Ravens4Real

Wallace is a more complete WR than Torrey. It would need to be a $2-3 million saving to make me feel comfortable about that move.

Just now, allblackraven said:

The thing is - we don't have $9M

+100

Still need to factor in draft picks also. We could honestly only be around $5 million or less in actual space. (Assuming the current number being floated around is without draft $$ factored in) 

So we would still need to release guys just to sign a couple serviceable vets.

Like I have said multiple times now, we are in a very bad spot cap wise.

4 minutes ago, BOLDnPurPnBlacK said:

If you let a $9m RT walk and can use that $9m to upgrade C and LG its a net positive for the line, imo.

Interior OL first. RT is the least priority. Important yes, but i wouldnt want to be adding a high priced RT unless it was the final piece in having a dominant OL. Spend the money to lock up the middle of the OL and an adequate RT will do.

Just because he signed for $9 million a year annually does not mean that that will be his cap hit. Many teams know how to maneuver their cap numbers. Heck he could cost around $4-5 million only this year. The Ravens would have done the same thing if they had the money and were able to keep him.

We aren't finding capable starting C's or LG's with that low of money. 

2 minutes ago, lgcs27288 said:

We have Alex Lewis. There are other older tackles on the market. We have found plenty stud linemen late in the draft.

Many people have stated in the media and also here that Alex Lewis is not going to be playing RT. 

So currently, on this roster, we do not have a RT. So we either have to draft one or sign one. Which will cost cap space and we are near the bottom of the league in terms of that.

1 minute ago, lgcs27288 said:

I dont know, rated 9th best RT last year, 5th round pick, now maybe a 3rd comp. I think we can find a more than serviceable replacement and reap the gains.

I'm not sure there are any gains to be had. A massive hit to the Oline. You can't do anything on O if the line doesn't block well. We have no one to put there. So we either need to draft an RT or sign one off the market and they are all below average. So either way it's a massive step backwards.

Also, just because we MAY get a 3rd does not mean it would amount to anything at all. The pick wouldn't be until next years draft and 3rd round picks usually don't come in right away and see the field. So we won't even know what we got for 2-3 years. 

There cant even be much gains to have because we have put ourselves into such a crappy spot with our salary cap.

Once again I will say it, the cap is sky rocketing. It is foolish to think that we could have gotten Wagner to sign for $7 million when the cap is expected to go up even more 10's of millions of dollars in the next couple years to come. Every position is going to start making a good percentage more than previously. 

We can sit here and say Wagner isn't worth that. But really, he is. He's one of the best RT's in the league and once again we let him go in his prime. Now our OL is a major weak link. 

But what can you do? The Ravens did this to themselves with all of these horrible contracts that have been given out the past couple years. And it has shown on the field.

I'll await to hear Williams has signed with someone else also because we didn't have the cap space.

1 hour ago, The Raven said:

It's 2017, not 1987. The teams with good defenses are the ones that get interior pressure. If you're not getting pressure, you're not that special.

While it is 2017 and the league is becoming a fast paced and a passing oriented one, a shut down nose tackle is still a huge luxury to have. 

Many people here don't understand how big of an affect 3rd and 7-10 vs. 3rd and 3-5 has on an offense. When your running defense suffers, it's puts a ton of pressure on your backend to stop these short 3rd down plays which are basically impossible to do in today's NFL. 

If we lose both Guy and Williams in this free agency, our run D is going to suffer greatly unless we bring in more pieces.

49 minutes ago, jboy19 said:

I'm glad the Ravens don't get too involved in Free Agency. Being on the outside and watching teams run the prices up on mediocre players is going to be fun this year. 

Some poor fanbase is going to have to live with the fact that their team is going to overpay Dontari Poe by 3mil/year because he threw a touchdown on a trick play and was on Sportscenter for the next month. 

Some fanbase is going to have to deal with their FO paying a washed-up guy like Adrian Peterson or Mario Williams like it's 2009. 

And like 5 fanbases are going to blow it on one-year, contract-year anomalies that probably won't ever pay off in the long term (cough.. Pryor/Kirkpatrick/Perry/others). 

I couldn't be more excited to see the bad financial decisions that other teams are going to fight each other over. 

I completely agree with this. It's amazing to see the teams that throw these absurd amount of money around in free agency and what their record is that year. They almost always seem to be right back in the same spot next year because their team isn't very good. 

Spending a ton during free agency either means that you are a horrible drafting team or can not retain your own talent. 

1 hour ago, rossihunter2 said:

i mean i just listed as many holes for last year as this year - do you not disagree we had those holes last year because that looks like if anything a more complex laundry list

Well you listed 7 positions. I listed 9 positions. And there's possibly room for more. 

We all knew safety was going to be filled by Webb, last year. There is talk he may get cut this year. We still have problems on the interior of the line, outside of Yanda. I'll agree that TE was a problem last year but Pitta came back and did admirably. There's talk he may get cut. We would then be hoping that the young guys step up when none of them have. Our hopes were in Williams but he has been a major disappointment. 

I'd say we are in a much poorer spot than last year, this year. 

28 minutes ago, rossihunter2 said:

we had just as many holes last year, we just didnt realise it at the time but we had holes at RB, WR, LT, LG, OLB, ILB, CB - we also had the same centre, the same safeties and same tight ends as last year as well - the difference is the last draft added some good depth and some solid starters at key positions - this is all the result of a couple of bad draft classes - you are inevitably thin in the future but we have 2 really good draft classes from the last 3 years and we are about to enter one of the deepest drafts at multiple positions in recent memory which bodes well - remember we had even more holes last year pre-free-agency and we havent got to the draft yet

We did not have as many as, last year. Although we did have a lot and it showed on the field, we have even more this year. 

When is the last time that a Ravens team has had potentially this many holes going into the draft/free agency period? 

Off the top of my head, WR, FB, TE, RT, C, NT, OLB, MLB, CB and potentially S, where guys are either unproven, replacement level players or just lack players at the position. 

This could honestly be the worst I ever remember.

1 minute ago, jazz1988 said:

The only defensive tackle I seen asking for 10 million was Dontari Poe

Williams is better than Poe.Poe is vastly overrated.

5 minutes ago, BOLDnPurPnBlacK said:

when he was born and raised the Ravens didnt exist.

He's no longer a fan. This is his job. And he reached out to SSS to ask what its like to play for the Ravens.

Nice story, but it wont effect his FA decision.

Umm I'm sure when a lot of Steeler fans were born the Ravens didn't exist. About 95% of Steelers fans I know now hate the Ravens. Don't be foolish and think that these guys don't want to some day play for their hometown team. We have lost a couple guys in FA to these same type of situations.

Not saying it won't happen or that he does have a hatred for the Ravens because of his fanfare for the Steelers. But there is def. a good possibility.

Edit: He also just stated no more than a couple days ago that he still is a massive Steelers fan, outside of when the Jets play them.

Don't know how much weight it holds, but Marshall came out and said he was born and raised a big Steeler fans and still is.

Mang people may not want to believe it but I'm sure he has grown a hatred toward this franchise if he is a true fan.

Obviouslh if we were the only team to give him a competitive offer, he would accept it, but there's about a 0% that we are the only team going after him.

2 hours ago, Purple_City39 said:

I disagree.  Those contracts were horrible because they kept having to restructure guys one year after they signed them.  It led them to years of cap issues and their defense took a huge plummet once those guys left.

Now, what they do that Baltimore needs to start doing is re-signing the right players BEFORE they hit free agency.  Letting guys hit free agency is what's forcing the team to pay top dollar on these contracts.  B.Williams would have been a lot cheaper, same with Wagner, if re-signed last year.

Yes their defense and other parts suffered. But if suffering for a couple years and your worst record in all those years were 8-8, there's probably 31 other NFL teams that would gladly take that as "suffering" for a year. Hell, we just went 5-11.

1 hour ago, Adreme said:

Next year in the AFC its likely going to look like the Patriots then several steps down the Raiders then below them about 5-6 which include the Ravens fighting for the AFC spot.  Now if you want to have a shot at a ring  you go to one of those teams if not you go to one of the teams with cap space which with the exception of the Patriots is not one of those teams.

I don't agree with this assessment at all. Patriots of course are still at the top of the AFC. 

Raiders and Steelers are nipping at their heels though. I'd put the Raiders over the Steelers because the Steelers just don't match up well at all with the Patriots. 

Raiders are still very young and if Carr can be injury free and continue to progress, he has all of the necessary components around him to push the Patriots.

Steelers, I know the hatred for them is massively strong in some of you, but I just don't see how they won't be better than this year. I mean I guess drama king Ben could go down with a serious injury and ruin their season. But as someone stated above, their offense still has Brown, Bell, Ben and Coates/James, but they also get to add Bryant and Green full time (depending on health) Along with one of the best O lines in the league. On defense they are very young and will just continue to get better also. Maybe they can regress on the defensive side of the ball. But with their offense, they can compete with anyone.

Then the next tier would be us with a handful of other teams. We would be grouped with the Dolphins, Texans, Colts, Broncos, Chiefs. 

But with the holes we are creating for ourselves and no real proven guys to fill those, we are seriously looking at dropping down a tier. 

Side note: Sorry for the three posts in a row. Took most of the winter off from the forum and just catching up now. It feels great to finally have some meaning football news to talk about!!

18 hours ago, JoeyFlex5 said:

This guy used the steelers FO as an example of a FO who makes smart moves to keep their core together.. 

do you not remember when polamalu, kiesel, heath, ward, Hampton, foote, farrior, gay, and Taylor were taking up all their cap space and forcing them to play musical chairs with absolute scrubs across their OL for like 6 years? And they kept restructuring guys who were playing bad or always injured? The steelers were in the worst cap situation probably in the whole league. But sure they're a shining star compared to our FO

The Steelers actually managed that situation pretty well, if you ask me. Even with all those years of restructuring and such, they were still very competitive. What was their worst season? I believe it was 8-8? Now they are in a good situation over there and are able to sign all of their big name guys.

I honestly feel that we should do what they did a couple years back and say goodbye to their marque older players and just start fresh.  

On 3/4/2017 at 10:45 PM, Davesta said:

Possible 2 3rd round comp pick in 2018 for Wagner and b will? Or I'm dreaming? 

This organization puts way too much of an importance on these 3rd round comp picks  and it is becoming infuriating. (Although you can now trade them so it adds a new wrinkle)

Just because we get the comp picks doesn't mean they will produce or even amount to anything. It is sickening to see other teams/our rivals, able to lock up their young core of players while we continuously let ours walk. It is starting to catch up in a big way. We basically have no major guys on our team that are middle aged, comparatively in NFL terms. Our whole team is either really old or really young. 

But let's be clear, we are more than likely going to lose both of these guys. The game of football starts in the trenches and we are about to lose two of our best on each side. That's a major problem and it just opens up even more holes across this team. 

1 minute ago, PurpleCity5 said:

If you're keeping Wallace at that $8M and then signing someone at a similar hit, then you damn well better be drafting someone at CB/OLB very high because its going to be tough to take a cap hit of $18M-20M at receiver and expect to keep Wagner or Williams while attempting to make improvements elsewhere. I can't see how the team can actually trust Pierce, Judon, Powers, or even Waller for that matter but not think Perriman is capable of taking the reigns. You won't plug in all these spots via FA if you expect to sign some quality players. 

Now as to my argument on Wallace, I'm not saying that he's not a good player, now if the Ravens are going away from the WCO, then I wouldn't have much of a problem with keeping Wallace. If you look at what Anquan Boldin did for us, many people would say "Oh, it's just Anquan going off in the post season again". But looking closely, Caldwell played towards the strengths of the WCO and to a point Boldin's. Because of the demand of the slant/crossing patterns and having someone who can do that for you, it completely opened the offense up. You just saw more slant/crossing patterns from Boldin and he was able to eat up the tight man and press coverage with ease while winning the inside/outside with no issues. You also saw a revived deep passing game. This is what the Ravens need in a receiver if they expect to move the chains, succeed in the Redzone and open up this offense. In order to get the deep passing game going, they're going to have to open up on those short/intermediate patterns. 

As far as Wallace numbers go, we saw a majority of his production come in through the 1st nine weeks, after that you could see that as CBs began playing closer and going to a zone coverage and playing some tight man zone, his production decreased largely. It sounds like I'm trying to take credit away from him, but what the Ravens got in Wallace as far as strengths go, multiplied in terms of weaknesses. You had a guy who can go deep and be a big play option for you in YAC, but if you wanted to open up the deep passing game, then you needed someone else to attack the short/intermediate game. 

I absolutely love to keep him at a lower cap number, moving on from him at $8M is not a foolish idea, not even Zrebeic thinks that's the case. You want to sign Britt and Wallace then fine, but you damn well better have no problem at CB/OLB because there's no excuses with either of those position. Also, under the assumption that we get both, I highly doubt Wallace will remain on the team long after when you really begin to feel the cap hit of a Kenny Britt or a Pierre Garcon. 

As far as what Perriman failed to do early on, I do have to agree that it was concerning and left a little doubt for me, but if Joe finds him or delivers a more accurate pass on the top of his routes, are we talking about him not being an option as a #2? What honestly makes me prefer Perriman at #2 is what we have at other positions. I think what he did in the 2nd half of the year is a bright-spot to his development. He dealt with a lot of problems, we both agree on that, and the assumption is that they don't follow him. While he'll be unproven, it's better than what you have elsewhere. 

You cut Doom and you have Suggs, Judon and Za'Darius behind him. You move on from BW and you got Pierce as your de-facto starter. You cut Wright(Obviously) and you got Jimmy and Young(Who might only be a slot CB), then you add in cutting Zuttah and you got Jensen behind him. If I had to make the choice, then rather than spending money on a big WR who fits this offense, move on from Wallace and rely on Perriman, after that I would make a push at CB/OLB and even C via trade and then using the cap from cutting Wallace to getting someone better, and who is to say you can't draft a guy within the 1st three rounds there if you plug in CB/OLB? We went into the 2015 draft with Steve Smith and Aiken as our starters, I don't see it being the end of the world if we drafted someone behind Britt and Perriman because what this team needs is not another young pass rusher, it's someone who can rush the passer now. 

If the team wants to pay another reciever and keep Wallace at that $8M cap number, than fine, but as I said there better be some serious attention towards OLB/CB/C come draft day. 

I understand cutting all of these guys because of bloated contracts, but some of them need to be signed back for a reduced cut or not cut at all.

Injuries are a given every single year. By the end, every team is missing a bunch of starters. We cut all those guys then that means we are pushing backups into a prominent role and guys off the street for backups. When injuries hit, we'd be right back to 5-11.

I'm alright with Orr wanting to retire. So much more in life that's important than football. Quality of life and your family being right at the top.

Im more upset that there are reports that the Ravens tried to talk him out of it. That is just pure selfishness and it makes me sick that the Ravens organization would try to do that, if true.

I know it's not the end all be all of determining factors, but I was very surprised to see how poorly PFF graded Orr out in run support and in pass coverage. 

There wasn't too much talk about that around here. He made a couple nice flash plays every game. Was he really that big of a problem in those plays that he wasn't noticeable? 

I don't see how the Packers have a chance if Nelson and Adams can't go in their game. Packers D can be scored upon in bunches and will need to keep up. That game either ends up 42-41 or the Packers will get blown out if their stars can't make it back.

Now I know the majority of this board despises the Steelers, but watching that game, the Chiefs were lucky they were even in the darn thing. They were getting embarassed at the point of attack. The Steelers O line is probably the MVP of that entire team. I'm not sure if Ben was even sacked either.

To my next point, Steelers coaching almost lost them the game again. Why in gods name are they constantly passing down inside the 5 when your RB has 6-7 yards a carry? It makes no sense.

First time I have ever heard one of the higher ups come to terms that Flacco, in the regular season, is just not cutting t for what he's paid. Too many times Harbaugh has come to Flaccos defense and used an excuse.

The real question is, what if Flacco performs like this next year? Could they possibly make him take a pay cut? Or even more than that? We will see. Because if he has many more regular seasons like he has, this team won't make it to the playoffs again.

The #1 issue with this team is inconsistency at the QB position and having injury prone guys in positions of major importance (whether due to age or just truly being injury prone).

Flacco needs to simply play better in the regular season. There are a handful of games a season where Flacco looks lost and basically hands the other team the game on a platter. He makes too much money to be doing that.

In regards to the injuries: In the NFL today two of the most important positions on a defense are CB and OLB. We have Jimmy who is an annual injury prone player. Has never played 16 games. Solution; draft or stack free agent signings here. The FO always leaves this group thinking they are fine and the inevitable happens with Jimmy and we find ourselves getting torched. 

OLB; This needs to be our first round pick and I don't think I will get much argument there. We NEED an every down OLB. Suggs and Doom can not be relied on. Suggs is hurt annually due to his age and Doom is in the same category. We have too many backups that can do one thing or the other (rush the passer and poor in run D or vice versa).