reed20fence

Went back and watched some games from later in the season last year. Let's just say it's no shocker that we're bulked up at the TE position. Also, Forsett's mastery and patience with his zone reads is beautiful.

To me the rookies are a big factor on where we go on offense from where we left off. That and Pittas health. Perriman needs quite some fine tuning. The kid ran a faster and more explosive 40 than Torrey and has a more substantial frame, but it's clear he needs help polishing out the false steps on his release on those 9 routes which helped slower corners stay in his pocket when he could clearly burn right past them. On his cuts he needs more discipline staying flat and oftentimes coming back to the ball to create space between himself and defenders for YAC instead of drifting away from the ball. He himself admitted that alot of his issues were with lack of concentration. Williams on the otherhand is just a beast. He's already a wily route runner and mismatch and really good in blocking which is a rare package to see in someone that hasn't been coached at the pro level. If we get Pitta back it frees up a world of possibility in 2 TE sets. And if we find creative ways to get Pitta, Maxx, Juszczyk and Gilmore in on the plan, you can imagine why it's not only a TE friendly offense, but why it consistently churns out 1000 yard rushers. This is the meat of the question in the transition from Kubiak to Trestman, the continued imaginitive way of involving TEs. Can Trestman still use TE screens and block and release patterns in stretch plays to force defenses to respect our TEs and keep LBs and safeties near the LOS and away from the deep ball and undercutting comebacks. And can he use our size and depth at the TE position to contribute substantively in the run game?

There is no simplistic cut and dry narrative when it comes to Joe. Not all of what he went through was just him alone. You have to know the franchises history with QBs. You have to put in to proper context the overall scheme for our team ending 2007 and coming into 2008 and beyond. Joe wasn't drafted to be a fantasy stat machine. We knew we could rely on a top 10 defense anchored by 2 hall of famers and 2 perrenial probowlers in Ngata and Suggs to prevent scores from getting out of hand. At that time no one questioned that the AFC North was a ground-and-pound division. We relied, by design, on running the ball and playing defense with a very conservative run-to-pass deep philosophy under Cameron. The problem is that Cameron was too averse to expanding on that mentality with 4th year Joe. The team invested money in Jim Zorn and then Jim Caldwell to specifically tutor our Division 1AA QB into our mold of QB. Alot of painstaking hours by Joe and his position coaches and coordinators went into Making Joe a QB now that is pliable and comfertable in the spread and the power and the zone stretch schemes equally. Not all QBs can boast of such wide experience. This fact will become more evident as Denver tries to come up with creative ways to fit Peyton into Kubiak's zone schemes and vice versa. Joe is an extremely coachable QB.

"My name is Maxximus Whateverus Williams - safety armor for the Ravens offense; tight end for history's most under-appreciated quarterback; representative of a maligned fanbase - and I will have my touchdown, in this drive or the next."

Not gonna lie, Ravens fans are amazing with their chants so hearing 71,000 chanting "maximus" in unison (with deference to Dos Equis and the variants of Maxx somethings) would absolutely get the adrenaline pumping for the fans and the guy himself. Suggs needs to pass that helmet down. I bet the first time Williams hears that chant, the next game intro he'd wear the helmet outta the tunnel with swagger.

The "John Simon conundrum" is certainly a concern for the WRs this year. Any time you rotate guys off the practice squad in a given week to take advantage of their talent and skillsets against that particular opponent, you risk a needy team plucking the PS-ed guys away. Gonna hafta be careful with guys like Waller.

Love it! Kinda like D'glester Hardunkichud or Hingle McKringleberry. Better than A-A ron Rodgers or Dan Smith, BYU.

Cam Cameron went 1-15 as the head coach of Miami in 2007, became Joe's playcaller, and was part of 5 straight playoff appearences, getting a cushy gig at LSU. Caldwell went 1 for life as head coach of the Manning-less "suck for Luck" Colts and came to us as a QB coach, became a coordinator, won a super bowl, almost went to two straight playoffs, and got a head coaching gig in Detrioit. Kubiak left a 2-14 Texans team that finished dead last, was chased out of Houston so fast they didn't even let him finish off the season, had a stroke, then came here and revived his career and was at the doorstep of a Super Bowl, ultimately going from pariah to a poached gem by Denver in less than a year. I'm guessing Trestman is smart enough to get the picture. Flacco is a smart career move. Let these 4 coaches tell you whether Joe's a top 10 QB. I bet I know the answer. We've all heard about the Ray Lewis coaching Tree. Maybe Ravens Nation starts reminding everyone about the Flacco Coaching Tree.

Can't believe I'm at this place, but I agree with the earlier poster -- maybe it's wiser for us to pass on Yanda and lock in Osemele for the long haul? Especially if the Yanda camp isn't being forthcoming. Just ask both agents to make their offers and the most lucrative bid for us gets the extension.

"When he was small, Allen often played by himself, picking up pine cones and pretending they were footballs. He ran about the yard, making up scenarios in his mind. One day, his grandmother looked outside, saw him running about and asked what he was doing. "I'm playing football," Allen said. "Football? You don't have no ball," Brown said. So she scraped up enough money to buy him one. "I took it to school," Allen recalls. "I took it everywhere." http://articles.latimes.com/2013/nov/14/sports/la-sp-1115-buck-allen-usc-20131115-18 Yeah, he took that ball all the way to the NFL!

Welp, you hear that? It's the sound of re-signing Tucker becoming just as important as Yanda all the sudden. #rememberCundiff

First things first, ask him if the balls were deflated in the divisional round. Next question, ask him his ring size, cuz he'll be getting a second (legit) ring soon enough.

Whew! We musta offered guaranteed money the Pats wouldn't match. Really good signing!

Couldn't have been said any better! The subtleties of how all the variables of a gameplan interact are vast and can't always be encompassed by hard stats. Kudos!

If I could just say, the fact that the GM and coach are made available so candidly to PSL holders and then the call is subsequently made available for all fans to hear is awesome on the part of the organization and br.com. I'm very very happy to be a Ravens fan and admire the quality of work you guys do. Especially those production and support guys behind the scenes that we never hear about. A sense of pride and ownership of your work is well deserved.

Ok can we just all agree on one thing, NO ONE is supposed to "replace Ed Reed." Guys that are being discussed as First Ballot Hallers and statue people don't just "get replaced." He's ranked 6th all-time in picks so think about it, are you really saying we're supposed to replace talent like that just by sheer will in the very next draft after we part ways with him? Reality doesn't work that way.it'll take some time for this league, much less the Ravens, to find a guy that has the impact that this generation of retiring safeties has had on the game.

Hey im with the PSL holder in Portland. Can the team do some activities for Ravens fans around the country to have a chamce to get closer to the team when they're in town for away games? Also, the take away hashtag from that call #walesengland Here's lookin at you Sandusky! ROFL

My alltime favorite memory of JJ https://youtu.be/W2DVuMBpRiU

If you look at most of the departures we really didn;t have a choice. The guys either retired, were too old and worn out to be effective, sucked, were hurt too often, cost more than their value, or judgement calls had to be made in tight cap situations. The impressive part is that we almost scratched and clawed our way into the playoffs the following year, and were essentially a 4 point game (with a weary secondary and cheating opponent) away from another Super Bowl last season. I mean look at the wasteland that has been the Giants the last few seasons.

Kyle Arrington was released and not waived for a reason. The Pats believe his contract is overvalued versus his Fair Market Value. He's gonna find the highest offer and go back to the Pats so they can match it and lock him in at a lower rate. The better teams like us and the Pats have been engaging in this excercise for years. Not all players, especially guys with families, are interested in uprooting and moving all over the place. They'll happily have an understanding with their team that they'll dabble in the market and settle for a Fair Market Value match (essentially a value-verified pay cut).

@EllicottRaven I don't necessarily subscribe to this conspiracy angle. Of the limited words I heard on this yesterday, Ryan Clark's were the most sober and measured. He basically reiterated what Shefter confirmed this morning. The NFL saw this as Brady taking PEDs. Whether you took drugs or pressured lowly staff into cheating with equipment, bottom line is you compromised the integrity of the competition. What's the suspension for a first PED offense? 4 games. Right now there's still debate as to whether Kraft is going to backtrack on his words from the Wells report release and appeal the draft pick punishment as excessive. Some people tried to twist and make a case out of "well the Wells report exonerated the organization so why are they punishing them with the picks" argument. But it's been well established as a principle (as we saw with Bounty Gate) that coaches and GMs that let this kind of activity go on, even by neglect, are liable to be punished.

Heard Mike and Mike this morning and Darren Woodson brought up that the game in which these deflated footballs could have had a larger impact was the week before against the Ravens where at halftime the temperature was 8 degrees with wind chill and the Patriots officially only tallied 4 run attempts in the second half, all 4 were Brady sacks. I assume he's done the legwork to confirm those numbers. This combined with the interview from Eli Manning in which he admits that he tested out softer footballs after this hoopla broke and did find that it's easier to throw and catch balls with less air should give us something to think about. I know guys like Aaron Rogers think this is much ado about nothing and we as an organization like to put this stoic image of not caring and winning anyway out there, but fair is fair. These guys broke the rules. And they most likely did it against us in a close game. And all the talk of "oh well we gave up two 14 point leads" and "oh but our secondary sucked" and "no one forced Joe to make that pass to Torrey and Torrey to play it weak" is besides the point given that all of that coulda changed with one crucial drop or fumble by the Pats if the balls weren't softened for them to cheat. We coulda been in another Super Bowl.

Now come the Days of Perriman. May they be blessed!

reed20fence Apr 24 2015 09:09 AM "I'm not shocked about the lack of serious effort to get veteran WRs. It's a deep draft and deep down all of us fans know that for all the hooplah over the top prospects with their flashy youtube highlight videos every year a no-named guy gets picked on the 2nd or 3rd day and couple of years from now our opponents defense will have to gameplan around his abilities. Just take 2 guys for example. Darren Waller 6'6" 238 lbs projected to go in the 5th or 6th round. He's the biggest reciever in the draft, a stand-up guy from Georgia Tech that's been mentored by Demriyus Thomas and Calvin Johnson." The other guy was Ty Montgomery btw. Green bay caved and took him in the 3rd round.

Just saying, we could set the "statue" standard at those guys who are Hall of Famers. I think some people assume there are tons of Colts' players that would clog up the stadium entrances, but there are only 9 players from the olden days that are Hallers. http://www.coltsheritage.com/hall.php