Official vent thread vs Falcons

[GrimCoconut]

There is no way that two ACL injuries and a back injury costing two particial seasons and a multiple month layoff could not have an affect. His game could have been better but to call it poor I believe is over stretching it especially considering the quality of the individuals he covered.

Perception, reaction, endurance and confidence will take time to return and I wouldn't be surprised if it takes into next season before he returns to true form again, assumming it can happen. Still, he's already better than C. Brown.

I'm sure they are affecting him. Hopefully he recovers soon and becomes the Webb of old. We definitely need him. He looks like he's getting slower and slower to recover from these injuries, which isn't surprising considering his age.

And to each their own. I think he played poor. I can't ignore bad play just because he's returning from injury.

[Moderator 3]

Thats true. Could I get a mod's thoughts on a PFF thread?

It's fine to summarize PFF material in your own words. What is not allowed is copying large chunks of their material as that is plagarism.

[Ravenseconbeast]

Touchdown against press man on fourth down?

Post debunked

 

Joe's 1st INT :  2nd qtr, 1st pass to the end zone.  Torrey gets one on one, gets stuffed, then INT at the end zone.

 

Post debunked.

[3-4ravdef509]

Joe's 1st INT : 2nd qtr, 1st pass to the end zone. Torrey gets one on one, gets stuffed, then INT at the end zone.

Post debunked.

No, just because he doesn't always succeed doesn't mean he always loses. You made your post hundred the assumption that any time he faces strong man coverage that it's going to end badly, and that's just completely wrong.

[3-4ravdef509]

Anytime you see Torrey @ man coverage, its over for him. He doesn't know how to play w/ a guy in his face

See, you said anytime. Not sometimes.

Through out his career he's been up and down, but between big plays and PI he did decent overall

[The Raven]

Considering the defense is leading the NFL with least points allowed per game (14.9). I'd say, things could be much worst. I will assume you are kidding about the complaint on D Smith.

 

So, you're saying that I can't criticize an individual player because the overall defense is great? Sorry, that doesn't make sense. I know the defense is doing well. You don't have to tell me that. But that doesn't mean that everyone on the defense is playing well.

[gabefergy]

There is no such thing. You can second guess literally every decision ever made "with the benefit of hindsight". You have to operate based on a philosophy. If you do not, you will make knee jerk decisions and while those may pan out in the near term (i.e. Trading your future for Julio Jones), in the long term they just don't work out (i.e. The present-day Falcons). To me, better to stick to the philosophy that got you there because over time you will be able to much more effectively assess and improve once the unknown future is realized.

Were Keenan Allen or a CB the difference (between winning and not winning a Super Bowl) last year? No. Will they be the difference this year? No. We could have a rash of injuries at any position, at any time. There is no possible way to have quality depth at every position. This year we have surpluses at safety, LB, and WR (go figure). Next year it will be different positions.

I guess my overall point is that our draft philosophy and the Arthur Brown situation are mutually exclusive. We can't have anticipated drafting Mosley, and we also can't leave a potential All Pro on the board at a position where there isn't a proven starter.

They are not mutually exclusive because drafting BPA literally created a surplus at ILB while leaving CB incredibly thin. Its not rocket science.

[HoldingCall]

I'm sure they are affecting him. Hopefully he recovers soon and becomes the Webb of old. We definitely need him. He looks like he's getting slower and slower to recover from these injuries, which isn't surprising considering his age.

And to each their own. I think he played poor. I can't ignore bad play just because he's returning from injury.

 

So, you're saying that I can't criticize an individual player because the overall defense is great? Sorry, that doesn't make sense. I know the defense is doing well. You don't have to tell me that. But that doesn't mean that everyone on the defense is playing well.

Not saying that at all. You can be critical of anyone you see fit. I really thought you might be throwing out a little sarcasm by slamming Dayle Smith but I see now that you were actually serious.  Interesting!!!

[beasy2487]

They are not mutually exclusive because drafting BPA literally created a surplus at ILB while leaving CB incredibly thin. Its not rocket science.

 

literally |ˈlitərəlē, ˈlitrə-|

adverb

in a literal manner or sense; exactly: the driver took it literally when asked to go straight across the traffic circle | tiramisu, literally translated “pick me up.”

• informal used for emphasis or to express strong feeling while not being literally true: I have received literally thousands of letters.

 

I guess we're using the informal definition of "literally" in this context.

 

We did not have a surplus at ILB when we drafted Arthur Brown...by any stretch of the imagination. We had an aging veteran in Daryl Smith that was playing at a high level but could not be depended on beyond a stopgap due to his seniority; a former UDFA in Josh Bynes that played hard but unspectacularly; and a hybrid player who has never been anything more than a special teams ace and depth in McClellan (Could mention McClain here but meh)...So the only way we could have anticipated the current "surplus" is if Marty McNewsome came back in time and told us that somehow we played poorly enough to have a shot at CJ Mosley in 2014. The Arthur Brown pick and the CJ Mosley pick are the definition of mutually exclusive...they had nothing to do with each other. The only real argument you can make is that we shouldn't have picked up Zach Orr (as he is keeping Brown off the field, not Mosley)...but Orr was undrafted so that doesn't really make any sense either. You could argue that Brown should've unseated Bynes and removed the need for Mosley, but that's on Brown and still doesn't have anything to do with our draft philosophy. So perhaps you would've preferred we pick a CB instead of Mosley? Not so sure about that either.

 

We could have picked a CB in any other round (other than Marc Anthony), so perhaps that is what you mean? We should've reached for a CB when they weren't BPA? You can make that argument, but that still has nothing to do with the Arthur Brown pick. I agree with you that it's not rocket science. Rocket science makes sense at some point. We have a surplus of linebackers and a deficit of CBs. There are many contributing variables to this scenario, but none of those variables should, or will, impact our draft strategy.

[gabefergy]

literally |ˈlitərəlē, ˈlitrə-|

adverb

in a literal manner or sense; exactly: the driver took it literally when asked to go straight across the traffic circle | tiramisu, literally translated “pick me up.”

• informal used for emphasis or to express strong feeling while not being literally true: I have received literally thousands of letters.

 

I guess we're using the informal definition of "literally" in this context.

 

We did not have a surplus at ILB when we drafted Arthur Brown...by any stretch of the imagination. We had an aging veteran in Daryl Smith that was playing at a high level but could not be depended on beyond a stopgap due to his seniority; a former UDFA in Josh Bynes that played hard but unspectacularly; and a hybrid player who has never been anything more than a special teams ace and depth in McClellan (Could mention McClain here but meh)...So the only way we could have anticipated the current "surplus" is if Marty McNewsome came back in time and told us that somehow we played poorly enough to have a shot at CJ Mosley in 2014. The Arthur Brown pick and the CJ Mosley pick are the definition of mutually exclusive...they had nothing to do with each other. The only real argument you can make is that we shouldn't have picked up Zach Orr (as he is keeping Brown off the field, not Mosley)...but Orr was undrafted so that doesn't really make any sense either. You could argue that Brown should've unseated Bynes and removed the need for Mosley, but that's on Brown and still doesn't have anything to do with our draft philosophy. So perhaps you would've preferred we pick a CB instead of Mosley? Not so sure about that either.

 

We could have picked a CB in any other round (other than Marc Anthony), so perhaps that is what you mean? We should've reached for a CB when they weren't BPA? You can make that argument, but that still has nothing to do with the Arthur Brown pick. I agree with you that it's not rocket science. Rocket science makes sense at some point. We have a surplus of linebackers and a deficit of CBs. There are many contributing variables to this scenario, but none of those variables should, or will, impact our draft strategy.

When we drafted Mosley we literally created a surplus at ILB. I never said anything about the Arthur Brown pick which was very smart at the time.

[HoldingCall]

I'm sure they are affecting him. Hopefully he recovers soon and becomes the Webb of old. We definitely need him. He looks like he's getting slower and slower to recover from these injuries, which isn't surprising considering his age.

And to each their own. I think he played poor. I can't ignore bad play just because he's returning from injury.

Whether it's age, accumulated injuries or both, time away from the game does have that affect. I still believe the team was better off with him than without.

 

Me stating it was a stretch to say Webb displayed poor play may have to do with the difference in how I defined "poor play". So, I will attempt to explain my perception of the quote, which may, or may not be the way you define it.

 

 I perceived "poor play" as suggesting Webb was a team liability more than a team assest in that game. While a few plays got away from him (I give credit to the quality of the athlete he was assigned to cover), none had a breakout game like they may have had if (lets say) Chykie Brown was covering. So, considering that no one had a breakout game on Webb I would not have graded it as poor play, as a whole.

 

I do agree, webb is not the player he was before those injuries, and at 29 may never be. It remains to be seen how much Webb can recover of his old form.

[baltimorefan328]

I think this game can be compared to the Bills game from last year to show how different this team is. I know there wre 5 turnovers in the Bills game but there were 3 in this game and a big muffed punt in the Ravens zone. Whereas last year the offense completely shuts down, in this game the offense was still able to get back on track and scored 3 touchdowns and was able to sustain some drives. I wasnt able to watch the colts game but it seems that the offense has played 5 bad quarters (and I know there were other quarters the offense may not have scored, but we just arent seeing those like 5 consecutive 3 and outs anymore) out of 35 possible quarters so far. Even with Flacco's two INTs last game, one was a deep shot in single coverage you take and one was a bad decision (although you can argue he should have had a touchdown the throw before).

 

The consistency I'm seeing on offense and from Joe is unprecedented in his career and its almost like a pitching staff with an ace. Whereas last year the Ravens staff had no "ace" and could lose 5 games in a row, this year it seems the offense has an ace and the bleeding stops much more quickly or the "ace" gets us off to a fast start. With the defense rounding into shape, I am a little skeptical but very optimistic about the direction of this team

[callahan09]

As of right now, the average NFL team is benefiting from 3.13 pass interference penalties for 59.7 yards drawn.

 

Joe Flacco has gotten 8 pass interference calls for 187 yards!!

 

This is remarkable.  If you remove the ridiculous PI numbers our offense has drawn, then the average team is getting just 2.97 PI drawn for 55.6 yards.  We're benefitting from PI about triple the average team (and lead the NFL in both PI's drawn and yards drawn off PI).

 

One of Flacco's passes that was interfered with would have definitely been a touchdown (@CLE, Q4, 5:56) and did NOT wind up being a touchdown pass for Flacco by the end of the drive (it ultimately resulted in a chipshot field goal).  So let's give Flacco a TD as well.

 

Now, if Flacco's passes were instead interfered with to the tune of the league average, and the rest of his interference's were caught rather than penalties that don't show up on the stat sheet, his numbers this season would look like this:

 

161/250, 1985 Yards, 15 TD, 5 INT -> 64.4%, 7.94 Y/A, 100.5 QB Rating

 

That would place him just above Andrew Luck in QB Rating for the 7th best, it would put him 3rd in passing yards, and it would put him at 6th in yards per attempt.

 

Quite a difference his stat sheet looks like because of, essentially, his receivers drawing PI instead of catching the ball.

[beasy2487]

When we drafted Mosley we literally created a surplus at ILB. I never said anything about the Arthur Brown pick which was very smart at the time.

 

Your original point was that there is a problem with our draft philosophy.

 

I think the D would be better if Brown started taking some of Smith's snaps. The problem is Daryl is the defensive playcaller and a veteran that Harbaugh loves. That means he isnt coming off the field and neither is Mosley. This is the problem with the "BPA" drafting style. A talent like Brown wastes away on the bench until Smith is let go.

 

 

Which I rebutted is not a problem, because it provides quality depth. Your response was that it is not depth, it is a surplus and that surplus has created a deficit at corner back. 

 

They are not mutually exclusive because drafting BPA literally created a surplus at ILB while leaving CB incredibly thin. Its not rocket science.

 

The added spice aside, what this comment says to me is that the BPA philosophy created a problem. Following that same train of thought, it seems like you would've preferred that we pick a CB in the 2014 draft instead of CJ Mosley...If that's not what you mean then the only other conclusion I can make is that you would've preferred to draft a CB instead of Arthur Brown...which would require a time machine, hence Marty McNewsome.

 

To the contrary, my point is that the BPA philosophy is ideal for team-building for exactly the reason why you say it is flawed. If we were bending over backwards to fill needs all the time we would miss out on amazing talent. I do not believe there is any such thing as a surplus or a deficit, only depth or lack therof. We have depth some places and less others, like every other team in the NFL, our depth is just better.

[callahan09]

Dug a bit deeper into the PI stats.  This website does a great job of tracking the stats since 2009:

http://www.nflpenalties.com/penalty/defensive-pass-interference?year=2014

 

Since 2009, Flacco has had the most yards gained from defensive pass interference, and it isn't even close.  He has ranked in the top 5 all 6 years, being ranked 2nd once, and first 4 times.  He was ranked first in 4 of the past 5 seasons, and the one where he wasn't he was ranked 2nd.

 

Flacco has gained 1434 yards due to PI.  League average outside of Flacco's numbers over that 6 year span?  624 yards.

 

So Flacco has gained well over DOUBLE the league average of yards gained from DPI.

 

If he had a league average amount of yards from DPI, and the rest of those were catches instead, his passing statistics since 2009 would increase by 810 yards, or 9.31 yards per game.  This season is actually only 7/16 of a season, not a full year, so over the course of the 5.4375 seasons, it would have amounted to 149 extra yards per season since 2009.  Keep in mind that this doesn't even consider as well that there could potentially have been yards after the catch on some of these if they were caught instead of interfered with (and hey, potentially more touchdowns on his stat sheet as well, but I'm not going to get into conjecture with any of these numbers, just the *facts*).

 

Last year he would have had an extra 170 yards on his passing statistics (295 yards gained through DPI - 125 league average = 170 yards had he gained the league average and the rest of those DPI's been catches instead, not even counting potential yards after the catch).

 

That would have put him at 4082 yards last season.  There's that 4k yard season so many people have faulted Flacco for not having yet in his career!  Including DPI, Flacco's passing earned us 4207 yards last season.

[GrimCoconut]

Whether it's age, accumulated injuries or both, time away from the game does have that affect. I still believe the team was better off with him than without.

Me stating it was a stretch to say Webb displayed poor play may have to do with the difference in how I defined "poor play". So, I will attempt to explain my perception of the quote, which may, or may not be the way you define it.

I perceived "poor play" as suggesting Webb was a team liability more than a team assest in that game. While a few plays got away from him (I give credit to the quality of the athlete he was assigned to cover), none had a breakout game like they may have had if (lets say) Chykie Brown was covering. So, considering that no one had a breakout game on Webb I would not have graded it as poor play, as a whole.

I do agree, webb is not the player he was before those injuries, and at 29 may never be. It remains to be seen how much Webb can recover of his old form.

I wouldn't call him a liability but I wouldn't call him an asset either. He allowed too many yards early in the game, before we started giving up garbage yards. He wasn't on Julio Jones the whole time. He actually looked like he covered White most of the day. Regardless, I am pretty sure he played against every WR Atlanta has. I'm pretty sure every CB had a taste of other WR because I don't think we had one guy on any one particular WR throughout the game.

Granted, White isn't a chump but Webb just didn't play as well as he can or has. He's playing better than Brown, but I'm not sure by how much.

Still too early to judge him in terms of future outlook, but it wasn't a good game for him. That's all. He has a bad game. I don't think his coverage was all that bad, but what may be limited athleticism was perhaps more apparent Sunday. We'll have to see if it continues.

[Sami84]

webb is getting better..

 

barring injury if he continues to improve as he has he might start looking like the webb we knew pre acl in 2-3 weeks

[Inqui]

 

The added spice aside, what this comment says to me is that the BPA philosophy created a problem. Following that same train of thought, it seems like you would've preferred that we pick a CB in the 2014 draft instead of CJ Mosley...If that's not what you mean then the only other conclusion I can make is that you would've preferred to draft a CB instead of Arthur Brown...which would require a time machine, hence Marty McNewsome.

 

To the contrary, my point is that the BPA philosophy is ideal for team-building for exactly the reason why you say it is flawed. If we were bending over backwards to fill needs all the time we would miss out on amazing talent. I do not believe there is any such thing as a surplus or a deficit, only depth or no depth. We have depth some places and less others, like every other team in the NFL, our depth is just better.

 

BPA isn't a bad philosophy in itself, but a drawback is passing on positions of need at times - hence our shortage at CB and no long-term WR1. Despite those shortages, we have an excellent ILB who's a weekly inactive. No philosophy is without flaws, and that's a big part of going BPA for every pick.

 

It's part of the balancing act and personally I'd like to see us break from it for one or two picks (and like I say, there were plenty of people wanting someone like Keenan Allen and a string of specific CBs at the time so it's not all some complex hindsight pick).

[gabefergy]

 

Your original point was that there is a problem with our draft philosophy.

 

 

Which I rebutted is not a problem, because it provides quality depth. Your response was that it is not depth, it is a surplus and that surplus has created a deficit at corner back. 

 

 

The added spice aside, what this comment says to me is that the BPA philosophy created a problem. Following that same train of thought, it seems like you would've preferred that we pick a CB in the 2014 draft instead of CJ Mosley...If that's not what you mean then the only other conclusion I can make is that you would've preferred to draft a CB instead of Arthur Brown...which would require a time machine, hence Marty McNewsome.

 

To the contrary, my point is that the BPA philosophy is ideal for team-building for exactly the reason why you say it is flawed. If we were bending over backwards to fill needs all the time we would miss out on amazing talent. I do not believe there is any such thing as a surplus or a deficit, only depth or no depth. We have depth some places and less others, like every other team in the NFL, our depth is just better.

 

The problem is we drafted CJ Mosley when the depth at CB was extremely thin. So now we are deep at ILB, a position that doesn't need depth because only 2 ILBs see the field.

 

At CB, where depth is paramount there is none. See the issue? If we take the best CB in the 2014 draft instead of the "BPA", CB depth is no longer an issue and we still have a promising 2nd round pick that the Ravens had rated as a 1st round value playing instead of being on the inactive list.

[DomMcRaven]

Dug a bit deeper into the PI stats.  This website does a great job of tracking the stats since 2009:

http://www.nflpenalties.com/penalty/defensive-pass-interference?year=2014

 

Since 2009, Flacco has had the most yards gained from defensive pass interference, and it isn't even close.  He has ranked in the top 5 all 6 years, being ranked 2nd once, and first 4 times.  He was ranked first in 4 of the past 5 seasons, and the one where he wasn't he was ranked 2nd.

 

Flacco has gained 1434 yards due to PI.  League average outside of Flacco's numbers over that 6 year span?  624 yards.

 

So Flacco has gained well over DOUBLE the league average of yards gained from DPI.

 

If he had a league average amount of yards from DPI, and the rest of those were catches instead, his passing statistics since 2009 would increase by 810 yards, or 9.31 yards per game.  This season is actually only 7/16 of a season, not a full year, so over the course of the 5.4375 seasons, it would have amounted to 149 extra yards per season since 2009.  Keep in mind that this doesn't even consider as well that there could potentially have been yards after the catch on some of these if they were caught instead of interfered with (and hey, potentially more touchdowns on his stat sheet as well, but I'm not going to get into conjecture with any of these numbers, just the *facts*).

 

Last year he would have had an extra 170 yards on his passing statistics (295 yards gained through DPI - 125 league average = 170 yards had he gained the league average and the rest of those DPI's been catches instead, not even counting potential yards after the catch).

 

That would have put him at 4082 yards last season.  There's that 4k yard season so many people have faulted Flacco for not having yet in his career!  Including DPI, Flacco's passing earned us 4207 yards last season.

Now THOSE are some staggering numbers. Great find........as usual!

[beasy2487]

BPA isn't a bad philosophy in itself, but a drawback is passing on positions of need at times - hence our shortage at CB and no long-term WR1. Despite those shortages, we have an excellent ILB who's a weekly inactive. No philosophy is without flaws, and that's a big part of going BPA for every pick.

 

It's part of the balancing act and personally I'd like to see us break from it for one or two picks (and like I say, there were plenty of people wanting someone like Keenan Allen and a string of specific CBs at the time so it's not all some complex hindsight pick).

 

 

The problem is we drafted CJ Mosley when the depth at CB was extremely thin. So now we are deep at ILB, a position that doesn't need depth because only 2 ILBs see the field.

 

At CB, where depth is paramount there is none. See the issue? If we take the best CB in the 2014 draft instead of the "BPA", CB depth is no longer an issue and we still have a promising 2nd round pick that the Ravens had rated as a 1st round value playing instead of being on the inactive list.

 

I understand the sentiment of these two posts, just not the practice. We were thin and getting thinner at ILB last year, just like CB this year. We had an unknown commodity coming in as a stopgap at ILB and our second best was Bynes. ILB was a need in 2013 the same way WR was. We did not have an up-and-coming gamechanger at either position (and in the case of WR we were still hoping Torrey could be that guy, now we know he is not. Hindsight yet again).

 

So to say that if we had "broken from our philosophy" and picked Allen instead of Brown assumes we solve the ILB problem at some unknown point in the future(or it assumes that we would value a playmaker at WR over one at LB and that's just not Ravens football). There is no way to know how the chips are going to fall, and in that scenario you default to your philosophy. If you start randomly picking and choosing when and where to deviate you're setting yourself up to totally lose your identity, your culture. The whole point of having a philosophy is give you a compass in times of uncertainty. There is no possible way we could've known how ILB was going to play out when we were on the clock to pick in the second round of 2013. Hence, we picked a potentially great player that happened to fit a very real need at the time. Everything that happened after that is irrelevant, unless you're saying that we should've picked a CB over Mosley...which I am very happy we did not do.

[allblackraven]

The problem is we drafted CJ Mosley when the depth at CB was extremely thin. So now we are deep at ILB, a position that doesn't need depth because only 2 ILBs see the field.

 

At CB, where depth is paramount there is none. See the issue? If we take the best CB in the 2014 draft instead of the "BPA", CB depth is no longer an issue and we still have a promising 2nd round pick that the Ravens had rated as a 1st round value playing instead of being on the inactive list.

At the time of this year's draft we couldn't know the Webb was going to miss the entire TC and that Jackson will have significant injury and we were always going to add depth via FA. We also picked two safeties in the 1st and 3rd in consecutive drafts, so on paper secondary as a whole looked like improved unit.

 

Even if we could anticipate any of the issues that transpired, CJ Mosley looked like one of those guys that you just can't leave on the board, no matter what. From what he showed so far, decision was 100% justified. 

[gabefergy]

At the time of this year's draft we couldn't know the Webb was going to miss the entire TC and that Jackson will have significant injury and we were always going to add depth via FA. We also picked two safeties in the 1st and 3rd in consecutive drafts, so on paper secondary as a whole looked like improved unit.

 

Even if we could anticipate any of the issues that transpired, CJ Mosley looked like one of those guys that you just can't leave on the board, no matter what. From what he showed so far, decision was 100% justified. 

Well CB is a position where you ideally have 4-5 guys that you trust to play because on any given week you need 3-4 on the field at once. One injury and you are already stretching your depth. 2 injuries and you are playing safeties at CB.

 

Personally, I had CB right at the top of our offseason needs along with FS, DL, WR, and TE. ILB was pretty far down that list. I'm not taking anything away from Mosley because he has been great, but I think the lack of CB depth has already been a serious issue for the team and the two losses can be largely attributed to poor secondary play.

 

If we had a Kyle Fuller or Jason Verrett on the team instead of Mosley, would the defense be better or worse right now? Remember we still have Arthur Brown and we could have kept a solid player like Josh Bynes as well. I just think CB is a more important position than ILB for a defense especially when there are serviceable players already at the position.

[allblackraven]

Well CB is a position where you ideally have 4-5 guys that you trust to play because on any given week you need 3-4 on the field at once. One injury and you are already stretching your depth. 2 injuries and you are playing safeties at CB.

 

Personally, I had CB right at the top of our offseason needs along with FS, DL, WR, and TE. ILB was pretty far down that list. I'm not taking anything away from Mosley because he has been great, but I think the lack of CB depth has already been a serious issue for the team and the two losses can be largely attributed to poor secondary play.

I agree with everything you're saying and there were very few people (here and elsewhere) having anything else but safety/corner and WR mocked to Ravens in 1st and 2nd (for the record, I wanted to trade down and get Hageman ). Lack of depth in our secondary clearly showed so far but we are getting better.

 

No doubt, there will be conversations about draft choices we made (or didn't) like this every year but the thing is:

 

 

If we had a Kyle Fuller or Jason Verrett on the team instead of Mosley, would the defense be better or worse right now? Remember we still have Arthur Brown and we could have kept a solid player like Josh Bynes as well. I just think CB is a more important position than ILB for a defense especially when there are serviceable players already at the position.

 

"Right now" is, for the most part, not how Ozzie drafts players. His record building Ravens rosters for almost 20 years speaks for itself and I tend to think that in the long run we're much better off selecting CJ than great CB in the last draft.

[gabefergy]

"Right now" is, for the most part, not how Ozzie drafts players. His record building Ravens rosters for almost 20 years speaks for itself and I tend to think that in the long run we're much better off selecting CJ than great CB in the last draft.

This could be true, but the status of the Ravens CBs moving forward is very questionable right now. Jimmy Smith will be a FA soon. Webb hasn't looked quite himself. Jackson has been decent, but has dealt with injuries. Chykie is awful. I'm not going to discount Ozzie's ability to build a roster, but he hasn't been perfect either. There have been a lot of misses along the way in the draft.

[beanfigger]

If we had a Kyle Fuller or Jason Verrett on the team instead of Mosley, would the defense be better or worse right now? Remember we still have Arthur Brown and we could have kept a solid player like Josh Bynes as well. I just think CB is a more important position than ILB for a defense especially when there are serviceable players already at the position.

The answer to that question is a complete unknown. Surely it appears with one of those CBs you mentioned that our secondary would be better. Our defense as a whole? I'm not so sure.

You were the main person arguing with me before the draft against picking Mosely because, as you stated, that was "arguably the deepest position on the team." The problem was, as I saw it, that's all we had was "depth" there. You stated many times that "we only need two ILBs", and the problem I saw was that we only had one proven starter there. And that starter is on the downswing. Could Brown have proven to be a capable starter? Sure. I think he can and will someday. You just asked about right now. I don't know how good he is as an every down starter right now. We didn't know about Mosely, either, but when you have to find a starter somewhere, it is better to have more options. Obviously, Mosely is and has proven ready for that role "right now". And we still have depth, which is far less worrisome had we just left last year's squad alone and forced Brown or someone else into the every snap role regardless of whether or not they were ready.

[rmcjacket23]

This could be true, but the status of the Ravens CBs moving forward is very questionable right now. Jimmy Smith will be a FA soon. Webb hasn't looked quite himself. Jackson has been decent, but has dealt with injuries. Chykie is awful. I'm not going to discount Ozzie's ability to build a roster, but he hasn't been perfect either. There have been a lot of misses along the way in the draft.

And perhaps that's precisely the point... what if the FO or the coaching staff views Arthur Brown as a "miss"? If so, wouldn't it make sense to take Mosley?

 

I was all for the corner route myself (although I thought safety was more important), though as I warned everybody, its not exactly typical for a first round corner to come in and make a major impact in the league in his rookie year. We saw it take Jimmy Smith basically two full years before he was capable of even starting for this team. Given that Fuller and Gilbert (who's been pretty awful despite being the #1 CB taken) were off the board by the time we picked, it would have likely been between Verrett (good so far), Dennard (situational player) or Bradley Roby (decent, not great).

 

The problem with taking corners in the first round is that the dividends don't usually pay off in the first year, which means its hard to justify the Ravens being a better team this season because of it. In 3-4 years, who knows what would have happened, though given what we see from Mosley right now, he appears to be a foundational piece in the future.

 

Keep in mind though that the "BPA" strategy is sort of a BPA with a caveat... the caveat being that the Ravens manipulate our own draft board in a way that makes positions of "need" to have the best players available in it. If the Ravens actually objectively ranked every player on the board, and Johnny Football was the BPA when we drafted, if it was a straight forward BPA strategy, then we should have selected him.

 

But what is most likely is that when the Ravens create their draft board, they sort of "eliminate" certain players at certain positions based on the fact that we are already deemed as "set" at that position. In most years, there aren't certain positions that we appear to be fully "set" at, but obviously positions like QB and for the last couple years RB would fall under the category of positions where we wouldn't even consider using a first round pick on.

 

In essence, its sort of a rigged BPA strategy. I would the first-round level of our draft board is filled with players at a handful of specific positions where the team feels the need to upgrade. What separates us from others is that we don't just say "well we have a need at corner" and just automatically take the highest rated corner on our board with whatever pick we have, regardless of when it is.

[gabefergy]

I think my frustration with the Mosley pick is three fold.

1) we already had a promising young LB and picking another blocks his development and is a poor allocation of a valuable commodity, early draft picks

2) taking another player at a position that is already deep means other positions become a liability. In this case the secondary has had lots of issues and is still worrisome moving forward.

3) the value of an ILB is low compared to other positions. It's just not a position that is overly hard to fill and the relative value an ILB brings to a defense is dependent on players around him. I've always thought a great LB makes good defenses great, but a great LB on a bad defense does not have much impact. I think we are seeing that with Mosley. He can fly around and make plays because the DL keeps him clean.

[Inqui]

I understand the sentiment of these two posts, just not the practice. We were thin and getting thinner at ILB last year, just like CB this year. We had an unknown commodity coming in as a stopgap at ILB and our second best was Bynes. ILB was a need in 2013 the same way WR was. We did not have an up-and-coming gamechanger at either position (and in the case of WR we were still hoping Torrey could be that guy, now we know he is not. Hindsight yet again).

 

So to say that if we had "broken from our philosophy" and picked Allen instead of Brown assumes we solve the ILB problem at some unknown point in the future(or it assumes that we would value a playmaker at WR over one at LB and that's just not Ravens football). There is no way to know how the chips are going to fall, and in that scenario you default to your philosophy. If you start randomly picking and choosing when and where to deviate you're setting yourself up to totally lose your identity, your culture. The whole point of having a philosophy is give you a compass in times of uncertainty. There is no possible way we could've known how ILB was going to play out when we were on the clock to pick in the second round of 2013. Hence, we picked a potentially great player that happened to fit a very real need at the time. Everything that happened after that is irrelevant, unless you're saying that we should've picked a CB over Mosley...which I am very happy we did not do.

I don't want to vent about the Mosley pick because he's fast overtaking Terrence Brooks as my favourite rookie from this year's class, but our philosophy does have its flaws and those are shown by our current CB and I'd argue WR situation.

 

Like gabe said in the post above this, ILB isn't usually a huge impact spot and it's not difficult to find players who perform at a decent level. We had Jameel McClain and Josh Bynes that year, and it happened to be a deep class for the position. For what it's worth, I don't want to hate on the Brown pick either, because I liked it at the time and I still like him as a player. I'm just using that as an example of how passing on the best player on the board can be better for team balance.

 

You could apply my wanting to momentarily break from the philosophy to almost any draft class as long as the player you'd be picking up is good enough. There were good CBs available in pretty much every round last year, people wanting Alshon Jeffrey over Courtney Upshaw was another one from a couple of years ago and in this year's group I'd have mooted for a WR like Davante Adams or Allen Robinson over Timmy Jernigan (again, not that I think Jernigan's a bad player, but I think we could have been a bit more balanced had we gone for a position of need).

 

As I say, every now and then I'd like to see us grab the fifth player on our board instead of the first if the fifth guy happens to be a major position of need (CB or WR1 for next year's class) and still an excellent player - basically to mitigate that major drawback at least in part.

[omar586]

does anyone have the clip or GIF of Hill blastin ryan or SSS de-cleating a DB, didn't see those highlights.