[News] Late For Work 1/3: Five Key Questions And Suggestions For Ravens Offseason

[Halshayeji]

On January 3, 2017 at 7:03 PM, balfan23 said:

All the talk is about whether to stand pat with Marty, but I'm really concerned about the total collapse of the defense to finish the season. Injuries have been the excuse as to why the defense has let us down in recent years, but we continue to invest in that unit through the draft and in FA and we see this result. I don't want to hear that losing one player - Jimmy Smith - should cause the entire house of cards to come crashing down. 

Last year, Harbs gave Pees a pass because, despite the defense being terrible for the majority of the season, he cited that they were highly rated to finish the season. Please don't cite the defense's ranking for the overall season this year, when they finished out the season in such horrible fashion. I'm not just talking about the embarrassing performance in week 17. Despite the offense having its ups and downs, it is the defense that cost us a playoff berth this season. 

I just don't think we can ignore the fact that, when the game is on the line, this unit fails more often than it succeeds. Is it not fair to question that this is a failure of coaching? 

 

It's definitely fair to question the coaching and why we just go prevent whenever the last few minutes come. 

I don't think it's even remotely fair to say "it is the D that cost us the playoffs" this D kept us in 6 games that our O couldn't seal and more than half our wins were pritty bad offensive displays. Yes this D had a few bad games and that's surely a concern but it's soooooo out of bounds to say this D cost us the playoffs.

[Drew P]

1 hour ago, EdTheMythicalOne said:

Blount in NE, David Johnson in ARZ, Latavious Murray in OAK,

If you want to bring up Jamal Lewis I would bring up Adrian Peterson and LaDanian Tomlinson.

And I am not talking about Jamal Lewis. He was a bell cow runningback that we ran into the dirt. And if we're talking ancient history, so's he. And he was only that guy up until his 2,000 yard season. After that he was a shell of himself and a completely different runner with the Browns.

So you don't think scoring the football is the area of opportunity? You're fine with kicking field goals all the time because our RB's can't get two yards to pick up the first down or we can't punch it in from 3 yards away from the endzone?

We had a speedy scat back in Forsett and he worked in the right system. I think West and Dixon have enough speed for the edge, we just have to stop being cute about it. They can run off tackle, but not with a pulling G, a TE that can't block, and asking Juice to run half way across the field to make a block on a counter run. We need a banger. We need somebody that makes you pay for tackling them.

interesting, LT a banger at 5'10" on his tip toes and probably 215 tops.

They can add Okoye or Alstott it's just another check down option at this point.

[EdTheMythicalOne]

3 minutes ago, Drew P said:

interesting, LT a banger at 5'10" on his tip toes and probably 215 tops.

They can add Okoye or Alstott it's just another check down option at this point.

It doesn't matter how big you actually are, it matters how hard you hit the hole and how heavy you run. Some guys run behind their pads and explode into defenders. You going to sit here on this forum and tell me LDT was a pitter-patter back? If it was all about size why don't nose tackles just run the football all the time?

[Drew P]

21 hours ago, RavensDieHard21 said:

Thomas is a legit Ozzie pick lol. We will all scratch our heads because we have other needs, but he will be a darn good player I can guarantee that. He singlehandedly destroyed UNC. 

He just declared...go get em Oz.