RaRaRavens

Wow, this organization is really going all in. With all the questionable coaching moves and decisions, the mediocre performance that is slowly becoming a new norm for the Ravens, and now the increase in prices, I can really see our team tanking down real nice, if we won't have couple of 12-4 seasons and deep playoff runs in the next couple of seasons. Unfortunately, we are a looong way from being a playoff team. Can't see too much sunshine on the horizon any which way you look at it.

Yup...no return on investment. I don't know what they were thinking with Correa. Let him stay in his natural position. It's not his fault the coaches/scouts did not see the need for an inside LB. Kaufusi was a dud in training camp until his injury. No moves, just bull-rush which probably worked in college. Pros? Not so much. Judon is encouraging but needs to work on his strength, and as a lot of rookies do probably hit the wall in a long season. KC.....our new Arthur Brown. CP(Can't Play) Glad we took him over KC over Spence- best pass rusher in the draft ( and Bosa) - O no! he took X in college though...nobody's ever done that Also glad we took KC over Michael Thomas and Sterling Shepard...the two best wrs in the whole draft. We could've taken any 3 of those obvious big dawgs...and ironically enough...they are both huge areas of need!! Instead we took a hustle player from Boise State without an NFL position that can't even play special teams.......WOW! "In Ozzie we WHAT?" We might've heard our last of that phrase. Hopefully not, but it's certainly heading that way But...but...but... KC is such a "great smart high character guy". How in the world was he such an abysmal disappointment with literally ZERO passion to play football?! Hmmm, I don't know, could it have something to do with the fact that our criteria for the players we are drafting have been colossally * upped ever since Harbaugh arrived?!

Church! That's what I've been saying for years. When will everyone stop making excuses for Flacco. Luckily for the first time this year we heard someone from the FO put at least some blame on Flacco. It's ridiculous how impossibly perfect the rest of the team needs to be for Flacco. If we had all the prerequisites that Flacco requires to play on an above average level, we could have literally almost any player under the center. We could have Keenan Reynolds slinging us to SB if we had everything that Flacco needs. The fact that we have a QB who is the 4th highest paid QB in the league, but needs a TOP 5 O-line, league leading rushing attack, All-pro WRs, perfect playbook and playcalling, etc. to play adequately makes me laugh...and then cry. And then people are wondering why we can't afford real play makers and game changers.

Sure they are. But the more you miss on early round draft picks, and the more you fail to resign the few true playmakers you somehow manage to find, the more crucial each and every draft gets.

If they keep doing what they have been doing in the draft for the past 5 years, we will be the new Browns in no time. Even Biscotti called them out over the recent drafts.

This is SO true. I've been downvoted to oblivion for saying that Flacco needs to step up, our drafting has not been good past couple of years etc. Good thing I didn't receive any death threats. Then 2 days later Biscotti says the exact same things and everybody is like "I completely agree with Mr.B, what an insightful opinions he has.". LMAO. But it's refreshing to see that there are still some people left on these boards who are capable of independent thinking and who can see beyond the naive feel-good optimism that is as far away from truth as we are from finding a no 1 WR.

This offseason is so crucial because we have FAILED with most of our past draft picks and our young players are not picking up the slack. That's why we have so many needs all over the place. And the difference makers or even good starters we do manage to find or develop over the years we just let walk out the door come FA. You'll see that again in March when B.Williams and Wagner will be allowed to leave, which leaves us with 2 more holes. Whoever we will have to replace them, there will be a significant drop in each of their positions production and in the overall performance of this team. Like I've said couple of years now, this team is slowly but steadily headed for the rock bottom. If significant changes are not made then in couple of seasons our most interesting games will be against the Browns because we MIGHT be able to get a win against them. "Correa Can Go From ‘Draft Disappointment’ To Starter"? More like "Correa Can Go From ‘Draft Disappointment’ To a Disappointment at Starter". Even his position coach said publicly that Correa is not 100% committed to football. To even be relevant in this league you must bee 100% committed 24/7, 365 days a year. So unless somehow Correa completely changes his mindset, he'll be another one of our early round draft busts. And to say he'll go to be a starter...he's million miles away from being the starter, what a joke. And we passed up on guys like Myles Jack, Noah Spence and Sterling Shepard up because of him...another miserable fail by the FO. Oz better be praying every night for Correa to become even a decent backup player so he wouldn't have completely wasted the pick.

Rightfully so. Deserves the Pro Bowl nod more than most others. Actually he deserves a SB ring with a Ravens logo on it, but we'll settle for the Pro Bowl this year.

Ok, we do have WR2 in Wallace, I'll give you that. I was exaggerating a bit with that one. But if you truly believe we are nice and set on all the other positions then you are naive optimist. Perriman should not be considered a starter until he shows he can regularly catch passes when wide open. Even if Doom returns for another year we still need much more production from starting pass rushers. Maybe we already have an in-house solution in Z. Smith or Judon. But the fact remains, we need upgrade at OLB. Claiming we have a RT in a situation where he's about to hit open market is just ignorant. By that logic we are also set with our D-line by having one of the best DTs in football. Do you want to say that we should not prepare for the situation where he decides to go after more money? I consider the chances of both Williams and Wagner leaving over 50%. If I was pessimistic I'd throw Juice into that list as well. But I think there's higher chance of him resigning with us than Williams or Wagner, which is why I didn't add FB into the list of imminent needs. All that is called being realistic, something that can't be seen too often from our fans.

Damn, our roster is seriously starting to look like Swiss cheese - holes every which way. Just to name the positions where we need (improved) starters at: LB, CB 2 (considering Young should play the slot), WR 1&2, C, OLB, most likely DT and RT as well. Gonna be a looong offseason...

Wow, total shocker. But so happy for Orr that he is able to walk away from football healthy. Just to think that on any given play he could have been easily paralyzed or even killed...jeesh. Very glad for him that he can live a full, healthy and satisfying life now, that's the most important thing.

Not necessarily. They can ask the league not to schedule it after the London game. Some teams have done it in previous years as well.

Does anyone happen to know anything about the prices of the London game tickets? And I mean single tickets, not packages? Thanks!

Very big relief to know that the draft is loaded in our areas of need. Just gotta hope they won't overlook anyone for whatever reasons like they have done some times in the past.

Completely agree. Our recent 1st and 2nd round picks are also the reason why I still think our past drafts have been huge letdowns. Some people like to point out how we have made some solid mid-round choices and that is all well and good, but you have to get playmakers with your 1st and 2nd rounders. At the very least, you MUST hit the mark by finding players with these picks who become solid starters. Since 2012, more often than not we have completely wasted our 1st and 2nd rounders. Might as well have traded them away. 2013 was the most colossal F up I've seen in a long time from any team. Thus far, 2015 has the potential of being in a similar category. Here's to hoping Perriman and Williams can at least get on to the field for a relevant amount of time. That would already be an accomplishment for them.

Just imagine if we would have had Lewis and Brady on the same team. We would have used the Steelers as a toilet paper for over a decade. And who knows, maybe Lewis would have taught Brady how to be a man, instead of being a little whiny crybaby he is today.

Tyrod Taylor was a 6th round pick if I'm not mistaken. Turned out to be a nice, solid and cheap backup for 5 years. And convinced at least Rex Ryan to hire him as a starter. I wouldn't say that is a complete waste of a pick. How many players from other positions have we drafted in 6th or 7th round who wound up starters? Unless you count Camp, who is injured more often than not, I can't name single one.

I like it how people in the organization are done making excuses for Flacco and people outside the organization are now slowly stopping to buy in all these excuses. For 9 years now it has been everyone else's fault but Flacco's. Whether it's been the O-line or it's the OC's system or it's the WRs or it's the absence of a run game or it's the play calling or it's not having the right weapons or it's the injuries or it's not having enough stability or ... ENOUGH!!! We are paying him like the top dog, yet he needs impossibly perfect squad around him to be effective. I don't know any QBs who have all these things listed above, but most who get paid as much as Flacco does succeed without their team meeting all these prerequisites. So something's gotta give. That's why I like the strong signal and it seems we are moving forward with the right attitude - either Flacco steps up his game or we will start looking for someone who will.

Church! That is actually my main issue with Flacco. Money vs performance. If he was to make even 2mil less per season (avg between 20-21M per season) I wouldn't be all up in his grill.

It really sucks to have to choose between them, but I'm with Suggs on this one. As much as I hate the Patriots, Steelers are still our rival #1 and the ones we will always be compared to. Couldn't stomach the sight of them getting another SB title. Either way at least there won't be a question who to root for in the SB.

"Green Bay Packer have notched 24 touchdowns and one interception since Nov. 20. By comparison, the Ravens scored 32 touchdowns all season." This. Just this. P A T H E T I C!!! As to the Flacco question, I know it wasn't a serious one, but still - NO! Not by any standard whatsoever does Flacco qualify elite. He doesn't even deserve to be in the same sentence with these other AFC QBs on that list. The only thing Flacco is elite at is being the most inconsistently performing, mind-numbingly average quarterback.

Yes, that is true. #1 priority should be getting playmakers, dosen't matter if they are "good or bad guys". But it seems we have at times skipped on players with incredible talent because of some character flaws and made a safe choice with some "choir boys" whose ceiling talent-wise might not be as high. That's the main issue. As to your intimidation factor, it does somewhat matter on defense. Usually the guys who won't help the other guy up after the play also hit harder because they don't care about being nice or polite. If they have the possibility to choose whether to lay a knock out punch with a hard shoulder hit or just wrap the guy up and pull him down, they will go with the big hit. Polite players typically just pull him down, cause they don't want to risk an injury to the other player and with the possibility to get a flag. That's my point at least on the defensive side. Yes, opponents are afraid of playmakers and on defense it often means delivering punishing tackles. Polite players with great sportsmanship tend not to hit as hard.

I think you misunderstood what most people, at least me, mean as opposed to the choir boys. I don't mean we should draft felons, drug dealers or wife beaters. But at the moment we have the politest players, ever. Juice for example can deliver some pretty mean hits from time to time. But after the play is over he goes to the guy he just ran over, offers him a hand, pulls him up, dusts him off. Good thing he doesn't apologise for trucking him. And yeah, it's just good sportsmanship and makes guys like Juice very likable, but I don't care for any of that if we are playing some of our arch-enemies like the Steelers or the Patriots. You can high five each other after the game all you like, but during the game I want to see our guys, at least on defense, be the bad guys. Someone from the Ravens of Old, might even have been Ray Lewis himself, said it the best: "From the first kickoff until the final whistle we are not friends we the guys opposite of us. They want to hit us and we want to hit them back even harder." That's the mentality I want to see returned.

Very interesting of Oz to say all that stuff, because it seems to me that the Ravens have completely lost their identity of being the nasty physically dominating bully on the football field. For years now we have been drafting mostly nice guys with stellar on and off the field reputation and it directly correlates to the attitude we see on the field. It has been slowly happening ever since Harbaugh came aboard, and yeah-yeah I know, he is not making the draft decisions alone, but it seems to me that before Harbaugh-era our team was way more willing to draft those old-school mean and aggressive players. Now our roster is filled with "choir boys" like someone on this board very shrewdly said it. Literally no one is afraid to play against us anymore and it's especially a factor on the defense. And now, with Smith Sr. gone, we just might be the softest politest team in the NFL. That is not the Ravens Way! I really really hope that Oz will walk his talk and they will get back to drafting players who strike fear into their opponents, players who bring the pain, players who you don't want to play twice against. But as I've expressed myself before, I have serious doubts of that happening until Harbaugh has any say in the matter. Here's to hoping that Oz will end this nonsense come April.

No back pedaling. Of course Oz makes the decisions based on the draft board, but that does not change my point - I believe Harbaugh has much bigger influence on that draft board than you seem to think. At the end of the day, he is the one who has to work with drafted players day in and day out. So to say that his preferences regarding players are not taken into consideration or matter very little is foolish. I won't waste any more of my time trying to explain, how your long list of drastic examples with nitpicked poster boys of troubled players and high profile draft busts is not what I meant. You seem to be a smart guy, so you must be choosing not to get what I'm saying I guess. But as to your list of play makers who have supposedly "won nothing" (I hope you see the painful irony of many players on that list playing in the playoffs during the next couple of days while our team is watching the playoffs from their couch), answer me this - what have our main players, e.g. Mosley, Stanley, B.Williams, Juice, Wagner etc., won? NOTHING. Outside of Flacco, Yanda, Suggs, Smith and the Wolfpack, who won the super bowl with the "Old Regime", no one on this team has won anything. So if all these players on our roster are such great franchise cornerstones of elite superstars, why haven't they even been to the playoffs more than once?? It's funny that you indicate that our recent drafts have been actually solid and sugar cote the massive below par performance of most picks, when even Biscotti himself just admitted that our recent drafts have been rather disappointing. But I guess you know better than the owner of this team, right?