RavensBaltimore

Marlon is going to have to significantly improve to have a big year this year. SSS and injuries were not the only reason he had such little production last year. He still got far more offensive snaps than Aiken, yet Aiken had more catches, more TDs, and more yds than Marlon, and in the playoffs, Aiken had surpassed him as the #3 receiver, in regards to snap count. Torrey is gone this year, but we have a lot of talented rookies, a better ability to run 2 TE sets, and Camp, who showed the ability to get separation and make big catches before his injury last year, is healthy. There should be some great competitions at WR.

I hope the fact that Walker has been having trouble staying with Perriman says a lot more about Perriman than it does about Walker.

I think Camp was too good in the slot last year when he was actually on the field to cut. He didn't have many catches, but he showed the quickness to get separation, great hands, and a knack for moving the chains, as he caught a couple 3rd and long conversions in the game where he got injured. A guy who can get open in the middle of the field and move the chains could be a huge complement to the potential playmaking ability of Perriman on the outside. We may not want to keep 2 slot receivers though, but Carter will probably be mostly a punt returner this year. I think the most likely scenario is either Carter getting cut or someone getting stashed on IR.

If Carter gets a roster spot, the team is going to have to either keep 7 WRs or cut someone between Marlon, Kamar, Camp, and Waller. That's going to be a tough decision.

You did mention Flacco specifically in your original post that I responded to, and I doubt you can find something like that happening on a weekly basis. I see players yelling at refs all the time, but I can't remember any other time in the NFL where a player got in a ref's face like a baseball manager that turns his hat around backwards so he can get that much closer. He doesn't necessarily have to be ejected, but if most players did that, it would probably be a flag, and if a player makes contact with an official, which he may have, it's either an automatic flag or ejection. I'm not sure which one. I remember Suggs getting flagged for coming towards a ref with "malice in his heart" even though he never even came close to touching him. I've seen Harbaugh get multiple flags for much less, and I see it all around the league. You can't technically prove whether or not Brady gets preferential treatment, but I've never seen anyone else ask for a flag, well after a play had ended, and get one, despite the fact that there was no apparent violation. I also see him getting away with blatant intentional grounding far more often than anyone else, and the defensive players seem to think he gets special treatment. Even Rodney Harrison, Brady's ex teammate, has mentioned Brady getting ridiculous, favorable calls. Even though it can't be proven, and it may be exaggerated, I wouldn't call it "baseless". People are just trusting their eyes.

Anyone using common sense knows that yelling at someone, while at least giving them some space to move, is not the same thing as getting right up in someone's face, and either touching them or getting literally within an inch. Flacco never did the latter. If you think it's the same thing, next time you're having an argument with someone who's right in front of or next to you, try standing directly in front of them and put your face within an inch of theirs. See if it doesn't escalate the situation and make them extremely uncomfortable. Try it with a cop, a customer service agent, anyone. Let me know how it goes. And I guarantee you can't find any videos of Flacco doing that. In the Browns situation, the GM was the catalyst, and it didn't have anything to do with the field of play, which was why their GM was suspended and not the coach. The Falcons had no players or coaches involved. With the Patriots, it was their qb who was directly responsible for the cheating, so it's different from the other 2 situations you cited.

Obviously, nobody knows if Pitta can hold up through an entire season, but if he decides he wants to try, I think there's a reasonable chance that he's our starting TE in Denver.

Pretty important detail you're leaving out....... None of the players/coaches cheated on those teams. Seriously? Players scream at officials from a distance, as Flacco did, all the time, but Brady was right up in his face, violently screaming at him, and was so close you couldn't even tell if he made contact or not. That makes a huge difference, and I'm pretty sure you already knew that.

1. The reward for deflating footballs was not winning the super bowl. It was a better chance at winning the super bowl, which is totally different. There are reasonable penalties that would outweigh that. MLB has significantly cleaned up its PED problem by imposing stricter testing and penalties, handing out season long suspensions for repeat offenders, proving that it works. There will always be a few cheaters trying to get away with it, but they can make those players the exception rather than the rule by making the penalties significant. 2. All of that is completely subjective and your opinion, which is what you've been criticizing everyone else for. "shouldn't warrant such a punishment", "infractions that are minor", etc. Many people feel otherwise, and there is plenty of evidence to suggest otherwise. 3. This paragraph couldn't be more wrong. If the public had no power, do you really think do you think Goodell would have suddenly made Ray Rice's 2 game suspension indefinite the day the public saw the video? There were always NFL players committing domestic violence, but the NFL suddenly became much stricter on it and suddenly cared a lot more when a video went public. The fans on here aren't really claiming to have any power on the subject, anyway. They're just voicing their opinion, which is what I thought these boards are for. 4. I don't think the pure, injectable form of HGH is legal for anyone to obtain or take without a doctor's prescription, so I don't see how they could allow athletes to use it. It's a synthetic hormone that needs to be injected and causes drastic, unnatural changes, which is totally different than creatine or anything you get over the counter.

If the Patriots gradually started fumbling less when Belichik became coach, you might have a point, but he was the coach for 7 years before the drastic and sudden change happened. Did it take him 7 years to realize that fumbles were bad? The point about Ngata was that our fans can accept when a player has done something wrong, and saying "Brady didn't know any better", does not justify it in any way. There are comments and texts that strongly suggest he knew the rule, and even if he didn't, it's on him.

No they shouldn't, because that's completely irrelevant. Besides the fact that there is plenty of evidence Brady knew the rule and tried to cover it up, you can't allow people to come up with their own interpretations of how important the rules are. It's also impossible to enforce a rule based on how much the violator knew it was frowned upon. Even if that's true, it would only be because of bias, which wouldn't make it right. You can't really look at the facts objectively and make a strong case in defense of Brady. And I'm not so sure your statement is true in the first place. When Ngata got suspended 4 games last year, the majority of our fans were not saying, "it didn't impact the game that much. It was only adderall." Some may have been saying that, but the vast majority of our fans were upset at Ngata and felt he should be accountable instead of pointing fingers. It was obviously an issue for Brady, and he has said so himself. Someone posted a link to the study I was referring to earlier. It says from 200-2006, the Patriots averaged 1 fumble every 42 touches, and the league leader was at 1 fumble every 56 touches. Since 2007, the Patriots have averaged 1 fumble every 74 touches, and the next team was still at 1/56. The statistical chances of that happening at any given time are "0.0001711874", or 1 in 5,842. But it didn't just happen at any given time. That huge statistical anomaly happened immediately after Brady proposed that every team be able to bring their own balls, and that wish was granted. That's not a cherry picked stat. It's a 15 year sample size, and they have had the same coach the whole time. Then, they get caught deflating the footballs. If you're objective, which you claim to be, how can you possibly look at those facts and say it didn't have a significant impact on the game? Are you clinging to the 0.00017 chance that it's a coincidence? http://www.sharpfootballanalysis.com/blog/2015/the-new-england-patriots-mysteriously-became-fumble-proof-in-2007

When I used the term "allow", I was talking about cheating in general, after you suggested players should also be allowed to use HGH. I never said anything about the type of punishment Brady should get, but I do believe that slapping a multi-millionaire on the wrist is basically the same thing as allowing it. I understand that what type of punishment is deserved is subjective, but as a rule of thumb, in all situations, not just this one, the punishment has to outweigh the reward, otherwise, there is no deterrent. Saying that harsh punishments rarely deter anybody from doing anything is just flat out wrong. You don't see nearly as many shots to a qb's knee's, horsecollar tackles, or defenders launching themselves into the head area of defenseless receivers because they are now 15 yd penalties. MLB has significantly cut down on steroid use because of the harsher penalties. You're never going to be able to stop everyone from cheating, but imposing fair, strict punishments does make a big difference.

The higher the tv ratings, the more famous and recognizable the players are, which means more people will want to see them in person and wear their jerseys, so it is all related. Of course people are more interested in integrity when it affects them personally, but people are more interested in everything when it affects them personally. That concept is not exclusive to integrity. If players could cheat at will and get away with it, then all sports leagues would turn into the WWE. People do watch for entertainment value, but a big part of the main attraction of the entertainment is the highest level of competition. When you constantly allow cheating, the competition becomes fake and gimmicky, and it ruins the whole thing. A scandal here and there will draw more revenue, but that doesn't mean that people actually want it. Murder cases draw higher news ratings, but that doesn't mean people want more homicides. Plus, the whole reason a high profile player getting caught cheating is such a big deal is that it's supposed to be a professional league with competitive integrity. If you allow it, everyone will do it, it won't get anyone's attention anymore, and it will become "sports entertainment", not an actual sport, and I think that's when ratings and revenue will start to drop.

The Patriots have not always been clean with the ball in terms of fumbles. Like I said, they were average until after 2006, which was when Brady lobbied to be able to deflate the balls legally. It wasn't until then that the Patriots started leading the league by far in fewest fumbles, with no transition period. I never said there was "proof", but since the chances of that happening by chance are literally almost 0, I'm not jumping to conclusions at all. There may not be a 100% chance, but there is better than a 99% chance that something out of the ordinary caused that sudden change. Since it was directly after Brady tried to get deflating the ball to be legal, and he has now been caught deflating the ball, put 2 and 2 together. There is even a 1 in a billion chance that DNA matches are inaccurate, but no one questions that evidence because there is no absolute "proof". The reference you gave with the Colts game means nothing, because one half of a game is way too small a sample size to say they did better without the ball being deflated.

There's a very basic concept that you seem to be missing. A lack of integrity actually helps increase ratings. Controversy causes drama, and drama attracts attention and gets people's interest. The more "outraged" people are, the more likely they are to pay attention to what's going on and follow the story. I can give you all kinds of example of times where business and media has used a lack of integrity to exploit emotions and generate more revenue. I'm not saying that the league is intentionally doing that, I'm just saying that your claim that people would stop watching if the integrity of the game was in question is very naive. If you don't think cheating affects integrity, then I'm not sure you understand the definition of the word.

The facts suggest it's a bigger deal than you think. Before 2006, when Brady and Manning lobbied to be able to deflate the balls to whatever PSI they wanted, the Patriots were in the middle of the pack in terms of fumbles. Then, with no transition period, they suddenly led the league by a landslide in fewest fumbles. The chances of that happening, at that specific time, just by chance, are astronomically small. Are you telling me that significantly cutting down on fumbles because of an unfair advantage doesn't impact the game that much?

Yeah, Ozzie decided to draft 2 pass catchers early to find out if he wants to keep his SB MVP winning qb that has won more total games and more playoff games than anyone since being in the league while piling up some all-time postseason records for both wins and stats, can run many different types of offenses, leads his team under pressure, and can make every throw with ease. If he doesn't instantly put up better regular season stats with 2 rookies, Ozzie will get tired of going deep into the playoffs and go look for a qb that better suits his fantasy team. That's not outrageous at all.

I don't remember having significant injury problems to our secondary in 2013. Anyway, we don't need to stay injury free to avoid last year's situation. We can withstand 1 or 2 injuries, but last year we had 6 DBs on IR, plus Webb's injury, which was a fluke and too much to overcome. When was the last time we had 6 players on IR in one position group? The only way to combat that is to have 10 starting caliber DBs on the roster, which is obviously unrealistic. We didn't have a quality depth issue at CB last year. We actually had good starters and decent depth, but the starters got hurt, the backups got hurt, and the backups to the backups got hurt. I don't care how much depth you have in August, nobody can withstand all that and still put a quality secondary out there. Like I mentioned above, the chances of all that happening again are extremely small, and the only way we could be prepared for that situation is if we had 8 or 9 quality CBs, which is not going to happen. If we have 5 CBs and a S on IR again, our secondary will not be good next year, but neither will anyone else's under those circumstances.

The "fired up" comment was just a PC media answer that Harbaugh gave when asked about Joe's response to the first 2 picks. When asked the question, Harbaugh started laughing, then asked Ozzie, "should I tell them what he said?" They apparently didn't think it was a good idea, so Harbaugh simply said, "he was fired up." I wonder what Flacco really said that had Harbaugh laughing and had Ozzie thinking it wasn't appropriate for us to hear.

It should make you feel even better that "concentration drops" and lack of polish on routes were on Odell Beckham Jr.'s scouting report as well, and he may have the best hands in the league. Also, most of Perriman's drops were early on. He didn't have any drops in his last 4 games or at pro day. Concentration drops are not the same thing as having bad hands. His scouting report also says he has a great catch radius and makes difficult catches look easy. Michael Irvin said nobody made more plays on 3rd and 4th down, so he seems to have great hands in big moments when it matters most. Here's OBJ's scouting report: http://www.nfl.com/draft/2014/profiles/odell-beckham?id=2543496

You could cherry pick moves that didn't work out with every franchise. Ozzie has one of the best track records at making the right decisions more often than not, which is why he is one of the best GMs in the league. It's a good sign that the Ravens have lost a bunch of good players to free agency. It shows that they are good at drafting and developing players, and because of the cap, they have more talent than they can afford. Bad teams, like the Browns and Raiders, usually don't have that problem. It really undermines the rest of the team to say that they got away with bad moves just because of Ray Lewis. There were plenty of bad seasons with Ray, which proves that he alone was not the reason that the Ravens "got away with it." It's also inaccurate to say the Patriots get away with bad moves because of Tom Brady. The Patriots continued to win when Brady himself missed the whole season. Franchises that win consistently do it because of consistent good decision making, not because of one player.