Maryland

If we're playing the hindsight game, Ngakoue over KC is the first pick I change. The Stanley pick isn't even on my radar, since you're likely looking at Monroe and Hurst at LT for this season and possible the season after that, which is unacceptable. 

I mean, even if he struggles with drops his whole career, that doesn't mean he cannot be anything more than a bust. Demaryius Thomas and Kelvin Benjamin have high drop-rates, but I don't think anyone would consider them busts. 

12 hours ago, rmcjacket23 said:

So now you get the opportunity to actually throw support behind some of your little baseless theories... lets play the always fun SHOW ME game. 

Its a simple game...all you have to do is show me a team doing what you said. Show me the similar game situation where the team kicks the FG on 4th and goal on the 1. It should be an easy example to find right? After all, "cardinal rules" are never broken (except when they aren't cardinal rules and teams don't do anything you say they do).

The challenge is out there... can't wait to see what happens next. 

Here's one  

http://www.espn.com/nfl/playbyplay?gameId=400554303

Eagles/Cardinals

Pretty early to call him a bust in my opinion, considering he missed all of TC and his rookie season, but you can call him whatever you want--that's the beauty of opinions. Hell, you can even attest that you were right about him all along even if he turns into a perennial pro-bowler someday, since I doubt anyone would call you out on it anyway. 

8 hours ago, Deflated Football said:

So how did everyone like the new play calling today? I thought it was diverse and I'm excited to see what else he can do these next few weeks. 

I was more satisfied with the run:pass ratio. Saw an article on RSR complaining about the ratio, but I think those numbers were lopsided a bit simply by having to move the length of the field with ~90 seconds left. Fact is, even the teams that run a lot only run ~40% of the time. There was only one set of downs where I was surprised Marty didn't run the ball once (some point in the 2nd half, 3rd quarter maybe). Plus they had some success with deep passing. Can't complain about Mornhinweg too much. Now the penalties on the other hand...

8 hours ago, Tank 92 said:

Seems Marty will do much better. I will say though he needs to forget the TE screen is in the playbook. We just can't seem to make it work. 

Lol, seriously. Those TE screens have been awful! Even our RB screens are predictable and fail quite often. 

8 hours ago, mdrsharon said:

Uh oh.

atleast he has a future on tv.

Suggs doesn't have a face for television lol

6 hours ago, GrimCoconut said:

I suspect he'll return in time for the playoffs and announce that this will be his "last ride" and lead us to another Super Bowl. 

Hah! That would be awesome. Get Sizzle a gigantic arm brace and some deer antler spray pronto.

Meh, I was okay with the 4th and 1 decision to go for it. Can't remember the article/stat specifically, but your chance to win improves at a high enough percentage to justify the play in most cases. I probably wouldn't run a pitch play that starts developing ~5 yards behind the LOS, but that's an issue with the playcalling itself and not the decision to go for it in general. 

I feel like we want two things to be true that just aren't true right now. We want Correa to be good right now, but he's not. And we want him to play, but there are other players on the roster who are better than him right now. 

Correa's sole career highlight is a pass defended in the flat at Jacksonville. Other than that, he's gotten stone-walled by average OTs as a pass-rusher and washed-out in run plays coming at him (all in limited snaps, but that's all we have to go on). Correa simply hasn't shown that he deserves playing time right now, and I'm sure his performance in practice compared to other players on the roster has further proven that. There's a reason coaches opt to use McClellan over him.

6 hours ago, OLD SCHOOL SMASH BALL said:

At some point, Joe has to be held accountable for this offense.

There were many times today, that Joe had tunnel vision on his primary receiver, not even scanning the field for better options.

There were other times, he flat out threw horrible not even close balls, or rushed a throw.

I would like to see some head fakes, pump fakes, looking off the safety, and at the 2nd receiver first, then hitting the primary in stride.

Not really sure how anyone can argue /w your observations here. Yes, there are drops from WRs, OL struggles, and penalties all over the place to make life difficult for Joe, but it's a fact that sometimes he locks-on to his first read and then forces a throw. And it's a fact that some of his passes (especially to end the game) were off the mark, likely due to poor mechanics--a problem he's had all year. Plus the way he ran the hurry-up offense with little urgency rubbed me the wrong way. And he really needs to be able to read that a 7-man blitz is coming and get the ball to his hot receiver. Ravens have many problems apart from Joe, but Joe himself isn't beyond reproach because of these other issues.

5 minutes ago, JoeyFlex5 said:

upshaw was actually decent in coverage, and did a great job jamming TE's at the line and pushing screen passes to the sidelines, he had good instincts dropping into zone and he actually had some good lateral movement. his struggles came purely 100% from a lack of explosiveness, its sad really, if he was able to trim down to 265 and gain a faster first step he couldve been very good. 

upshaw didnt live up to the draft slot, i wasnt happy with the pick, but i was happy with the player. he was a very solid starter and contributor for us.

My memories of Upshaw dropping into coverage are defined by a sense of futility as RBs and TEs would simply run by him through his zone. He made a good play here and there, but generally not someone you want covering anybody. He should have just put on some weight and played on the DL, which is what he's doing now /w Atl. as a rotational DT. 

I know I'm late to the conversation, but I want to give my 2 cents, even if just for myself. I'm going to try to avoid getting into a blame-based analysis here, but the reasons this team has struggled post-SB is because of 1) scouting/drafting, and 2) the allocation of cap space (ie: which players we've sign to big contracts). 

Regarding scouting, I sometimes wonder if the scouts forget to consider scheme/fit when evaluating a player. I look at John Simon (4th round pick) as the main example of this. It seemed like our coaching staff had no interest in using him on defense, yet after being cut in TC his 2nd year, he went on to be a solid contributor for the Texans as a depth OLB. Simon seemed like a tweener coming out of college, so maybe the coaching staff couldn't find a position for him. Arthur Brown would have been a much better fit as a Will LB on a 4-3 team, though a lack of instincts and inability to contribute on ST ultimately caused him to be inactive daily (he seems like a bust regardless of scheme). Keith Wenning had a noodle arm, which didn't fit an offense that attacks vertically. Upshaw was a poor fit, since Pees seemed to require a Sam LB who could drop into coverage. Elam was a SS who couldn't form-tackle. I'm starting to wonder if Correa will be a player without a true position on this defense, but it's waaay too early to make that call. In addition (and I think this is to your original point), our drafting seems to ignore the skill positions, namely WRs, DBs, and edge rushers. They've drafted heavily on interior DL, OL, and TE, but they've either ignored or missed on WRs, DBs, and edge-rushers (especially 5-tech DEs, but also rush LBs). They've spent a lot of picks on the RB position, but have little to show for it. 

In terms of drafting, as has been mentioned and accepted by most every Ravens fan, our scouts/management have not hit consistently on picks in rounds 1-3. I think 2010 is the first really bad draft we had in the Harbaugh/Flacco era, missing on two 2nd round picks (Kindle, Cody) and a 3rd round pick (Ed Dickson)--the only saving grace was getting two good starters in Arthur Jones and Pitta. 2011 yielded 3 good starters (Torrey, Jimmy, McPhee), but they missed badly on Jah Reid, a 3rd round pick. 2012 was underwhelming: some consider Upshaw a success, but 2-down LBs can be found as UDFAs; they wasted a high 2nd round pick on Upshaw as far as I'm concerned. They also missed on Bernard Pierce, a 3rd round pick, and Gradkowski, a high 4th. KO is the only really good pick from 2012. 2013 was really bad to start (Elam and Brown), but they still managed to get 3 starters. 2014 was pretty decent, only missed on Terrance Brooks among the early picks, but they managed to get 2 starters and 2 solid depth players. 2015 is not off to a good start, and I'll leave it at that. 2016 is already looking pretty good. To compensate, they've done well in later rounds. You should also consider the starting/depth UDFAs we've gotten over that time: Tucker, Michael Pierce, Orr, McClellan, Ellerbe, Jameel McClain... did above average there. 

A specific trend that has emerged in our scouting is in the southeastern area scouting. These struggles seemed to precipitate in 2008 when Joe Horitz was promoted from southeast area scout to Dir. of Player Personnel. I'm not sure who succeeded Horitz as the SE area scout, but Ian Cunningham was promoted to SE area scout in 2013. It's hard to know which schools count as being in the "southeast," but in that general area, we've drafted and missed or disappointed on the following players since 2008 (not including 7th rounders): Tavaris Gooden (3rd round, Miami), Davon Drew (5th, E.Carolina), Sergio Kindle (2nd, Texas), Terrance Cody (2nd, Bama), Jah Reid (3rd, UCF), Chykie Brown (5th, Texas), Courtney Upshaw (2nd, Bama), Christian Thompson (4th, S.Carolina St.), Tommy Streeter (6th, Miami), Matt Elam (1st, Florida), Aaron Melette (6th, Elon), Terrance Brooks (3rd, FSU), Lorenzo Taliaferro (4th, Co.Carolina), Robert Myers (5th, Tenn.St). (I'm leaving off some recent picks like Perriman because they jury is still out) Some of those players were pretty highly drafted, and when you look at our busts as a whole, it seems a larger % come from the southeast. During that same span, the players we've drafted from that region who are not busts are: Mosley, Jernigan, McPhee, and Oher (and some would consider him a disappointment as a 1st rounder). Seems like a low rate of success in the southeast. I imagine this is just the cost of everyone poaching our scouts--you inevitably promote someone who is unqualified eventually.

However, the area where our FO has struggled the most is in its allocation of cap space. A lot of this is bad luck, though some of it was unwise in context. Just off the top of my head: Webb, Pitta, Benjamin Watson, Jacoby Jones, Eugene Monroe, and Ray Rice did not live up to their contracts after signing (the Pitta one was unwise, the Rice an unforeseen event, and the rest due to unexpected injuries). It could be argued that Jimmy and Flacco are underpreforming their contracts. Justin Foresett only played last season under his extension, which is an underperformance imo. Billy Cundiff was cut 1 season after an extension, though he really only had one blunder of a kick to deserve the cut. Ngata was underperforming his contract until the year before he was traded. Fabian Washington and Foxworth were dumb FA signings. Especially over the past few seasons, we've had a lot of salary cap space allocated to people who were not performing for one reason or another. This really hurts your ability to compete in a salary-capped sport. The good news is that these contracts will hopefully be behind us soon enough, and the dead money not too painful moving forward.  

TLDR, what has hurt us the most is: 1) scouts drafting players who don't fit schematically, 2) scouting has missed in the mid rounds, 3) scouting is/was especially bad in the southeast region, and 4) poor allocation of cap space. Doubt anyone reads this book lol. 

1 hour ago, mmcclend said:

Insane, this is actually the second time Marty has replaced trestman as OC. He was fired by the niners in 1996 and they replaced him with Marty in 1997. 

Lol, that's a pretty interesting coincidence. 

15 hours ago, The Raven said:

long post

I appreciated your playing devil's advocate. Good perspective on how the NFL works sometimes. 

Part of me is actually kind of excited we activated Onwuasor. His penchant for hitting too hard is actually an asset when he's tackling the opposing team. I wonder if he'll even be active, however. 

15 hours ago, MTRavensFan said:

I think he was being facetious. 

I'm surprised this forum took me seriously, especially after suggesting Hester wear a shoe that is 10 yds long just a few posts prior. 

2 hours ago, DomMcRaven said:

And that is a big IF right there. Hopefully Judon can help this problem because Doom hasn't done much (or really anything for that matter).

It'll come down to which is worse: their OL or our pass rush lol. Both have been underwhelming. 

Our redzone efficiency has gone way down. To fix this, they need to run more wildcat, at least until teams prove they know how to stop it. The key to running a successful wildcat will be bringing Keenan Reynolds up from the PS. Just give Reynolds the ball out of the wildcat inside the redzone and we'll score more TDs; he led the FBS in TDs for a reason. 

16 minutes ago, RavensFan34950 said:

Look to see more of Levine at LB with Mosley out. Should help with pass coverage, but now im worried about our run D. Mosley is a beast against the run and McClellan sucks, so that will be missed. Also looking forward to seeing Judon back into the rotation. What's the status on Shareece Wrong? I think we would be better off with Tavon Young starting for now on. 

I wouldn't say McClellan sucks, just that he probably shouldn't be playing ILB unless it's on an obvious run down. I am okay with him coming in as the Sam LB for Doom/Judon on early downs though. I would rather see Levine in there next to Orr than McClellan for the most part. 

I'm thinking they go right back to using Wright as the primary #2 CB now that he's healthy, though I'd rather see Tavon Young get the nod on plays where there's only 2 corners on the field. Our secondary played better with Young on the field last week.

Would like to know what others think. 

1 hour ago, Cillmatic said:

Looks like Elvis might've played his last snap in B-more, Harbaugh said they have no idea when he'll be back. Entering the Judon era.

Apparently the coaching staff saw it possible to have only one of Judon or Doom active on a given day. I'm excited to see more Judon, since Doom just wasn't himself, and he was blocking Judon from playing.

I think they keep him on the 53 though rather than IR him. I have a feeling they want to use that IR-designated to return option on Elam, and if you IR Doom, you're faced with a tough choice. If Doom gets healthy, he could provide a serious boost to this pass rush... but that's a big "if," and one that may never happen this year... or ever.

Doom is probably going to be a cap casualty at the end of this season regardless, but I wouldn't completely rule-out the possibility that he re-signs after getting cut.

23 minutes ago, ravefan52 said:

This is a very flawed article.

But I'll say I think the biggest reasons for the teams struggles has been mediocre drafting and it's tendancy to rely too much on old players. Almost all the best players the last few years have been at least 30+. These players are much more likely to get injured or have their physical skills diminish quickly and we've seen the results of it. You can't complain or act surprised when your 32 and 34 year old pass rushing duo (Who you pay a ton of money) suffer serious injuries and can't get pressure anymore. Or when a 35 year old tight end or 36 year old receiver, who you rely on to be your top two targets, tear their Achilles. Side note, but the Watson signing is probably my least favorite Ozzie move ever.

Part of the reason they've had to rely on them is because the influx of young talent through the draft has been underwhelming as a whole lately. Probably an average amount of busts, but even the good ones have just taken awhile to develop. Ignoring CB and WR has been a huge mistake. And losing guys like McPhee and KO while you have a lot of money tied up to players not contributing makes it harder. Last draft was a good start (Correa was the only player I didn't like) but some great young players is definitely still needed to turn the Ravens around.

Agreed. If I was going to pick a bone with this organization, the first place I'd go is our FO. Coaching, QB play, and other misc. factors are all secondary concerns compared to how many early and mid-round picked we've missed over the past 5 years or so, and how many long-term contracts have disappointed. Granted, some of the draft and contract disappointments are due to unforeseeable injury, but others are due to poor scouting and/or drafting players who don't fit our system. When you miss on draft picks and waste a lot of cap on players who are injured or underperforming, you're going to have a weaker roster. 

If you want to win in a salary-capped league, you have to draft better than everyone else and make every contract extension count. We've drafted alright, getting some nice players here and there, but we could be doing better, especially in rounds 1 through 3. We haven't drafted any major impact players in quite awhile--guys you have to franchise tag because they're too good to lose. There is a barbell-effect going on with our age distribution because a lot of those players who should be in the final years of their contract as major contributors aren't here. Ideally, your roster is filled with starters on rookie deals, but that's not really the case with us; we have a lot of old veterans filling in the roster roles, hence why our average age is pretty high compared to the rest of the league. 

Simply put, our scouting needs to improve, and we need to have better luck with our contract extensions. 

6 hours ago, wizard1 said:

There is a hint of that. In fact way more than a hint. When Flacco made his statement after the game on Sunday he was talking about the entire coaching staff. There is a huge divide in the locker room and it's just wasn't about Trestman.

Jerry Coleman was asked this question specifically (is Harbs losing the locker-room) and said any notion that that is the case is patently false. I'll take the opinion of someone who actually visits the team's locker-room after a game over some internet speculation  

4 hours ago, January J said:

Yeah everybody's acting like their some sort of juggarnaut when in reality they are worse off than us right now - arguably on both sides of the ball but factually record wise. If we pressure eli they are done for. Their defense doesn't scare me and now that trestmans gone I'm confident we can put up enough points to win. Stanley and yanda playing will go a long way- but as long as we don't beat ourselves like last week I don't see them actually beating us.

They're on a 3-game losing streak; we're on a 2-game losing streak. Some crappy team has to win this game, so why not us? lol

Like @JoeyFlex5 said, the only thing that really scares me is their WR corps, but if we can get enough pressure, Eli will get rattled pretty easily, same as he did vs GB, who has an even worse secondary. If we can control the clock with a healthy TOP, I like our chances.

Was Stanley's participation in practice limited, I assume? Just wondering if he actually practiced /w everyone else or just did his own thing on the side.

3 hours ago, JoeyFlex5 said:

Sadly I think this is a bad matchup for jimmy, and I'm possibly jimmys biggest fan. I think Odell is just too athletic, jimmy can be up and down and does excellent against many types of receivers but has trouble staying downfield with the explosive freak athletes like odb.

I have to agree. Jimmy just isn't quick enough to keep up with Odell consistently.

Is it crazy to think Tavon Young might be the best one to cover Odell? 

If we go like 5-11 this year, Harbaugh's seat will be warm in 2017. If he does poorly in 2017, there is a chance he's gone. But this is all hypothetical, and really just indicative of how safe his job is at the current moment. The only way he really ever gets on a hot seat is if he loses the locker-room, and there is absolutely no hint of that right now.