Ravenslifer

I'm torn about Wallace - his stats have never been the same since he left Pittsburgh.  On the one hand, you could point to the fact that all of his QBs since then had noodle arms and couldn't take advantage of his speed.  On the other hand, there is certainly truth to the fact that Roethlisberger made him look a lot better than he actually was, and his best attribute, his speed, will only decrease with time.  I guess it all depends on the price we sign him for, which would give an indication of the role we expect him to play.

Just to compete as a camp body.  If he looks like he's one of the top 3 backs, he'll stay.  If not, he's cut.  We're not (at least i hope not) going to be addressing the biggest holes on this team until the draft, anyway,

I'd prefer to draft a player like Bosa, Buckner, or Jack, but if Ramsey is there I couldn't fault the Ravens for taking him.  I think either Hargreaves or Alexander is a major reach where we are picking - I feel there's better value at the CB position from the second round on.

What we need is the best players to fill our gaps. Is WR a need - yes. SSS is 36 coming off a major injury and will retire after next year, and after him we have no clue if Perriman will live up to expectations and if the other receivers can continue their progress. Is LT a possible need - yes, given Eugene Monroe 's health concerns. Is OLB/DE a need - yes, given Suggs and Doom's ages and Suggs coming off injury. Is DB, either CB or safety a need - yes - we likely struck out with Elam, Jimmy has been inconsistent off of his injury but hopefully he bounces back, Webb looks shot, every CB or safety we've brought in the last few years has basically been a flop. If Treadwell is the best player on the board, take him. If it's Stanley, take him. If it's Bosa, take him. If it's Ramsey, take him. Any one of those 4 will make the team better, and that's what's important this year.

Not necessarily the same hype or type of player, but I remember how everyone in the NFL was gushing over Tavon Austin when he came out three years ago.  Again, Miller is a bigger, stronger guy, but Austin had much more from an experience perspective, and he was being talked about much more.  So far he's really struggled - a lot has to do with the QB situation, but it just seems to me that a lot of these guys who don't fit into a traditional role and are looked at as more of a swiss army knife kind of player (the term "weapon" gets way overused for guys who I just think don't have any defined role at that point in their careers) end up struggling a lot at the NFL level.

On 2/3/2016 at 11:09 PM, ravenz2752 said:

Face it. KO is likely to leave. I know Ryan Jensen and John Urchel have played well, but does no one else see depth or competition a necessity? I see it as a bigger need than receiver

I would say define need in terms of draft position.  Yes we've taken guards with top 100 picks before, but for the most part solid starters can be found in later rounds.  Unless we're looking for an elite prospect at the position, it can be addressed later.  I think most of the players and positions people are discussing right now are guys they want the FO to target in the first 3 rounds. As an example, Jensen, Urschel, and Wagner were all later round picks.

Maybe in the third round, but no earlier. Transitioning positions is not easy though there are plenty of players in the league who have done it. But WR in the first would be Treadwell, and in the second round there are 6-7 receivers I'd take over him, especially as high as we're picking. I expect no more than 3 receivers to be taken by the time we're on the board in the second round.

On 1/31/2016 at 3:12 PM, The Greek said:

i agree with you but jalen ramsey is rated higher than every pass rusher aside from bosa and is a day one starter if all goes as planned at either cb or safety. i cannot see the fo passing on ramsey for any pass rusher unless it is bosa.

I keep forgetting about Ramsey.  He'd be a great pick also, but like I said he'd probably not look like a player worthy of a top-10 selection until year 2-3 given the difficulty of transition for D-backs from college to the NFL.  The one big question mark I have about Ramsey is that he had so few INTs in college, and we badly need a guy in the back end who's a threat to take the ball away either from a sack or an INT.  

I wish Buckner hadn't skipped the Senior bowl, I wanted to get a better look at him. But aside from Joey Bosa, we should have our pick of the top pass rushers in this class, and unless it's a left tackle I don't see any other position that would be as valuable for us going forward. Corners, safeties, wide receivers often take years to really start going in their careers, but a great D-lineman, like Suggs or Ngata, can be great from year one and be a cornerstone of your defense for a decade or more.

I hate to pick on the Panthers or the Broncos, but lets just take a look at draft position:

Since 2000, the Panthers have picked in the top half of the draft (top 16 picks) 9 times, or just over half of those drafts, including 4 top 10 picks.  The Broncos Have picked in the top half of the draft 6 times.  In that time, the Ravens have had the following picks in the top 16 - Jamal Lewis, Terrrell Suggs, Haloti Ngata.  And I can't put either Flacco (18th) or Mosley (17th) in that list because they are both technically bottom half of the first round picks.  We've pretty much nailed our top pick every time we've drafted high.  Now, with us picking so high this year, IMO this is a serious make or break draft because we should be in position to draft a 10 year starter at whatever position we draft first.  But the bottom line is the Panthers and Broncos were bad for a very long time, and missed big on some players in order to hit on their current stars.

6 hours ago, cushrinada1986 said:

After reading this, I would not be surprised if there is a push for a speed guy in the first 3 rounds. I hope they pull the trigger on Will Fuller or Caroo tbh:

http://www.foxsports.com/nfl/story/pittsburgh-steelers-baltimore-ravens-joe-flacco-speed-envy-012216

PolishRifle and JoeyFlex5 already alluded to the point I'd make - I don't think Joe would be necessarily envious of "speed', but of other quarterbacks having "the guy" on offense.  Think Brady and Gronk, Ryan and Jones, Manning and Thomas, Stafford and Megatron, Ben and Brown, Eli and Beckham, Dalton and Green, Romo and Bryant, Wilson and Graham, Rodgers and Nelson, etc.  Whenever you mention the top quarterbacks, every single one of them has "the guy" to throw to,  Cam Newton might be the exception without Kelvin Benjamin, but Benjamin would be "the guy" for Cam.  Maybe it will be Perriman for Joe; it probably would have been Dennis Pitta had he been healthy.  But it's clear that (like SSS was in 2014) the better statistical quarterbacks in the league all have a guy they can just throw it up for grabs to and know he'll come down with it 9 times out of 10.

Its actually debatable but Steve Smith is easily better than any of their WRs, Aiken and Ginn are kneck and kneck but Olsen breaks the tie. His weapons aren't great but they're not awful either.

The other thing people aren't considering is the health of the players and who was actually available.  Cam got nothing out of Benjamin this year, Joe got nothing out of Pitta or Perriman.  Of the 700 snaps Joe played, He had Pitta and Perriman for zero, SSS for 350, Campanaro for 50, Crockett Gilmore for 580, Max Williams for 11, etc.  The top 5, so basically the weapons Flacco had the majority of the time, were Gilmore, Aiken, Givens, Williams, and Marlon Brown.  Cam had no Benjamin, but Corey Brown played 750 snaps, Ted Ginn 670, Funchess 500, Cotchery 400.

 

Back to the original topic, I do think St. Louis should get another team. Stan Kroenke really had no interest in keeping the Rams there after he gained control of the franchise. In reading a bunch of articles on the matter, he wasn't keen on the Edward Jones Dome in the first place. I don't think anything the city of St. Louis was going to sway him, his vision of the Inglewood project was too salivating to him. I'm never going to a Wal Mart again, that guy screwed over a great fan base.

My issue with a team in St. Louis is simple - over the last decade they've consistently been in the bottom 5 of the NFL in attendance, often bottom 3.  Whether it was the terrible team, poor stadium, whatever the reason, I'm pretty sure they were losing money there, or at least not as popular as you'd expect an NFL team to be - and as I stated earlier, the Houston Texans' attendance history, especially in their early years, proves winning has little to do with it.  Ultimately, the NFL is a money-making business - if a team feels they can be profitable in St. Louis, I'd support a move there.  But if Stan Kroenke feels LA is a better market for selling out his stadium, I have no problem with him wanting to move his team there - he's the one paying for the team, so if he thinks the LA market brings a better return on his investment, I think he's entitled to move.  Plus, I'd imagine, at least in the short-term when the Rams are rebuilding, being in LA will help draw some better free agent talent to help them.

 

Then we saw the flip side of that today with Von Miller and Ware making game altering plays that ultimately brought the Pats high powered offense to a screeching halt and propelled Denver into the SB. Forget Talib, Harris Jr, Ward, and all the great players they have in their secondary, it started with the pass rush and they don't win that game without their edge rushers despite having the best secondary in football.

 

 

There's a reason we haven't really had that kind of impact player since the days when Suggs and Ngata were young - we simply don't draft high enough to have shots at these talents.  Let's run down the 2015 list of top 10 sack artists: Aaron Donald - 13th overall, Kawaan Short - 44th overall, Von Miller - 2nd overall, Geno Atkins - 120th overall, , Whitney Mercillus - 26th overall, Muhammed Wilkerson - 30th overall, Chandler Jones - 21st overall, Carlos Dunlap 54th overall, Ziggy Ansah 5th overall, Khalil Mack 5th overall, JJ Watt 11th overall.  Notice something - only 3 of these guys was NOT a first round pick, and 5 of them were top 15 picks in their respective drafts, and two others were taken in the top half of the second round.  We have been picking in the late 20s of every draft since 2008 except 1, and then we were still only 17th.  We had a shot at just 3 of these guys.  The last time we took a player regarded that highly was Suggs, and he's got a chance to finish his career in the top 15 in NFL history in sacks.

There's no point in discussing Michael Oher at all, because its purely hindsight that precisely ZERO fans have any credibility with.

 

I, like practically every fan, had absolutely zero issue seeing him leave town, as I didn't even think he was an average RT, let alone a quality LT.

 

There was also ZERO discussion from any single member of this fanbase about how much we missed him in 2014, when he signed a 4 year, $20M deal with the Titans, and they gave him almost $10M guaranteed. He subsequently was awful, was benched, and was cut one year into a four year deal. They took a $4.34M dead money cap hit this season just to get rid of him. That's how great he was.

 

And now, here we are again, watching the fans play the hindsight card trying to make themselves look like they know what they are talking about. Where you guys been at for the last five years?

Dude ignore this person.  Clearly he has no clue exactly how "well" Carolina's line is performing.  Their adjusted sack rate (Sacks  compared to number of dropbacks) was in the bottom half of the league this year.  And their worst performer on the line the entire year, by far, was Michael Oher.  I mean, the Ravens won the Superbowl with Oher at right tackle also.  Didn't make him a quality starter at the spot that season either.

I really hope a comp pick isn't the reason we don't find a good CB, If so I'm hopping on the fire Ozzie bandwagon(Ok, not really) but outside of Jimmy, you have no starting caliber CB. I don't know if you can look into the draft since CB is such a learning process, not a lot of Marcus Peters out there who enter the draft. If we have to overpay, then so be it, put down the Comp Pick drink for once.

The CB market isn't so great - Leon Hall might be the best affordable one, but he's affordable because of age.

Even the Colts? 

I didn't have a problem with the Colts moving.  The problem was the manner in which they did so.  When Art Modell moved the Browns, he told the city of Cleveland the year before that he would strongly consider moving if stadium changes weren't made.  He was petty about it, but he was up front about it.  Robert Irsay went on national television and said "the Colts aren't leaving Baltimore".  Then he vanished in the night.  I could partially understand it because at the time the Maryland legistlature had pushed through a bill that would have allowed the city to take control of the team from Irsay the following season, so he was running short on time.  But there's a big difference in threatening to do something and then doing it vs. lying through your teeth to the public and going behind everyone's back.

I don't think they should ever get another NFL team. They blew their second chance after they lost the Cards back in 1987. While both Baltimore and Houston did very well supporting the Ravens and the Texans after the Colts and the Oilers left.

Right now I'm leaning no.  The EJ dome had a capacity of 66,000.  From 2008-2015, that team couldn't average even 60,000 in attendance in any single season.  To put that in perspective, that puts them in the bottom 5 in attendance in every one of those seasons.  They can cry about tradition and fandom, but the bottom line is the NFL is a business - if a team feels they can make more money by relocating, then they have the right to do so.  You bring up these other moves, and I agree - the Ravens and the Texans have finished in the top 12 teams in the league in attendance in every season since 2006.  And that's in spite of having close competition in the form of Dallas and Washington right down the road from them, basically. The Texans also buck the idea that "the team needs to win to earn support" - they have finished .500 or worse in half of their seasons, have 3 playoff appearances and 1 playoff win in that time, but people still go to their games.  The Rams have legendary players in their St. Louis history and still couldn't get people to go to their games.

We need to get much better on the FA pickups this year.

 

Kendrick Lewis, Kyle Arrington, Matt Schaub.  I know Schaub is gone, but Arrington and Lewis could be on their way out as well.

Not just this year - since the Superbowl we've tried to shore up the secondary in FA every year and so far we've not been able to do it.

This would be really interesting. 

SB Nation's Dan Kadar has the Ravens taking Mackensie Alexander and then Kendall Fuller in back to back rounds. It'd be similar to what the Packers did last year by taking two young defensive backs.

In this league you really need 4-5 starting caliber corners to compete with the best of teams.

You can stop now! Wilson's touchdown to interception ratio is uncanny not to mention when his team needs a score he leads that charge.  With halfbutt receivers.  

 

No excuses for Wilson but plenty for Flacco? 

 

If not for Aquan and Ray's retirement party, would we even be talking about Flacco is the real question?

 

We need to draft a running back, QB, pass rushers and a few O- lineman.

 

You wouldn't say QB if you were set at the position. 

Lol get out of here with this garbage - you can't even answer the point of my post.  Wilson's teams don't win when the opposition actually puts points on the board.  His TD-INT ratio?  In his entire career he's only thrown the ball 30+ times 23 times in 4 seasons.  Does a 23-9 ratio sound good to you?  Because that's Sam Bradford's career when he doesn't throw the ball more than 30 times.  Pretty easy not to throw a pick when your not actually, you know, throwing the ball.

Wow What????? Wilson is way better than Flacco.  I'm even a little upset you put them in the same sentence.  In free agency we need to look at a Quarterback as well.

 

I think he might benefit from having someone that could potentially take his job behind him. I don't mean Ryan Mallett either.

 

  You talk about Wilson's defense carrying him, he has been in back to back Super-bowls and a divisional round playoff game this year.  What has Flacco done since the Super Bowl year? Take all of his years here in Baltimore and Flacco has been pedestrian with excuses.

 

We need to draft a QB. Not early, but we definitely need to carry three this year.   

Since Wilson has been drafted in 2012, the Seahawks have given up 28 points 13 times - they are 1-12 in those games.  If I even made it more stringent and held it to 20+ points, the Seahawks are 9-17 since 2012 when giving up 20+ points, including 0-7 this year.  Yeah, the defense has a ton to do with Wilson's record over the past 4 seasons. Joe's first 4 seasons, the defense gave up 20+ points 24 times, and we were 10-17.  So about even.

I'd do it.  We're short on cap space but as of right now Aiken is the most proven commodity we have - he is healthy and he played well.  SSS and Perriman are supposed to pass him on the depth chart, but we have no clue how either will look coming back, at least in the early going.

Garcon, VJax, and Colston would be the three I'd target if they get cut. They're all late-20s/early-30s type guys that could be had for a decent price if they sit on the market a while. Trouble is, I don't expect cuts until after the draft so it's hard to know what teams will do.

Heard this on mike and mike awhile back, forgot to post, so while im here at work i figured i will.

 

The seahawks traded their first round pick (31) for TE Jimmy Graham, the second best TE in the league.  Instead of hoping they hit on a player that they would have drafted at that spot, they took a known dominant player at his position.  Now the drawback is obviously the amount of money it takes to do trades like this, but is it worth it? 

 

Now obviously you cant do this with your entire roster because of the salary cap, this isnt Madden, but at certain positions it seems worth it to me assuming your under the cap and can afford it.  Clearly hitting on players in the draft is preferred since you would have that player on their rookie deal for 5 years. 

 

I was trying to think of an example for our team and was having issues, so just for example: instead of drafting BP in the first round with all the unknowns, trading a first rounder for say...Emanuel Sanders, keena Allen, etc...doesnt seem all that bad, like i said, i just used them as examples.  I know everything comes down to the caproom, but if your telling me could a Fitgerald for 3-4 years, it doesnt sound too bad.  (bad examples)

 

Since we are extremely lucky to have Ozzie, we have always drafted in better grades, but im bored so give me some slack...

The thing I didn't get about the Seahawks trading for Graham is that they are still primarily  a run-heavy team.  Russell Wilson has never in his career crossed 500 passing attempts in a season.  And this is the first year he crossed 3500 yards passing.  Obviously you can't measure the kind of impact a matchup nightmare like Graham gives to a team, but in terms of utilization Wilson threw the ball his way just about half as many times as Brees averaged over the years he was in New Orleans.  Maybe this changes going forward, but paying a guy 8.5 million and not even throwing his way 100 times seems like a major waste of cap space to me.  So if you are going to trade for a known commodity, at any position, and take on a large contract, especially compared to a rookie or lesser tier free agent contract, IMO you better plan on using the guy as much as you can.