reed20fence

Thanks for this Ryan. We know players are Ravens when we watch the passion and aggression they approach the game with. But this is one of the rare times where we can look at a guys life, the immense amount of rejection, let downs, scapegoating etc, and his ability to keep getting back up - where we can say that a COACH is a Raven. The coach who no one is committed to, on a team that no one has honestly ever respected? Yeah... sounds like Raven to me. Go coach like a Raven!

If the way Habrs prepares this team is at all similar to how other teams prepare, then no one should be sneaking up on anyone in the NFL. Each team is loaded with world class athletes and the league is chock-full of competition enhancing mechanisms to ensure the old adage of "any given sunday...."

Getting production from early round WR picks is more complicated than simply just "picking them." Our history is being predicated on Travis Taylor and Mark Clayton, but we've not only gotten good non-first-round picks like Torrey and UDFAs like Marlon to produce but our scouts and position coaches have changed drastically since the days of Brian Billick as well. We should judge each decision on its own contextual merit, not label a guy a "risk" just beacuse someone who played his position a decade ago didn't pan out.

This isnt just wise football advice, it's good life advice. I've worked for huge corporations and the people that excel and lead by naturally rising up the ranks echo the same wisdom: dont get discouraged by failures; excel at your every day responsibilites; build solid relationships upon trust; attach yourself to mature mentors; the team the team the team.

Not the first time I've wondered how we landed the feature back of an elite program like USC in the 4th round. That kid had 276 carries last season and 40 receptions against good competition.

On the defensive front guys tend to be too big to play on the kickoff or punt team. So the name ofthe game there is rotation. Stamina issues require the big men to constantly keep subbing in and out and there's little space between "starters" and "backups." Special teams is the domain of backup WRs, TEs, RBs, LBs and Safeties. Offense takes up a good 19-21 spots between starters, good backups, and rotational guys at WR, TE, and RB by committee. Defense takes about the same when you figure in good depth and rotation. That leaves 11-15 guys that can make it on special teams and be solid backups. All this goes to say that I think a few of us are overly worried about having to part with good talent.

Heard some guys were making concentration mistakes near the back half of practice. Just remind people, we're not gluttons for pain with all this conditioning and fast pace play - we literally start our season in the most hostile environment stamina-wise, so you better be ready to run with those boys in Mile High. We will not start this season by conceding a game to a Conference opponent.

So basically he's helping the NSA find ways to find and track terrorists by effectively filtering meta-data instead of just collecting and housing all of our emails, phone calls, web clicks, etc. Good work man.

Strange to think that both were over 30 last year and still lead the league in sacks as a duo.

MLBs are all around athletes anyway. They're the ones that rack up tackles while the linemen gobble up blockers. If know-how is the issue and our MLBs don't sub out on a rotation like the guys on the front, just stick him in on the rotation on the edges. It's more likely he gets playing time on the edge cuz we're always pinning our ears back and going full speed at the QB, so we need to rotate for stamina.

Honestly I just can't stand Steph Curry. Just something about that dude rubs me the wrong way. No one should be that automatic from beyond the arc.

There are pluses and minuses each way. On the flip side you really can whittle down to who is genuinely the better team when you eliminate the possibility of "off nights."It's moot anyway. No way they can have a best-of-whatever series in football. It's too physically demanding a sport.

There's more juicy intrigue involved here. The coach that Modell hired in the last few years in Cleveland was Bill Bellichick. Bellichick is the one who hired Ozzie originally. Modell and Bellichick fell out over the chaos of the final days in Cleveland. The Modells chose to make Ted Marchibroda the head coach of the Ravens in a bid for continuity in Baltimore since Marchibroda was one of the head coaches in the final years of the Colts before that infamous mayflower trip. Ironically when the Ravens hired him he had just been fired after a three year stint in Indy. Part of the reason Cleveland is so angry is because Belichick went on to such success as well. And all of that intrigue is before we even mention the 1995 draft where Belichick traded Cleveland's 1st spot to SF who they used to draft JJ Stokes ( the Niners wanted him to replace Jerry Rice) in exchange for what turned out to be SF's 1996 first rounder, the 26th pick overall in 96, a little known guy named Ray Lewis. That's the backstory of how Ozzie nailed two Hall of Famers in his first draft. It's not so hard to sympathize with Cleveland's fans, especially for older Colts fans. Baltimore is probably the one place that totally gets what they went through. And it can't be easy seeing little reminders of what "could have been" in the headlines for the last two decades.

You all do realize that for all but 1 unfortunate play against LaFell where he totally should have knocked the ball away, Melvin was simply a pawn in a game between Dean Pees and Josh McDaniels. Melvin was following Pees' "bend but don't break" orders and staying off the ball to not get beat deep. Brady reacted by taking what we were giving and dinking his way down field. Melvin was trying to control the damage inherent in our scheme by rushing to the receiver and limiting YAC. Unfortunately the Pats saw his eagerness to tackle and called that fleaflicker leading Harbaugh to say after the game that it was played at a "very high level of strategy." Melvin was following orders. No CB in this league just decides all by their lonesome to start a play 7 to 10 yards off the ball. The coaches on the sideline and upstairs issue those orders.

LOL, thanks for catching that! Durn umiforms look too alike!

These same clowns that're raising our prospects so high will be the ones tearing us down as paper champions during the season. Don't buy a word of it. Just play like a Raven.

There's some really serious jinxing goinz on right now. Here we go Ravens Nation -- what are your chosen methods of conjuring good luck or warding off bad vibes? I'll spend the rest of the offseason spitting to my right and throwing salt over my left shoulder before every meal for the Ravens good health and prosperity.

Dont worry about being too far from the extended Ravens family either Kelechi... I live 10 minutes away from Katy and Ravens Nation is strong down in Houston.

Indeed. That was a very cool thing for the organization to do. It's also smart for companies to want to explore ways to provide the best experiences for their best customers.

LOL. got a good chuckle outta that! Can't imagine why he wanted to get the heck outta there.

No need to remind Ravens fans that the best place for us to be is to feel disrespected, slighted, and have a chip on our shoulders. All this excitement about shiny new weapons for Joe and Peter King picking us as the favorite for another Lombardi and now ESPN/PFF saying we've got the most talented roster in the AFC and effectively saying we're favorites to rep the AFC in the Super Bowl... it all makes me very uneasy. Ravens fans have learned the hard way that the outside world sets us up on a perch just to knock us down and enjoy doing it. Let's stay humble, hungry and pissed off for greatness.

With all the additions and weapons and youth, Juice remains our wild card. No single player shifts more prior to the snap to change the balance of our blocking scheme and potentially create mismatches and expose man coverage than Juszczyk. He's the ultimate swiss army knife of players that Harbaugh loves. Plays every special teams snap. Is the 3rd TE on jumbo/heavy sets. Is the starting fullback. Oh and by-the-by, he can catch the ball for chunk yardage when defenses are too busy assigning guys to cover the rest of the eligible receivers. You need a smart guy to know all of those roles and play them throughout the game with awareness. And you can always tell a Harvard man. The fumbles can be ironed out.

Schaub's presence with us is due to our being completely stripped of all the offensive staff Kubiak takes with him when he moves around. Joe may be familiar with Kubiak's playcalling and situational preferences after one year, but Schaub was with the guy for like 6 or 7 years. Combine Joe's skills, Trestman's element of newness, and augment it with Schaub's "what would Gary do" know-how, and you've got a dangerous brain trust

"They're quakin' cuz here comes Aiken!"

There're a lot of psychological states involved in special teams. Gunners need to have a certain craziness. Returners have to be loco enough to be ok with a guy ramming into them full speed with a 65 yard head of steam. When it comes to why teams plug in veteran guys to return at specific moments it has more to do with awareness and calmness than return ability. You don't want to be holding onto a 3 point lead late in the 4th, have your defense hold the other guys just out of their kicker's range, force them to punt, but stick a shaky wide-eyed rookie out there with the weight of the moment on his shoulders, and depend on him to have the awareness to judge the kick and in a split second determine where it's gonna bounce, how it's gonna fly, where he is, whether he should fair catch, or let it go into the end zone. That's why historically there were times where we'd stick an old and weary Ed Reed back there. You gotta have athletes back there, but also need to keep the older calmer guys ready to go.