beasy2487

I would. For an excellent one? Devin Hester in his prime in only a specialist role would be worth more to me, personally.

I mean...Devin Hester in his prime though? me too lol.

I agree, it makes little sense unless he's trying to stir the pot and drive up his price somewhat.

I'd say that's exactly what he's trying to do and that two of the other teams are probably the Patriots and Steelers.

More like a bust in Canton...amiright?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

yet another ugly offseason thread. yikes.

well you said yourself if he even got half of 60 something receptions and 669 yards that would be extremely impressive. So if he put up 45 catches and over 450 yards, esp in comparison to what he did last year- yes I would call that a breakout season. Never said he would put up gronk stats this year. And no- I don't think 6 or 7 Tds is far fetched at all. Seeing what joe was able to do with Owen Daniels last year, there's no doubt in my mind. I also don't think biscotti suggested that 40 receptions would be his ceiling. I don't remember the exact quote so I could be wrong but it sounded like he was sayin he would to be surprised if he caught Atleast 40. That's neither here nor there.

we all have to find validation somewhere.

re: Gilmore

I'm excited for what he's going to show us. I think Gilmore has an edge to him and is much less of an oaf than Gronk is. To me, Gronk lacks leadership qualities and benefits greatly from the rigor around him. I think Gilmore is much more focused and though he isn't as physically gifted, he has the mental tools to cause serious problems for opponents with his size and strength.

He was wearing linebackers out last year as a rookie. 20 more pounds of muscle? Are you serious? I expect some pancakes and hurt feelings in the future lol.

In theory, there's really only 3 positions that I have extreme confidence in performing well at... OL, MLB, and QB (I like many don't really care about QB depth). I think we are rock solid and among the league's best in those two areas.

Pass rush and DL seem to be in pretty good shape, but there are some question marks/unknowns in that area. DL is extremely young, and will probably feature a heavy rotation. As long as Dumervil/Suggs are healthy, I expect them to be productive for the time being, and we have some guys I think can rush on occasion successfully. I'd lump RB into this "fine" area because as long as the OL is playing well, I think anybody can run the ball successfully for us.

CB appears to have improved, but there's some uncertainty there. Webb has to play better and stay healthy, and Jimmy has to come back from his injury well and stay healthy. Depth is still a mild concern for me, but not a huge one.

Safety is an intriguing position, because we know Will Hill can play well but not much else. We think Lewis could be good, but we thought the same thing about Huff. Not a lot of high quality depth there unless Elam plays a lot better.

WR/TE is a complete wildcard for me. I have practically no expectations, and nothing would shock me. They could light the world on fire, or they could struggle incredibly. Neither would surprise me. Just one big gigantic question mark for me right now.

I agree, specifically with your points about the safety position. To me that's a total swing group for us. At worst I think they are a weakness we can mitigate if CB can avoid the injury bug. At best, they could actually be a strength which is weird to think about given the abysmal state the group was in last year.

Might be related to it being an off-season Sunday afternoon and we're all busy living our lives.

where's that codizzle Fire emoji when you need it lol!!!!

Somehow...this just turned into a Cam Cameron thread. Climbing to new lows lol.

You forgot about harbaughs doghouse

Haha fair point.

Amazing.

It seems EVERY thread is about Torrey now a days.

June in Ravens land. Torrey, Elam, Pees or rookies...take your pick lol.

I agree he deserves respect, but I wouldn't say it's bashing him to say that he isn't as good as Jimmy and that we'd sign Jimmy over him. Hell, given the limited cap space you mentioned earlier that's what we actually did.

2 points:

-We got Jimmy at a serious discount. He easily could've played out his contract like Torrey and Joe did and gotten more money. Jimmy, unlike Torrey decided to stay with the Ravens and reward their faith in him which might have to do with the fact that he's somewhat injury prone and also because the fanbase didn't turn on him over nonsense

-I was never arguing that it was Torrey bashing to say we signed someone over Torrey. My point was that Torrey played well for us overall, we offered him a fair contract from our perspective and he took more money elsewhere.The notion that he was was "deemed unworthy" is pure pontification that is not substantiated by any record whatsoever.

Anyway, I do believe both parties are better off at this point. We now have more promising, although unproven talent at WR and Torrey got paid and can play in front of fans that stick by their players. I thought we were that type of fanbase but I've been proven wrong.

Cool. He joins the long, long, long list of ex-Ravens who John Harbaugh wishes he still had on this team. Not a less relevant concept in this world than that. This is a football team, not a Christmas list.

If you want to play the "speculation" game, most of what you said above was speculation. Saying we even offered him a contract this offseason is speculation, because it lacks evidence that we did. The only thing that can even vaguely be considered "factual" in terms of what contract offers we made to him was an alleged $7M per year offer made a full season prior. We don't know if that offer was real, nor do we know if the same offer or a better or worse one was even offered this offseason. For all we know, the Ravens could have him offered him precisely 0 contracts this offseason.

The only things we do know that is that we had the opportunity to keep him if we wanted, and based on our perceived value of him and his perceived value of himself, he's no longer a member of this team. Everything else would be considered your opinion and nothing more.

That's the beauty of debate. You represent your opinion, base it on the evidence available and accept that you may be wrong. Sadly that requires humility which is...a foreign concept on one side of this discussion.

To get back to the point I was originally making before the speculative wisdom parade, Torrey played well for us and he deserves respect. If showing a good man respect for doing his best and helping us win our second SB is a "love fest" as you so brilliantly put it in your strange rebuttal, then I'm ok with that—as my opinion.

LOL. Why does it matter what John wanted back in January when its June? I'll bet he wanted Pernell McPhee back too, but hes gone. I'll bet he wanted Paul Kruger and Ellerbe back too, but they gone. I'll bet he wanted Art Jones back too, but he gone. Wanting something doesn't really matter.

My bolded statements can't even vaguely be construed as speculation. Torrey Smith is no longer a member of the Baltimore Ravens. That's a statement of fact. While the reason doesn't really matter, we know it basically wasn't due to a lack of cap space, because we have it and had it if we needed it. The choice to NOT pay Torrey what he was seeking was an organizational decision, and that's the very foundation for the word "unworthy".

Mincing words my friend. The fact is the record shows we wanted him back from Harbaugh's lips to God's ears. Someone else paid him more. We deemed him worthy of what we offered, he deemed himself worthy of more and so did the 9ers. Your statement has no basis in fact, hence speculation. Unless you have some knowledge outside of what is on the record, which you often purport to but I sincerely doubt, your comment on this matter is your opinion and nothing more.

We can also stop with the Torrey lovefest also. He's not on this team anymore because we didn't view him as an integral enough asset to this team to pay him market value. Its pretty rare that the truly "great" Ravens are allowed to walk while they are still "great". We let good players walk on an annual basis, but rarely great players.

 

He played well for us overall in four seasons, and we deemed him unworthy of keeping. Its that simple.

 

John Harbaugh Wants Torrey Smith Back: 

 

http://www.baltimoreravens.com/news/article-1/John-Harbaugh-Wants-Torrey-Smith-Back/3a2d9b3f-4170-47ed-8015-d389ffa99afc

 

Your bolded comment sounds like blatant speculation to me given the facts, unless you speak with Ozzie and Harbs personally but I doubt that. I support good guys that play well for this team. If that's a "lovefest" so be it.

Not going to go there, but Torrey did some good things for us...not great

A second round, project track athlete with questionable hands came in, provided us with solid #2 receiver play, had multiple huge games on the way to the Super Bowl, which he was integral in helping us win. And was a model citizen and leader in the community to boot. He let us down last year, sure but he made great -- yes great -- contributions in his time here. Backhanded compliments are not necessary.

Folks around here need to stop. It's disgraceful.

That wasn't my intention at all.I was really using that game/assignment as an example to show BB22 that Talib isn't a stationary CB since he said he didn't move much with the Broncos.And Jimmy didn't play that many snaps against those guys so it's not fair to say he was the one slowing them down.He does a good job shutting down his side,but he never leaves his side and thats a valid knock when it comes to comparing him to guys who trail a teams biggest threat.

Sherman doesn't switch even slightly and he has elite safety play behind him. Jimmy sits on an island in the truest sense. Will Hill shut down Graham...is he suddenly the best cover safety in the game? No. Imo the only corners that are flat out better are Chris Harris and Revis. Harris gets the nod because of his ability to create turnovers without elite talent around him and Revis because he's been doing it game in and game out for years regardless of team/scheme. Talib is declining by the minute, Peterson lacks discipline, and Haden redefines overrated.

I understand being contrary but saying Jimmy isn't an elite corner just doesn't hold up to scrutiny. At least he's on par with Sherman, at most he's top 3.

The way this site is run this thread will still be active in 9 years.

but the discussion will be so wholesome, family-friendly and topical! Just like football! Wait...

I think it's a little misleading to say that he was brought in to run the same offense that Kubiak ran.

It's more or less because his offense is a west coast offense, and I think last season was a VIOLA! Moment when Flacco took a step forward in a quick hitting type of system. Since it's still a west coast system, I'm sure a lot of the concepts will stay the same, but there will be a new look about it.

Hopefully, it's a smooth transition and Trestman tries to utilize Flacco's down field capability a little more than Kubiak did now that we've got Perrin who is going to be a stud.

I've always preferred the cello.

I think it's unlikely that you use a fourth round pick on a player knowing that teams wanted him in the early fifth and expect him to make it through waivers.

0% chance Walker is a PS player.

Pees is old n washed up..doesn't bring anything new to the table. Only reason he's had a little success IS because of the players(coaches) around him. This D could be better. I wasn't going by last seasons playoffs. Before we lost Jimmy n company we still looked average when we're not.As for my break out player...u don't have to agree with me just watch.

 

I don't know why you're getting bashed for this, I totally agree. We should've been scouting Pop Warner leagues for young defensive coaching talent years ago. Or maybe give Castillo a shot, I hear he has DC experience.

Sorry, Torrey and Joe were hardly ever on the same page. Kamar Aiken, a journeyman, synced up with Joe faster than Torrey. If you think Joe and Torrey ever had anything that resembled chemistry you're kidding yourself. 

 

Disagree. They had plenty of chemistry in the narrow lane where Torrey excelled. Flacco didn't earn his reputation for the deep ball alone. The issue was Torrey couldn't consistently make plays in the short-mid passing game so he could be isolated. Fortunately, due to Joe's ridiculous arm they were able to make that work by forcing PI downfield, but that's not sustainable offense--as evidenced in the Patriots game.

 

I agree that it's a net positive that Torrey moved on, but the idea that "chemistry with Flacco" had anything to do with his struggles is a stretch to me. His issue is that he is just not a natural pass catcher. That limited the types of passes he could catch, which in turn limited the types of routes he could run. All his other challenges snowballed from there.

+ 35 he's the new flacco

 

It's like Pre-SB Flacco and Lee Evans had a whipping boy baby.

Torrey bashing is an art form on these boards, good lord.

Harbs. the man is my spirit animal.

To hear Aiken is doing well is not a all surprising, but I too am glad to hear it and hope he can be more of a playmaker this year. Last season was a great starting point for Aiken and I hoped he'd follow that up with a strong offseason/preseason of work. It looks like he's doing just that right now.

I've based a lot of my opinion on what the offense will look like based on what I've seen from the Bears the last two seasons. However that's a mistake imo. We won't really know what this offense will look like until we see Trestman put together game plans to highlight certain players. I think he could go to a WR heavy WCO like he had with the Oakland Raiders when Tim Brown, Jerry Rice and Jerry Porter all had over 50 catches with the RB having 90 catches. Now i'm not saying any of our guys are HOF type WR, with the exception of Sr. but I do think we could have a offense were 3-4 WRs catch 50+. But I could also see a TE/HB heavy type offense, then we also can't forget the 3 headed monster we seem to be forming at RB. So i'm excited to see what Trestman will be able to do with the offensive pieces that Ozzie has provided.

The fact that Marc is throwing everything at the guys right now, tells me that he'll be a lot more creative and multiple then what Kubes was. No knock to Kubes because I loved what he brought to the team and wished he would have stayed. However i go back to last season and there were times that the offense just looked stagnant without a clue of how to get on the right track. Now that's not to say Kubes did anything wrong in those situations, but Trestman seems like the type of OC who's really good at making tweaks to an offense and taking it to the next level. Many say that the 2002 Raiders team was more of Gruden's offense then Trestman, but Marc definitely helped take it to another level. I can't wait to see what tweaks he'll make to the offense this year.

this is a great assessment. trestman has helmed championship quality offensive schemes for mutiple teams and multiple leagues if you factor in his CFL days (fun fact: he had Andrew Hawkins on a couple of those teams). to your point, that tells me this isn't a man that has a base scheme that he's shopping to different franchises like Kubes, but rather a guy that tailors his approach to the specific circumstances he's in.