Tenacious Faulker

Regarding Monroe, I'm just over the guy. I hope that the Ravens can work out a deal to bring Clady here. Even on Monroe's best day he's not as good as Clady's worst. Even with a glowing health history he's been an abject failure from the get go. I don't think I can trust him that he's AOK. Time to move on.

Shame about Walker. All the best to him and his family. Hope he can recover to live a normal life.

Damn shame. He was the best safety in our defense and would've been great next to Weddle. If it was PFD's then he's number two. If it was weed, the NFL really needs to take it off the banned substance list.

RE: Odd Safety out. I have to say that if Hill is cut I'd be very surprised since he fills the Strong safety roil well. Can't see any other safety on our roster tackling in the box and making sacks in blitz packages. Webb? Nope. Lewis? No again. Brooks? Back up material for now. Elam? More missed tackles than anyone on the team. If Hill isn't a Raven by September, then someone will have screwed up.

Re: Justin Tucker's baby. Anyone wonder if his wife is getting her womb kicked to death?

Re: Mike Wallace. I'm not sure about signing him. He looks like he could be our version of the Broncos and Emmanuel Sanders. That said, 3 seasons with declining performances isn't very encouraging. Still I'm inclined to believe that he was just in bad offenses that didn't know how to use him. I think we can make it work. Hopefully he comes at a good price, but the log jam at WR is looking really bad names like Givens, Butler, Jacob, Worthy, Clay, both Browns and maybe even Campanaro (although that one would be surprising).

RE: Courtney Upshaw. He's one of the most underrated linebackers out there. If teams overlook him the Ravens won't. He's physical and Roethlisberger has another reason to play scared against the Ravens with him here. Remember the two licks he laid on him that left him bruised for weeks? Though penalized unfairly, they should've been sacks. He's a beast and the rest of the world just doesn't know it yet.

Re: Kaepernick Trade. He initially reported wanting to be a Brown under Hue Jackson, but is reconsidering now that he realizes his reported salary restructure would be too steep. His current deal is has him earning $12M this year with small increases to $19M in 2020 - well below the current FA market values.

Could it be that even a QB's audibles can be used for commercials now? Have we sunk that far?

Like the Watson signing and have always thought he was the most underrate TE. He can block inline and catch with the best of them and has a clean character. True he's older but age is a number and he's been very durable these past 4 seasons. If he counts against the NFL cap then they Ravens won't likely need a comp pick for a TE then. Mike Wallace would be interesting. He's still just 29 and has speed, and his poor 2015 could've been just the horrible Viking pass offense and Bridgewater. However, there's a log jam at WR here with other speedsters. If they think he's better than Givens and are willing to let that 7th rd pick for him go then Wallace could be a fit IF his attitude will fit out locker room and coaching.

Haha! Might be a little awkward in the locker room between Jones and Smith Sr. after he threw Pacman to the ground after a catch on his way to the end zone in 2104. n 2014

In a word...why? I like Forte but he's got about 3 more years in the league and they won't all be at a high level. We have a solid group that comes with an affordable price tag and a high ceiling. The timing is just wrong and the window is all but closed for that deal.

Just going to disagree here - again. Ray's speeches certainly had an effect on some of his team, but remember Flacco saying that they were entertaining but did nothing for him? Listen, I love me some Ray Lewis as much as the next Bmore fan, but there are many different ways to get your team motivated. Manning is a perfectionist and there is tons of footage and documentation working with teammates to get their game to the next level. As I said, he doesn't sermonize which Lewis did and created a culture of "destiny" on defense. That worked here, but is not as imprintable elsewhere when you have a franchise QB leading the team. When the QBs you had as leaders were Testaverde, Jim Harbaugh, Banks, Redman, Grback, Dilfer, Boller, Blake, McNair and a young, reserved Joe Flacco over 12 years you just might get a defensive star to lead the team. Could've been different if they drafted Hasselbeck, Culpepper, Aaron Brooks, Pennington, Bulger, or Brady who they all had legit chances to draft.

I think a 2nd rd tender is still about $2.02M. IMO he seems to have shown he can be reliable and was fair as a #1WR. It might be unfair but I think I'd need to see more out of his before we commit $2M to him especially with an untested Perriman, a returning Steve Smith, and a field of other journeymen with breakout potential like Waller, Matthews, Camp and D.Brown. Ozzie & Co. would have to know that they are going to keep in Baltimore and/or that another team is willing to take a 2nd rd flier on Aiken because free agency and the draft will have occurred well before June 1st.

I don't necessarily agree with Kiper on Ramsey or Bosa not falling even with two QBs taken in 5 picks. There's a lot that an happen between now and the draft. If the draft happened today and two QBs were drawn inn the top 5, that means that the Bosa and Ramsey might be taken with the other three. Since OT Tunsil, CB Hargreaves, QBs Wentz & Cook, WRs Treadwell & Cook, D-linemen like Robinson & Nkemdiche and other rising edge-rushers like Jack and Lawson, Floyd and Ogbah anything crazy can happen especially when Dallas, Cleveland and Jacksonville are concerned. That said, I could see Ozzie turning the #6 into a gold mine of draft picks in deep defensive draft.

I've also seen mention of the Raven using Denver's defense as a template for success, but that's an incorrect assumption. Firstly, if anything Denver's D used the Ravens defensive scheme. Gary Kubiak as said he learned from his time in Baltimore. Since he was primarily an offensive genius, he had to learn how to field a better defense which had been his Achillies heel in the playoffs with the Texans. The Ravens have long used a high-pressure pass rush to force QB's into making mistakes and giving turnovers even to a middling secondary. That's been the Ravens formula at least as long as as Ed Reed was on the decline and Dean Pees has been our DC. The trick is 1) getting the most out of your secondary, 2) team health. It just happens that the Broncos enjoyed both great team health and affordable play-makers in their secondary. That's been the key and why even a depleted Ravens defense can still rank 2nd last year in the last 8 games of the season. People need to realize that the Ravens are great innovators and fans should also realize that the time of a stingy, defense like 200 or 2006 are almost impossible to reproduce given the pass-happy rules of the NFL.

The Ray Rice article is very interesting. It's amazing to me that an organization as powerful as the NFL with a cartel-like grip on the sport can still have its pans thwarted by a single player. Just shows how conglomerates are inefficient and inflexible despite all the advantages of the power.

It amazes me that even with all the blatantly offensive friendly rules now in place in this league that the old axio is still true that great offenses win the regular season, but great defenses win the post season. The Broncos, Seahawks, Steelers, and Patriots (tho' I hate writing that last team). Even though a great defense no longer is measured in stinginess like the Steel Curtain, the 85 Bears, or the 2000 Ravens, the game had to evolve with the new defenseless receiver and passer rules that made it easier for offense to dominate. Rather than yardage and point stuffing, now defenses focus on turnovers, red zone scores and QB pressure. Only elite defenses can do all three well enough to thwart elite offenses and we're seeing that more and more.

I disagree. Mannig did that too in his own way. He can be fiery too, be just doesn't sermonize like Rev, Ray-Ray. There are a lot of similarities between their final season (especially the tome missed and timely return due to serious injury) if Manning does choose to hang'em up. However, it was far more classy and epic that the best inside linebacker to play the game said at the beginning of the season that he's retire and went out with a bang. Bettis chose to call it quits after at the beginning of the playoffs and Elway did so after a short period of reflection after his last SB win. To me Lewis' "last hurrah" was the most epic as the team rallied around him and won despite being an underdog every step of of the way in a storybook season.

Wait. Was it 4 or 5 reasons to draft Ramsey if available? Sometimes in an effort to seem clever, writers get confusing. Not that I need a 5th reason for Ramsey, but let's just keep it simple here. It's football...not exactly a Pulitzer Prize category. There is only one real scenario why the Ravens don't draft at #6 and that's if one QB or less is drafted in the top 5 and Bosa, Tunsil, Hargreaves, Treadwell and Ramsey are all gone. The only thing that changes that is if a team gives up a stupid amount of picks that Ozzie would be foolish to turn down.

OK, so let me revise - a "low round tend" is what they'll likely put on him (that was implied by the $1.3M which is the low-tender amount. My point is even if we end up getting the lowest amount for him it becomes a net gain since he's undrafted and it's unclear to us outsiders if he's actually worth keeping at a 2nd round tender or higher.

I've been a fan of him since he got Elway's Broncos to the Super Bowl, then a believer when he turned the Texans around and loved it when he came to Baltimore and set up the best offense in franchise history. I'm ecstatic for him to finally have won a SB as a head coach now. Consider his path to this great achievement. Despite being drafted by the Broncos in 1983, the Broncos traded the Colts for Elway relegating Kubiak to a career as a back up. He was good in spot starts but never "Elway-good" and never a Super Bowl caliber QB - or at least we'll never know for sure. He was a great QB coach and OC in Denver helping Shanahan to develop the Zone Blocking offense that would churn out 1000-yard rusher after 1000-yard rush despite lack of elite talent, either on the OL or in the running corps. He made QBs better too. After Elway, he had Brian Griese, Jake Plummer, David Carr and Matt Schaub who all were not exceptional but benefited in his systems...well, maybe not David Carr who was too far gone by that point. Then he gets Flacco and Peyton Manning who both benefited as well. Flacco became more efficient and had a system they worked for him despite the fact that it didn't need his big arm. Manning benefited more. Unlike Joe, Manning lost enough of his arm strength and accuracy to be a liability. Kubiak's system took the pressure off him so that he could make plays. Manning is a smart enough player to take what Kubiak gave him and use it to the maximum. Last night's SB win exemplified that and proved that the Texans were premature in firing him back in 2013 amid one awful season and health concerns. That firing however, proved to be a blessing. Forget that Kubiak proved he could lead a team to a Super Bowl title. He stepped back for a season out of the head coaches spot and worked with the Ravens helping them to another playoff win against the arch-rival Steelers despite the injuries the team sustained in 2014. That was enough for Elway to offer him his dream opportunity - to coach for the team he began with and for his former friend and starting QB, Elway. The team was loaded with talent and had a ton of cap room. He could not have asked for a better opportunity. His time in Baltimore was too brief and I think that he could've also taken us to the SB had he spent another seasons here; they almost made it in 2014 with him had it not been for some New England shenanigans. Even with a depleted defense, they still managed to score well enough to stay ahead. While this may read a bit like an obit, this is really a heart-felt congratulations to great, deserving, and undervalued coach.

Time to reload. The Ravens accomplished much despite a lousy record. They proved down the stretch they were competitive without the big name talent so when we have some (and healthy) they should be back to their winning ways. All teams have their ups and down. This was our down year and they'll have some ammo with the highest draft pick since Jamal Lewis in 2000. The Broncos had an edge in talent on D, though. When you lose Peyton Manniing and need Brock Osweiler to carry your team for a spell AND still make the Super Bowl you have good talent and great coaching. I'm very happy for Kubiak.

Would be a nice addition. Depends on his Combine/Pro Day and what we do with pick#6.

So LT Laremy Tunsil may not be the first player taken off the board which could set off a change reaction to drop several studs as the #GrabforGoff begins. Perhaps two QBs will now end up going in the top 5? What could this mean for the Ravens?