[News] Breshad Perriman Can Be A No. 1 Receiver, But Has A Way To Go

[bozo]

perriman is not I good route runner, nor does he have good hands

[bozo]

flacco is the biggest bust.

[axisofeeble]

Perriman looks the part of a guy who never had to WORK to get open,no good route running ability and little or no desire(SO FAR SHOWN) to pay the price over the middle or come back to work open when Joe holds&holds the ball awaiting any receiver besides Pitta&Smith to keep moving.DESIRE how do you measure it?

[Ravenous_Ravens]

Easy way to fix the hands issue. Only throw him quick hitch passes like bubble screens,etc until he literally masters catching the ball and watching into his hands. When he knows that is the only time he's getting the ball, he'll develop the right kind of focus to make it count. It also forces him to work on making someone miss after securing the ball to make any sort of play. All good habits to develop for making him a more reliable and dangerous deep threat.

[bioLarzen]

Sorry, this is gonna be a rather long one. But I think the problematics we call "wide receivers in Baltimore" warrant longer soliloquys...

Fact: the Baltimore Ravens have never in their 20-year history drafted and then groomed a legit WR. The best may be Torrey Smith - and he is nowhere near top-shelf. All the really productive WR's (Mason, Boldin, Steve Smith, Wallace) have been brought in via free agency or trade.

What may be the reason? I can think of four possible answers:

1.) it's nothing more than a spectacular run of bad luck;
2.) the Ravens scouting and/or talent evaulation system is not suitable to pinpoint and identify WR talent who can make the transition to the NFL;
3.) the talent pool drafted is OK, but the Ravens WR coaching/developing is simply not good enough to turn the raw talent drafted, into NFL-caliber players;
4.) the proper talent is identified and drafted, then suitably developed - but the Ravens offensive system is not one WR's can really be productive in.

I guess we can rule out  #1 - I refuse to believe in 20-year (and counting) runs of bad luck. That's more than unlikely.

So, where does the problem lie? In the scouting/talent evaluation? The player development? The offensive philosophy and system? A combination of any of these?

I don't think we, simple fans will ever be in the position to gain any kind of real insight into the organization's scouting and talent evaluation system - and there's no problem with this: after all we're talking about business secrets here. So,we're not in the position to judge whether the heart of the problem lies there - and those who do won't ever talk about it - for the afrorementioned reason. Here is the complete list of WR's Ozzie drafted for the Baltimore Ravens (UDRFA's not included) (format coding: WR'S drafted by the Ravens; notable WR's still on the board when the Ravens were on the clock; NOTABLE WR'S STILL AVAILABLE WHEN OZZIE PICKED A WR)

1996: Jermaine Lewis (Round #5), James Roe (6) ; notable WR's drafted by other orgs: Terrell Owens, 
1997: - / Derrick Mason
1998: Patrick Johnson (2) / Randy Moss, HINES WARD
1999: Brandon Stokley (4) / DONALD DRIVER, 
2000: Travis Taylor (1) / Plaxico Burress, 
2001: - / Chad (Ochocinco) Johnson, Steve Smith, TJ Houshmanzadeh
2002: Ron Johnson (4), Javin Hunter (6) / Antwaan Randle El, Deion Branch, 
2003: - / Anquan Boldin, 
2004: Devard Darling (3), Clarence Moore (6), Derek Abney (7) / JERRICHO COTCHERY, 
2005: Mark Clayton (1) / RODDY WHITE, VINCENT JACKSON, 
2006: Demetrius Williams (4) / Santonio Holmes, Greg Jennings, BRANDON MARSHALL, MARQUES COLSTON
2007: Yamon Figurs (3)
2008: Marcus Smith (4), Justin Harper (7) / Jordy Nelson, DeSean Jackson, PIERRE GARCON, 
2009: - / Mike Wallace, Julian Edelman
2010: David Reed (5) /  Emmanuel Sanders, ANTONIO BROWN, 
2011: Torrey Smith (2), Tandon Doss (4)
2012: Tommy Streeter (6) / Mohamed Sanu 
2013: Aaron Mellette (7) / Kenny Stills, 
2014: Michael Campanaro (7) / Kelvin Benjamin, 
2015: Breshad Perriman (1), Darren Waller (6) / TYLER LOCKETT, STEFON DIGGS, 
2016: Chris Moore (4), Keenan Reynolds (6) / TYREEK HILL

Talent evaluation is, of course, not black and white, not an exact science where anyone could go for sure - it's enough to think of Tom Brady... Also, guys can develop totally differently with one organizatiuon than another one - just to use the rpevious example, maybe if, say the Bucs or Bills draft Tom Brady, he never develops into what he has become... or a totally forgotten QB could have become "the" Tom Brady if drafted by Belichick and, say, not the Bucs or Bills... so, knowing that Ozzie passed on WR's who then went on to become real stars, to pick WR's who never really grew to be real factors in the NFL doesn't automatically means a thing. Still, just to think that we could have had Steve Smith play his entire career in Baltimore... that we could have ended up with real stars like Hines Ward, Roddy White, Brandon Marshall, Pierre Garcon instead of guys like Patrick Johnson, Mark Clayton, Demetrius Williams, Marcus Smith - and the most mind boggling: Ozzie picking David Reed (now long out of the league) instead of Antonio Brown... it's really hard not to think that WR talent evaluation may at least be part of the problem... Passing on so many great guys and picking trash instead, at least 5-6 times... that seems to be more than mere bad luck... In 20 years the Baltimore Ravens drafted 25 WR's - that's 1 WR oer year, plus one more every fourth year. From these 25 players 0 went to the Pro Bowl, and 0 became what we could legitimately call a star in the NFL. That basically means if Ozzie randomly picked WR's, he could have gone better - but probably not worse. Wanna have it sound even more depressing? The Cleveland Browns picked better WR's...

Or,. would the culprit be talent development? Another thing we, fans can never know, as we never see most of the coaching and development work done. But one cannot help noticing that no WR drafted by ther Baltimore Ravens went on to become a star in the NFL after leaving Baltimore for another organization. So, these guys were/are really just not good enough - or were never properly developed by their drafting oprganization - namely the Ravens...

Or is it the offensive system? C'mon... we've had at least about 10 different OC's in these 20 years... could it ppossibly be that all of them had non-WR friendly systems? Sounds very unlikely to me.

So, I think the likeliest scenario is that the Ravens are unable to either identify/evaluate WR talent, or cannot develop the drafted talent to succeed in the NFL - or the combination of both. Either of these two is to blame, it's personnel-related problem: either the scouting system or the WR-related coaching staff must be fixed. The question is why it was never fixed in 20 years... And if it wasn't fixed in 20 years - and it wasn't... - what should we base any hope on, that it will be fixed... Because as long as it isn't fixed, the best we can apparently hope for from our home-grown WR pool is Torrey Smith...

And that simply doesn't cut it in the NFL.

Edited January 8 by bioLarzen

[Ravenseconbeast]

Just the fact that we are holding hopes Breshad 'can' be #1 is scary.

Nope. With Steve out, the reality is we are going to need another polished veteran.

We have basically no one with solid hand/great route ability aside from Steve.

Get quality receivers than if Breshad can beat em, then all bets are off.

[manofsteel]

Periman could never fill Steve Smith Sr shoes. I think he was a waste of money as was and is Jimmy Smith. Lets get rid of both of them!

[manofsteel]

We need plays that other teams have and works well. Not always long passes. 5yds and slant. Plays that keeps us progressing forward. Where was the "Hail Mary Pass" when we needed it in the last game? That was dumb for what the Ravens did actually do!