Ravens Woes...4 Years of Poor Drafting-No Depth? - Brent Harris

[Militant X 1]

I was watching Football Central on CSN earlier this morning and Julie Donaldson asked Brent Harris the question; "Is Flacco's contract the main reason why the Ravens haven't been able to bring in other players to help him out?"  Brent's response was interesting....

"Not the way the NFL works because you're the franchise Quarterback and you're going to make the most money on the team and, the way that the pie is divided, other teams deal with it just fine.  Now, maybe the fact that he doesn't have the go-to wide receiver certainly hurt him, maybe the fact that he's been without most of his offensive line this year?  But, I look at THE FACT THAT THIS TEAM HAS NOT DRAFTED WELL OVER THE LAST 4 YEARS!"

Brent goes on to say....

"If you look at the last 4 years, in the top 4 rounds, 25 players total; I only count 4 significant players out of those 4 drafts and that's: Ronnie Stanley, CJ Mosley, Timmy Jernigan and Brandon Williams.  Got a couple of other starters in there.  I see this as more of an issue of DEPTH.  It's not so much that Joe is taking up too much of the salary cap space.  I just think that they haven't done a great job of bringing the guys behind it-the DEPTH guys that you get through the draft that don't cost you a lot of money earlier in their career."

Brent clearly articulated what I was thinking from the standpoint; that I have always said that the present Ravens "personnel" (especially offensively) isn't as good as some would like to think they are or that we'd like them to be.  I believe we feel the effects of this poor "depth" that Brent mentions as soon as someone goes down.

What's your take on Brent's comments?

[ALPHA]

We've struck out a few times but I think the draft excuse has been overemphasized, especially considering how hard we've been hit by the injury bug in recent years.

[rmcjacket23]

12 minutes ago, Militant X 1 said:

I was watching Football Central on CSN earlier this morning and Julie Donaldson asked Brent Harris the question; "Is Flacco's contract the main reason why the Ravens haven't been able to bring in other players to help him out?"  Brent's response was interesting....

"Not the way the NFL works because you're the franchise Quarterback and you're going to make the most money on the team and, the way that the pie is divided, other teams deal with it just fine.  Now, maybe the fact that he doesn't have the go-to wide receiver certainly hurt him, maybe the fact that he's been without most of his offensive line this year?  But, I look at THE FACT THAT THIS TEAM HAS NOT DRAFTED WELL OVER THE LAST 4 YEARS!"

Brent goes on to say....

"If you look at the last 4 years, in the top 4 rounds, 25 players total; I only count 4 significant players out of those 4 drafts and that's: Ronnie Stanley, CJ Mosley, Timmy Jernigan and Brandon Williams.  Got a couple of other starters in there.  I see this as more of an issue of DEPTH.  It's not so much that Joe is taking up too much of the salary cap space.  I just think that they haven't done a great job of bringing the guys behind it-the DEPTH guys that you get through the draft that don't cost you a lot of money earlier in their career."

Brent clearly articulated what I was thinking from the standpoint; that I have always said that the present Ravens "personnel" (especially offensively) isn't as good as some would like to think they are or that we'd like them to be.  I believe we feel the effects of this poor "depth" that Brent mentions as soon as someone goes down.

What's your take on Brent's comments?

I agree with the premise, but not necessarily the evaluation.

1. For starters, he's including the 2016 draft class, which is fine, but I personally view Lewis and probably Young as significant players at this point. Lewis is a starting caliber lineman now and probably going forward, and Young is a respectable slot corner, which is saying something for a rookie at a position that is notoriously difficult for rookies. 

In short, too early to evaluate the 2016 class in this group.

2. I kind of want to know what qualifies as a "significant" player? Sort of goes back to my first point, but what exactly does that mean?

3. Why did he stop his evaluation at the 4th round? What about Rick Wagner or somebody like Judon? Are they not significant?

[AsianRice]

I think 2016 draft will set the future of this team, in term of where what direction we're going.  We should get back to the winning culture with this class.

 

How about M. Pierce?

 

[redrum52]

5 minutes ago, rmcjacket23 said:

I agree with the premise, but not necessarily the evaluation.

1. For starters, he's including the 2016 draft class, which is fine, but I personally view Lewis and probably Young as significant players at this point. Lewis is a starting caliber lineman now and probably going forward, and Young is a respectable slot corner, which is saying something for a rookie at a position that is notoriously difficult for rookies. 

In short, too early to evaluate the 2016 class in this group.

2. I kind of want to know what qualifies as a "significant" player? Sort of goes back to my first point, but what exactly does that mean?

3. Why did he stop his evaluation at the 4th round? What about Rick Wagner or somebody like Judon? Are they not significant?

 

23 minutes ago, Militant X 1 said:

I was watching Football Central on CSN earlier this morning and Julie Donaldson asked Brent Harris the question; "Is Flacco's contract the main reason why the Ravens haven't been able to bring in other players to help him out?"  Brent's response was interesting....

"Not the way the NFL works because you're the franchise Quarterback and you're going to make the most money on the team and, the way that the pie is divided, other teams deal with it just fine.  Now, maybe the fact that he doesn't have the go-to wide receiver certainly hurt him, maybe the fact that he's been without most of his offensive line this year?  But, I look at THE FACT THAT THIS TEAM HAS NOT DRAFTED WELL OVER THE LAST 4 YEARS!"

Brent goes on to say....

"If you look at the last 4 years, in the top 4 rounds, 25 players total; I only count 4 significant players out of those 4 drafts and that's: Ronnie Stanley, CJ Mosley, Timmy Jernigan and Brandon Williams.  Got a couple of other starters in there.  I see this as more of an issue of DEPTH.  It's not so much that Joe is taking up too much of the salary cap space.  I just think that they haven't done a great job of bringing the guys behind it-the DEPTH guys that you get through the draft that don't cost you a lot of money earlier in their career."

Brent clearly articulated what I was thinking from the standpoint; that I have always said that the present Ravens "personnel" (especially offensively) isn't as good as some would like to think they are or that we'd like them to be.  I believe we feel the effects of this poor "depth" that Brent mentions as soon as someone goes down.

What's your take on Brent's comments?

My take is maybe we could've drafted better, but I'll ask both of you this.  How well do you all think we actually develop our talent?  It could be a combo of bad picks and coaching, but I feel the team doesn't do the best job of bringing the talent along.

[rmcjacket23]

5 minutes ago, redrum52 said:

 

My take is maybe we could've drafted better, but I'll ask both of you this.  How well do you all think we actually develop our talent?  It could be a combo of bad picks and coaching, but I feel the team doesn't do the best job of bringing the talent along.

Not as well as we used to, but I wouldn't say its been bad.

Put it this way... on pretty much an annual basis, a player we drafted signs a big contract on another team. I believe by definition that means that we are at least adequate at drafting and developing talent. Its not 4-5 players a year, but no team is consistently doing that. If you find one good player you can keep and develop another player or two who you can either keep or produce well enough to get a big contract from another team, generally speaking, that's a good draft.

Since Harbaugh took over:

2009 - 2nd round pick Paul Kruger

2010 - 5th round pick Art Jones

2011 - 2nd round pick Torrey Smith and 5th round pick Pernell McPhee

2012 - 2nd round pick Kelechi Osemele

Time is not up yet on the rest, but we know guys like Brandon Williams and Rick Wagner are likely to probably test FA coming up, and both could land respectable deals.

The 2014 class looks like it has two studs... Jernigan and Mosley, and hopefully we will be able to retain both.

[ALPHA]

Personally I think drafts have too much luck and extenuating circumstances in play to blame/praise a GM for the end result. Lets say for example the Jags rookies are all injured and cant play again... they still drafted better than any other team.

Edited October 27, 2016 by ALPHA

[The Raven]

The issue, I think, is an issue of retaining our draft picks that pan out, more so than drafting talent.

Look back at the Super Bowl. Suggs, Ngata, Ray, Reed, Ray Rice, and Yanda, among others, who we drafted and retained.

And look at all the young playmakers we had on that roster that we didn't retain.

Kruger, Art Jones, Torrey Smith, Courtney Upshaw, etc... Hell, even Mike Oher wasn't super terrible, and he seems to have found a niche in Carolina. Webb and Jimmy have been retained but are chronically injured. As much as I was hard on Oher and Upshaw, they'd still be better than Hurst being at RT against the Giants and McClellan playing OLB against anyone. We all know I hate Torrey but he would have made a difference last year. 

This team looks very different if we were able to retain those guys.

True, we haven't drafted all that well, in the early rounds. Elam is looking like a bust. I think it's fair to say that now. Terrence Cody and Courtney Upshaw set our front seven back by three years each. My complaint with Ozzie is that he's still stuck in 2000, dreaming of Sam Adams and Goose clogging the middle with Burnett, McCrary, and Boulware wrecking the edges. When he drafted Elam, he saw the old fashioned box safety like Polamalu. When he drafted Terrence Cody, he saw Kelly Gregg 2.0. When he drafted Courtney Upshaw, he saw Jarrett Johnson. Those are all good players, but they are obsolete and outdated models.

His only forward thinking draft picks from 2009 to 2013 were Kindle and Kruger. We all know what happened to Kindle, and Kruger got jerked around by a defensive system that lacked an identity.

What we're missing in my opinion is quality players in the 27-31 age range. Guys that are old enough to be solid players and make plays but still young enough to not be slow and chronically hurt. I feel like all of our good players are under 25 or over 30. That's not a good place to be.

Edited October 27, 2016 by The Raven

[Rav'n Maniac]

28 minutes ago, The Raven said:

The issue, I think, is an issue of retaining our draft picks that pan out, more so than drafting talent.

Look back at the Super Bowl. Suggs, Ngata, Ray, Reed, Ray Rice, and Yanda, among others, who we drafted and retained.

And look at all the young playmakers we had on that roster that we didn't retain.

Kruger, Art Jones, Torrey Smith, Courtney Upshaw, etc... Hell, even Mike Oher wasn't super terrible, and he seems to have found a niche in Carolina. Webb and Jimmy have been retained but are chronically injured. As much as I was hard on Oher and Upshaw, they'd still be better than Hurst being at RT against the Giants and McClellan playing OLB against anyone. We all know I hate Torrey but he would have made a difference last year. 

This team looks very different if we were able to retain those guys.

True, we haven't drafted all that well, in the early rounds. Elam is looking like a bust. I think it's fair to say that now. Terrence Cody and Courtney Upshaw set our front seven back by three years each. My complaint with Ozzie is that he's still stuck in 2000, dreaming of Sam Adams and Goose clogging the middle with Burnett, McCrary, and Boulware wrecking the edges. When he drafted Elam, he saw the old fashioned box safety like Polamalu. When he drafted Terrence Cody, he saw Kelly Gregg 2.0. When he drafted Courtney Upshaw, he saw Jarrett Johnson. Those are all good players, but they are obsolete and outdated models.

His only forward thinking draft picks from 2009 to 2013 were Kindle and Kruger. We all know what happened to Kindle, and Kruger got jerked around by a defensive system that lacked an identity.

What we're missing in my opinion is quality players in the 27-31 age range. Guys that are old enough to be solid players and make plays but still young enough to not be slow and chronically hurt. I feel like all of our good players are under 25 or over 30. That's not a good place to be.

That's a good point and something worthwhile discussing. Do you think that one reason we can't retain better players beyond their 1st contract has anything to do with the rate the cap increases compared the rate the market value for positions increases? I have always felt that position values increase at a much greater rate than the cap increases but, I'm only guessing.

[rmcjacket23]

44 minutes ago, The Raven said:

The issue, I think, is an issue of retaining our draft picks that pan out, more so than drafting talent.

Look back at the Super Bowl. Suggs, Ngata, Ray, Reed, Ray Rice, and Yanda, among others, who we drafted and retained.

And look at all the young playmakers we had on that roster that we didn't retain.

Kruger, Art Jones, Torrey Smith, Courtney Upshaw, etc... Hell, even Mike Oher wasn't super terrible, and he seems to have found a niche in Carolina. Webb and Jimmy have been retained but are chronically injured. As much as I was hard on Oher and Upshaw, they'd still be better than Hurst being at RT against the Giants and McClellan playing OLB against anyone. We all know I hate Torrey but he would have made a difference last year. 

This team looks very different if we were able to retain those guys.

True, we haven't drafted all that well, in the early rounds. Elam is looking like a bust. I think it's fair to say that now. Terrence Cody and Courtney Upshaw set our front seven back by three years each. My complaint with Ozzie is that he's still stuck in 2000, dreaming of Sam Adams and Goose clogging the middle with Burnett, McCrary, and Boulware wrecking the edges. When he drafted Elam, he saw the old fashioned box safety like Polamalu. When he drafted Terrence Cody, he saw Kelly Gregg 2.0. When he drafted Courtney Upshaw, he saw Jarrett Johnson. Those are all good players, but they are obsolete and outdated models.

His only forward thinking draft picks from 2009 to 2013 were Kindle and Kruger. We all know what happened to Kindle, and Kruger got jerked around by a defensive system that lacked an identity.

What we're missing in my opinion is quality players in the 27-31 age range. Guys that are old enough to be solid players and make plays but still young enough to not be slow and chronically hurt. I feel like all of our good players are under 25 or over 30. That's not a good place to be.

To me, a lot of times it somewhat looks like the only players we are interested in retaining long-term is 1st round picks. We've retained some others guys, like Yanda and Webb, but if you look back at the overwhelming majority of our best drafted players in FA throughout the years, they are mostly 1st round picks.

If you're a first round pick on this team, and you play even above average football, its a pretty good bet you're getting a 2nd contract from us.

I can pretty much guarantee right now that Mosley and Stanley will get second contracts from us. And if we see better improvement, Perriman will as well. And we may even pass up signing a better, drafted player in order to do it.

[The Raven]

1 hour ago, Rav'n Maniac said:

That's a good point and something worthwhile discussing. Do you think that one reason we can't retain better players beyond their 1st contract has anything to do with the rate the cap increases compared the rate the market value for positions increases? I have always felt that position values increase at a much greater rate than the cap increases but, I'm only guessing.

I think our cap has been tied down with contracts of aging players who didn't produce as much as they were paid to. Suggs and Dumervil are KILLING us right now with that. So much of our cap is invested in them and they have a combined, what, two sacks?

I think it's also because we struggle to develop some guys, too. Jah Reid comes to mind there.

[izvoodoo]

5 minutes ago, The Raven said:

I think our cap has been tied down with contracts of aging players who didn't produce as much as they were paid to. Suggs and Dumervil are KILLING us right now with that. So much of our cap is invested in them and they have a combined, what, two sacks?

I think it's also because we struggle to develop some guys, too. Jah Reid comes to mind there.

Jah actually played well elsewhere.

 

Worst contract has to be Web though. 

[rmcjacket23]

4 minutes ago, izvoodoo said:

Jah actually played well elsewhere.

 

Worst contract has to be Web though. 

I wouldn't consider Webb's the worst necessarily...

Eugene Monroe made $20.6M for 27 games (2013-2015) and was pretty average for the duration of those.

Pitta made $18.0M for 7 games (2013-2015). $12M was for 3 games in 2014 and he made $4M in 2015 to not play.

 

[The Raven]

57 minutes ago, izvoodoo said:

Jah actually played well elsewhere.

 

Worst contract has to be Web though. 

Kinda my point. Didn't develop well here, and we didn't retain him.

That's a third round pick that we didn't retain. If he played better sooner, we don't have to pick Rick Wagner or Alex Lewis where we did

[hn68wb4]

I don't necessarily disagree with the overall idea but those numbers are more than a bit misleading and he used his own random criteria for "significant players" which is pretty ridiculous but lets go draft by draft. And it's pretty annoying to categorize all players as either "significant starters" or everyone else, just because players aren't outright starting doesn't mean they were bad picks at all, using two rigid categories like that is not very fair for any team's draft class.

Counting this year's class is just outright unfair when you look at who we've taken and it's their first year, beyond Stanley only Lewis has gotten significant time to do anything, and in a perfect scenario not even he would have. This class' 4 round players are: Stanley (Significant starter), Correa (developmental player, hasn't gotten anytime before last week), Kaufusi (IR), Young (Pretty much screwed by the subjective definition of significant starter), Moore (Again, developmental player, buried on the depth chart), Lewis (Significant starter), Henry (Developmental Player at a deep position), and Dixon (Injured first 4 weeks and West was hot when he came back). It's not fair to gauge this years class when a significant portion simply haven't had much of a chance yet.

2015 Draft - Breshad Perriman (Pretty much a rookie after missing all of last year and is contributing), Maxx Williams (deep position and is now on IR), Carl Davis (deep position and IR), Za'Darius Smith (Hasn't developed like we hoped but there's still hope here), Buck Allen (pretty disappointing so far but in extremely limited time this year he actually looks okay), and Tray Walker (Based on the numbers given he counted Tray which is more than unfair for all parties involved...)

2014 Draft - CJ Mosley (Significant starter), Timmy Jernigan (Significant starter), Terrence Brooks (Whiff, but at least this one shows that fans don't know any better than Ozzie on draft day, everyone LOVED this pick), Crockett Gillmore (When healthy I'd argue he's a significant starter, just isn't healthy enough and now Pitta is back), Brent Urban (Missed first season and a half, great player on FG block team, hasn't done much on D though), and Lorenzo Taliaferro (Again constant injuries but he's still with the team so I think the FO clearly still believes in him)

2013 Draft - Matt Elam (Whiff so far but he missed all of last season and just got activated so there's still hope with this one), Arthur Brown (Whiff, and again, see the Brooks explanation), Brandon Williams (significant starter), John Simon (Whiff but has found a home in Houston), and Kyle Juszczyk (Significant starter and curiously left off of this guy's list, he's literally our entire 3rd down offense it seems)

 

Again, I don't think it's fair to include this year's class but if you're going to you have to include at least Lewis on the "significant starter" list as he's done well at both LG and LT, an argument can be made for Tavon as well but I don't think so, he did get taken advantage of when we started losing CBs. The shear amount of orange (potential players) shows that looking at the last two classes is difficult, especially when multiple players have missed significant time. Overall, out of 24 players (not counting Tray) I counted 6 Significant starters (dark green), 14 potential players/not enough time (orange), 3 complete whiffs (red), and 1 Brent Urban who's missed significant time but has a role that I'd argue is somewhat significant considering he has 2 blocked FGs in about a total season of play. I think if you went through and did this to every team you'd come up with something similar, maybe even better than most teams. I think this whole "we've drafted badly over the last x amount of years" it is misleading, we've come away with a handful of good starters, plenty of contributing players with only 3 or 4 complete misses, maybe we haven't drafted the best in the league but we certainly have been one of the better drafters - and, first round wise, it's not exactly an accident that when we picked higher (2014 and 2016) we came away with immediate starters but not when picking later (2013 and 2015).

Edited October 27, 2016 by hn68wb4

[Militant X 1]

8 hours ago, redrum52 said:

 

My take is maybe we could've drafted better, but I'll ask both of you this.  How well do you all think we actually develop our talent?  It could be a combo of bad picks and coaching, but I feel the team doesn't do the best job of bringing the talent along.

I don't think that we develop talent that well at all.  Sure, some players have left here and do okay(and some not so okay) elsewhere but I wouldn't say that it is necessarily due to how well we developed them per se. Some of that to me is just them having a chip on their shoulder and wanting to prove the Ravens wrong for cutting, releasing or trading them.  They're grown men and egos are bruised so that happens!

Here is one scenario that I always think about in reference to our "talent development"....

In 2010, Antonio Brown was drafted by the Steelers in the 6th round and the 195th pick overall.  Today, he is a flat out stud and superstar wide receiver in this league.  Some say, that he's arguably the best in the league.  Imagine that!  A 6th rounder the best in the league.  Then, the very next year in 2011, the Ravens draft Torrey Smith in the 2nd round and the 58th overall pick.  Torrey was selected 4 rounds higher than Brown but he has not "developed" into half the receiver that Brown is and neither is he in the conversation with the likes of a Julio Jones or A.J. Green for that matter.

"Why is there such a huge disparity between our initial 2nd rounder's performance and the Steelers' 6th rounder's performance?"

Well, I'm pretty sure that there will be all types of excuses and justifications and statements of "to be fair" made for that but to me, at some point, the harsh reality is that we may need to face the music that we really don't draft or "develop" these players that well.

 

[FastEddie]

I'm not really sure who is responsible, but I think drafting has obviously been an issue.

Wasnt really a big fan of the last 2 nor previous ones since we took Jimmy Smith. No impact players.

Ive been listening to Ken on 105.7 and 100% agree with his theory. Oz loves drafting trench players.

[atomicfront]

The drafting has been poor and the we have made mistakes extending guys who we shouldn't have.  We should have gone in full rebuild mode this off season.   I guess we will have to do it after this season.  Hopefully the front-office wakes up and Ozzie takes control of the draft or hires someone who knows what they are doing.  Otherwise we will become the Browns. 

[JoeyFlex5]

We've done average at best. Not up to standards though. 

We HAVE to stop striking out in rounds 2 and 3. It's killing us. We drafted kindle, cody, upshaw, Brown, maxx and Correa in the 2nd of the past 6 drafts. We've drafted dickson, jah reid, Bernard pierce, Terrence brooks, Carl Davis and Bronson kaufusi in the 3rd the past 6 drafts. In all of those 6 drafts we landed on KO, jernigan, and williams in the 2nd and 3rd round, that's 3 out of 14 picks in rounds 2 and 3 

There's some validity to it. Regardless of how well we've done late. 

[ravefan52]

The biggest problem is all the early round misses. The FO has done pretty well in mid rounds, but those guys are only so talented. Early rounds are where you get the great players, which is why we don't have many. Also, some of the very few they have hit on leave because the FO favors old players, who have just gotten worse and whose bodies have deteriorated. It's not hard to see why this roster isn't very good.

[hen826957]

I wish Ozzie could trade for Haden because he's on the trade block l believe. Plus he's from the Maryland area as well. Haden along with Smith will fix our corner problems but it could be too much to give. 

[hen826957]

For the safety position, they should've sign Donte Whitner in the offseason instead of having Webb at safety. Donte Whitner and Weddle would've been better in my opinion. 

[VermontRaven]

5 hours ago, hen826957 said:

I wish Ozzie could trade for Haden because he's on the trade block l believe. Plus he's from the Maryland area as well. Haden along with Smith will fix our corner problems but it could be too much to give. 

Yeah, I think the Browns would ask too much for Haden...especially to trade hiim to a hated division rival.  It sure would be nice though!

[Ravensfan23]

19 hours ago, The Raven said:

The issue, I think, is an issue of retaining our draft picks that pan out, more so than drafting talent.

Look back at the Super Bowl. Suggs, Ngata, Ray, Reed, Ray Rice, and Yanda, among others, who we drafted and retained.

And look at all the young playmakers we had on that roster that we didn't retain.

Kruger, Art Jones, Torrey Smith, Courtney Upshaw, etc... Hell, even Mike Oher wasn't super terrible, and he seems to have found a niche in Carolina. Webb and Jimmy have been retained but are chronically injured. As much as I was hard on Oher and Upshaw, they'd still be better than Hurst being at RT against the Giants and McClellan playing OLB against anyone. We all know I hate Torrey but he would have made a difference last year. 

This team looks very different if we were able to retain those guys.

The biggest issue imo is that the Baltimore Ravens have been a prisoner of success and injury. They have been prisoners of success because when you draft so well for a long period of times, those studs, probowlers and key players have to be paid. At some point every name you listed above for players we retained was either the highest or among the highest paid players at their positions. When you have Suggs and Ngata taking up 10+Mil apiece in Cap space, it's nearly impossible to retain guys like Art Jones, Kruger or Antwan Barnes who could eventually develop for you long term. Mcphee was a really good player but he wasn't as good as Suggs and you just can't pay him starter money to stay in a reserve role. Having Yanda and a LT(who you thought was the guy) both getting top 5 Oline money, it's hard to compete with other teams throwing huge money at KO. 

Also I look at how good are some of these players that leave for big contracts. Most of the guys leaving for big contracts aren't big contract type guys and the Ravens know it, but they aren't gonna overpay for role players. 

19 hours ago, rmcjacket23 said:

To me, a lot of times it somewhat looks like the only players we are interested in retaining long-term is 1st round picks. We've retained some others guys, like Yanda and Webb, but if you look back at the overwhelming majority of our best drafted players in FA throughout the years, they are mostly 1st round picks.

If you're a first round pick on this team, and you play even above average football, its a pretty good bet you're getting a 2nd contract from us.

I can pretty much guarantee right now that Mosley and Stanley will get second contracts from us. And if we see better improvement, Perriman will as well. And we may even pass up signing a better, drafted player in order to do it.

That's not true. Webb, Yanda, Rice, Koch, Tucker are guys who have signed long term deals, both Torrey and KO were offered what i feel were fair deals. With that being said, what team wouldn't want to retain their 1st round picks long term if they pan out? Those are supposed to be the guys on the big contracts while later round guys fill in the holes and depth of your team. The players who are leaving the Ravens are leaving for big and in some cases huge contracts. You just can't pay average guys star money and the guys who may actually deserve the money, the Ravens just can't compete with teams like the Jags and Oak who don't currently have stud players under contract and can spend big money. 

In Perriman's case the Ravens won't overpay for him unless he earns it. No different than Torrey. If he doesn't develop into the #1 guy we drafted him for and looks more like a complimentary player than the Ravens will offer that type contract, but if another team wants to pay him #1 type money than the Ravens will allow him to walk. The bottomline is the Ravens set a value on their players and sometimes it's below market value because other teams are willing to overspend. If guys like Young, Dixon, Judon and Moore outperform guys like Perriman, Williams and Correa then they'll be offered the money to stay. 

[jimmypowder]

So how many Pro Bowlers have we drafted in the last 4 years? Not many.Is Mosley the only one? 

Tucker was undrafted. 

[rdotc]

13 hours ago, Militant X 1 said:

I don't think that we develop talent that well at all.  Sure, some players have left here and do okay(and some not so okay) elsewhere but I wouldn't say that it is necessarily due to how well we developed them per se. Some of that to me is just them having a chip on their shoulder and wanting to prove the Ravens wrong for cutting, releasing or trading them.  They're grown men and egos are bruised so that happens!

Here is one scenario that I always think about in reference to our "talent development"....

In 2010, Antonio Brown was drafted by the Steelers in the 6th round and the 195th pick overall.  Today, he is a flat out stud and superstar wide receiver in this league.  Some say, that he's arguably the best in the league.  Imagine that!  A 6th rounder the best in the league.  Then, the very next year in 2011, the Ravens draft Torrey Smith in the 2nd round and the 58th overall pick.  Torrey was selected 4 rounds higher than Brown but he has not "developed" into half the receiver that Brown is and neither is he in the conversation with the likes of a Julio Jones or A.J. Green for that matter.

"Why is there such a huge disparity between our initial 2nd rounder's performance and the Steelers' 6th rounder's performance?"

Well, I'm pretty sure that there will be all types of excuses and justifications and statements of "to be fair" made for that but to me, at some point, the harsh reality is that we may need to face the music that we really don't draft or "develop" these players that well.

 

Using Antonio Brown vs Torrey Smith as a justification for saying we don't draft or develop players well is like saying 31 other teams in the league can't draft or develop QBs because Tom Brady was a 6th rounder.

 

Or... teams cant draft or develop CBs outside of Seattle because of Richard Sherman.

 

Using a gigantic outlier as a basis for an argument is just silly and misleading.

[ALPHA]

43 minutes ago, jimmypowder said:

So how many Pro Bowlers have we drafted in the last 4 years? Not many.Is Mosley the only one? 

Tucker was undrafted. 

I think a better question is how many prospects (that we were considering and didn't pick) went on to become pro bowlers? hindsight doesn't count, and Pierce Upshaw and Osemele were critical pieces in our Super Bowl win. Harrison Smith would be nice now but I prefer the championship.

2014 gave us three starters, 4 if you include Jensen. Based on the visits tracker and rumored targets we were never going to come close to nailing the first two rounds. We did OK in what was a God awful draft class.

2015 there has been nobody of note from our first pick onwards.

 

 

 

[Ravensfan23]

1 hour ago, jimmypowder said:

So how many Pro Bowlers have we drafted in the last 4 years? Not many.Is Mosley the only one? 

Tucker was undrafted. 

Not attacking your opinion just the opinion in general. I think that Pro Bowl is a terrible indicator of how good or bad a draft pick is. It's just a fan and stat driven accomplishment. 

For example. KO was a pro bowl worthy talent, but in on Baltimore's inconsistent offense he wasn't a well known name. However once he left and got a huge deal more people will look at him as a top talent now because of the contract he signed. So he can have the same exact level of play he had with the Ravens but he's more likely to make a Pro Bowl with the Raiders because he'll get more votes. Brandon Williams might be one of if not thy top NT in the NFL, but again to most people he's unknown. 

Than on the flipside. Both Juice and Wagner could have easily made the Pro Bowl in 2014 and if everything played out the same way to this day, would they be considered better draft picks because they made the Pro Bowl?

The truth is over the previous 4 years before this year, the Ravens have started to build this team though the draft. Guys like Juice, ZDS, Wagner, Williams, Timmy, Gilmore, Mosley, KO and Upshaw were quality picks and you probably got maybe 4 Studs in that group(KO, BW, Timmy and CJ) The way the NFL is you just can't keep everyone so KO left, but he'll probably bring back a 3 round pick which is another potential key player(if we draft well). Then you have guys like Perriman and Maxx who the Ravens targeted to be potential Stud talents but injuries have hampered them. If they hit, which is still very possible, you are looking at some very strong drafts over the previous 4 years. 

Every draft class isn't loaded with great talent, so something it's tough to add those studs to your team, however this year's draft was one of those drafts that you could set your team up to be great for the next 4-5 years and probably have some great players getting 2nd contracts to help the team continue to be good. Stanely, Lewis, Young, Dixon and Judon have all shown big time potential. While Correa, Canday, and Moore look to be guys who might take a bit to develop but you can definitely see the talent. 

I think the hope is that Stanely, Perriman, Dixon, Maxx, Timmy, CJ, BW and Correa to be those horses that carry this team going forward. We'll see how it pans and if they can stay healthy. 

[hn68wb4]

4 hours ago, jimmypowder said:

So how many Pro Bowlers have we drafted in the last 4 years? Not many.Is Mosley the only one? 

Tucker was undrafted. 

Pro bowl is a terrible indicator of who good and who is not. In the past 4 years only Mosley has made one but Brandon Williams is arguably the best run stopping NT in the league right up there with Harrison. Wagner may have made one if he didn't get injured at the end of his breakout year. Juice may make it this year too.

Edited October 28, 2016 by hn68wb4

[balfan23]

Another issue has been the inability to bring in low-mid level veteran talent and have them be significant contributors, especially in the secondary. Guys like Josh Wilson, Pollard, Cary Williams and Graham ... all came in relatively cheap and, while not pro-bowl players, made significant contributions. 

We've rotated in countless secondary players over the past few years and little or nothing has stuck. We've just not had that magic in bringing in affordable players in the secondary and have them be anywhere close to effective.