rmcjacket23

Ravens extended restricted free agent FS Will Hill an original pick tender.

True, but Jimmy's also not at that level yet. He still has to prove he can stay healthy for an extended period of time, and most importantly, he's got to prove he can come back from a tough injury for corners and return to form. Neither of those is guaranteed at this point. If he comes back to 2013-2014 level, he's a prime candidate for the franchise tag and a long-term contract.

I think they're looking to the draft for a TE in either scenario, though resigning Daniels probably makes it less likely that they target one early. If Daniels heads elsewhere, then yes, adding a veteran FA TE coupled with a draft pick makes some sense. I'm not convinced that Trestman will want to run a TE based offense like Kubiak wanted, so we may actually see more 3 WR sets under Trestman, particularly if that's where our best receiving options lie.

1. Obviously, nobody cares about collegiate highlights. I've never learned a single thing about a player watching his Youtube highlight videos... there's undrafted FAs who are destined for the CFL that have highlight videos that make them look like Jerry Rice in his prime. 2. I agree that Taliaferro is a 3rd down back, but that's also irrelevant, because him being him means that spending much more than the minimum for anybody else is sort of a waste of money. What we do know is that he could probably easily average 4 YPC with this offensive line. That makes a 3rd down back a 1,000 yard back with a Forsett-level volume, hence why 1,000 yards doesn't mean much to me. 3. Ridley might be prime in age, but there's virtually no guarantees he's actually prime from an actual production standpoint. He also has terrible hands, which is problematic, given that our new OC really likes utilizing RBs who can catch passes, and Ridley's pass blocking is also suspect, hence why he was off the field a lot in NE in those situations. 4. In the present day NFL, there's really no such thing as "developing a RB". Most guys drafted in the first 3-4 rounds can be plugged into the rotation right away, just like Taliaferro and others were. If you are spending 1-2 years waiting for a RB to develop, you are already missing out on like 20-25% of their career.

You can find a rookie in the 3rd or 4th round easily that could match or exceed Ridley's production. Being a thousand yard back isn't exactly difficult these days... that's roughly 60-65 yards per game. Taliaferro could do that with 15-20 carries a game too.

Not sure getting booted off a team qualifies as an "accusation". Even without the domestic violence situation, there's plenty of risk and plenty of reasons to let somebody else draft him. In fact, there's plenty of on-field questions that DGB has left people asking as well...

Neither brings anything to this team that we don't already have (with or without Forsett). I'd be more comfortable rolling with Taliaferro and Pierce...

Confident with Ngata, not sure if there's even discussions with Yanda (think that's fan speculation at this point), and unsure about Webb.

Different completely though, because Webb didn't take a paycut in 2014. All he did was take non-guaranteed money, guarantee it as a bonus and spread it out. He lost ZERO money on the restructuring. Doing something similar again doesn't really benefit the Ravens, because it means Webb's cap numbers in future years will be higher and it makes him much harder to cut in the future, which should be considered a possibility certainly after this coming season if he doesn't perform a lot better. What the Ravens most likely are looking for is for him to take a paycut, which is easier said than done.

Nice try, but no. This would make sense, except for the fact that the very next week, in week 2, Pierce outcarried Forsett 22-8, and with ZERO fumbles. So apparently, that fumble in week 1 didn't amount to a benching at all, considering Pierce got an almost 3-1 carry benefit less than a week later. What REALLY happened is that Pierce got injured in week 2, and Forsett had a better YPC average when he wasn't in the game (Pierce averaged 4 YPC in the first two games, while Forsett averaged 5.8 YPC in the first four weeks).

Pierce had six carries week 1, Forsett had 11. IF Pierce started, it was on paper, not reality.

I think the thing that you are ignoring is that this isn't Madden... there are costs and consequences to every decision. 1. Aldon is a prototype 4-3 DE, which means he would either need to transition to OLB in a 3-4 or play DE in a 3-4, which has some significant differences in responsibilities. 2. He has a well-noted history of off-field problems, and basically another single offense would probably put him in danger of missing an entire season or most of it. 3. He's a FA in 2016, so I don't really understand the point of trading for him in a contract-year. 4. If he were to be traded and did play well, you'd be looking at spending significant amounts of cap space and cash on a new contract for him, funds that we almost certainly don't and won't have. Ignoring everything else, those are all serious considerations that would have to be addressed before you even sniff a trade for him. Trades are never just as simple as "well he's better than any first rounder we would get", because that's not the whole picture of compensation being given. All of this is moot, obviously, because you and I both know that the Ravens aren't trading for him anyway.

Thus my precise words of "the majority of the fanbase". I'm not really interested in what a small minority of the fanbase thought. I'm sure the same small minority hated the idea of giving Joe Flacco top tier money also, but when the same question that was presented for Rice was presented for Flacco, we all got the same blank answer... what is the alternative?

And yet, at the exact time of when his contract was handed out, the majority of the fanbase was praising Ozzie for locking him up long-term, and the even vague thought of Rice being allowed to walk in FA would have caused a fan uprising the likes of which Baltimore has never seen. Hindsight is a great asset for fans, but its also a worthless asset.

I think that's the problem though... you'd have an impossible time naming one NFL team that would actually design an entire offense around Tyrod's skill sets. Frankly, I think any NFL team would have a tough time actually defining what his skill sets are. We know that he can run, what there's not much indication of anything else. He's not exactly a revolutionary type talent, so I don't think his ability to run will all of the sudden take the NFL by storm, since he's not the first or last of those types of QBs in this league, and most of them never really amount to a successful NFL QB. Frankly, if I were a team that actually wanted Tyrod as my starter, I'd FORCE him to be the QB I wanted him to be, and the QB that the NFL requires you to be. I'd force him to stay in the pocket at least 90-95% of the time, and deliver accurate throws all over the middle of the field. Because realistically, if you can't do those things, you can't play successfully in this league.

Merge thread.

I'd give Ray Rice a better chance of being good than CJ. Age doesn't really matter... its usage. Forsett has been in the league 7 years, and has 582 carries (about 81 carries a season on average). CJ has been in the league 7 years, and he has 1,897 carries (about 271 carries a season on average). A grand canyon level difference between the two in my opinion.

Perhaps we are misunderstanding each other... My entire post and process of posts was related to the fact that people said we will not sign Brandon Marshall because of comp picks. I said that there's probably never been a single time where Ozzie didn't sign a higher quality UFA because of the comp pick process. My premise is that there's nothing to gain from getting a comp pick instead of signing that player if the comp pick you are getting is incredibly unlikely to contribute in the manner that the quality UFA would. That is why, when players like Daryl Smith or Dumervil become available in FA, Ozzie has never been shy of signing these players, because the comp pick doesn't mean jack when compared to what those players can bring. Like anything else, its an assessment of whether or not the UFA we would sign could be replaced by a comp pick or not. For a large amount of the cheaper UFAs, the answer would probably be no, hence why we tend to not target those. I understand we've led the league in comp picks, and I'm sure that's by design. But keep in mind... that also correlates with the fact that the Ravens rarely have a bunch of excess cap space, thus, signing UFAs on an annual basis isn't easy anyway. I couldn't tell you the last time we had anything even resembling quality cap space available ot spend on players, and that's completely fine, because most of the good teams in this league spend close to the cap.

Correct, but you are essentially echoing what I already said... Ozzie WILL sign a UFA if that player is perceived as upper-echelon enough that we couldn't replace him with one of our comp picks. There are people saying that we wouldn't sign a Brandon Marshall because we want the comp pick... that's not logical. I agree that we don't sign "cheap" FAs because of the comp pick process, mostly because the FO thinks they can using a comp pick and get the same level player anyway, so it doesn't benefit them to sign the UFA. Its why we sign guys like the Smith's and not some cheap, borderline NFL-talent corner, because we can't find a replacement for the Smith's in the fourth round of the draft most likely.

Yes actually, I do think its a coincidence. You answered your own question in your next paragraph, when you alluded to guys like Dumervil, both Smith's, etc. The factors that you are NOT considering is 1. its not a coincidence that in recent years our activity with UFAs has been limited by the amount of actual salary cap space we have, which is a far greater consideration than whether or not we can get a comp pick for it and 2. whether or not the FA we would be signing could be replaced by a comp pick in the future. Given that the names you described would be almost impossible to replace with a 4th round comp pick, it doesn't make sense for Ozzie to pass on them if we have the cap space and we want them just so he can get some late 4th round pick, who by your own examples, will turn into quality ROLE players IF they tap out on their value.

1. I think his price tag would be small, given the injury risk. He's actually likely to get a short-term, "prove it" deal most likely, which is something the Ravens would probably be interested in. 2. I think the notion that Ozzie doesn't sign UFAs because of comp picks is a myth. Historically, comp picks don't amount to anything, and I seriously doubt Ozzie has ever once not signed a player solely because of a comp pick. If we don't sign a guy, its because his price is too high or we simply don't want him.

Well, Glennon certainly had two very high quality weapons to throw to last season when he was a starter, and he wasn't overly impressive during that time. I understand their O-line was nothing special and not much of a running game, but you could also argue that he's had better weapons to throw to in his short career than Flacco ever had, and made a lot less out of it.

Mods, feel free to take care of this...

That would be the camp that I'm in...

Based on the week that I've been in this league, from what I can tell, its basically just to see how many trades you can make and how exponentially different you can make a team look in one offseason. Hence why I said my money is on a lot of the teams making a lot of moves actually being worse on paper when its all said and done...