Tank 92

There's something about bringing in a squealer coach that is intriguing..............     

Traditionally, yes, but they have also phased in zone blocking in the past two years. They leaned on it a bit more this season.

lol     I vote for The Raven to replace Castillo.

What I meant was he's not a starter and they are, so obviously you should pay more to keep them around - but you can find ILBs in the draft, and there are good TEs in the draft.  You don't just find a returner of Jacoby's caliber every day - which to me means he'd be harder to replace.  Obviously the smart move, if all 3 are asking for a contract that's about equal, respective to their values (i.e. Daryl Smith wants a starting ILB contract while Jones asks for number 3 money), is to lock up the starters and then hope for Jones, but I'm saying I'd consider signing him first depending on the asking price of the 3.  I could easily see Pitta and his agent start negotiations around top 5 TE salary, and in the interim I might just decide to sign Jones if the value is right rather than risk losing both.

Understood.  I hope it works out that all 3 stay as they are valuable members of the Team and fit the mold as Ravens.

I hope they find a way to bring him back - he'll just be 30 this year, has a good rapport with Joe, and brings several dimensions to this football team.  If the price is right, I'd say he's the second most irreplaceable free agent behind Monroe.  As good as Daryl Smith and Dennis Pitta have been and will continue to be, Jacoby brings something we just can't anywhere else.

Not sure that Jacoby is as valuable to the Team as Smith and Pitta, but I agree that he is an important piece moving forward. For all all of the knocks on his receiving skills he has been working hard to improve and I believe he would have contributed much more had he not gone down in game one. And it goes without saying that he his one of the most exciting players in the game today.

Dragonfly is a Raven through and through........He plays with passion and brings some heart to the squad. I hope we find a way to keep him.

A guy who can get open! Scheme and playcalling play a part, of course, but our guy don't get open. I get sick watching other team's games and receivers are running free all over the place.

......and the threat of a running game.

Um, don't get me wrong, I love Jacoby and all, but the guy has never had over 562 yards in a season in his career. He's a great return man, and x-factor, but he's an average WR at best.

I agree that he has been average as an every day receiver, but characterizing him as a "bad player" is an ignorant statement(not referring to your post). He has the big play factor in his blood and has made some huge game changing catches as well. He worked hard last off season at honing his receiving skills only to be derailed in the first game by Trawick. Add to that the issues we had on offense last year and I think looking at his #s alone can be a bit misleading. If he stays and is used correctly by whomever the new OC is he will become much better than "average".

I don't think anyone(well, almost anyone) can deny that Jacoby improved as a receiver last year and I think that he will continue that upswing whether it be as a Raven or somewhere else. I hope he remains in Bmore.

I wonder if Kubiak is now healthy?

We don't have the money to keep those guys, so it's not an issue.  Jacoby is not that good of a player and we should be running less packages with the fullback.

LMAO!  the co MVP of last years SB that improved his receiving skills this year is "not that good".  smh

Unless someone throws big bucks at Jones he'll be back. Bank it.

a what? lol

Haha........rowdy Irishman.

The major con most people associate with him is he's related to Mike, but I think that's overblown.  Mike is unfairly demonized, he's not a bad coach.

I think it's because he looks so angry all of the time!  He seems like a hot headed laddie buck.

I'm not sure if you'll listen to reason, but to fire someone as reputable as Ozzie would lose much as the front office and tarnish the entire reputations ability to attain executive talent at any level.  It's just a crazy thing to do.

lol  Steve would end up turning into a Howard Hughes.

Oz's successor is in place and I bet he is paid like a GM already, or he would be long gone.

The other factor is that Oz is officially under scrutiny.  His job may depend upon making the playoffs next year.

Now this.....this is funny.

Don't leave home without him.  

My (hopeful) take is that the front office has been preparing for this since Caldwell's interviews were scheduled, and if they were going to promote from within, they would have already announced the replacement.

Yeah, I thought about this as well. You gotta know they have been thinking about Jim's replacement for weeks.

I like the idea of going with a proven veteran OC with a track record of success rather than experimenting with a young start up.

It's two different arguments, but no I don't think those QBs are better than Flacco.

The problem is our defense was clutch in many situations this year...but that gets ignored because of their failures in other games.

There's only so many times the defense can make a stop. They were far from a perfect unit, but they were much better than last year. Don't act like our defense was always clutch last season either, because it wasn't.

Not sure if you read this or not, but it affirms my point. 

http://www.baltimoreravens.com/news/article-1/Defense-Needs-Confidence-In-Crunch-Time/77c8c30e-a8f7-4fe7-9751-bfbb29a14d36

But I'm with you, I think it's fact that the D squad was a much better and talented group in 2013.

That's true, but how many of those games would have been wins if the Offense wasn't inept? The defense kept us in pretty much every game this year, but the offense couldn't capitalize. There are only so many stops they can get.

Agree for the most part, but there were times when the offense did get things together towards the end of games, put us in a position to win only to have the defense fail. I just don't buy into "if we had scored more earlier it wouldn't have mattered" deal. Say if we do score more early in one of those close games. Who's to say the opposing team doesn't play more aggressively and scores more themselves?  

What about the Philly game? Pitt? They let Dallas drive down the field and needed bad clock management and a missed FG to win that game.

The only time they got critical stops in the regular was against NE and KC.

The truth is our D was much improved this year, but our offense regressed so much it didn't matter.

 As a whole, the D was better in 2013. Showing up for the critical stops? they usually folded. Dude is right. Even though they sucked for the most part, at times the 2012 squad tightened when they had to and contributed to us winning some close games.

the only reason the offense had a chance to recover and put things together at the end of the game was tnx to the defense in the first place.

 

in order for the offense to have the time to get things together and team have any chance of winning is that defense was actually getting stops through out the game...

 

even if they did [profanity deleted] the bed on the final drive they still did a better job then offense who [profanity deleted]ted the bed through the whole game....

 

the defense should not have been put in that situation in the first place.

Right. And no matter how you have performed the rest of the game if you have a chance to win and don't do your job at the end of the game when it counts most, you have failed. 

no you are wrong.

the way you play during the WHOLE game determines a win/loss.

otherwise what is the point of playing a whole game if it all comes down to 1 or 2 drives.

 

when 1 part is doing its job for 75% of the time they still did a better job and has far less of the blame then the part that only did their job 25% of the time.

 

when the offense has 10 drives and 2 TD they have a 20% succes rate.

when the defense has 10 drives and allows 4 TD they have a 60% succes rate.

 

score might not say so but a deeper look will tell you more.

 

it goes even deeper when you start to account that 2 of the TD the defense allowed where because of a short field tnx to a turnover by the offense and  1 of the TD off the offense came on a short field created by a turnover by the defense.....

 

now this is just a general example and the reality will differ but i hope you and others get the point.

While you have a somewhat valid point, it's not wrong to think that you can suck during the course of a game(low success rate/turnovers), but pull it together at the end to pull out a win.  We did it time and again in 2012 and winning those types of games is what got us into the tournament. In 2013 that didn't happen. We lost three or four close games where there the O caught stride towards the end giving the Team a chance to win, only to have the D allow long, time consuming scoring drives.

While it's true that events during the course of a game do have an effect on the outcome, if you do not perform at the end of a close game, none of what happened earlier means squat. The score when the clock reads 00:00 determines the W/L.

Fact: Defense got 4 TOs in a game to go to the post season and the offense only scored 13 points off those turnovers while the offense also turned the ball over twice.

No one fully blamed the offense but they deserve a fair share of the blame.

Agree and I don't think anyone could rationalize that the offense didn't suck and failed miserably in the red zone on a regular basis. But there were games where they recovered and put things together at the end of games, only to have the D fold like a wet paper bag.

Fact: an NFL game has 4 quarters at minimum.

judging based on 1 quarter is short sighted to say the least.....

Another interesting and obvious fact;

There is generally an ebb and flow to any game and the score at the end of the game is what determines a win/loss. If you screw up during the course of a game there is always time to recover and win. But if you fail at the end, you usually lose.  

More sad, related facts from today's Late For Work:

The Ravens defense set an “unwanted” team record by allowing 134 points in the fourth quarter, the most in team history. “It was strange to see the Ravens defense play solid for three quarters and fall apart when the team needed it the most,” Hensley wrote. “In the first three quarters, the Ravens had the sixth-best defense in the red zone (allowing touchdowns 48.4 percent of the time). In the fourth quarter, the Ravens had the fifth-worst defense inside the 20-yard line (66.7 percent).”  [ESPN]

Just to expound on this...........

Myth - The offense is solely to blame for our .500 record and for the Team missing the playoffs.

Fact - The D folded late in many games and failed to give the Team a chance to win some of the close games that were lost. It can be said that if we win 2 or 3 of those close games early on we would have won the division and made the playoffs.

A huge, strong guy who can play Center.

 

Priorities, people.

Adding more pass-catching talent is the bigger priority. Gino was poor for most of the year but the FO will undoubtedly bring in some competition for him. They don't have to invest a first round pick in one though.  

I agree that we may be able to find a center/O lineman somewhere other than the first round of the draft, but fixing the O line is PRIORITY ONE, not only for the pass game, but the run as well and the offense as a whole. Any other needs take a back seat.

Could very well be. Our plays were also fairly vanilla and straight off the route tree without much scheming to get guys open. That said, there are those "slippery" guys who always seem to be open regardless of formation or route. I'd love for us to be able to find one of those guys.

Agreed, a la Stokely, Welker.

Really, I would to get someone with the knack to get open and with good hands, regardless of the "category" of receiver he is.

I'm kinda' thinking the present core of Torrey, Marlon and Jacoby can be those types of guys if we have the threat in the slot, TE and a decent running game.  It may be that what we perceive as their deficiencies were exacerbated by opposing Ds knowing they were basically our only options.