rmcjacket23

Or it says nothing at all...

So we're not capable of getting good players past round 2? Have you even looked at some of the quality players on our roster and where they were drafted? Some of the positions you listed, like DE or ILB, I don't think we have very much interest in drafting at all to be honest.

That's a question only you can answer. Maybe some highly unintelligent fan blog or listening to quacks on ESPN and thinking they know anything. On you bud. Not on me.

Cool. Has nothing to do with my point. My point was to shatter these dumb exaggerations that people make without spending maybe 30 seconds to actually see if their dumb exaggerations have any substance or basis whatsoever. We can play the game by game analysis all day long if we want to compare offense vs defense. We could look at the Pittsburgh game at the end of the year and you'd have a difficult time blaming the offense for not sustaining drives or leaving the defense out there too long, especially in the second half. The only valid point here is that there were very few instances where both units played well at the same time.

Have some winning seasons and have some losing seasons. Basically the same thing as what happened when Ray and Ed were here.

Nobody around the league is saying that.

Well he did average 15 yards/catch, so...

LMAO! Ray Ray was a shell of his former self and on his "last ride". To be frank that's what he did, came along for the ride. Ray and Ed were so bad that the Ravens made the playoffs 4 of the last 5 years since they left. Those goal line stance was terrible in 2012. Man, I glade their gone. Sarcasm at it finest. What did they have to do with that goal line stance? Also, what exactly did Ed Reed do once he left again?

I think we are trying to wait until May 9th to sign either Mangold or Boldin bc then they will not count against the comp pick formula. I don't expect us to sign either. In terms of Boldin, I don't think he has any interest in signing with anybody until like June/July at the earliest. He didn't even sign with the Lions until late July last season. He has zero interest in going through an off-season program with a team. Mangold could easily be looking at the same type of thing, and there's nothing I've seen so far to indicate we are interested in him or that he's even good.

The issue I see is that he wasn't even the backup Center this season, nor did he do anything to overtake somebody like Zuttah who didn't play that well. I've seen nothing to suggest he's even being considered as an option at Center. I think at best he's competing for a reserve Guard spot.

Don't bother. He's trolling everybody by doing this.

KO is a physical freak. John by no means is in that category. John is fairly tough, but he doesn't seem to have the killer instinct. He's an intelligent football player, but if his technique is a little off, he gets outmatched physically on pass pro. He's not bad at run blocking, but he's not even close to KO's caliber in that department. Jensen IS nasty at the point of attack. He's a good run blocker, and is always looking for that second level block. He has quick hands and placing him at center will play to his strengths. His opponent is going to be lined up closer to him where his hand speed will help him win battles up front. He's heavier in the legs and arms than John, and he'll be able to anchor better than Zuttah. I think that's the key for Joey. We've got to keep the center of that pocket out of his face. I've not seen Skura in action so I don't feel I could formulate an opinion on him. There has been a lot of saltiness over the prospect of John and Ryan starting. Lots of folks want the shiny new guy to show up and save our O-line. There is the sentiment that "they didn't start last year, so they're not good enough to start this year. I don't think a green player out of the draft is necessarily the answer. I say let John, Ryan, and Matt battle it out. May the best man win. Saying that a player cannot improve over last year, especially three guys as young as they really is pessimistic at best. We should pick up a C/G in the draft for development. I wouldn't burn a high round pick on one, though. Would point out that Jensen is going into year 5 in the league, so he's not exactly young by NFL standards. I agree that players obviously improve, but I don't think you're seeing very many examples of guys who are average to below average for the first 3-4 years and then take a major step forward.

Well, just to be clear about one thing that needs reiterating... Tony Romo mostly sat the bench last year because he got injured in the preseason. If he never gets injured, nobody knows who Dak Prescott is. That takes an incredible amount of "luck" for things to happen the way they did for the Cowboys last season. There was zero foresight from the Cowboys organization that Dak was actually better than Tony and would have won an outright competition over him, so lets not give too much credit. I give them credit for drafting him and evaluating him the way they did, but not for some perception that they actually chose him over Romo, because that didn't really happen. If people think they can adopt this model from Dallas, then they will be fools and they will fail miserably doing so. Joe isn't going anywhere. It makes no financial sense. It makes no production sense.

Well... sorry to have to break it to you, but... 1.) we already have a good QB - one that played rather poorly at stretches of last season - but not a bad QB by any measure; 2.) I'm afraid you've been fooled. That ship-thing was an April's fool prank. Sorry to break it to YOU! No, the Ravens do NOT have a good QB. PJ's living quite famously off a wing and a prayer heave, botched by the safety. A lifetime QB rating of 84% for a ten year starter is AWFUL! You can see how bad Pathetic Joe and Self Righteous John have been since Lewis retired. You can make every excuse in the book you want for these two, but it doesn't change the facts. If I asked you to explain to me what QB rating is even what it means, you couldn't do it. And that's why NFL teams don't take joke statistics like that seriously, and why fans shouldn't either.

This is a myth of course. Go check the time of possession from 2016. Offense is on the field 51% of the time. Basically an equal split. That's not good compared to good teams, of course, but 30 of the 60 minutes a game is the more accurate number.

Guess its just a matter of perception. 1. In terms of the run game, its a combination of not sticking with it AND not being effective at it, with the latter being the bigger issue. A lot of fans like to complain about us abandoning it, and in SOME but not all cases, this was a problem. The REAL issue is the lack of effectiveness when we did do it. Regardless of perception, we're still running the ball 20-25 times a game most of the time, and in many cases, that simply wasn't yielding much productivity on on offense. I have zero interest in a volume based approach to running the ball. I have interest in a efficient and effective based approach to running the ball. 2. The weapons argument has and always will be debatable. The fact that the list of weapons you provided includes a TE who caught a lot of passes but didn't actually gain much yardage when he did (which is kind of important), a RB like West who is the very definition of average, and a rookie RB who essentially missed about half the season and lacked effectiveness when he did play kind of summarize the situation. It also includes a guy we knew was retiring and was like 40 years old, and a FB. The offensive line has some good players, but it also had a lot of injuries, and it was weak in the middle, which is the worst place to be weak at. In the end, coaches coach. That's all they can do. Every game plan is drawn up with the expressed intent and research of being effective. The effectiveness of it in real time actually has nothing to do with the coaches... that's all on the players. Coaches aren't drawing up plays that are designed to lead to negative yardage, turnovers, etc.

If you're looking for better conversation than just "fair weather fans who have no clue what they're talking about", then you'll be disappointed with RSR. This place has no shortage of ignorant fans as well, but RSR is even worse in my experience. Might also have something to do with some of the writers there. There's some pretty good one's, but there are some horrible one's also.

If you're bringing in Boldin, then that 1-2 year stopgap means that the guy you drafted isn't playing much for a year or two, or if at all. Also think its naive to think Boldin is just going to be the #4. He was 2nd in targets on the Lions last year, and they have a lot more talented pass catchers on their roster than we did or do currently. I also don't really care so much about his TD numbers from last season, since they are unsustainable and show great inconsistencies throughout his career. Plus, the obvious elephant in the room is why in the world he would want to come here to play. Detroit is very much in a better position to win now, and he could easily resign with them if he wanted to... among other teams. If we're going to draft a possession receiver, the time to put him on the field is now. We risk practically nothing by doing so.

Well its certainly debatable whether it makes perfect sense or not. It makes very little sense if you recognize that the same problem will exist this time next year if we take that approach.

Except you're not factoring in the 2018 cap hit that we would incur if you designate him a post June-1 cut. All a post June-1 cut does is spread out the total dead money over two years. It doesn't eliminate any of it. So you'd have a $18.55M cap hit in 2017, and a $28.75M cap hit in 2018. While obviously this is not happening because there's no reason for it to him, if you cut Joe at any point during 2017, he will count at least $47.3M in cap space in the present and future. The only question is whether you take it in one year or two years. It doesn't change the total amount at all, and there's nothing he or the Ravens can do to alter that. The Patriots were taking significant cap hits for Aaron Hernandez while he was in prison. That's how borderline impossible it is to recover guaranteed signing bonus cap space from NFL players, even in extreme situations.

Doubt they'll need a full-width football field for a practice week. Most of the indoor training facilities that teams have don't include a full-width indoor field either.

You're thinking of Ben Grubbs. Chester didn't play all that well for us or really anywhere for that matter. He was pretty average everywhere he went. Grubbs had a great career with us and played 3 pretty good years in NO as well. A neck injury basically ended his career in 2015. As I said earlier, for the most part, you're quality first round picks get 2nd contracts from us. We chose Yanda over him ultimately, and that obviously panned out.

Yeah except we're not talking about a team full of average players. We are talking about ONE average player at a position where we already have two well above average players. You're making a gross generalization and applying it to an entire team. I still see nothing on game film or anything in the last few years that makes anybody think Claiborne is a difference maker. Feels like you're judging him based on his college track record and actually ignoring what he put on tape in the Pros, which was certainly nothing spectacular. The Peyton Manning example could also prove my point, considering the last time you saw him he was the average, injured QB, got replaced by somebody else, and nothing changed on the team. The year they actually won the SB, he was without question one of the worst starting players on that team, and easily one of the worst starting QBs in the whole league that year. I'd also like to see some examples of the "great college players with injury history getting drafted before average one's", and in particular, which one's actually panned out. Feels like if I went back through draft history I'd show the exact opposite is happening. Also a pretty weak argument, considering we don't anoint great players based on how they played in college, so its hard to label drafted players as such.

O you mean when RSR says that we offered Jeffery a $13M/year long term deal? Yeah nice try.

Can't afford to take on an $11M/year corner. Pipe dream.