Ravensfan23

The Big 10 Network is showing a replay of Nebraska vs Iowa for anyone who wants to see Carl Davis in a full game not just highlights.

Oh ok, just asking because it seems the book on Brown is that he's regressed or what he showed his first season was a fluke. Personally i disagree with you but that's what makes this fun right? I think Brown struggled with route running his first year and got open on pure athleticism most times. Last year he improved quite a bit in that area but the combination of Smitty coming and Brown getting hurt set him back from really showing those improvements early. Imho what you described of Brown is Torrey Smith without the speed. In reality what you described in Brown is what you find in 80-90% of the WRs in the NFL. Its rare to see guys win with great route running and talent unless your talking about the game's best imo. Because of this you see coaches focus so much on scheme and creating mismatches to get guys open. I think you either have a ridiculous talent that you rely on to get you open, speed, quickness, height, strength etc...or you are getting open based on your coach putting you in a favorable match up. Otside of Smitty it's not a WR on the team this year or last year that gets open without the offense scheming them open.

I think we will keep 7.

But the thing is a balanced offense doesn't mean run the ball 2 times then pass the ball 2 times. The offense was balanced throughout the playoffs in both cases. Balanced means just keeping a defense off balance and on their toes as you mentioned. Imo January Joe shows up for a reason simple because the Ravens choose to put the ball in his hands. Imo it doesn't make sense to say, oh the season is on the line, it's the playoffs so lets put the ball in Joe's hands. Yet you don't have the same mentality in the regular. The Ravens have been a game or two away from being a #1 or #2 seed then the last 3 years. But we'll have a game or two where the offense just seems to be in slow motion. I challenge you(only cuz i don't feel like it lol) to go back and look at the top offensive performances from last year. I promise you that you'll see a offense that had a pass:run ratio of 2:1 over the first 3 quarters then run:pass of 2:1 during the 4th quarter. That's where the numbers balanced out. Just look at the Panthers game for example. The numbers say the Ravens couldn't have been more balanced as an offense right. 31 passes to 30 rushes. However when you go back and break down the number. Flacco was 13/21 226 2TDs in the first half. In the same half Forsett and LT combined for 11car 72yds 1Td That's a 2:1 pass:run ratio. Those are the same type of ratios you see from guy like Rodgers, Brady and others offenses. The difference is, they don't take their foot off the gas peddle in the second half after putting up 21 first half point like the Ravens do. In the 2nd half, basic math says Flacco attempted 10 passes to make up his 31 attempts while the run game had 19 more rushes to total their 30 attempts. However looking at the numbers closely again, the first possession of the 3rd quarter Flacco came out gunning. 4/5 44yds 1TD. So with 9:51 remaining in the 3rd quarter Flacco was 17/26 270yds 3TDs. That means the rest of the game he attempted only 5 passes in 1 1/2 quarters of football. Now i'm not saying this is a problem, it's just to show how although the numbers say the Ravens offense was "balanced" their better offensive performances came when the ball was in Flacco's hands early in an aggressive style attacking offense. In this example, I think we'll see Flacco and Trestman keeping the foot on the gas peddle through at least the early-mid part of the 4th quarter. Then pounds a team out while letting the defense continue to hunt.

I 100% agree with this statement and 100% disagree at the same time if possible. lol I agree because that is the Ravens style of play, however I disagree because it's proven time and time again that, that isn't when the Ravens offense is at it's best. If we look at the last two postseason run dating back to the Super Bowl year, the same thing has happened. The Ravens offense was in a funk and struggled to get on track. One of the coaches has the wise decision to put the offense in Flacco's hands and we start to take off. This is what was said after the Steelers playoff game. "Kubiak told us the night before the game that we were going to come after these guys and that we weren't going to be playing conservative," Ravens left guard Kelechi Osemele said. Then if you watch this part of America's Game at 2:14, it's Harbs basically saying no way we win this game unless we put the game in Flacco's hands. Now I understand that at times during the regular season Flacco will have a head scratching game, but I think when this offense was at its best last season we where aggressive early, then used the run game to close teams out. Flacco has always pressed his OCs to be more aggressive and attacking even with a 10-14 point lead. Flacco has consistently asked to actually put teams away on offense instead of asking the defense to do it so much. I think for the first time he has a OC that feels the same way that he does and the combination of Flacco/Trestman will bring Harbs over to their said of things. As long as they're successful that is. Now i do think it'll be a pass happy offense, but I don't think we'll see the Playoff offense more often in the regular season this year.

could you explain that for me. Not sure i understand. I hear people talk about guys getting separation all the time, but in the NFL really do you have a lot of separation. Unless you have play calls that scheme a guy to be running wide open you rarely find a WR that constantly catches the ball with 2-3 yards of space between he and the DB. No knock to you, but honestly it just seems like another misrepresentation of Marlon Brown. I'm not saying he leaves DBs in his wake or anything, but i don't see how his separation or lack thereof is any different from any other WR we had on the team last year. Actually in terms of YAC average Brown was 2nd only to Steve Smith and that's usually a good indication of a WR catching the ball with space between him and the defender.

That's the most exciting part for me. It's not just a situation where we have a good offensive player, we'll have an opportunity to attack any defense in the NFL in multiple ways. Best thing about the offense is that the oline returns intact. So you look at the potential in the run game with Forsett, LT and Buck, and if a team struggles against the run we can just pound them out, take a few deep play action shot and have that old school style Ravens win. Or if you have a team like the Jets who seem to have a great secondary, you can move to a 2TE 1HB, 1RB 1WR type offense attacking the LBs and Safeties. You got a team that blitzes a lot, then you'll look at guys like Williams, Smith Sr, Camp, Aiken and Juice in that underneath move the chains type offense. Trestman is a very creative play caller, sometimes too creative, but I can't wait to see what he can do with this offense.

Yea i go back to thinking about the game vs the Chargers a few years back when the Ravens just didn't have an answer for the trees that SD had in Jackson Floyd and Gates. It was just like lob city, no routes, just run deep, look up and be ready to jump for the ball. Man that game was so frustrating. Now looking at Perriman, Brown, Waller and Williams I can't help but to get excited for the possibilities. If i'm any one of these guys i'm at the Castle bright and early everyday, headed straight to the basketball court and working on my post up game. lol. Flacco has proven time and time again to have the trust in his WR to just give them an opportunity to go up and make a play. If i'm those guys i'm doing everything possible to show Flacco he can trust me with the ball in the air, because if he can trust you he'll give you a shot.

I'd hold off on any long term opinions about Elam honestly. I only used his name as an example because most fans have already labeled him a bust. But i don't think Elam wasn't put in the best of situations. Not only was he dropped in to take the place of a future HOFer, he had no help in doing so. Most times when the Ravens draft a guy like that, they'll have a strong veteran presence around him so if he doesn't take off as fast as we'd like, it won't hurt as bad nor be as noticeable. Just look at both Jimmy and CJ. Both had veteran guys they could lean on in their first season or 2 when things may have gotten rough. In Elam's case he was brought in and basically told to run the secondary from the Safety position and he wasn't ready. The veteran Safeties that he has played around have only been slightly better then him honestly so it's not much of a comfort level there. I think way too much pressure was placed upon Elam both by the team and himself. Now with Will Hill and Kendrick Lewis as two guys that can hold down the Safety position, Elam will be allowed to play a role that doesn't ask him to cover much if at all and once he's in his element I think his natural talent will show up. But with that said he does have plenty areas to improve on.

Yes it's a great chance imo. Even before Marc came aboard as the OC, Harbs was talking about reducing Smith Sr's role in the offense and not asking so much of him to keep him fresh. However losing Torrey put Smitty back in a position where the offense will have to rely on him a lot(at least early) until hopefully these young guys can step up on a consistent bases. That's when I expect to see Smitty taking that lesser role, once you have guys like Brown, Aiken, Perriman, Williams and even Juice proving that they can be relied upon. Won't list Pitta for obvious reasons. But I don't think his role will be reduced because Trestman wants tall WR, because I think Marc likes physical WRs more then just tall guys and nobody is more physical then Smitty. But if the likes of Brown and Perriman can step up early, then it will appear that Smitty is taking a backseat to the taller WRs, but really it'll just be taking a backseat to younger WRs

Agreed. Yea the injury history will be the biggest challenge for Brown imho. Kamar proved to be one heck of a possession type guy and I can't wait to see him with added opportunities, but Brown imo proved to be much more of a play maker when given the opportunity. Or maybe the better way to put it would be he seemed to have more run after catch plays then Aiken. I think the Ravens have really high hopes for Brown this year, I think he's the guy that Smitty mentors the most in terms of replacing him the following year. Yea even thought Trestman will be running the offense Kubes left behind, he'll still be allow to add his personality to the offense and he's an much more aggressive guy then Kubes, which is a part of the game that Flacco loves. So any WR that has the ability to make plays down field in this offense will have a shot to produce for this offense imo.

exactly. I've spoken my praises of Engram plenty of times before. I really like what he did in his first season with us. Not only the guys you named but I even saw improvement in Torrey last season as well. Even though it's not his natural game, you could see him playing with a lot more physicality last season, even resulting in a couple of unsportsman like conduct penalties. But more importantly, I think we gotta look at Joe, Say what you want about the guy, but he's one of the best of developing chemistry with WRs quickly and that's a huge part of developing guys. These guys get on the field with Joe and it seems like they've been playing with him for years. Even without the "QB led passing camp" that so many think is necessary, Joe develops a quick chemistry with these guys. I remember when Pitta went down 2 years ago and Clark and Vashante were both in. I remember seeing both of those guys working with Joe after practice the day I went out to camp and the one thing they both said was that Joe just makes everything seem so easy. I remember hearing one of the WRs last year saying because Joe was so comfortable with Kubes offense early on in mini camps, it really put the entire WR group at ease and allowed them to play a lot faster and with confidence. I'm always excited about the late round picks and young guys because nothing brings out talent like opportunities and I love watching it. But knowing the Ravens now have a great support system in place for these young WRs, I get even more excited to watch them.

Also for people so sure about Camp's role as the slot on offense, don't be so sure to bank on that just yet. Again I really like the guy and who he's a big part of the offense and Special Teams. However if you go back and listen to Marc Tresman talk after drafting Maxx Williams he spoke about how much Joe loves his TEs and having that big body in the middle. Tresman spoke about how adding Williams to what we already have, it'll allow us to use more 2TE set that takes 3WRs sets off the field to prevent defenses from running complex Nickle Packages. So just from that statement alone, which i'm sure isn't the end all be all, but it just sounds like Tresman wants to really create the match of bigger faster WRs/TEs against base defensive packages. Once the offense might not be operating in a lot of space this year which really suits a guy like Camp, but more so using the bigger more physical guys to work underneath while a guy like Perriman or even Waller can take the top off deep. I think it's gonna be fun to see who sticks their head up once all these guys are dropped into that WR competetion. I think the only guy who is a lock is Steve Smith Sr and he'll probably be the guy working the hardest. So all of these young guys better be ready to work.

I think in terms of Marlon Brown, Steve Smith Sr summed it up the best “A guy came in named Steve Smith Sr.,” Smith responded with a laugh when asked about Brown’s drop in production. I'm not sure why and where the opinion that Kamar Aiken or Camp outshined Brown comes from. I honestly don't understand it. Maybe its because Marlon didn't score a TD last season and both Aiken and Camp did. But the numbers suggest that Brown played a much larger role in terms of game plan and success of the offense down the stretch of the season. If we just look at numbers, Camp was only targeted 9 times all season. How anyone can say he outshined another player is beyond me. But it's not a knock to him because I definitely saw the potential of what he could be in those 9 targets. Aiken played in a total of 13 games and was target a total of 33 times with 24rec 267yds 3Tds. Down the stretch of the season he was never targeted more then 2 times per game in any of the final 5 games. So during the last 5 games of the season his production looked like this 7 targets 4rec 50yds 1TD Brown played in the same total of 13 games and was targeted 31 times with 24rec 255yds 0Tds. During the same 5 game stretch to close the season, Brown was targeted more then 5 times in 3 of those 5 games. His production looked like this 21 targets 13rec 141yds 0TDs Now my point to this wasn't to showcase who was better or not, But for anyone saying Camp and Aiken outshined Brown I just can't see it, again unless you mean with TDs. Just looking at those numbers 80% of Aiken's production came before week 13 while 80% of Brown's proudction came after week 13. What does that all mean in terms of who is safe and who has to fight for a spot, i'd say both those guys better show up with the mindset of competing their butts off to make this team and that should be double true for Camp.

For people saying that Waller will basically be redshirted or not to expect much from him this year, the biggest thing we have to remember is who the coaching staff is. Yes in years past we've clearly drafted guys like this before, but our HC and or OCs at the time weren't the type to give guys like this a shot. But think about Harbs history and what we know about Tresman's love for taking deep shots with big WRs. Now none of these guys have developed into studs recently, but just think about what the opinion of Marlon Brown was this time 2 years ago. Who was Kamar Aiken? Both Jeremy Butler and Aaron Mellette were giving great shots to make the active roster once they proved talented enough during camp. No again none of these guys are household names outside of Baltimore or even in Baltimore in most cases, but the point is they were even a shot to show and prove. So looking at Waller, i'm not saying he's gonna come in and be a ROY guy or even and decent contributor to the offense this season, but if he shows promise in camp, i'm willing to bet Harbs and Tresman will be looking to work him into any type of offensive rotation they can. Even if it's only to take 1 or 2 play action shots down field per game.

that's what makes the draft so great imo. Because you never know which players will hit and which will miss. I'm sure the Ravens brass was just as excited to land Elam as they were to land Mosley, but until you get these guys on the field you just never know what you got. Regardless of how much college football we watch as fans, in most cases we are just at the mercy of big names and highlight reels. We don't break down film for a living and most don't have that eye for talent like scouts do and even they get it wrong most times. So when it comes to either later round picks or just the difference between a guy who you don't really know much about as opposed to a guy who you actually know from college football, we want the guy we know about. I would love to be inside the draft room, not on draft day but on the days when the final draft broad is put together because I know in many cases the scouts and personnel staff are just like us fans in terms of pounding the table for a certain guy but others just not agreeing with what you see.

just a mistake on my part that I never corrected. If he went to the U i wouldn't be nearly as excited about him(Noles fan), lol But it was just a mistake on my part. I'm well aware of Perryman as I was a fan of his play as well as Duke Johnson. I can't stand "The U"nder achievers but i do recognize good talent. You guys had a really solid QB last season too, I believe he was a freshman. I remember thinking that was probably the only reason we pulled that game out against you guys because as good as your QB played, it just came down to which QB would rise in the biggest moments and Jameis did that consistently.

Considering he said that during his pre-draft visit all the Ravens talked to him about was how they wanted someone to replace Mcphee and how they showed videos on how they used Mcphee, i'd say that a Ravens influenced answer. I wonder if that would have been his answer had he never visited the Ravens pre-draft. I think it'll be east for him to fit into that role because it's a role that basically asks him to just win 1on1 in pass rush instead of being a complete player right now. Just another added piece to a strong front 7 group. This is probably a wasted pick for another team but the Ravens always seem to have a plan for guys like this before they target them in he draft and usually is works out.

Here's an nice article on DeAndre Carter. http://m.statehornet.com/sports/deandre-carter-overcomes-adversity-tragedy-in-pursuit-of-nfl-career/article_e55b09d6-ba07-11e4-9a74-c375e2ea423a.html?mode=jqm Let's hope this guy has plenty of chances to point to the sky in honor of his brother once in the endzone.

Here is a pretty good article on Nick Perry. http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2015/02/nick_perry_nfl_draft.html Definitely sounds like a guy who will be candidate to keep that streak of UDFAs to make the 53. Also sounds like a Play like a Raven guy.

If this guy produces to the same rate as Brown, Aiken, Camp and even what a guy like Butler did in camp last season he's worth the pick. When you have 10 picks which ended up being 9, so times you take a flier on a guy who you don't mind developing for a few years. This was probably a Tresman pick but also I'm a huge fan of what Engram has done with the young guys so far. Now of course smitty has had something to do witg it as welk but i feel much better about the prospects of developing a young WR now then in years past. He could very well develop into a Jacoby Jones shot play specialist which would be more then great. He's a jumpball guy who boxes out well. Flacco loves to just give his guys a shot at making a play on the ball deep, this guy could actually make a living doing just that. Or he could be just another guy who lives out his dream long enough to make a preseason appearance and its over.

I love this pick just as much as the first rounder and probably more once you view these two as a packaged deal. I think they both compliment what we already have as an offense. This guy is young and has the makings of a stud. Obviously you'd love to see Pitta come back healthy, but as a 30 year TE with serious injury history, he may never be the same Pitta again. But even if he doesn't come back healthy, I still love the idea of pairing Maxx and Crockett together in 2TE sets. That doesn't even talk about the options you have with Maxx drawing bracket coverage down the seams and being able to sneak a guy like Juice underneath. Also we talk about value, early in the draft process people were saying Maxx Williams might be our pick at 26 and to get him a full round later with only a 5th round pick as an extra investment was great value. I really like the mindset behind these top two picks. The Ravens really attacked both these guys and seemingly for the first time put a focus on supplying their franchise QB with some franchise weapons.

Well listening to the presser, DeCosta said he incorrectly predicted the pick this year, i think that ended at 3 year streak for him and Ozzie said if Perriman wasn't there they would have traded out. So with guys like Strong, Dorsett, Smith and some other guys who were projected at possible 1st round WRs still on the board it definitely looks like Perriman was targeted by the Ravens.

Yea good catch i actually definitely meant UCF, told you i didnt know much about him lol. I honestly don't think the Ravens view it as nearly the risk that others(mainly ESPN) think it is. It may seem odd but it gives me a Joe Flacco feel. He had that kind of late raise but the Ravens were sold the first time they put the tape on. Much like Flacco main of the so called experts thought he became a first rounder because of a strong workout. But ED said Ozzie was all over him from day one. Then the area scout and Engram got to spend time with him and Engram was basically banging the table for him. So i don't think they see it as much of a risk. More like a project with enormous potential whos right on the cusp of realizing it. Ozzie said if Perriman wasn't there at 26 he would have traded back. The really like this guy.

I can honestly say I don't know much about the guy and didn't know anything about him until about 2-3 weeks ago when Mayock moved him ahead of Strong in his rankings. So I won't talk as if I've watched anything more then highlight videos on this guy. So without actually seeing him play, the drops scare me just as much as everyone else. However Mike Irvin made an interesting point and it was kind of backed up by something Harbs said they discovered while watching tape on him, that really put me at ease thinking the drops won't be a major problem with NFL coaching. Irvin said in watching tape on Perriman, there was no other WR who made more clutch plays on 3rd and 4th downs then him. Irvin called them money downs. Then a comment was made that Harbs said the Ravens didn't start work on him til late due to him being a Junior, but something they found in the tape was that Perriman was much more consistent during the second half of this past season. Those two statements makes me think it's more of a concentration factor with his drops. Inconsistent hands doesn't mean poor hands if that makes sense. Also Mike Irvin compared him with Andre Johnson. Makes me wonder how much this guy would have developed if he stayed at the U. One of the biggest things I love about Perriman is his speed actually shows up on the field (in his hightlights). He's not a great route runner but he already seems to be an improvement over Torrey in that area so it's a plus.