balfan23

Wait, the article is about what Mike Mayock thinks, right? Why did you reference that Kiper thinks the Ravens will go after someone on the front seven?

They are saying that Mayock is going against conventional wisdom and what many of the mainstream draft analysts (like Kiper) think. That might be why the referenced what Kiper thinks.

Wagner is a tough case. Our O line wasn't very good, so if we lose him, we have to consider the cost of replacement. We could possibly shift Lewis over there, as it is perhaps cheaper to fill in with a good option at guard over tackle. All that said, I don't who is going to be available - and ... we've said we want to upgrade at O line. That move is basically just status quo. That would mean 2 moves ... either in FA or draft, to both replace Wagner and upgrade. 

5 minutes ago, omar586 said:

with the needs we have, i highly doubt that ozzie will pick a RB in 1st rnd, it will be tempting to pass on a players like WR williams or Davis, but we need help at OL, Pass rush, CBs positions, more than any other position, the more QBs get picked head of us the better chances we pick a plug n play player.

"The Ravens haven’t drafted a cornerback in the first three rounds since they made Jimmy Smith their top pick in 2011." ... that fact alone begs us to pick a CB high. I originally felt that we needed to make that our #1 but the more I think about it, it really doesn't have to be. Bottom line is we need an absolute difference making player and .. other than TE, ILB and QB ... I really don't know that I care what position that is. If there is an early run on CBs and a jaw-dropping talent like either Williams or Cooks are there ... then take them. 

O line ... yes, we have needs but the draft doesn't look to be stellar at this position at the top. I prefer that we keep Wagner, if at all possible, and bring in an upgrade for Zuttah in FA and draft mid-round depth. 

11 minutes ago, PurpleCity5 said:

I just don't know about Ngata, I don't know how much he has left and I think he can delay bringing a guy like Michael Pierce who has big potential into the mix. I just don't think Ngata is a need if we bring back Brandon Williams as heartbreaking as that sounds. 

Yeah - there is no need to add an interior D lineman to the mix, if Williams stays. But if he doesn't ... I wouldn't worry about anyone taking snaps away from Pierce. He's simply not the kind of player who is going to be on the field for a huge number of snaps anyway. He'll be on the field as much as he can reasonably be out there without wearing down. So you still you need some rotational players and that's all that Ngata could possibly be.

Really, it comes down to whether or not we think Carl Davis has anything to offer. If we think he can be that rotational player, then we may have all we'd need to fill the void - I'm just not sure he's shown us much of anything at this point. 

15 minutes ago, Ravensfan23 said:

NFL.com has a list of guys who might get cut and I think there are some interesting names.

Nick Mangold is coming off a injury but he was still viewed as one of the better Center in 2015 and limited action in 2016. At 33 he still has a couple more seasons and I think him paired with Yanda would be great. I think he'd be an upgrade at Center and a great mentor to whoever is drafted. 

Jason McCourty is veteran I wouldn't mind bringing in. I'd definitely attack the CB position at the top of the draft but McCourty could be a nice insurance signing that'll at best give the Ravens great depth if the rookie CB is a stud day one. Not sure he's Safety material like his brother but if he could it's a added bonus. 

David Harris if cut could be a nice 1 year bridge. Not sure what the plan for KC is, although I assume the day Orr retired the Ravens implemented a play for KC to be a ILB. Harris would be a nice veteran presence alongside CJ to help KC or any rookie drafted learn the game better. He feels like a Ravens veteran signing. Both he and Mangold are tough gritty players who have been rocks for the NYJ

Devon House could be a nice add at CB as well. He had a really solid year in 2015 with the Jags. Honestly can't remember much about him but he did play well in week 3 vs the Ravens. 

Lamar Houston only played 2 games last year due to injury, but had 8 sacks in a 2015 as a rush specialist. If he's healthy he might be worth a flier as a rotational guy to help with the pass rush if Doom doesn't take a pay cut. 

Jairus Byrd. How much of an upgrade over Webb would he be? I think it would be but i'm not sure what the price tag would be. I think much like Weddle he could be dropped into this Ravens defense and be back to playing at a high level. Not sure what happened to him in NO but he was a really good safety in Buffalo 

Haloti Ngata is on this list and if he's cut I'd love to bring him home for 1 more year. I'd like to see him and Suggs have one more year together and maybe enjoy a farewell season together similar to Ray and Ed. The last of that great Ravens Defense era. If the Ravens lose BWill and Ngata is cut, I'd bring him back to rotate and help groom Peirce and Davis. 

 

Definitely some interesting names there. I like Mangold. I'm looking for the next Matt Birk ... some guy who moves along from his former team but still had a lot in the tank and provides much needed leadership from the center position. Of course, I don't really know where he is at the moment and not all players age as gracefully as others. He's still worth a check out. 

If we lose Williams and if Ngata came relatively cheap, he'd be a welcome rotational player in the middle. 

1 minute ago, RaineV1 said:

It's explained in the video but there was a reason for it. Georgia Tech had a RB that hadn't scored a touchdown. They downed the ball there to put that other RB, Alexander, in. However, it was for a prank. His o-line was going to lay down and not protect him. However, Cumberland's team was so scared at this point that they also laid down.

What should have been the easiest one yard TD in history was nearly fumbled away as Alexander dropped and kicked the ball by accident. But he recovered it in the endzone.

I hadn't watched your video yet ... was operating off memory. I read that story almost 50 years ago! 

I remember reading about this when I was a kid ... some book about the oddest events in football history. What stuck in my mind was with time running out, a GT player was running free to the end zone and he downed the ball at the 1. I mean ... what's the point? Would 229-0 really have really been that much worse? 

When it comes to who rises and falls, I get a sense that it has as much to do with the writers, bloggers, etc gleaning better information from teams than it has to do with a player going up or down the boards in the individual team's war rooms. 

Sure, players wow or disappoint at the combine/pro-days which can cause them to move on the team's boards (which are the only boards that matter) but I doubt that movement is as dramatic as what we see in the mocks. I still think as much of it comes from the writers getting improved intel over time from the "little birds" that they have around the league. 

This year, the mocks are as disjointed as I've seen them in mid-Feb. The disparity from one mock to the next is significant. It will settle down over time, but I really think this year there are going to be a lot of players going off the board much sooner or later than anticipated - more so than in previous years. 

Those are some bold words, coming from IMO one of the bigger disappointments for the Ravens in the 2016 campaign. 

Gilmore COULD be all those things he says he IS ... but he hasn't shown the team that yet and to me, it isn't all about injury. He's was able to play through much of the season last year and did very little.

I feel like we need to save the money and move on from both Pitta and Watson, so one of these young TEs needs to step up and look like the player we drafted them to be. I really think we have little choice but to thrown them all into the fire and see who, if anyone, comes out.

So if Gilmore wants to be that guy, please, but all means Crockett, show us ... don't just tell us. 

The stat on not picking CB in the 1st 3 rounds since 2011 is crazy. That trend has to be broken. 

As it always is for us (despite those who want to see us dump Joe) ... we really want to see as many QBs as possible go in the top 15. Hoping for 3 and that doesn't seem far fetched. I think you throw in Garret, Barnett, Allen, Williams, Cook and Fournette and that's 9 picks. Thrown in Solomon Thomas and Reuben Foster as likely picks and that makes 11.   

Now - I don't know if it has to be a CB ... a rock solid safety would work as well. But if you take away 4 of the top secondary players, then I think you have a great player still waiting for us. 

50 minutes ago, mearzunkies said:

Is Alabama TE O.J. Howard worth a 1st round QB? Aww HELL naw! He is raw. So Maxx should just be considered a bust? Gilmore?

Really - we've invested heavily in TE over the past few years. We need to make do with what we have there. I feel like there are going to be more highly rated players at positions of need available at 16. 

45 minutes ago, mearzunkies said:

NO MORE SPEED. We need a Smitty move the chain type of player. A Q style.

No lie. We've got speed. Need a solid route runner with sure hands who is tough. 

Ben is all about the drama ... and that's all this is. 

11 minutes ago, Maurice0094 said:

I'm not sure why some of these RB's are on the list because some are in the same mold as Dixon, West, Allen, and Lorenzo. The ravens got the same cut of back on the roster. Unless Fournette or Cook fall to 16 the ravens will probably do what they have done the few years. They will take one in the middle rounds running in the range of 4.5-4.7 standing 5'10-6ft weighing 210-220lbs nothing that will set your hair on fire. I wouldn't be opposed to Alvin Kamara or Curtis Samuel from Ohio St. because they give you a receiving dynamic and they are actually fast.

I agree. Outside of taking a clear upgrade RB like Fournette or Cook, I don't see much point in going RB in the later rounds of the draft. We don't need to draft another Allen or Lorenzo in the 4th this year.

I've said it before ... look around the NFL and in all sports and list out the hall of fame players who are good coaches. It is a pretty short list. Could Ray become one? We can look back to when he was the guy that everyone on this defense had to answer to for effort and no one wanted to ever let him down. From that perspective - as a motivator of men - that is a proven trait that would likely translate to a coaching position, but there is more to coaching that being a motivator. 

Time will tell, but I'm not holding my breath. 

18 hours ago, RavensDieHard21 said:

I am 90% confident we keep either Williams or Wagner. Which one? That is so unclear right now. I am almost positive it will be Williams. With the new trend being to stock up on O lineman, Wagner might get offered even more than Williams. 

RT is more important, but I think that Lewis can fill that role or a draft pick could as well. A lot of our defensive line talent is solid, but how would they look without Williams there? I don't think we will find out. 

I agree that we're going to keep one and only one. The price on Wagner may go up more than expected, not only because building an O line is a new trend, but that the O line draft and FA class is relatively weak. The catch 22 there is - if we let him walk, we have to go to the same weak draft and FA class to get another starter on the line - but also to get better depth. That upgrade at center that so many are hoping for will be very hard to 

Our O line was spotty even when healthy - and staying healthy all year on the O line is a pipe dream. Bottom line is, if we let Wagner walk, we're going to need to focus a lot of resources on the O line or suffer with another year of seeing Flacco panicking in the pocket and watching the run game go nowhere. 

On 1/27/2017 at 7:42 AM, zing21042 said:

How can you tell that "...none of them (TEs) have developed into players we can trust..."? Last year, Flacco only targeted Pita and gave few other TEs a chance to catch the ball. In the end, we have no idea what the new core of TEs could do without Pita.

You fired back to my post in opposition and basically proved my point ... because we have no idea what they can do, it is kind of hard to trust them to take the reins. . 

It could be that we ultimately do put the trust in them and just cross our fingers that they can do the job .. without any idea of how effective they will be. The reason is we've got to make cuts across the board to free cap space to sign players to fill other holes. If that is the case and we part ways with both Watson and Pitta, then I certainly hope they come through for us, cause we're gonna need them to. 

36 minutes ago, rmcjacket23 said:

Well given that the cost of cutting Pitta is effectively the same as the cost of cutting Watson, you would just be better off keeping the guy you think is the better player and who will be more valuable.

While Pitta has his own history of injuries certainly, it would seem keeping the 31 year old (who your QB obviously loves and trusts) coming off a healthy, pretty successful season would be smarter than keeping the 36 year old TE who never played a snap for you and is coming off a devastating injury.

Especially when the price is essentially the same from a cap perspective.
 

Yeah - it seems to me that Watson is a very likely cut candidate and definitely a more likely candidate than Pitta. Honestly, Pitta should under consideration for a cut as well given the investments we've made in drafting TEs over the last couple years. Unfortunately, none of them have developed into players we can trust. 

8 minutes ago, Adreme said:

He was graded as the 9th best center in the NFL so there is something that is happening in the plays that fans must be missing or the grading system itself has a fundamental flaw (or there are just not a lot of good centers in the NFL).

I have no knowledge or understanding of the grading system. It seems like Zuttah has had some really good game - but then has had some pretty bad ones. And by bad, I mean they involved the kinds of plays it doesn't require being an expert in analysis to see. Just getting shoved into the backfield and plays getting blown up. Those kinds of dramatic failures are what fans see and it doesn't take many of them to paint an ugly picture. Thrown in some very untimely penalties and that leaves fans feeling like he's a disaster. 

20 minutes ago, allblackraven said:

It's all good - Zuttah has just been added to Pro Bowl roster, so we're covered at center, no need to upgrade.

Perhaps we can use it to our advantage and convince other teams that they could use a pro-bowl center so we'll be able to trade him rather than cutting him. 

9 minutes ago, Tru11 said:

Few rookie CBs are game changers in their first year.

Usually takes them a season or 2 to adjust to the NFL.

We should certainly try to get a good 1 in the first 3 rounds of the draft but you might wanna lower expectations if you expect him to come in and be a game changer right away.

Yeah - you're probably right. That doesn't change the fact that we need to draft a future game changing CB.

In the 5 drafts since we selected Jimmy, we've taken a total of 4 CBs ... 2 4th rounders, a 5th rounder and a 7th rounder. That's beyond absurd. 

15 hours ago, RayRayRaven said:

I'd say tennesee makin off with all those ram pics a few years back ranks pretty well.

dallas around 1990 got mutl picks for h. walker and though losing big turned it around in short order. what dallas actually got is over said but they had a comprehensuv p lan

I don't believ we can compete with new England with our coaches but not havin the players like we did in the lee evans era leaves us no chance.

we are in a good spot with joe. he has won a superbow and there are teams that will give a lot for a 33 year old qb on his homestretch. but I don't believ we are in a position others have been in with joe and that's a good reason for getting juicy juicy pics for him. and at a time when we are hurtin sorely for talant the timin could not be more ideal. sweet from sour, jus like that.

by the way carr pretty much outplayed joe both games one immens the other he won two.  this culd be the biggest haul evah for the rayvans.

I was asking for teams at the top of the league and you give me Tennessee? 

Dallas in the 1990s? The Walker trade has gone down as the worst trade in the history of the NFL. I don't think there is anyone else who is interested in seeing if they can top the worst trade in history. 

I've no idea what we could get pick wise for Joe, but I'm not so sure they'd be juicy juicy. We won't ever know, since we're not shopping him and I doubt anyone is pounding on our door offering the family farm. 

I'm pretty much done responding to this line of thinking. My advice to you is, settle in for the ride for the next couple years and wish Joe all the best. 

32 minutes ago, RavenManiac#7 said:

So tired of reading how close we were to making the playoffs. 4" to 6" away from beating the Squealers and making it into the playoffs! Read it all the time. But, really, is it Only that one play that made us or broke us? How about all the losses that we should have won easily. The Jets, for Pete's sake! And just how many games did our coaches have such a Huge hand in losing for us? It wasn't that 4" to 6" play. It Never should have come to that. 

I'm with you 100%. That inches away from the postseason sentiment dismisses a lot. Foremost, it makes the assumption we just waltz into CIN and beat the Bengals ... something we've not exactly been making a habit of. Using that kind of logic, one could also say that we were inches from being 6-10 ... and in games we had no business turning into such close affairs.

I believe if the Eagles staff had not been so cavalier to go for two and took us to OT, that would have ended in a loss and the PIT game would have been meaningless. I'd like to hear the post-season narrative if that had happened, because I think it is a lot closer to what it should be than the one I hear when we start talking about only being inches away. 

To realistically expect to be a playoff team in 2017 we have to figure out how to stop the offense from going into a coma for such long periods and stop the defense from having complete end of game collapses. Are we an inch or two away from fixing those problems? Since these issues have been around for a few years now, it really doesn't feel like it.   

19 hours ago, Tru11 said:

so you want to pass on surrounding flacco with an elite talent?

Cook and fournette have the tools to become elite players in the NFL.

No - I would love elite talent all around Joe and at every position on this team. 

We've gone on the cheap on drafting CB for years and we better get someone that can come in and help NOW. If we can get that in the 2nd, great, but if a game changing CB is available in the 1st, I want us to take him. I'm not a talent evaluator, so perhaps such a CB doesn't exist and perhaps BPA will end up being one of these RBs should they drop. 

If that is the case, then God help him if we don't improve our O line this offseason (no matter how elite he is) and God help the team if that RB gets us a 4th quarter lead with the opposition having a minute left on the clock and a couple TOs. 

12 minutes ago, outkast1 said:

Draft a back-up Qb for 2 years and let sloppy Joe Flacco fly ! Cousins threw for 9,083 yards, 54 touchdowns and just 23 interceptions over his last two seasons. A 4th round pick, 40 miles away blowing the stats out of average 1st round Joe.SMH

Why burn a 4th rounder when you can wait until the 6th round and pick the next Tom Brady?