Where do I start off! We can all come up with what we believe are the problems here, I have heard so many - injuries, bad coaching, Joe Flacco and others not performing, wrong play calls, bad refs, bad luck etc etc..the list goes on! Some I agree with others I don't but when you put even a few of these together it is going to result in losses and poor performance end of story. Maybe you can get away with 1 or 2 of these factors but that is it. Personally, after following the Ravens from the UK for a good 10 years now, I feel like we are going along a road which we need to avoid. I always see teams as cycles going through good to bad rebuilding etc. Well I think even at this point in the season we could be at that crossroad. If this organisation is to rebuild the team and staff correctly then for me things need to be looked at seriously including - 1. Our approach to free agents - I mean this more so in terms of those that we should look to sign from other teams. I feel like this is something we don't do enough. I don't expect us to splash the cash but we can't really keep relying on the draft to keep 'reloading'. I see lots of experienced pro ready free agents being productive for teams each year. Okay sometimes we won't have the cap to compete for some but why not try to be more aggressive, the Dumervil deal was about as aggressive as I have seen us in the last 3-4 years go after an actual experienced top level player. Too many times the emphasis seems to be to go to the draft 'stock pile' and try and find value for someone in the late rounds - this is tough and hard to pull off - as some players are NOT pro ready and experienced enough to immediately replace others meaning we become weaker. In summary, I think we need to be more aggressive in the off season with free agent signings, and use the draft to supplement what we have. 2. This links to no.1 above. There are now a number of players on this team that I would start to term as 'deadwood'. Some are on contracts which would mean cutting at the end of the season would make no sense fair enough, but I feel that some strong and big decisions need to be made similar to the Ngata one (which was the correct one), we need to overhaul and hopefully allowing some that are free agents and some still under contract to leave at the end of the season will give us some more power in terms of free agent signing. Again I don't expect us to start throwing money around but like I have said we are too reliant on the draft and look what that has done this year to us! It is unfair to expect so much from late round draft picks!! 3. What do we want to be our identity going forward?? I feel like fans including me want that original identity run the ball, play good D and throw sensibly and to the strengths of the current QB. Well I think our OC wants to pass pass...ok...well that's okay but we all have to buy into that and we cannot do so with this current team. The DC is also something that needs to be addressed in regards to the term 'bending not breaking'. A defense should not accept a team driving on them as being okay and then just try to be solid in the endzone, that is just heaping the pressure on yourself! Why! Eventually that is difficult to maintain and we can't keep expecting to stop teams and make them settle for a FG. Abit ranty and yes it is early in the season, and yes I am sure the FO are way on to this or at least I hope so! What does everyone else think? JC
