Ravenslifer

Too bad it's backing up the guy with the longest active consecutive start streak in the NFL. Ideally for Johnson he gets a shot at mop up duty in some blowout games - Eli's not likely to give him any excuse to get gameday reps otherwise.

I think the 1996 Ravens with Jackson and Alexander are still the best receiving group in franchise history - 2 1000-yard receivers plus the 600-yard season from Kinchen - we were second in passing yards that year and 6th in total offense, 6th in scoring. These players in 2016 are exciting for their skill sets, but the question remains - will we get 16 games out of SSS, Perriman, and Pitta, and what will guys like Mike Wallace, coming off a down season, and Kamar Aiken, now demoted after his best season as a pro, be able to bring to the table? And we also have Maxx Williams and Crocket Gilmore coming off injury and Darren Waller trying to learn a new position. Part of the success of years like 1996, 2010, and 2012 is we had guys who had played at least a full season together prior to that season - it's going to take time for the players on offense to adjust to each other and Flacco's arm, and it's going to take time for the offensive line, with a rookie LT, to find it's way. In 1996 we Basically had the same crew, the difference being Rison of the 95 Browns was replaced by Alexander. But Jackson, Testeverde, and Kinchen were all returning starters that had a full season working together under their belts. Remember in 2011 Dickson was the dominant tight end - it wasn't until 2012 that the Pitta-Flacco connection showed us what it could be. I think this year will have several bumps and growing pains, especially at the beginning of the season.

Ed Reed was here for 6 years before Harbaugh, along with Ray Lewis. We had 3 winning seasons, 3 losing seasons, and only went to the playoffs twice, not winning a single game. In Harbs' 8 years here, it was only last year that we had a losing season, we've made the playoffs 6 of 8 seasons, made the AFCCG 3 times and won a superbowl. So now you're telling me Ed Reed and his system/abilities as a coach, where he has ZERO experience, would have been the difference between a winning and losing season last year? You think it's better to go out and hire a guy with absolutely no experience coaching football at any level, a guy who by the way was known much more for his unique approach to the game rather than his fundamental techniques (which is the job of the coach, to make sure the players understand proper technique and their job on each play) than Leslie Frazier, a man who has had 15 years of coaching experience, mostly on the defensive side of the ball, in college and the NFL, and who is a former NFL DB himself? What if it has nothing to do with any "conflict", and everything to do with the simple fact that the Ravens defense has been sputtering the last few seasons, and instead of hiring a guy with zero experience to fix the most problematic area on the defense, the secondary, they opted to go for a guy with a very proven track record?

I remember the days of Travis Taylor and what we almost had with Michael Jackson, not to mention Mark Clayton and the "Demetrius Williams watch" years. We were fortunate to have gotten what we did out of Torrey and JJ.

For the right price I'd bring him back as a situational pass-rushing specialist. He did well when he was here in that role, and he did okay in Cleveland when there was someone there taking the pressure off of him. Plus I thought Pees got the best out of him in 2012.

I don't hate them. We have a team in Baltimore again, and as far as I'm concerned, the most important players involved, the players of the Baltimore Colts, chose Baltimore over the Colts. Johnny U was a fixture at early Ravens games. Guys like Lenny Moore, Tom Matte, Stan White, Art Donovan always maintained they were Baltimore players, not Colts players. So who cares that Baltimore had no football team for 12 years - Baltimore has 3 Superbowl titles, 5 NFL titles in total. The same people from the same City cheer both versions of the Baltimore football team. Am I ticked the Colts left the way they did, and on top of everything threw sand in the face of the city of Baltimore by preventing the USFL team from playing in their ABANDONED stadium, sure. But Indy has its football history, and in Baltimore we have ours.

Is this best Raven's player or favorite? Best is Ray hands down, although J.O. is a step behind him for me, and Ed Reed a step behind J.O. But my favorite Raven of all time is Peter Boulware. One, I'm an FSU fan, and two, I loved his approach to the game - super intense on the field, but he wasn't an "in-your-face" kind of jerk (the ref chasing notwithstanding).

Uh, what? Since 2011, Dalton has 2400 yards, 10 TDs 13 picks and a QBR of 75 vs. the Ravens. Since that same time, Flacco has 2400 yards, 13 TDs to 10 picks and a QBR of 84 against Cincinnati. Since 2011, Cinci has been in the top 3 of opposing QBR against 3 times while Baltimore has been there just once. In the last 2 years Baltimore has been in the bottom half of the league in opposing QBR, Cincinatti hasn't been that bad since 2010. Head-to-head matchups are a fallacy in rating quarterbacks since they don't play each other, they play their opponents' defense.

Everyone knew this was coming after the first night of the draft. You don't draft a guy 6th overall and not expect him to start at left tackle in the near future. Monroe still had 3 years left on his deal, there was no way Stanley was playing RT or LG for 3 years and then making the switch to LT. At most it would have been one season, I just think the combination of Monroe's injury history and off-the field stance plus the fact that they like what they've seen from Stanley so far in OTAs prompted this move sooner.

Hope none get injured. We thought we had the same "problem" last year, didn't we?

I really don't like Tomlin that high - the Steelers were a very, very successful team in the years leading up to Tomlin replacing Cowher - from 2000-2005, they had 4 double-digit win seasons and won a Superbowl. In the 6 years prior to Harbaugh replacing Billick (2002-2007), the Ravens had 2 double digit win seasons, 3 losing seasons, and lost both of their playoff games. Tomlin has had a lot of success, but the Steelers as a franchise have been a very competitive team almost every year since Cowher took over in the early 90s. IMO easier to sustain success than it is to build consistency after what we had here in Baltimore during our first 10 years as a franchise.

Well I'd say lock simply because he's the only guy who has any starting experience besides the vets. Real game production > preseason/OTA reps, since we've already got proof he can play against NFL caliber DBs. And I'd say we do have decent depth compared to some other teams in the league - we know that at least 4 or 5 guys on this roster can play in real games against real NFL defenses and do something - and that I think is more valuable than one beastly receiver and a bunch of guys who are easily covered by number 4 cornerbacks. Some teams don't even have 2 solid NFL starters. Individual talent wise, yes I wouldn't put us very high, since SSS is at the end, Wallace is a number 3 at best at this point, Aiken is maybe a poor mans starter, and we don't know about Perriman - the rest of the guys are unknown, but Camp showed something when healthy, and Chris Matthews played very well with us at the end there. But I'd rather be us than the Bengals with AJ Green, and their next best options being a rookie draft pick and a guy who has spent 5 years with 2 teams.

IMO not much - there are still 11 receivers on the roster and only a total of 7 active roster spots. If you assume 4 are gauranteed - SSS and Wallace the vets, Perrimen the first round pick, Aiken last year's breakout player - that leaves 8 guys competing for 3 spots, which includes two players we drafted this year. So Camp still has quite an uphill battle left to make the team.

I really don't think we need a TE - we have Gilmore, Williams, Watson, Pitta, Waller, and eventually will get Boyle back from suspension - yeah half of them need to be superglued back together before seeing the field, but there will be cap casualties in July/August if we really need a body by then. The TE class this year IMO was very, very underwhelming. Any guy we picked up, based on talent alone, I think would have a hard time even beating out Waller and he's probably the low man on the totem pole given he's relatively new to the position. I think as of right now, Jeff Cumberland, Garret Graham, and even old man Owen Daniels are without teams.

Interestingly, coming into this draft I thought we a corner, offensive lineman, depth at the defensive line and receiver positions (to protect in case some of our injured guys aren't ready to go at the start of the season). I think we ended up with 2 of each. Here's to hoping all of them have a place in this league, even if it's not with the Ravens.

One guy who I'm glad to see that hated it - Mike Preston.

Yeah, I mean easing J.O. in clearly didn't work out for us...

Norman didn't become a household name until his 4th season. Webb was on his way there before injuries derailed his career, Pitta possibly the same way. And everyone you mentioned - remember 31 other teams also whiffed on those picks - IMO it's much more luck than anything else, some of these guys do things in the NFL that you NEVER could have projected from their college tape e.g. Sherman was a WR at Stanford until injuries forced a position switch, so there really was limited tape on his abilities as a CB coming out. We do have 4 shots in the 4th round this year, so maybe this is our year to unveil one of those guys. But again, that guy may already be on our roster, and just hasn't developed yet.

That AAV thing to me is the same as grading a player by the number of pro-bowls he's made in career - which, by the way, would mean Derek Anderson > Joe Flacco.

There is one WR I have my eye on - I'm not going to mention his name because every time I do some team ahead of us snatches the guy I wanted. I doubt he's high on the Ravens' board anyway, but he was one of my favorites in this class. There are a lot of CB prospects still left on the board that I'd like to be Ravens. I'm hoping we come out with a player at each position that could contribute early, given the injury situation we have at both spots.

Why all the hate? I think the bottom line on that is a lot of posters here (not targeting anyone specifically, but it does often appear that after a loss or around draft day a bunch of people who I've never seen before post for a few days then disappear) do not watch CF closely outside of a few favorite teams, they're unaware of the vast majority of players available in the draft, their talent, where they fit on this team and what they can do for us. And a lot of people also came into this draft with an expectation that we'd land at least 2 marquee names given our high draft slot - so when we traded back and missed out on Spence, Sheppard, and Ragland (all highly talked about prospects who were at some point mocked in the first round) right in a row and took Correa, who most people don't know, it upset a lot of people.

There's Correa for you

What exactly is a "war-daddy" McShay?

I think we're banking on a few DTs going right now

In theory, that means an extra pick in the top 100 of the draft