4th&29

IF Steve Smith returns and IF Perriman can play, WR will not be a position of need by any means next season. We'll have SSS, Perriman, Aiken, Givens, Campanaro, Butler, Matthews, D. Waller, D. Brown and Kaelin Clay at that position. And that's before free agency and the draft. If SSS retires, there might be a need for a proven veteran - a true #1. But there are plenty of players on the roster who can contribute.

This news should be in the "Late for Work" section

Danny D, i think you raise good points but that Quad Core was made of players that were selected 26th, 24th, 10th and 12th : only one, and barely so, in the top 10. So let's say we pick 16th this year - right in the middle. That would be good enough for a Ray Lewis or Ed Reed. And remember that it took 6 years after the last of this Quad Core was drafted before we won the Superbowl. It also took drafting a QB in 2008. I would argue that our Quad Core on defense is in the making : Jernigan, B. Williams, CJ Mosley, a healthy Jimmy Smith could very well be a part of it... and others will complement it. I'm not saying the roster is perfect, far from it, but we have talented players both on offense and defense. Some of them will emerge as leaders, some won't. They are still young - and there's a lot talent around them too.

I'm proud of that team, and i hope they keep having close victories all season long : this is how our young players will be used to performing in the clutch and that will help in the long run - much more than losing out to get a higher draft pick. A winning culture is much more valuable than a few spots higher on the draft board, just ask the Browns. If you draft well, you draft well regardless of your position on the board.

A lot of bad luck, injuries, an unforgiving schedule, referees... all of this has contributed to that trainwreck of a season. But a lot of roster decisions have baffled me. It started last year and the decision to start the season with 4 (FOUR!) CBs, including an injured Webb, and 7 subpar safeties. John Simon on the practice squad was also a stupid move when we knew OLB would quickly become a weakness - even with Suggs healthy. This year, was it really a good choice to use the boomerang IR on Urban, when we have a stacked D-line? It would have been better used on Campanaro who lost a whole season to a 4-week injury. Do we really need to sign another TE? The carousel of signing/waiving players off the street is ridiculous and i don't think it's a good formula for team chemistry.

Putting Campanaro on IR to save a spot for Perriman was a stupid, stupid move

As a French Ravens fan living in Paris, THANK YOU.

Since it's hunting season on everyone in the Ravens organization, what about the conditioning and the medical staff? Last year it might have been an exception, but to have players drop like flies a second year in a row means we must probably be doing something wrong in that department too. How many players will be on IR after 16 games? We had 19 last year and we are on track to top that number.

Well, take away the victories against us, the teams that beat us are a combined 5-1, which is still good. And, more to the point, the only L was when two of those teams played each other. In other words, this trio has a perfect record after 3 weeks. And the Ravens had a chance in each of those 3 games. I'm not saying the Ravens are perfect right now, there are a lot of things that need to be improved (everything, really pass rush, secondary, O-line, too many penalties...), and frankly i'm not sure all of this can be fixed. But it's a long season - we are a young team right now and everybody knew before the start that the schedule was front loaded. I'm not sure it's possible to overcome such a bad start to the season, but i'm pretty sure that if one team can do it, it's the Ravens, and that resiliency is one of the things i love most about this organisation.

Well said, Mr Eisenberg, i couldn't agree more. There may be a lot of things to fix on this team, but so far the Ravens have had 4th-quarter leads in every game against very good teams. There may be no margin of error left, but it's only been close games... Some of those close games will fall our way. Players have to start tightening up, stop doing mistakes late in games and be more efficient, but this team is far from irrelevant. There's plenty of talent and leadership but most of all plenty of tenacity because this what the Ravens are about. Keep grinding! It will pay off. It's not time to jump off the bandwagon, far from it.

My only regret about Steve Smith is that he should have been a Raven his whole career. Even when he was playing in Carolina, i used to think he should play in Baltimore.