merryjman

Not to excuse him, but Elam has had a lot of bad luck. Thrown to the wolves the year after Ed Reed and Bernard Pollard left, and asked to play some weird hybrid SS/FS after being mainly a SS hitter in college. Inevitably, people compared him to #20 and called him a bust (who wouldn't be?) Then a bunch of injuries. Granted, there were a lot of rookie-type mistakes and missed tackles mixed in there. Hope he has a streak of good luck soon.

In a fantasy world, I would love to see Torrey Smith back, Give them Perriman in exchange. BUT, that won't fix what is wrong with the Ravens. It starts at the top, where poor drafts over the last 6 or 7 years have depleted what was once a very talented team. Next, it is Harbaugh and his inept, incompetent coaches.. Bisciotte needs to clean house in order for the Ravens to rebuild. It won't happen as long as those currently in control remain there. Torrey Smith can't fix that.

Anyone who watched Torrey while he was here knew he would be a free agent bust. He was the #1 WR by default only, until we got Boldin. Just like Kamar Aiken last year was the only WR Joe had to throw to, so he racked up big stats.

I also disagree that they've drafted poorly. J Smith, Perriman, Mosley, Jernigan, Williams, Wagner, Stanley, Tucker, etc. are all impact starters or will be soon. Several others, most recently Osemele, got so good we couldn't afford to keep them.

It seems pretty obvious that:

1) with our two best O linemen, both the running and passing games get a lot better. 

2) with CJ Mosley missing, our protection across the middle is bad.

3) With Suggs & Dumervil hurt, we have zero pass rush.

4) With safeties and returners who are way past their prime, they're going to look embarrassing compared to their great years.

5) Joe Flacco is a mediocre QB but - like every other QB in the league - can play great when he has good protection.

So it follows that when the players mentioned in 1) through 5) are missing or hurt, we will lose to a 1-5 team.

I don't blame CJ Mosley one little bit for that fumble. It was at a point in the game where either the defense was going to score the game-winning points, or it wasn't going to happen. He shouldn't have regretted it at all - it's the kind of ambitious move Ed Reed or Ray Lewis would have made! I say, way to go CJ trying to step up when nobody else was!

He was only 21 when he got drafted, so luckily he will come back next year and still be as young as a typical rookie. He'll be good, wait and see.

Why are they doing so many runs from the shotgun formation? This exact same thing happened the last year Caldwell and Rice were on the team, and everybody knew what they were up to. HB draw plays are only going to work so many times in a game before DCs start scheming for them.

And this, despite Trestman's reassurances that he wasn't going to change Kubiak's stretch zone scheme. Did the Ravens coaching staff forget that it took Castillo almost two years to get that thing working with the offensive line? How long are they willing to wait before the O line gets this one right?

The Ravens have had their share of criminal issues, and good publicity helps cover that up, but I really do think these kinds of things are more than the big PR machine making the team look good. The fans love the team here, and I believe the outreach is a big part of that. Even #27, before the big mistake, used to do things like go around filling backpacks for needy kids on the first day of school. Not because he had to.

It's mainly because of our missing pass rush that McCown hurt us so bad last season. If you give a guy 5 seconds to throw the ball, he's going to find someone open, and he's gonna look like a pro bowler at the end.

Even now, the Campanaro fan club refuses to admit he's a bust. Face it people, he's not worth keeping even for the 1.5 games per season that he is healthy.

I think all the comments that talk about triangles are incorrect, if you assume it's a "real" object, because a rope with mass does not hang in a triangle shape. Hanging ropes with slack in them take the shape of a catenary, AKA a hyperbolic cosine. In this case it's half a catenary, since the tall part is in the middle. Given that the function has a value of 2 at position 60, and a value of zero at position zero, I calculate that the function for the rope's height is f(x) = cosh (x/34) - 1. Calculating arclength of this function from zero to 60, and multiplying by 2, I conclude the rope will have a total length of 120.1 yards.

Let me translate/summarize these sections for everyone:  

"Obviously there are 10 other guys way more likely to win OROY, so here are some who totally won't but this guy needed 500 words for his PFF column."

"Social media is stupid and causes people to overreact all the time. Warren Sapp, in particular, should have never been given a nationwide audience."

"Kamar Aiken was only the #1 receiver by default last year, so yeah - he's probably not starting this year."

"Here is proof that most so-called milestones are totally meaningless. If Joe Flacco throws for 300 yards in the first game, we will proclaim that he's on pace to throw for almost 5,000 yards in the season because we don't understand how statistics works."

"Ray Rice is both good and bad."

2 hours ago, bioLarzen said:

And call me naive, but I still wouldn't give up on Monroe. Definitely not at least until Stanley proves he's ready to take over, in real NFL games. Trainings, camp and pre-season games may not be enough for a proof IMHO.

I think part of the reason the Ravens went with Stanley over Tunsil was that he is a more plug-and-play guy, whereas Tunsil has more talent and athleticism but needs development and also needs to show what RS already had shown in college; i.e. the ability to stand tall against premier edge rushers.

I think Monroe is gone. Ravens are going to get that money back, and I think Monroe knows this which is why he's felt free lately to be vocal about the cannabis thing. He wouldn't be so outspoken, I think, if his future with the team were questionable.

"call me naive" lol nice touch bioLarZrebiec

3 hours ago, cec327 said:

Really?  RGlll was inducted into the HOF after being picked -- adoring fans who gushed at how great he would be. The once in a decade player AKA J. Clowney was all pro last year-- ah, not so much. No- brainer? The draft is littered with " no- brainers" and flops. I'm sure that others on thi thread can add their own " no- brainers".

Exactly. Happens every year, it seems. And just wait: if Myles Jack turns out to be healthy and great, everyone will say the Ravens were idiots for not taking him. If he doesn't, nobody will point out how smart the Ravens were to pass on him twice.

Prepare yourselves, Campanaro fanboys! Your boy is dunzo!

Poor guy. He got thrown to the wolves before he had a chance to properly develop behind a veteran, then he got a season-ending injury; so I think it's hard to really say whether he's a bust. He is a hard working, high character guy and he wants to do well. I think there's a decent chance that he can bounce back and justify his 32 overall pick, and I'll be rooting for him!

I'm very happy with who they picked. Stanley surprised me, but it was a smart call. Solid, dependable, very talented and no baggage.

2 minutes ago, CaliRavenFan said:

I can tell you hands down that Myles Jack would of been the steal of the draft at #36 and contention for DROY.. I can't say that for anyone we drafted..

So you're telling us hands down that you are smarter than DeCosta, Newsome and the entirety of the Ravens scouting staff? They saw Jack was there, they could have taken him, and they didn't.

56 minutes ago, EdBallhawkReed20 said:

I am seriously mad with the Ravens. They lied on many accounts to fans... Steve Biscotti saying Eugene Monroe is our guy and we draft Ronnie Stanley. The Ravens said under no circumstances would they trade up for a player, yet they tried to for a CB with only three int's. To add insult to injury They will more than likely draft Myles Jack, Noah Spence, or a CB with the #36 pick in the draft. Point being they knew quality CB's would be there at #36. Eric DeCosta stated that so there was no reason to trade up. We drafted a "what if" pick in the first round. If none of our OL gets hurt this season the Ravens wasted a first round pick. He will be a rotational piece based on "what if" Eugene Monroe gets hurt. We have starters at all our other positions so he would just take the place of someone already starting on our O-line which is once again a waste. They should have drafted an actual need like a No.1 WR like Josh Doctson. That actually strengthens the team because we don't have that type of WR, plus you know for a fact Steve Smith is leaving next year. They could have gotten a WR for Joe to throw to in short intermediate yards situatins that fights for the ball due to Flacco's accuracy and can make a guy miss to create big plays. Ravens are looking like the same team with the same problems. They pick up to maintain instead of taking risk to move their team forward.

You should be happy, not mad. The whole point of all those quotes and articles was to muddy the waters, so that nobody would know our true goals. Would you really rather they sabotaged their own plans by giving honest info to the press, just so that you the fan doesn't get upset because he was (sniff) lied to?

Bisciotti being respectful and positive about Monroe is not just a smart way to downplay our love of Stanley; it's also a great way to hedge bets. What if both Stanley and Tunsil were gone by #6, and we ended up being stuck with a guy that Bisciotti had just badmouthed to the press? 

If you think back to what DeCosta said a month ago, he cited 4 or 5 great defensive players, and 2 quality tackles, that we were looking at. So he told the truth; in fact, he had to, because those were the same 6 or 7 names everyone was talking about. He just didn't elaborate on who they liked best.

4 minutes ago, rmcjacket23 said:

Potentially, but then you are advocating the things people complain about.

Basically, you're drafting the guy knowing that its unlikely he will be here past 4 years. That sounds like a 3rd round or later-type pick to me.

Its not the worst idea I've heard, but just seems kind of hypocritical to blast the FO for letting quality day 2 players like KO walk in FA, and now we advocate drafting a player that we think will be exactly that guy.

Its kind of like blasting the FO for taking Perriman but advocating for Jack. Just mind blowing to me.

Seems like apples and oranges to me though. For one, I never blasted them for letting KO walk. I would have loved to see us keep him but knew that there was no way it would be smart to match the insane offer he got from Oakland.  As for Perriman, he didn't have a knee issue before being drafted; his juvenile knee issues were unrelated. That was just bad luck.

Besides, I think everyone is overreacting to Myles's comments. He couldn't lie about the knee injury could he? All he was doing was repeating a sad truth: on average, people don't last 3 years in the NFL, so if he lasted that long he'll have laster longer than average by definition

1 minute ago, rmcjacket23 said:

Here's the risk...

You draft him, he plays great for 3-4 years, his rookie contract expires, you give him a market value contract (because he's been a great player), and his knee blows up, he needs micro-fracture surgery, and he never returns to anything near the level he was at.

And the fanboards, naturally, demand to fire Ozzie and the entire FO for giving him such a big contract.

There's the risk. And its substantial.

On the other hand, he could be released after his rookie contract expires, like we did recently with Kruger, Ellerbee, Upshaw. Then we get a 4th round comp pick for the big contract they get with another team.

I hope they do take this risk. Could end up like Art Brown but I don't regret that decision because it was worth taking a shot on him.

Browns doing their best Ozzie impression, stockpiling draft picks rather than banking on a single pick to save their team. Smart, and unfortunate for us in the AFC North.

What a great position for the Ravens to be in, though. No matter what, we get a great player. We could even trade back a couple spots, and still get a monster!

I don't agree that Z Smith was an under-the-radar success. I think a better way to look at it is: when Dumervil is pulling double teams on one side of the line, then whoever's on the other side is going to look way better than they are. AKA the "Paul Kruger gets $40M" effect. When Doom and Sizz were both healthy, they almost set a season record in total sacks, because you can't double them both.

If it's Bosa or Tunsil, that's a tough call. But I'd much prefer to see us take a monster pass rusher, and I haven't given up on Monroe as a starting-caliber LT.

57 minutes ago, fusuymada said:

Does Webb have blackmail material of someone's wife or something? Not only are we not cutting Webb to free up cap space, and we aren't cutting him to make room for Donte Whitner, we are actually saying we are choosing Webb as a safety over Whitner? Has Ozzie bumped his head? (could explain recent drafts) Is this a Harbaugh thing (if I don't like you then you are gone, if I do, then you don't even have to be a good player). What is this great allegiance to Webb when we ditch Ngata, ditch McPhee, ditch Torrey Smith, all over huge salaries and Webb is overpaid for a good player much less one who is no longer able to play his original position and is unproven at safety. I think Harbaugh is a good coach, but since he has come here, our personnel decisions become very curious to be kind. I understand that Ozzie accepts other's opinions, I have to wonder if for some reason, John has veto over decisions. I know that sounds crazy, but there are personnel moves that are made that leaves everyone scratching their heads. If they were good decisions there would be no discussion, but the fact they are discussed over and over and over indicates they are questionable (Boldin, Smith, Ngata, Pollard, Ihedigbo, etc...).

You make it sound like Webb is a worthless player, and I think he's not. Two ACL tears are a problem, yes, and it's unlucky that they happened, but when he's healthy he is a great player. The knees plus the age have made him a potential liability at corner where speed is so important, but someone with his skills, talent and experience still potentially has a place on this team. 

I also don't consider any of the releases you listed to be questionable. The reason they're still discussed is because a lot of internet commenters are great at hindsight, and because they've never had to sit down with (a) a $130 million salary cap, (b) the brutal truth that you can't keep your full roster with that cap, and (c) limited time to make decisions; then decide who stays and who goes. Ozzie's "right player, right price" mentality has steered the team pretty well over the last decade or so. Did any of the names you listed go to the playoffs last season? Let me save you some research: not a single one of them.

Still sounds like Pitta is done to me.

I keep hoping against hope that Elam will finally break out. Bad luck with that biceps tear last season. No sense in cutting him this year though, because at worst he could be a special teams hitter.

My biggest question: what's the deal with Arthur Brown? Is that guy a big bust too? Or will the release of Daryl Smith finally give him the chance to show what he can do?