HomeoftheBRAVENS

I forgot all about the Rashaan Melvin hype train since we signed Kyle Arrington.He's definitely more than a band aid.He kind of reminds me of a mixture between Cary Williams and Jimmy Smith.He has Williams' athleticism with Jimmy's stockier/stronger build.I think he might be our next Cary Williams and when I say that I mean a tall lanky late round draft pick from another team that comes here and gets developed.He was solid until that pats game.I don't hold that game against him too much because he was beaten by guys like Gonk and Lafell who are both pretty good players and they had a Hall of Fame QB throwing to them.I can't wait to see how he's improved in the pre season.I'm hoping we're lucky enough to not have to use him during the reg season so I'm not planning on seeing him then.

In reality we could find a way to keep both but based on how we usually handle free agency the F.O. won't be willing to do it.If we're not willing to build our offense around elite passing threats building it around an elite o-line would be the net best thing.If we manage to keep both guards,both tackles and groom Urschel into playing center at the level that he played guard last year so we can release Zuttah after this season for the cap space then we'd be set IMO.With the line we have now any above average veteran RB can come in and give us 1,000 yards for cheap.We have to fight to maintain continuity on our o-line.

There are so many holes in their method of calculating injuries.I'm tired of all these math nerds trying to invent new stats and calculations every off season lol.

I wouldn't call Timmy a mauler.I remember him calling himself a slasher and I agree with him.That word fits his game best.I can't wait to see him get those double digit sacks this year.

BB is truthfully a elite QB, kills me to say it, but he has made so many big time plays by buying time, and taking nasty hits.....As far as Flacco it doesn't matter if he is ever viewed as elite or not, but his record can't be ignored, as well as his winning percentage, and i'm more than good with that.

There are 4 elite QB's in the league and Ben is not one of them.If you gave Rogers,Brady,Manning or Brees Brown,Miller,Bell,Bryant and Wheaton and let them throw the ball as much as Ben did last year they all would've thrown for 50 TD's easily.He's not on the level of those guys.He's in a tier right below them with Rivers,Flacco,Luck,Romo and Ryan.

Anyway,I see Ben having more statistical success in the next 5 years.HE'S NOT ELITE,but his offense is stacked.Brown,Bryant,Wheaton and Bell will probably all be there for the next five years and our offense won't be that deep unless we get lucky with Perriman,Williams and a few more future draft picks.

I hate being a complainer,but it's annoying me how it seems like every LFW article this week has had a steelers article in it.Has anyone else noticed that and feels annoyed by that or is it just me?

First: Did not quote your post. I mentioned things people had said in other threads on Pees. Things I remembered being said. Didn't know who said it.

Second: I don't have to agree, I do know how to play chess, and the point is to corner your opponent into a checkmate. Period. Perhaps you'd better read up on it. I know you were referring more to subtle moves etc that are made in chess but going conservative at the end will cost you nine times out of ten in chess.

Thirdly: Not saying he doesn't make calls from the booth. Was talking about one specific play in one game where there is a lot of video evidence to say otherwise. It is my opinion that he might do better down on the field where he has a better handle on what the players see with Reed & Lewis gone, but that is strictly my opinion.

Fourth: I did not compare the teams at all. Ever. I compared giving up the 2nd most sizable post season lead in the entire history of the NFL.

Fifth: Really? You want to pick on the kangaroo? You truly think I'm saying Ozzie is a kangaroo? Get a grip.

I,personally,like the kangaroo pic.

Interesting. Joe, who can throw it 65 yards in the air, often underthrew TS on deep routes. A calculated move?

He underthrew him alot in 2011 but other than that year it really didn't happen that often.Especially not in these last two years.

I agree with Hensley but I also disagree.Our passing game in general is our riskiest move.Last years explosion of productive rookie first round WR's was rare.It usually takes those guys 2 or 3 years to start having 1,000 yard seasons.It's even rarer that you find a productive TE pass production wise.We shouldnt expect much from Williams this year.The norm for rookie TE's seems to be 10-20 catches,150-300 yards and maybe 2-4 touchdowns.I read somewhere that the average production from rookie first round WR's from 2004-2013 was 41 catches,565 yards and 4 touchdowns.If we're going to win a SB this year,Perriman and Williams are going to have to be exceptional.

2009: ngata edwards gregg

JJ lewis mcclain/gooden suggs

washington foxworth

reed landry

 

front 7 less talent?

secondary less talent?

 

2008 Ngata Pryce and bannan

JJ lewis scott suggs

rolle washington

reed leonhard.

 

front 7 less talent?

secondary less talent?

 

id argue reed and lewis alone make these 2 units more talented.

thrown in a young ngata and suggs, a guy like JJ, bart scott , rolle , landry, pryce , Gregg.

 

find it hard to argue last years team had more talent lol

Mattison was our DC in 2009 and 2010.

Ngata was a better player back then than he was with Pees,but Pryce and Gregg were at the end of the road in their careers and Edwards was never the player he is now in Carolina when he was with us.He was a bust here.Pees has had Williams,Canty,Jernigan,Jones and McPhee.Our D line from last year was WAY better than the any D Line Mattison had.Our LB corp from last year was better than it was in 2009 and 2010 too.Dumervil,Suggs and Upshaw > Suggs and Johnson.Smith and Mosley > Lewis and McClain/Gooden.Secondary wise we had better safeties with Mattison but Washington,Foxxworth and Walker were horrible.We had Webb back then but he didn't breakout until year 3.The only bright spot we had CB wise during Mattisons years was Josh Wilson.

Alot of people are honing in on the fact that our defense finished top ten last year,but our defense finished #3rd overall and #10 overall during Greg Mattison's 2 years.He had Foxxworth,Washington and Walker at CB and less talent in the front seven when he did it too.If Pees is a genius playing chess then Mattison must've been godly in the eyes of you all.

I'd take this more seriously if it was done by any one else at NFL.com besides Bucky Brooks.

Now they don't even want him in the top ten?This storyline is becoming old hat but it's a boring off season so I'll play along.

Guy in the video:"Flacco has received far more help from his defense.That's why he wins more."

And Romo has received far more help and stability from the talent around him on offense and that's why he's had better stats.Romo threw to a prime first ballot HOFer in Owens,a borderline if not already HOFer in Witten and Dez Bryant.The best WRs(Mason,Boldin,Smitty) Flacco has ever had were already in their 30's by the time he got them and only one of them was HOF worthy.The same can be said about his best TE's(Heap,Clark,Daniels).As great as Ray Lewis,Reed and Suggs were,THEY DIDN'T CATCH PASSES OR FLACCO.

Guy in video:"Romo has been better in the postseason than Flacco"

I cut the video off.I don't even want to play anymore....

I used to be a Micheal Oher defender but after seeing Wagner play last year I think some of his haters have a point.I never realised just how big of a weak spot he was on the line until I saw Ricky come in and bring that right side to life.

 

Not a bum but pretty much Cam Cam level. He IS holding the defense back.

That's a perfect comparison.

you couldbnt be more wrong. depend solely on a rookie? unproven players? lol. we probably wont even start perriman right out of the gate. we'll be throwing balls at kamar aiken, marlon brown, SSS, etc who have all proven themselves... perriman will trickle into the playbook, barring a major injury on another starter. our WR group is one of the strongest assets on our team.

I agree with him.WR and TE are our biggest areas of weakness right now.Kamar Aiken and Marlon Brown aren't strong assets if you ask me.I can't remember seeing Marlon beat man coverage once in the two seasons he's played with us.And while Aiken showed flashes last year we'd still be taking a huge leap of faith starting him.He had 0 production before 2014 and only had 200 yards and 2 tds last year.Neither of them would stand a chance at starting on any other team in the AFC outside of maybe Jacksonville and on atleast 10 of the other teams in the AFC they wouldn't even be the third best guy.RavensNick was right.Our passing game will depend on whether or not Perriman is ready to go or not.If he looks bad in the preseason we'll probably look for a trade or sign a vet like we did in Torreys rookie year.I have a little more faith in our TE group because I don't think Pitta is going to call it a career yet.I still think it would be smart to bring in Gresham for a workout though.He's a proven probowl caliber player and his market is starting to heat up.

As soon as Kyrie went down I was thinking "the factory of sadness strikes again".I'm surprised Cleveland is making a series out of this.

With my last comment being said,I would love for Jimmy to prove me wrong and go out and have a career year that would put him in the conversation with guys like Revis,Sherman,Petterson and Davis.

I know this is a thread for taking off the purple shades, but I'd put Jimmy over Sherman - unless you're including health, in which case I wouldn't begrudge anyone putting Sherman higher (much...). But the fact that it's even a discussion says enough about the Jimmy/Torrey discussion (I still can't believe this is the topic atm. Like I said, Matt Millen's the only GM I could name who'd pay Torrey more).

Jimmy being on par with Sherman is only a discussion that would happen between Ravens fans.Just like the "our passing game is so dangerous" and "Joe Flacco is elite"(oh lord I'm really taking off my purple shades now) discussions only happen on Ravens forums.No one else even entertains the idea of Jimmy being that high.I challenge you to find one non ravens affiliated article where he's mentioned as a top five CB.

Taking one game and one assignment from each players career as the standard for comparison is a pretty silly metric.

Jimmy has limited Brown, Green, Julio Jones, Megatron, Demaryius Thomas, etc.. On a regular basis when playing healthy.

Health is the only legitimate knock on him at this point. In almost every metric - yards per target, yards per completion, total completions, TDs when in coverage, YAC, QB rating when targeted - Jimmy was rated among the top 3-4 in the league over the past 2 years.

That wasn't my intention at all.I was really using that game/assignment as an example to show BB22 that Talib isn't a stationary CB since he said he didn't move much with the Broncos.And Jimmy didn't play that many snaps against those guys so it's not fair to say he was the one slowing them down.He does a good job shutting down his side,but he never leaves his side and thats a valid knock when it comes to comparing him to guys who trail a teams biggest threat.

Haden is pretty much living on his name at this point. He's just not nearly as good as he used to be. Same for Patrick Peterson, although I never actually thought he was that great. Relies way too much on athleticism and gets burned for it quite a bit. He's good for seven or eight touchdowns a year given up. Talib is far past his prime and doesn't shadow guys considering he plays with Chris Harris Jr. Jimmy is very capable of following guys, as evidenced by how well he played Calvin Johnson.

 

Still, you don't get crazy interception numbers when you're being targeted two to three times a game and giving up passes that are about four to five yards. He just doesn't have a whole lot of room to make these plays because teams are trying to get the ball out quickly underneath to mitigate the chance for him to get a pass defensed. He's actually putting up pass deflections on par with all those corners you named over the past two seasons, since those were his two big seasons.

 

No, I don't think he tracked the deep ball all that well. I think that's a really big reason for his dropped passes is that he didn't put himself in the best possible position to go up and make the play. He was often having issues with gearing up or down and making a good, clean play on the ball. That's an issue. Take away his one big season where he was force-fed the ball and his numbers look more like 49 catches, 820 yards, 7.5 touchdowns. That's not nearly worth $8M

I didn't watch Talib play much last year because I didn't watch that many Broncos games,but 2 years ago Belicheck used Talib to cover Jimmy Graham and he shut him down.Jimmy did a good job cover Megatron in the second half of that lions game but I'm not sure he could be used to take away a TE like Graham.IMO,Talib is the better player.

2011 both the Ravens and Niners gave away their championship game... then again there's also the SB.

Yeah the Ravens and 49ers choked in 2011 but it wasn't an entire team thing.The Packers choked on offense,defense and special teams at the end of that game.

There talent level is not even close to similar.  Injury history aside Jimmy Smith has emerged into one of the top CBs in the game who's sole weakness seems to be he isnt as much of an interception machine as other top CBs but the numbers backed him up as a shut down corner whereas Torrie is an above average receiver who has very good speed and is a solid route runner but has poor ball tracking ability which often causes him to lose track of where the ball will go and force him to readjust on the fly.  

 

I love Torrie but he got drastically over payed whereas the Ravens managed to get a great contract in terms of value when it came to Jimmy and top CBs are not exactly much cheaper then top WRs.

Torrey got paid what he deserved.His stats and talent back up that $8M per year he is getting.

I'm glad someone beat me to this because I'm just not even sure how someone can begin to try to even compare the two. Jimmy I'd arguably top three, and surely top 5, at the position when he's healthy. Probably the most impressive thing about him, and something the Ravens surely missed last year, is that he just does not give up YAC. He makes the tackle immediately which speaks to his closing burst, tackling ability, and his ability to just play sticky coverage. He just doesn't get beat, either. Every catch is either underneath for two yards or it's worked for far more than what is comfortable for a receiver.

Torrey was a mediocre receiver who couldn't track the deep ball well, despite his reputation for being a deep ball receiver. He refused to go up and fight for the ball at all and he was absolutely soft. Two games that could have been possible wins were taken away by Torrey being soft. The drop in the Colts game and the more important divisional game in the playoffs when he didn't even go fight for the ball because he might get hit.

Dude, I don't even understand how someone could even reasonably entertain the idea that they're equal in talent

I'm tired of having to knock my favorite team lol but Jimmy is not a top 5 CB.There are CB's in the league that cover just as well as he can and also get interceptions.Plus the Sherman argument applies to him because he only plays one side of the field.He doesn't move around like guys like Haden,Patterson,Talib and Revis do.Also Torrey averaged 53 catches 900+ yards and 7.5 touchdowns a year for us.That's not mediocre.Why are you letting two plays define his career?And saying he wasn't good at tracking deep balls is crazy.I'll give you the fact that he didn't always fight for contested balls but he couldn't track a deep ball???Really???

Since it's been answered twice already, I'll just say na

Fair enough.

I am still stinging over that NFC championship game where we had Seattle beat.

I can't remember the last time I've seen an ENTIRE team choke like that on such a big stage.