beasy2487

No we don't have the same offense we won a SB with. There is no Boldin. I know S. Smith is supposed to be that guy - but he hasn't taken a snap for us and is coming off his worst year ever. Not to mention, Flacco & Boldin didn't have that chemistry right off the bat. There is no Birk. And Zuttah, while an upgrade to Gino, is no Birk. KO is coming off a back injury. Daniels was cut because he failed a medical., Pitta seemed to be back to his old self pretty much - so there is that at least. And the last time Wagner played RT he was pitiful. It is not the same offense.

 

I didn't say it was lack of talent around the QB in '06. It was exactly what you said - an aging QB who hit his last legs - but it is always something with the offense. Then it was the QB. Now it the refusal to spend high picks on offense.

 

Like I said, all these things may come to pass. I just know the defense better play lights out.

 

Everyone keeps missing the bigger picture here even though I keep mentioning it. When do we expect to get this talent on offense? We just had the deepest draft for offensive talent in years. Do we expect to be picking in the Top 10 in the near future? Or even in the Top 20 again? When exactly are we going to see a deep draft like this again having passed up this opportunity?

If that's the bigger picture, then the biggest picture is that teams that consistently pick offensive talent with high picks aren't winning championships. In the past 10 years you have the Colts with Peyton and Harrison (both generational talents), the Steelers with Ben (and they won with defense), Giants with Eli (Defense), Packers with Rodgers (another generational talent), and...who else? Who are these amazing offensive juggernauts that are winning championships? You can make the "in this day and age" argument but the two best teams in the league last year (SF and SEA) were built with high picks on...you guessed it...defense. So I have to ask, do you really want championships, or do you just want to see big offensive numbers? You can't have it both ways.

I got my email this morning. Didn't you get yours?

There have been losing seasons as well. Did someone else draft those years? Mistakes happen. We all make them. Some are more avoidable than others.

Agree and understand the collective venting but, to your point, we judge Ozzie with the benefit of hindsight. Something he simply does not have when building the team and also in the context of the draft itself. He can take calculated risks as to whom will still be on the board or not, but I'm sure that strategy fails as often, if not more often than, it succeeds.

No one wins every year. It just doesn't happen in the salary cap era. Even teams like the Pats and Colts of the mid-2000s are bolstered by terrible divisions. We play in one of the most competitive divisions in football, to say "If Ozzie would just make the right choices (read: the choices I think he should make), we would never have a losing season" is off base bordering on ludicrous. Tell me, do you really think if we keep Q and go all-in on offense last offseason, we make the playoffs? Even with our additions, the defense was middling last year. Take back those additions and you have a bottom of the barrel defense and MAYBE a top 10-15 offense (and that's being extremely generous). When was the last time an upper-middle of the pack offense and no defense won a championship? Rarely, if ever.

We're just not going to win by going all-in on offense. Not gonna happen, not with this cast. But we've proven that with a turnover forcing defense and middle of the road offense we can get to the dance, heat up, and take home the prize. That's the team our management is building.

Personally, I'm a little miffed that Ozzie hasn't held a press conference to apologize to the fans, ownership, and the future generations of fans and ownership he's done wrong with this draft. It's obvious that this was a colossal failure as evidenced by every expert making it clear Oz doesn't know what he's doing. It would be one thing if the guy had an irrefutable track record building winning football teams, but c'mon this is Ozzie Newsome we're talking about, not some legend of the game both on and off the field.

As the saying goes, "Defense doesn't win championships, rookie WRs and RBs do." Followed closely by, "Please consult forum posters for draft advice. The higher the post count, the better the mock." So please Ozzie (and Eric you take notes), it's time to do us all a favor and hang up this little short term "NFL" experiment you've been testing for the past 36 years. It's just not working out.

I have no idea what's going on now. Who is right?

Fox Sports says Boldin's gone, ESPN says he's going nowhere. Personally, I blame Obama.

Obviously the FO has more important reasons for cutting a guy like Boldin but I have to wonder if a side benefit of doing so isn't the FO's way of telling Flacco "you wanted to be the highest paid...this is what happens".