ryananth

Considering all of the charity work and donations Ben Watson tells us about it may a blessing in disguise when the Ravens release him so that he can spend more time on his philanthropy.

nothing wrong with four picks in the top 100. It'll also give us more opportunities to bring in that undrafted free agent that makes the team.

I'm not saying we should keep Dumervil but taking Barwin over Dumervil would be ridiculous

Not really...if those two are signed it will mean that Brown, Bell and Big Ben will account for more than a quarter of their salary cap

We shouldn't be too upset that we don't make deals with people early. Even though Flacco cost us more by waiting one wonders if maybe he doesn't play so well in the Super Bowl stretch run if he already had a big deal sewn up. Also, think of all the bad deals we might've gotten into if we had la Canfora's philosophy

I felt like McKinnie could've been so much better than he was but it's not fair to say he "held his own" helping the team win the Super Bowl. In fact he was downright dominant down the stretch and if Joe didn't have the confidence he had in Bryant he probably wouldn't have played as well as he did

Who is benjaminswatson?

Glad to see Castillo leaving. Don't know how he didn't share in some of the blame the last two seasons for the poor performance of the running game. I'm looking forward to Roman getting us moving in the right direction again.

Hate to see Frazier go but I think most of the credit for the improvement in the secondary should go to Eric Weddle. It's amazing how smart great players like like Weddle and Ed Reed make their coaches look.

We get two quality DBs that can stay healthy paired with Eric Weddle and it won't matter how good the secondary coach is.

Is it not plausible that Dennison wouldn't be brought back to be the QB coach?

Can we please quit talking about Williams and Wagner? Unfortunately, they won't be back. We'll just keep using our supplementary picks to replace them. The 3rd rounder we'll get for KO this year should come in handy.

On 1/10/2017 at 10:37 AM, RavensDieHard21 said:

We have been in a cap hell for 2-3 years now. Clean out the players that are not proving they are valuable and start new with cheap draft picks. 

Due to our cap situation we have let great players like McPhee and KO leave. Yes, KO was paid an immense price, but we literally had two All-pros at guard. Had we matched that with Stanley and Wagner. Our offensive line doesn't miss a beat, but anyways, cut Arrington, Lewis, doom--at least attempt a restructure, Watson, then contemplate Wright based on our commitment to drafter a corner early. 

I wouldn't say McPhee is a 'great player'. Also if we'd made the poor decision to match the Raiders offer and keep KO we wouldn't have drafted Stanley because we would've put KO at LT as they were doing late in the 2015 season.

On 1/10/2017 at 7:40 AM, RavenManiac#7 said:

As usual, jacket makes an informed and sensible post. I think that we should appoint jacket as we fans' GM. He Always makes sensible and informed posts. I have Never seen one ranting post from him. I have Never seen one unresearched post from him. He Always backs his statements up with facts and common sense, rather than emotion. And he understands more about rules, contracts, salary caps, and other pertinent information than most other posters on this site. What do you say, jacket? Will you accept the nomination?

I wonder if this is one of those  Skip Bayless type posts where he switches accounts to praise himself...Only kidding Jacket I know (pretty sure) this isn't you

On 1/9/2017 at 1:12 PM, PersianRaven said:

yeah? Name those 25

How about you give me 7 that have an elite cover guy and a sack specialist?

37 minutes ago, PersianRaven said:

We are a Marcus Peters/Von Miller combo away from making it to the playoffs. That is exactly what this team is missing. A premium pass rusher and a shut down corner that can stay healthy.

...and so says about 25 other teams!!

First off, Suggs should not be on this list. It's disrespectful to imply that the Ravens would cut an all-time Ravens great who is still performing at a high level to save a paltry $1mil. (which really isn't $1mil since you have to spend money to replace the position)

Jettison Arrington and Dumervil. Cut Webb with plans to resign him after he 'tests' the market and isn't offered half of what he's set to earn next year. Keep Lewis as insurance if Webb isn't back and then cut Lewis if Webb comes back. Have Watson and Pitta compete and then cut the loser of that competition after
June 1.

Keep Wallace. Keep Zuttah unless a C can be found and waive him after June 1 if the position is upgraded. I can't speak to Shareece Wright but my sense is he should be kept. He seems to play a lot better when Jimmy Smith is playing at the other corner, but what do I know.

What do you mean 'can'? He already is from what I saw down the stretch.

It's all well and good to consider saving a bit here and there on salary cap space but the real problem for the FO to deal with is Joe's cap hit. Per the Sun Papers it breaks down to 2017: 24.55 M cap hit with 47.3 M in dead money if cut after June 1, 2017. 2018: 24.75 M and 28.75 M, respectively, 2019: 26.5 M and 16 M. The cap hit continues to increase after 2019 but the dead money decreases. This for a QB rated 25th by PFF, (a little higher if you only consider the QBR).

Flacco's contract is not the problem. All teams have essentially the same money committed to their QBs (around $20 milliion). Flacco's deal averages $22mil a year. Even if there wasn't s a dead money issue we'd still pay Flacco what he's receiving. Would you rather have someone like Fitzpatrick for $14mil or Romo for $18mil? I don't think so. Who are you proposing would replace Joe anyway?

Something smells fishy on Dumervil's achilles injury story. He said he didn't have the same burst last season because of the injury, but played thru it for the team. Well done and thanks for that I guess. Then he decides surgery is needed in February, but keeps it a secret. The issue I have is that he played in the Pro Bowl on his supposed gimpy achilles instead of opting for the surgery earlier to get ready for his team. He then has the surgery in February but apparently spends much of the next few months (according to his twitter feed) working to help Haiti. Now he's decided to let everyone know he was unhealthy and gutted it out. Why now? I think it's simply to garner sympathy and get the Ravens to keep him for the last year of his deal. Time to move on from him and wish him well if he regains his previous form.

Also time to move on from Lardarius Webb He is simply just too slow now and not worth the money. Ben Watson is now 36 and coming off of a significant injury. Cutting Watson is a no brainer. Arrington probably gone too. The rest are a coin flip I think. Time to move on from these back-ended veteran deals and get younger.

I think we are at a real turning point this off season. We need to be honest and admit that since the Super Bowl we have been mediocre. Not sure what will happen at OC but I'm tired of us making them the scapegoat every season. We have a talent problem not a coaching problem. Ed and Ray were just that great that they could carry the entire team.

I'm not buying Dumervil's story about him losing a step because of this injury. He says he's healthy now but I'm not seeing anything that shows he's worth the money to bring him back next year. I usually don't talk negatively about our players but I think it's bs to bring this out now to garner some sort of sympathy for gutting it out. It seems more to me as a ploy to make people think he'll be that much better next year when he's supposedly 100%. Hopefully he shows up this week and at least gives the Ravens a reason to consider keeping him next year but at this point I say we move on. While I'm on my soapbox did anyone notice how poorly Sizz played against the Stoolers? He too often got caught cheating inside when he should've set the edge. I think it was more a factor of him trying to do too much than his ability suddenly declining. He's also been injured but makes no excuses. I'd much rather have Sizzle than Doom because I think Oz is going to have to move on from one of them.

I bet Torrey comes back to Baltimore.

Weddle wouldn't be able to go to the Pro Bowl anyway since he'll be playing in the Super Bowl

Ward, Mitchell and Porter are the only guys I hate because I have no respect for them or the way they play(ed). Guys like Clark, Harrison, Polamalu, Tomlin and Big Ben are guys you just despise because they cause us problems but I do have a lot of respect for them (and even secretly wish they'd been Ravens)

These qb hits, hurries and sack stats are so misleading. It'd be nice if maybe they'd put some sort of metric on those stats. Like how many times they are hit, say, three seconds before and after the snap to give true comparative figures.

Why do I feel like the Stanley injury is going to turn out like the Perriman injury last year?

Probably because most of what you post on here is negative

Nice work from the headline editor! You got my attention with the Williams season in doubt line. I immediately though Brendon Williams. Whew, glad it's not him!! Put Maxx on IR, bring up Waller to fill his spot and also to be the gunner replacing Aiken who did pretty poorly last week. We've also got Boyle coming back after week 10 if we lose another TE. No story here...let's move along

Let's not have any more 5-0 talk until we get to 4-0

Along with Suggs' achilles, Steve Smith's seems to hold up pretty well too. Smith was even prepared to go twelve rounds after the game!!