has. That's why he dropped to the 6th round.

How about instead of continually taking everyone else's castoffs, we actually develop our own young, long-term receivers? You know, since we declined to re-sign Torrey, the only WR drafted by the Ravens who really developed consistently (though in all fairness to Mark Clayton, I always felt he was misused).

"Firing is a bad business model". Tell that to Brian Billick, who, IMO, was a far better head coach than John Harbaugh could ever hope to be, who was the coach who took this team from pack of losers to a Super Bowl champion in two years' time, and created the roster and culture of success (for the most part) that Harbaugh was lucky enough to inherit. Billick, by the way, got fired for a 5-11 season, one year removed from a team that posted a franchise best 13-3 record and the ONLY franchise #1 ranked defense. Not to mention its second AFC North title. Yes, 2005 was an ugly mess of a year, but quite frankly, Billick was never given the offensive pieces nor stability to work with, that Harbaugh once had. In all honesty, I've never felt that Joe Flacco was THAT much better than Kyle Boller, in fact if Boller had enjoyed a better o-line, better weapons around him, and more than one fully healthy season in his career with us, we might well have seen him do just as well as Flacco has, at his best. The 2002 Ravens team overperformed in spite losing so many important SB team players. The 2004 Ravens had literally no wide receivers of note, Jamal missed 4 games on suspension, and Todd Heap missed 10 games with injury, yet we still fought, and still just barely missed the playoffs. 2005 was a mess, in part because Boller got hurt right away, and Wright was downright awful. Not to mention many other key injuries. I still feel like Boller's late-season play in back-to-back games against Green Bay and Minnesota, were signs of progression from him. And if they had bothered sticking with him one more season, with less injuries and more pass protection, I think he certainly could have done an equitable if not superior job to what McNair offered. In fact, Boller's two games he played in relief effort showed that he was still playing at a reasonably higher level. You certainly couldn't have done much worse than the complete dud of a performance that McNair put in in the playoffs. That defense was on fire, but McNair played with zero life or fire, and threw 2 costly red zone INTs. Ed Reed was freakin' Superman in that game, notching 2 official INTs and a 3rd where he landed out of bounds. He arguably could have even had a 4th, but he and Ray Lewis both went for the ball and ran into each other. Regardless, while John Harbaugh did provide 5 straight playoff seasons, I also again think that he inherited a good team from Billick. But one thing Billick never did, was turn in two straight non-winning seasons. 2007 was a disaster, for sure, but that was a combination of a rash of injuries, and continuing to rely on a broken down McNair who simply didn't have anything left in the tank. If they had gone with Boller from the start, or actually bothered giving Troy Smith a chance to develop, who knows. The point being, I have no reason to believe that the 2008 Ravens, with Billick at the helm, wouldn't have still been successful and made the playoffs. And whether that's true or not, Steve has given John Harbaugh a hell of a lot more leeway. Our offense has never improved ALL That much from the Billick days, while the tradition of consistently great defense he helped build, has largely evaporated under Harbaugh's watch. So...yeah. I would say that at the very least, forcing Harbaugh to make some staff changes, would have been appropriate. Instead, with 3 playoff misses in 4 years, and Joe Flacco playing fairly badly in all but one of those years, what we get is a bunch of excuses, and pie in the sky notions that "oh trust us, this same exact crew could be great next year!"

"but the status quo wasn't CLOSE to being good enough this year, so lets keep the same..." Not really, We were INCHES away from being 10-6 and #3 seed in the AFC - INCHES (look back at the Pittsburgh and Washington games). We didn't get there, but we were pretty darn close. Inches? Were we inches away from beating the Bengals, who were missing their top stars and had little to play for? Yes, inches away from being one and done in the playoffs. The D's stats were inflated by playing bad teams/offenses, and that showed down the stretch. And the offense was one of the worst the Ravens have ever fielded. Which is no surprise, because the Ravens offense since 2013 (barring 2014) has been awful. It's been a problem, regardless of coordinators. It's just that the coordinators haven't helped matters at all. Realistically speaking, the common denominator, however, has always been Joe, and his very UN-Elite issues which have persisted since his rookie year. These Ravens didn't make the playoffs because they weren't good enough to. And even if they somehow had stumbled into the playoffs, there is no way we would have competed against good teams.

I often hate fans who adopt this mentality, but in all honesty, after all these years, I think Harbaugh's nonsense has finally worn completely thin. He AND his coordinators need to be gone. And Joe Flacco needs to either play like his job depends on it, or leave as well.

No offense to Kamar, but he doesn't seem to understand, as many players don't. On a team with better, healthier options, he never would have been a starter. He would not be a starter on MOST teams in the NFL. He is a good player, but there is no way he should be starting over our first round pick, Perriman, who was also severely underutilized. If Wallace weren't here, then yeah, I suppose I could see Perriman and Aiken starting, with maybe Camp in the slot. But really, we can and should do a lot better at starting WR than Aiken.