rmcjacket23

Well, recent draft choices could make our roster flexible enough to transition tot a 4-3. I wouldn't be surprised if Pees went back to college (like Mattison) and we promoted Spags. Then, Spags implements his own system. I'd have no complaints if that happened.

Why would Pees go back to college? He's been in the Pro's for over a decade now, with no signs or intentions of going anywhere. I can't even imagine he would take a DC job in college unless he was fired and nobody wanted him in the NFL (not going to happen), and he's certainly not going to be interested in taking a HC gig in college at age 65 and go spend months recruiting. 

Mattison spent a grand total of 3 years in the Pro's and came here straight from college. He left to go coach with Hoke, who was a very close friend of his.

Two very different scenarios.

Lets not Down talk Cutler because we all remember 2013 Flacco. Cutler and Flacco are very similar and we see how trestmen did with cutler

Sort of. From a comp pct, yardage aspect, they are pretty similar. Cutler throws TDs at a better rate than Flacco (every 21 attempts vs every 25 attempts), but Flacco's INT rate is significantly lower (INT every 24 attempts from Cutler vs every 41 attempts from Flacco).

Plus, the most overlooked factored of Joe's game is durability... hasn't missed a start. Cutler hasn't played a full season since 2009. He's actually only averaged 12.5 games played per season for the last 5 seasons. Having your supposed starting QB miss 3-4 games a season is a very bad thing.

we should Resign Tyrod and Danny Gorrer 

And ideally, they'll never play.

Hate to tell you this man, Lewis-Moore hasn't played football in over two years, guys in the position he's in his position tend to retire.

Not sure about "retiring" as much as he will face stiff competition for a roster-spot that he isn't guaranteed. If he's healthy, he may find somebody interested in him for deep depth, but it may not be the Ravens.

We will see.

I'm pretty sure Vernon still has 1 year. I seem to remember him wanting more money this last offseason and the team wouldn't negotiate because he still had 2 years left. And he had very little production this year.

Even if I'm wrong on the contract, we couldn't affod him. Especially when you consider Pittas contract already on the books. Can't devote that much cap to 1 position.

He's under contract in 2015. Some people perceive that he will be released, however.

How long is Redding's contract w/ the Colts?

He's a FA in the offseason, but he also may strongly consider retirement, as he will be 34/35 next season.

I doubt the Ravens would bring him back as anything more than depth. We've got some pretty solid youth/depth on the DL.

 I thought Ellerbee was playing pretty good until he got hurt this yr

Not even close. He was awful and was basically demoted. He was supposed to be the starting MLB in a 4-3 for years, and he was demoted to OLB and was actually playing situational for quite a bit.

We need to keep mcphee no matter what. 

 

Im still p.o.ed that we had to lose Cory Redding ( the dude is still balling ) and another guy we lost that im mad about but understand because of the price tag was D.Ellerbee.    ( Still mad at Harbs for keeping him off the field for almost 2 yrs, that Dog house is for real)

1. You can't overpay for somebody like McPhee. Its still going to come down to right player at the right price.

2. That dog house doesn't exist. Ellerbe didn't play for us because he wasn't a better linebacker than the guys in front of him. Its basically been validated now, as he was given a boatload of money to be the bigtime linebacker in Miami, and words can't even describe how disappointingly bad he's been in Miami. He will almost certainly be a FA this Spring when the Dolphins cut him. Nobody should be regretting letting Ellerbe go for one second. We are incredibly better off for not signing him.

Ignore I said that then lol.  I trust OTC much more.  I wasn't really paying attention there and thought I was looking at OTC, not Spotrac.

Yeah I've always been a bit confused between ERFAs and RFAs.

ERFAs you basically have to tender by a certain date or they become unrestricted, whereas RFAs can sign qualifying offer sheets with other teams and can be matched by the existing team.

You can get draft pick compensation for RFAs but not for ERFAs.

I don't think Melvin playing well changes or alters our need to get at least one more corner (via the draft or FA... draft preferably) this offseason, and maybe even two.

You've got Jimmy coming off a significant foot injury in a contract year, and Webb with a huge salary cap number and extremely disappointing production for that cap number (and a history of injuries himself), and then a bunch of essentially depth/replacement level corners like Asa.

I've been working under the assumption that 2015 will either be the last year Webb is on this team, or he stays at a massively decreased salary. In which case, you've still got major long-term question marks at corner heading into 2015.

I don't think Melvin's emergence as a solid corner changes any offseason strategy we would have at the position.

I'm hoping we don't have to worry about being completely reliant on someone like Melvin next year, although I do think he's been impressive in his short time so far.  Ideally he's the #4/5 on the depth chart, as we know he can at least step up and handle a larger role if injuries necessitate it.

 

In my mind, I'm really hoping our depth chart shapes up as...

 

#1: Jimmy Smith (hoping he recovers from the lisfranc of course)

#2: Lardarius Webb (hoping that he continues playing as he has lately)

#3: Veteran FA (more of a mid tier guy, nothing too expensive)

#4: High-Mid Round Pick (someone to develop for the future when Webb's contract becomes even more of a hindrance)

#5: Rashaan Melvin (could slide up to 4 depending on the pick)

#6: Asa Jackson (could honestly take him or leave him)

Right, but keep in mind that 1. Webb's final season very well may be in 2015... his cap number is quite big and there will be ample cap savings in 2016 to release him. and 2. there's no guarantee that a mid-round pick will be signed long-term either... it could be on a short term or even one year deal (sort of like the Brandon Flowers deal).

So, given that, you could be banking on Melvin to be a significant contributor sooner rather than later.

I think that was his point - what cornerback can actually match up with Antonio Brown - he's made some good CBs look pretty pedestrian.  He had a good game when we had Jimmy early in the season, then absolutely destroyed us in the second game.  He played well in both his games against Joe Haden, played well against JJ, against pretty much every opponent this year.

Melvin is frankly tough to gauge. Obviously we'd all like to see him back, but I certainly don't think he should just be handed a starting job opposite Jimmy.

We don't really know what he is. We know he's doing fine, but we also don't know if that's based on the competition he's facing and/or the fact that the corners playing in front of him before sucked so badly that maybe he's not really that good but he's just better than the Brown/Gorrer type guys.

I'd like to resign him and bring in some competition via the draft and/or FA and have him compete for a starting job. If he wins it, great, we know he's probably up for the gig at that point.

I think pretty much every player gets 3 years.  Playing in the NFL is rough man.  

Certainly wouldn't say he's been a good pick though.

For the most part (especially high draft picks), yes.

He's not getting cut this offseason. It costs more to cut him than to keep him (about $800K more, so not a huge number), so at the very least, he gets retained as depth, though nobody, including the organization, can feel great about our secondary if he leaves training camp as a starter.

Most first round rookie contracts are sort of designed to give that a player a minimum of 3 years with that team, because it generally has negative cap implications to cut them before then.

He looks like a keeper. He competed yesterday and contests catches unlike some of his backfield mates. I think there may be something to build on with him.

Honestly, its getting hard to judge. I haven't seen him play alongside other quality corners really, so the comparison is tough. He appears to be an upgrade over a lot of the guys we've started this year, but that's not really saying much.

I'm looking forward to bringing another corner or two into the team in the offseason and getting a nice healthy competition going.

He seems like a good use of a roster spot though.  Can't he play STs as well?

Yes. I would fully expect him to be retained.

After next season though.  Same as Marlon Brown.  I think it's only 3 years of RFA.  But I'm not sure about that.

Correct. But its far too early to be talking about long-term extension talks with him anyway, so retaining him on a cheap deal for another season makes plenty of season.

I expect he will certainly be facing better competition for a playing role than he has this season, however.

If I'm not mistaken that's the last year we have him.

Should be a restricted FA next season I believe...

He was with the Bucs for 2 years and never played in a game. We sign him and in his first regular season action plays pretty well. I'd just like to know what exactly they are doing down in Tampa.

Probably not overreacting to a single game?

Ask yourself this... would anybody be that surprised or disappointed if Melvin didn't make this team next season?

Just far too many unknowns at this point, and the sample size is not nearly significant enough to make any sort of judgments. He could be a future stud, or he could be the best looking of a large pile of crap at the position.

Is it a obligation that all teams play at least 1 game in London? I'm trying to figure out how teams get selected to play over there. I know Jacksonville has a 4 year agreement to play at least 1 game over there but they have poor attendance and don't sell out there home games so I can understand their case.

Don't believe so. In general, I think they are using teams with "less than stellar" home-field attendance track records recently to send over there. I'm sure at some point they will start moving towards setting up some sort of feasible rotation for all teams to go over there, but I don't think there's anything so far.

I know some owners (I think the Rooney's did this with the Steelers) have sort of volunteered to play over there for a game, because they recognize the income benefit for doing so.

Can't the Ravens play in London without giving up a home game?

As a road team, yes.

Personally, I hope they NEVER play in London, who wants to watch football at 9:00 AM!

I do, as long as its not my team.

Why wouldn't you want like 15-16 hours of straight football on a Sunday?

Maybe for the tremendous amount of expats that can't afford to fly home or for the humungous number of foreign fans. I'm Slovak, living in Czech Republic and ever since I got into the game, I play for the ladies team, I help out our guys, watch every Ravens game I can manage, including the Thursday and Monday games which start way after midnight in my timezone and I watch college football too.

 

So yeah, that's why they push it. London has plenty expats and people fly there for the NFL games from all over Europe. The difference being a flight ticket to London can cost like a pair of jeans on a low fare airline and can be a round trip with no hotel, while flying to the US costs more than a monthly rent

Yes, but the most important aspect to going overseas is NOT actually having games there.. its to get people in Europe to watch on TV. NFL teams would mostly still be profitable in the US even if they played in front of empty stadiums.

I did read online that the lease terms for the Ravens Stadium make it illegal for the Ravens to play a home game outside the state of MD, so at least we know that if we ever do play in London, it will be a road game.

Frankly, I'm all for it. A road game on a neutral field? I'll take that any day of the week.

If any of those rumors are true that have circulated over time, I'd say 80% is way high but I'd see 3 or 4 teams that would go for it

Bills, Jets, Dolphins, Browns, Texans, Titans, Jaguars, Raiders, Cowboys, Redskins, Falcons, Panthers, Buccaneers, Rams, Bears, Vikings.

That, to me, is the MINIMUM list. If Harbaugh went to the media, and said he wants to coach any of the teams listed above, that team would fire their HC and hire him within about 48 hours.

Won't happen.... Rich rod on the way out at Michigan. Jim will take that job

1. Rich Rod doesn't coach at Michigan.

2. Harbaugh isn't taking that job either, because its a MAJOR downgrade from SF. If Harbaugh were to leave SF, he'd have about 80% of the NFL teams to choose from.