Will Hill released

[usmccharles]

On 3/19/2016 at 9:14 AM, jazz1988 said:

If The Ravens had franchised K.O then most likely they wouldn't been able to sign Weddle whoms one of the best free safety in the league. Franchising K.O would also mean no Wallace or Watson and both players gives The Ravens receiving core a boost. When was the last time a team franchised a player and a deal/extension was worked out sooner rather than later? I can't even think of one in  Ravens history and usually contract negotiations can last all throughout  training camp or more.

So overall The Ravens would have  been stuck with  a guard or tackle on  a transition tag of 12 million  with no ability to sign any of the guys they did recently to go along with losing Will Hill due to his inability to stay away from substance abuse. No leverage to ask Ladarius Webb to take a pay cut because he would be only best option at safety for the  team especially since  Will Hill messed up yet again.

 

Also,  some people don't take into consideration that KO has no benefit of signing an early deal,  absolutely absolutely no reason for him not to test FA.  He and his agent knew this... Pretty simple 

[jazz1988]

46 minutes ago, rmw10 said:

Not exactly true.  There have been reports that the team was not satisfied with his play in the second half of the season, which is conveniently when he is rumored to have started reverting back to his old habits.  His play certainly fell off, and it's said to be in conjunction with his drug issues.

I guess that's one of the reasons why The NFL won't make it legal for players to  use Marijuana even if it's for medical reasons such as for pain .

[rmcjacket23]

On 3/18/2016 at 0:22 PM, Winchester said:

When you wait to sign a player his price escalates the closer he is to the auction. Holds true for anything not just football. If ravens franchised him a deal could of been worked out a deal for somewhere between the $8-9 and what the raiders gave him. No agent likes the franchise tag on an elite player. If he gets hurt he gets nothing. Ravens could of signed him for about $10-10.5per after franchising him. But it is cool Ozzie as always has some washed up players in mind to spend the money on. Unless the ravens nail this draft and I mean nail it!!I do not mean solid players I'm talking legit impact players. The ravens season will be a flop. 

No, they couldn't have. You literally just pulled those numbers out of the sky with no rational backing for them whatsoever.

Its always easy to say what somebody will sign for AFTER they already sign elsewhere, because you know you can never be proven wrong. The problem is... you can also not ever be proven right, hence why its an OPINION statement, not a factual one like you are trying to pass it off as.

Its a guess, nothing more. Its not substantiated by anything.

For what its worth... not exactly common for a franchise player to agree to a long term extension that pays him $3-5M a year less on average than the franchise number they signed for. That wouldn't make a whole lot of sense. 

Again, I get it. Its cool to guess and throw out sensational, baseless numbers because you'll never be held accountable for being right or wrong, but at least try to come up with something reasonable. There's just really no justification for those numbers, and it certainly doesn't pass the smell test.

[Winchester]

18 minutes ago, rmcjacket23 said:

No, they couldn't have. You literally just pulled those numbers out of the sky with no rational backing for them whatsoever.

Its always easy to say what somebody will sign for AFTER they already sign elsewhere, because you know you can never be proven wrong. The problem is... you can also not ever be proven right, hence why its an OPINION statement, not a factual one like you are trying to pass it off as.

Its a guess, nothing more. Its not substantiated by anything.

For what its worth... not exactly common for a franchise player to agree to a long term extension that pays him $3-5M a year less on average than the franchise number they signed for. That wouldn't make a whole lot of sense. 

Again, I get it. Its cool to guess and throw out sensational, baseless numbers because you'll never be held accountable for being right or wrong, but at least try to come up with something reasonable. There's just really no justification for those numbers, and it certainly doesn't pass the smell test.

Regardless when this retirement community gang flops the ravens will be in young rebuilding team mode next offseason. Let's cut through the Bull and get to the main point.

[rmcjacket23]

29 minutes ago, Winchester said:

Regardless when this retirement community gang flops the ravens will be in young rebuilding team mode next offseason. Let's cut through the Bull and get to the main point.

Cool. And that would be a good thing.

Regardless of that, doesn't make a whole lot of sense for a rebuilding team to spend north of $12M a year on an unproven LT who will be halfway through his career at that point.

So at least you now agree that signing KO doesn't fit into the long term plans... based on precisely what your own predictions are.

[chunkywill25]

Now I'm looking forward to the weddle/Elam duo lol... hey, I can dream right? Maybe Elam needs a leader to look up to 

[BOLDnPurPnBlacK]

5 hours ago, Winchester said:

Regardless when this retirement community gang flops the ravens will be in young rebuilding team mode next offseason. Let's cut through the Bull and get to the main point.

And signing one sorta young offensive guard for ridiculous money (whose replacement in Urschel/Jensen is actually YOUNGER) turns the team from a "retirement community" to a young roster? 

You clearly have a passion for football and discussion - that's a great quality - but it's tough to take you seriously when you make sensation, sometimes irrational, and extremist statements and make enormously speculative claims rooted in failed logic and try to pass them as facts to support your stance in denouncing Ozzie and the FO who unfortunately have to do business in reality, under a cap, in a free market, and where they can't just say "hey player X, your value is this so sign this contract."

appreciate your passion, but your opinions stand on an island for a reason. Ozzies not perfect, and he makes mistakes. And if you pay attention, when he does us "homers" will take notice and will be quick to point it out. But, pretty much everyone who is a football expert... You know the people who actually get paid lots of money to live, eat and breathe football... Consider Ozzie to be one of, if not THE best GMs in football. And those people know a heck of a lot more than any of us. 

So if you find yourself thinking that a majority of the decisions that Oz makes are mistakes, your evaluations of those decisions are likely very flawed and it may be time to re-evaluate your thought process. 

KO would've never signed a long term deal before this offseason unless it averaged around what the franchise tag was going to pay this offseason. Guaranteed they approached him with an offer at the same time or even before they approached Yanda and he balked which is why they got Yanda's done... They knew they had to lock one up. 

And franchise tagging KO would've handcuffed our entire offseason. If he decided to play under the tag we can't make any moves. And if he would've eventually worked out a deal, he def would've waited until all the other top FA's got deals to judge his value... And his agent would've been fielding calls from other teams to gauge what they'd pay which means he would've only agreed to a deal with us that matched or surpassed those numbers knowing he could play under the tag this year and get those deals or more next offseason. We'd never pay him $12m/yr so he would've played under the tag and we couldn't improve the team at all in FA and would have 100% lost KO next year anyways. 

More we would've taken the tag off KO in which case he signs with the Raiders anyways and were in the same exact position were in now except that maybe Watson and Weddle took deals elsewhere and maybe we have a little more cap, but also quite a bit less talent and a HUGE hole at safety. 

There was no way to keep KO beside grossly overpaying relative to our teams roster and positional  cap distribution. It would've really hurt the overall team to resign 1 player that may not have been an upgrade at LT if Monroe can return healthy.

and with Hill being cut, it only emphasizes that not resigning KO at that price or franchising him was the right decision.

[BOLDnPurPnBlacK]

On March 18, 2016 at 4:58 PM, Winchester said:

So you think a player will play under the franchise designation for a complete year, just to get an extra mil a yr?? Seriously?? Or hold out and get nothing??  KO money was stupid but signing a TE about to turn 36 for $4mil a year is smart?? Paying nearly $7mil a year for washed up Weddle was smart?? Or a 30 yr old one trick pony long ball threat all was smart?? Every player you just named is replaceable. A player that makes Vince wilfork leave a game twice for needing a break from getting mauled is not to likely to be replaced. Let's talk about that Midway through the season. If the ravens really wanted anynof those players then Monroe, Forsett,Elam,Lewis and Arrington could of been cut. We will revisit this thread 8-9 games into the season.  And see if the ravens made the right choice. He wanted to hit the market when an extension request was declined by the ravens.

The franchise tag would've been over $13m for KO this year. We were offering $8.5m. Unless my math is off... That's about $5m more, not $1m. 

And if you were comparing the tag to what he got in Oakland.... We would've never offered anywhere close to that so you have no point.

i love KO and would've loved it if we could have kept him... But not at a number he would have accepted. Oh, and Wilfork needs breaks bc he's old and a really, REALLY big man not just bc of KO mauling him. If he only had to come out of a game twice, I'd actually say that he was having a pretty easy go of it, bc he hasn't been an every down player in quite some time. 

And, yes, I do happen to like all the deals we made so far. Some more than others, and I'm not ecstatic over them all... But your portrayal of them is inaccurate. Just stating the average salary per year doesn't show what the deals actually are.

Wallace has almost 0 guaranteed money after the first year. If he doesn't perform this year he can be cut with big cap savings and minimal dead money. And if he can be just his average self from 3 bad years, he'll be as productive as our best 2nd receivers from the past 5 years or so... As our 3rd or 4th receiver. And his one trick happens to be the biggest missing element from our offense last year, which creates space for everyone else helping to maximize the strengths of the run game, our TEs, SSS, and Aiken. And he's a safeguard to Perriman. It's a very low risk, high reward proposition. That's what Ozzie does, and what smart GMs do. Make a bunc of those moves and yes u get some failures... But you also get a lot of big rewards from small investments. Unlike a KO signing where only a HUGE reward justifies the huge investment. Those moves are how franchises end up in purgatory for years like Miami, Oakland, Eagles, etc...

Watson, despite his age, is coming off a career year which would be among the best statistical campaigns of any Ravens TE in franchise history. And again, the cap hit and guaranteed money is different than the average salary. 

Weddles is basically a 2 year deal. I'm fairly confident he can play at an elite level another 2 years, and his skill set is exactly what our defense has been missing. He's been arguably the most consistently great safety in football the past 4 years. And he'll make the rest of the secondary better, and along with Frasier is a good bet to help salvage Elam if possible, and progress Brooks. 

Plain and simple, footballs a team game with a cap. The probability of getting more contribution toward wins from 5 players that all have big upside, granted with some risk involved, but that also have easy outs built into their contracts is much greater than tying yourself to 1 player with big upside but that absolutely has to meet or surpass that upside to ever justify the contract bc it has no outs until 4-5 years from now and even then it would be nearly impossible for that 1 player at his best to match even average contributions from the other 5 players combined. 

Regardless of what happens or what the landscape looks like 8-9 games into the season the FO made the right decision... Bc unfortunately they don't have future goggles at their disposal when making decisions. 

Most of us live in reality where we have to use the present, and only information available in the present to make decisions. And presently what you can reasonably project to get out of the combination of Weddle, Watson, Wallace, Wright, Aiken and Tucker is way more than what you can right now reasonably expect to get out of KO. 

If all of then get injured and Oakland wins a Super Bowl, the FO still made the right decision. We'll look back and say man we could've done it differently.... But you can't do that right now. 

[Winchester]

7 hours ago, BOLDnPurPnBlacK said:

And signing one sorta young offensive guard for ridiculous money (whose replacement in Urschel/Jensen is actually YOUNGER) turns the team from a "retirement community" to a young roster? 

You clearly have a passion for football and discussion - that's a great quality - but it's tough to take you seriously when you make sensation, sometimes irrational, and extremist statements and make enormously speculative claims rooted in failed logic and try to pass them as facts to support your stance in denouncing Ozzie and the FO who unfortunately have to do business in reality, under a cap, in a free market, and where they can't just say "hey player X, your value is this so sign this contract."

appreciate your passion, but your opinions stand on an island for a reason. Ozzies not perfect, and he makes mistakes. And if you pay attention, when he does us "homers" will take notice and will be quick to point it out. But, pretty much everyone who is a football expert... You know the people who actually get paid lots of money to live, eat and breathe football... Consider Ozzie to be one of, if not THE best GMs in football. And those people know a heck of a lot more than any of us. 

So if you find yourself thinking that a majority of the decisions that Oz makes are mistakes, your evaluations of those decisions are likely very flawed and it may be time to re-evaluate your thought process. 

KO would've never signed a long term deal before this offseason unless it averaged around what the franchise tag was going to pay this offseason. Guaranteed they approached him with an offer at the same time or even before they approached Yanda and he balked which is why they got Yanda's done... They knew they had to lock one up. 

And franchise tagging KO would've handcuffed our entire offseason. If he decided to play under the tag we can't make any moves. And if he would've eventually worked out a deal, he def would've waited until all the other top FA's got deals to judge his value... And his agent would've been fielding calls from other teams to gauge what they'd pay which means he would've only agreed to a deal with us that matched or surpassed those numbers knowing he could play under the tag this year and get those deals or more next offseason. We'd never pay him $12m/yr so he would've played under the tag and we couldn't improve the team at all in FA and would have 100% lost KO next year anyways. 

More we would've taken the tag off KO in which case he signs with the Raiders anyways and were in the same exact position were in now except that maybe Watson and Weddle took deals elsewhere and maybe we have a little more cap, but also quite a bit less talent and a HUGE hole at safety. 

There was no way to keep KO beside grossly overpaying relative to our teams roster and positional  cap distribution. It would've really hurt the overall team to resign 1 player that may not have been an upgrade at LT if Monroe can return healthy.

and with Hill being cut, it only emphasizes that not resigning KO at that price or franchising him was the right decision.

 

It all is relative to what is considered overpaying somebody. There are flexible variables in effect here. I'm not getting into all of them. The brightest being escalating salaries. But the most considerable is in my opinion KO will be an elite left tackle. I will go out on a limb here and actually promise it. All the different athletic subsets I have put my nose in since when I first graduated highschool. From helping wrestlers train for the Olympics to helping former camp bodies train for their next invite. (Went to Kevin Levrones gym where all the aspiring pro athletes trained)  And I liked and got very good at observing since I am always trying to learn(long story). To make a long story easy let's just say for all purposes KO could very well be a better tackle than guard. As a matter of fact very likely should be a better tackle than guard. And I'm not on board with the ravens over 30 shopping spree. Notba good idea to players for what he did for opposing teams. I would take what KO brings to the table and what the OLine he was part of brings over every signing combined. That is just me but to explain, when the ravens or any team for that matter is great at something, you want to keep that together. Look what losing Nelson did to Packer offense. So losing one player can really hurt what a team is great at. Not to mention with Yanda going into season10. KO is the eventual anchor of the oline. I know ravens fans do not want to hear it but Yanda is a 315 LB dude carrying around a good amount of extra weight for athletic purposes. And history of guards shows a routine that by season 11 guards are not as dominant. And I do believe that KO eclipses Yanda as the better player this season. And with how dominant the OLine group that was used atbthe end of the season the ravens were a legit #1 receiver from a really terrific and trendsetting offense. And I do not mean Wallace. I want to like him. The signing almost got me going. But I can't put all the blame on his QBs. He always was a one trick pony and is getting older.

[rmcjacket23]

11 minutes ago, Winchester said:

 

It all is relative to what is considered overpaying somebody. There are flexible variables in effect here. I'm not getting into all of them. The brightest being escalating salaries. But the most considerable is in my opinion KO will be an elite left tackle. I will go out on a limb here and actually promise it. All the different athletic subsets I have put my nose in since when I first graduated highschool. From helping wrestlers train for the Olympics to helping former camp bodies train for their next invite. (Went to Kevin Levrones gym where all the aspiring pro athletes trained)  And I liked and got very good at observing since I am always trying to learn(long story). To make a long story easy let's just say for all purposes KO could very well be a better tackle than guard. As a matter of fact very likely should be a better tackle than guard. And I'm not on board with the ravens over 30 shopping spree. Notba good idea to players for what he did for opposing teams. I would take what KO brings to the table and what the OLine he was part of brings over every signing combined. That is just me but to explain, when the ravens or any team for that matter is great at something, you want to keep that together. Look what losing Nelson did to Packer offense. So losing one player can really hurt what a team is great at. Not to mention with Yanda going into season10. KO is the eventual anchor of the oline. I know ravens fans do not want to hear it but Yanda is a 315 LB dude carrying around a good amount of extra weight for athletic purposes. And history of guards shows a routine that by season 11 guards are not as dominant. And I do believe that KO eclipses Yanda as the better player this season. And with how dominant the OLine group that was used atbthe end of the season the ravens were a legit #1 receiver from a really terrific and trendsetting offense. And I do not mean Wallace. I want to like him. The signing almost got me going. But I can't put all the blame on his QBs. He always was a one trick pony and is getting older.

What are the consequences when your guarantee doesn't come true?

How do you determine what an elite LT is? What's the metric for that? What's the timeframe?

I can tell you that at least initially it doesn't appear KO will even be playing LT for the Raiders, as by all accounts he's expected to start at LG. Its possible he stays there for at least two years, so you may be waiting a long time before we even have an answer. Its also possible he never plays LT, which would be a problem for you.

Either way, if people are just going to start throwing out guarantees without accountability for them, I'm all in on that.

I hereby guarantee that Joe Flacco will throw for 14,000 yards and 87 TD passes next season. 

 

[berad]

He had been posting invitations to 'hosted parties' in the offseason and supposedly was doing whatever during the season so... yeah. Surprising when it first happened, not so surprising now. Doing that stuff must be very important to him.

[BOLDnPurPnBlacK]

7 minutes ago, Winchester said:

You are not realistic. KO being a top5 left tackle is very realistic. If I'm wrong then call me out on it. Just from his style of play, how he moves, where he usually generates his movement off the ball and how he can generate movement when he wants. I know since the ravens did not resign him fans will create any way in the outer realms of reality in their minds to belive it is the correct move. Just like the Joe Cool mega contract to the wash up player signings. Homers will scoff at the idea of it being wrong moves or ideas. And throw rationality out the window for what somebody wants to hold true. Not just with football but with every day situations.It is probably not "politically correct" to mention or discuss because pointing out facts could "offend somebody" 

By how he moved, threw the ball, his footwork, arm talent, strength, etc... Jamarcus Russel shouldve very realistically been the best QB of all time. Pretty much every talent evaluator agreed he was the best QB prospect theyve ever seen.

Looking the part and actually performing like it are 2 different things. Until KO does it, its still just an opinion... And based on the Raiders signing of Penn, we're not going to see it from KO at least another few years if at all. He did perform at an acceptable level in his 4 games at LT last season, but certainly wasnt playing at an elite level.

He may eventually, he may not. We wont know until we see. You talk about rationality, but its the complete opposite of rationality to hostage your entire teams cap to resign an offensive guard when you have several positions that need improving for the team to get back to contending. 

Me guaranteeing that Yanda will still be a superior player to KO this year and next, is just as correct as you guaranteeing that KO will over take him this year... in that neither are correct, they're just opinions. But, based on data, eye test, past performance, and most recent performance indicators pretty much everything points to the fact that Yanda is today still the better player.... and for $4m more per year, KO will not only have to be better than Yanda, he will have to be 50% better than Yanda to justify his salary... which is all but a guarantee not to happen in 2016.

It's not homerism to disagree with you. Homers are typically described as an extreme subset of fans that see everything their team does as the best, and considers everything about their team superior even when common knowledge and facts point to that not being the case. Considering most of the opinions differing with yours provide sensible, logical analysis - it is NOT homerism. You throw that term around in nearly all your posts, but clearly dont know what it means or who it describes.

And to your point about cap escalation, it still doesnt justify KO's enormous salary increase bc his value is 50% more than the highest paid player at the position. The salary cap is not accelerating 50% every year, and wont increase 50% over the life of KO's contract. 

The Patriots operate in a very similar manner, and its impossible to argue that they do business the wrong way. They shipped Chandler Jones off, and shrewdly got some value in return, knowing that they wouldnt pay what the market would deem him to be worth. He's their best pass rusher, young, and his trajectory would indicate he's likely to become among the best pass rushers in the league. However, they wont resign him at that amount bc they know its not a recipe for building a champion. You cant pay even a very good, young, ascending player a salary that is greater than 99% of those at his position.

Would it have been smarter to seek a trade for KO a year ago? In hindsight, yes. But at the time, no, bc they felt making him the highest paid player at his position might be enough to retain him. It wasnt, and letting him go was the right decision just like trading Chandler Jones was. 

But im done with this argument... we were a 5-11 team with KO on the roster on a rookie deal. He was not the savior, and no offensive guard ever will be. We need a line of 5 solid to very good players that play well together. When you get in the business of paying one player on the line 50% more than anyone else at his position, with a salary cap in place, you retain one potentially great player but put yourself in a position to not be able to afford solid players at all 4 other spots. And when it comes to the offensive line, 1 glaring weakness has a domino effect that no one player will over come.