[News] Late For Work 2/23: Hail Mary Time? Ravens Will Take Another Crack At Keeping Top Free Agents

[BR News]

Mike Wallace is the NFL’s best receiver at running the slant route. Football Outsiders: Joe Flacco set record for ‘failed completions.’ Ronnie Stanley and Lola to be featured on Animal Planet.

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[fusuymada]

Wagner is set to be one of those free agents who excels in Baltimore but goes out and does not do very well with other teams. In adiition, he is just a right tackle, no one will pay him to play left tackle and if they do they are making a huge mistake. In 2015 Wagner was a dumpster fire and now he is the second rated tackle. I guess they are looking at just one year because Wagner was less than impressive quite consistently before last year. Same with Juszczyk. Where I feel we underutilized his talents here in Baltimore, blocking fullbacks can be a dime a dozen and since we failed to use him to his best abilities, we are only loosing a blocking back with a sometime catch. Williams is the only one worth fighting for but with PIerce, his loss is minimized somewhat.

Let me add my opinion on cuts as well. I would hold onto everyone we have except for Webb, Arrington and Lewis. Dumervil, Pitta and Wallace need to stay.

[KidNme]

Ya, we felt every one of those "Failed completions".
No surprises here.

[ellicottraven]

Congratulations to Linta for scoring a second client! His first offer for Juice to the Ravens is going to be something like 5 yrs- 72M! Why? Because Juice made the probowl and is a RB like Peterson, a TE like Witten and a full back like Juice himself! Nothing less will suffice.
Seriously, the only reason the Ravens need to meet with Linta is to find out if Joe can take a salary commensurate with his on-field production.... just kidding.

[ellicottraven]

As for cuts, I say we cut Pitta, Watson, Arrington, Wright and Lewis. Keep Doom because if healthy he is a double digit sack guarantee, Wallace because without him our offense won't have a solitary playmaker and Webb because he wasn't all that bad last year in his first year as safety.

[crazyboutravens]

Every year we give away guys we have invested in and we need to change that scenario. It gets ridiculous after a while. I would not mind if it happened once in
a while but every year just not very satisfactory. It makes us be twice as good at
drafting than other teams.

[Halshayeji]

39 minutes ago, fusuymada said:

Wagner is set to be one of those free agents who excels in Baltimore but goes out and does not do very well with other teams. In adiition, he is just a right tackle, no one will pay him to play left tackle and if they do they are making a huge mistake. In 2015 Wagner was a dumpster fire and now he is the second rated tackle. I guess they are looking at just one year because Wagner was less than impressive quite consistently before last year. Same with Juszczyk. Where I feel we underutilized his talents here in Baltimore, blocking fullbacks can be a dime a dozen and since we failed to use him to his best abilities, we are only loosing a blocking back with a sometime catch. Williams is the only one worth fighting for but with PIerce, his loss is minimized somewhat.

Let me add my opinion on cuts as well. I would hold onto everyone we have except for Webb, Arrington and Lewis. Dumervil, Pitta and Wallace need to stay.

Well said. I agree 100 percent Wallace and pitta must stay and probably redo their contracts to free up idk 3-4 mil in 2017.

I have Doom, Webb, and zuttah in the same boat. If we land a marque FA in their position then theyr gone. If we draft someone to take over then they stay untill that someone beats them out. Worst case scenario is they stay, free up another 3-4 mil, and we revisit this scenario again next year.

Watson, wright, Arrington, and Lewis are gone freeing up 10mil in cap.

thats 25mil plus whatever we save 6-8 by redoing some contracts.

let the games begin!

[leziRav]

45 minutes ago, fusuymada said:

Wagner is set to be one of those free agents who excels in Baltimore but goes out and does not do very well with other teams. In adiition, he is just a right tackle, no one will pay him to play left tackle and if they do they are making a huge mistake. In 2015 Wagner was a dumpster fire and now he is the second rated tackle. I guess they are looking at just one year because Wagner was less than impressive quite consistently before last year. Same with Juszczyk. Where I feel we underutilized his talents here in Baltimore, blocking fullbacks can be a dime a dozen and since we failed to use him to his best abilities, we are only loosing a blocking back with a sometime catch. Williams is the only one worth fighting for but with PIerce, his loss is minimized somewhat.

Let me add my opinion on cuts as well. I would hold onto everyone we have except for Webb, Arrington and Lewis. Dumervil, Pitta and Wallace need to stay.

I agree but i think we should keep Webb. I think the team will be better if we have Webb, Pitta, Wallace and Dumervill at reduced price. That is going to be the front office job. If they can keep them and free some space to sign Juice and either Brandon or Wagner then that will be a great job. After than we can fill the rest of our need in free agency and draft.

[gregob56]

Maybe if Joe would stop throwing the ball behind or at the feet of the receiver, he could improve upon those numbers. If he has another year like 2016, people will dismiss that great SB run altogether.

[Ravensfan23]

7 minutes ago, crazyboutravens said:

Every year we give away guys we have invested in and we need to change that scenario. It gets ridiculous after a while. I would not mind if it happened once in
a while but every year just not very satisfactory. It makes us be twice as good at
drafting than other teams.

the Ravens don't lose players at any higher rate than any other good team in the NFL. We just notice it more because we are fans of the team. They just won't overpay for players and sometimes you lose quality guys because of it. If Wagner gets LT money, why would you want to retain him? I'd rather allow him to walk, move Lewis to RT and target Zeitler  to play LG for a couple Million more than you were willing to pay Wagner. i like Wagner but he's a RT  only and isn't even the best RT in the NFL. You don't overpay for that unless you're desperate. 

 

1 hour ago, fusuymada said:

Let me add my opinion on cuts as well. I would hold onto everyone we have except for Webb, Arrington and Lewis. Dumervil, Pitta and Wallace need to stay.

Pitta needs to go. I like the guy personally and I think he still has something to offer, but the Ravens don't need anymore mediocre talent than they already have. I'm not and I hope the Ravens aren't fooled by Pitta's high catch volume. His 8ypc total should mean more. Even when asked to press the defense down the seam he wasn't able to do it consistently. Even though unproven, I'd take my chances with the 4 young TEs and allow them to work in a play action heavy offense. 

I agree with Doom and Wallace. If you can't hands down find anyone better they should return. If healthy Doom is still a plus pass rusher, he'll just be a specialist more than a every down player. That's probably best anyway. Reduce his cap and let him hunt. Wallace can still make plays and this team desperately needs that. I'm a huge advocate of adding Britt because I think he's a playmaker that will be had for around 6.5-7.5 Mil over 3 years and you can still keep Wallace by extending him for a year or two. Convert his cap to bonus money and spread the rest of his cap over the next 2 years. If Perriman steps up the way the Ravens hope, Wallace can be cut the following year. 

Those older players haven't done much of anything to help this team win when needed, so why hold on to them? I'd rather see a bunch of young and hungry young players flying around trying to make plays, instead of holding onto older players because they are good guys or team favorites. So I'm cutting Watson, Pitta, Arrington, Lewis, Wright and Powers. Then I'm going to Doom and Webb to reduce their cap hits. If these moves are made, Wallace can actually be kept at his current 8Mil hit. 

[Ravenous_Ravens]

Throwing short of the needed yardage to me suggests one of several possibilities:
- receivers are not getting open downfield
- Flacco is not trusting his receivers enough to let it rip and let them make a play
- WR routes are not well designed to create natural separation
- Flacco requires a more aggressive mindset when dropping back to pass
- play calling needs work, based on such high numbers

Either way, Flacco really better step up his game all around as well as put in extra time with his WR this offseason. I shouldn't need to be said, but if Flacco has another horrible season, at his current price tag, he very well might be writing the end of his time here.

I am becoming more and more interested in the possibility of drafting a decent QB this draft for both competition and to replace Mallet, who I do not believe the Ravens will retain based on market value and cap space. at the very least some new young blood that can challenge for a starting role would do wonders to bring out more competitive play at QB period.

[Ravenous_Ravens]

Every year we give away guys we have invested in and we need to change that scenario. It gets ridiculous after a while. I would not mind if it happened once in
a while but every year just not very satisfactory. It makes us be twice as good at
drafting than other teams.

It is simply not possible to retain every player you draft and develop. The main question every good GM has to ask before even making a decision on whether to give a player a second contract offer, can this player be a foundational player for your organization? If not, then the decision is simple and comes down to the dollars. If a contract becomes too much (expensive), that's that.

When you do have a foundational type player, it becomes an easy decision to do everything possible to retain them. Every successful team has several foundational players throughout their rosters, and they become the key around which you build your roster.

So which players are you referring to exactly that you believe should have been retained?

IMHO BW is really the only player is the last few seasons to fit your description.

Maybe K.O. but that was not about not wanting to retain him as much as it was about limited cap dollars to retain either K.O. or Yanda. They went with the sure thing as Yanda has been a model of success for all Guards to learn from. K.O. is certainly a great player in his own. In a pre-salary cap era they would have kept him not doubt.

[reed20]

Is "failed completion" just a fancy term for "incompletion"

Edited February 23 by reed20

[RaRaRavens]

Is "failed completion" just a fancy term for "incompletion"

As the article explains, no. I think more accurate name would be "ineffective completion". Basically a completion, that doesn't do much good. So basically most of Flacco's completion that he dumped off to Pitta or one of the RBs right near the line of scrimmage was a failed completion. It doesn't surprise me that he set a record of those "failed completions" considering it was his go-to pass. Just sad.

[TheRavengers]

1 hour ago, ellicottraven said:

As for cuts, I say we cut Pitta, Watson, Arrington, Wright and Lewis. Keep Doom because if healthy he is a double digit sack guarantee, Wallace because without him our offense won't have a solitary playmaker and Webb because he wasn't all that bad last year in his first year as safety.

The corners and Watson I can understand, but Pitta I just don't think that makes sense. We've all seen Flacco's play this year and expect better in the future, but getting rid of the guy he clearly trusts most will not help him out.

[Wildwest Raven]

Sigh....Well he's gonna be our QB next year, so lets hope "they" get him what he "needs". Its been a helleva search since the SB and we're still waiting.

[bioLarzen]

If history is any kind of indication, we're almost surely be without all three of these guys - Brandon Williams, Wagner and Juszczyk - next season. Yes, there are always fantastic scenarios in the news whch yould result in retaining our star FA'S - but then it never happens.Guys, if Torrey Smith - whose whole life was about Baltimore and the Ravens, who was loved and respected in Baltimore, and knew he'd be a kley cog if he stayed - could leave Baltimore for San Francisco because of the money, then a Brandon Williams, a Rick Wagner and a Juice certainly will. And that's just the way it is in the NFL. That's their job - it's just natural they'll go wherever they're paid the best.

[bioLarzen]

Is "failed completion" just a fancy term for "incompletion"

Have you actually read the piece, or just the header? :)

[bioLarzen]

It was, indeed, painful to see how often Flacco threw to targets yards short of the yellow line on third downs. TRhis, and his apparent utter reluctance to speed up things in the 2-minute drill periods, casually jogging to the line like there were minutes left, when the clock showed 35 seconds, with one timeout - only to throw a pass short ofd the first down marker, to the middle of the field, leaving no chance for the target to step out of bounds stopping the clock... It genuinely seemed like he couldn't care less if he tried... And I'm not saying it was the case - but it certainly seemed so.

[nj_ravens]

This "failed completion" is exactly the type of stat I have been looking for. For a QB, sure just completions will do. But you could do the same type of stat for the offense and for the defense. Just apply the same percentages for rushing. Then it's a measure of "effectiveness per yards needed."

1st down: Offensively, did you gain 45% or more of the yards needed for a first down. Defensively, did you allow less than 45% of the yards needed?

Same calculation all the way down the chart.

You could have subsets of data and it would give you information of who is really good on 1st down, how well those plays set you up for the next downs, how often do you even get to third down or do you convert early, do you suck on third down but kick butt on 3rd, measure of how effective the bend but don't break method is, etc. There is so much valuable data there.

[budman]

26 minutes ago, bioLarzen said:

If history is any kind of indication, we're almost surely be without all three of these guys - Brandon Williams, Wagner and Juszczyk - next season. Yes, there are always fantastic scenarios in the news whch yould result in retaining our star FA'S - but then it never happens.Guys, if Torrey Smith - whose whole life was about Baltimore and the Ravens, who was loved and respected in Baltimore, and knew he'd be a kley cog if he stayed - could leave Baltimore for San Francisco because of the money, then a Brandon Williams, a Rick Wagner and a Juice certainly will. And that's just the way it is in the NFL. That's their job - it's just natural they'll go wherever they're paid the best.

I don't see any team offering Juszczyk any more than what we would offer.IMO he is in for a rude wake up call.

[budman]

18 minutes ago, bioLarzen said:

It was, indeed, painful to see how often Flacco threw to targets yards short of the yellow line on third downs. TRhis, and his apparent utter reluctance to speed up things in the 2-minute drill periods, casually jogging to the line like there were minutes left, when the clock showed 35 seconds, with one timeout - only to throw a pass short ofd the first down marker, to the middle of the field, leaving no chance for the target to step out of bounds stopping the clock... It genuinely seemed like he couldn't care less if he tried... And I'm not saying it was the case - but it certainly seemed so.

Agree. The "Non Hurry up- Hurry up" kills me everytime. You know it's bad when even the game announcers are saying that there seems to be no urgency.

[steelcityraven]

IDK.... Pitta is notorious for getting no YAC... He has great hands and is a sure target but if he cannot move the chains what good is that? For the price he commands and his inability to move the chains or get any YAC... along with the talent we have at TE... I think letting him walk (in favor of using that cap room to re-sign one of those coveted FAs or event to retain one of our guys) would be smart.

I like Pitta and admire his ability to come back after what he has been through and I know that is Joe's boy... but I think Joe's reliance on a guy who cannot get it done is hurting the progression of this offense... not to mention he his just not worth the cap hit...and we are loaded at that position!

[Swift 1]

49 minutes ago, nj_ravens said:

This "failed completion" is exactly the type of stat I have been looking for. For a QB, sure just completions will do. But you could do the same type of stat for the offense and for the defense. Just apply the same percentages for rushing. Then it's a measure of "effectiveness per yards needed."

1st down: Offensively, did you gain 45% or more of the yards needed for a first down. Defensively, did you allow less than 45% of the yards needed?

Same calculation all the way down the chart.

You could have subsets of data and it would give you information of who is really good on 1st down, how well those plays set you up for the next downs, how often do you even get to third down or do you convert early, do you suck on third down but kick butt on 3rd, measure of how effective the bend but don't break method is, etc. There is so much valuable data there.

Sounds like a good 'fantasy football' stat

[steelcityraven]

It was, indeed, painful to see how often Flacco threw to targets yards short of the yellow line on third downs. TRhis, and his apparent utter reluctance to speed up things in the 2-minute drill periods, casually jogging to the line like there were minutes left, when the clock showed 35 seconds, with one timeout - only to throw a pass short ofd the first down marker, to the middle of the field, leaving no chance for the target to step out of bounds stopping the clock... It genuinely seemed like he couldn't care less if he tried... And I'm not saying it was the case - but it certainly seemed so.

Unfortunately.... our FO and HC stated after the season that they thought Joe's injury hurt him this year. I think that survival does (just as you mentioned) to people. They don't make the decisions that are best for the team but the best for survival. Get the ball out of your hand ASAP and hope for the best. That is what Joes season looked like. I guess that I get that from Joe's end... the problem that I have with it... is that if the FO and HC knew that he was unable to perform at the necessary level and that he was simply making survival decisions... why was it allowed to continue.

Why not play Mallet a few games and give us a chance? That is in no way suggesting that Mallet is better then Joe -just say that Mallet is better then a 50% Joe- who cannot go through his progressions bc of the injury that he has or bc of the fear of exacerbating his injury.

[TheRavengers]

1 hour ago, budman said:

Agree. The "Non Hurry up- Hurry up" kills me everytime. You know it's bad when even the game announcers are saying that there seems to be no urgency.

That Patriots game we played this year was just agonizing to watch, for that reason among many others.

[TheRavengers]

1 hour ago, bioLarzen said:

If history is any kind of indication, we're almost surely be without all three of these guys - Brandon Williams, Wagner and Juszczyk - next season. Yes, there are always fantastic scenarios in the news whch yould result in retaining our star FA'S - but then it never happens.Guys, if Torrey Smith - whose whole life was about Baltimore and the Ravens, who was loved and respected in Baltimore, and knew he'd be a kley cog if he stayed - could leave Baltimore for San Francisco because of the money, then a Brandon Williams, a Rick Wagner and a Juice certainly will. And that's just the way it is in the NFL. That's their job - it's just natural they'll go wherever they're paid the best.

To be fair, Torrey hasn't done much since he left. He's only had 7 TDs in 2 years, when he had that many in just his rookie year. In fact statistically 2016 was his worst year, he had less than 300 receiving yards, fewest receptions, lowest yds/catch avg and played in the fewest games.

[nj_ravens]

  1 hour ago, bioLarzen said:

It was, indeed, painful to see how often Flacco threw to targets yards short of the yellow line on third downs. TRhis, and his apparent utter reluctance to speed up things in the 2-minute drill periods, casually jogging to the line like there were minutes left, when the clock showed 35 seconds, with one timeout - only to throw a pass short ofd the first down marker, to the middle of the field, leaving no chance for the target to step out of bounds stopping the clock... It genuinely seemed like he couldn't care less if he tried... And I'm not saying it was the case - but it certainly seemed so.

Unfortunately.... our FO and HC stated after the season that they thought Joe's injury hurt him this year. I think that survival does (just as you mentioned) to people. They don't make the decisions that are best for the team but the best for survival. Get the ball out of your hand ASAP and hope for the best. That is what Joes season looked like. I guess that I get that from Joe's end... the problem that I have with it... is that if the FO and HC knew that he was unable to perform at the necessary level and that he was simply making survival decisions... why was it allowed to continue.

Why not play Mallet a few games and give us a chance? That is in no way suggesting that Mallet is better then Joe -just say that Mallet is better then a 50% Joe- who cannot go through his progressions bc of the injury that he has or bc of the fear of exacerbating his injury.

because where do you draw the line? was he 50%? Was he 65%? I don't think they knew, I think the HC and FO were speaking in hindsight.

[nj_ravens]

  1 hour ago, nj_ravens said:

This "failed completion" is exactly the type of stat I have been looking for. For a QB, sure just completions will do. But you could do the same type of stat for the offense and for the defense. Just apply the same percentages for rushing. Then it's a measure of "effectiveness per yards needed."

1st down: Offensively, did you gain 45% or more of the yards needed for a first down. Defensively, did you allow less than 45% of the yards needed?

Same calculation all the way down the chart.

You could have subsets of data and it would give you information of who is really good on 1st down, how well those plays set you up for the next downs, how often do you even get to third down or do you convert early, do you suck on third down but kick butt on 3rd, measure of how effective the bend but don't break method is, etc. There is so much valuable data there.

Sounds like a good 'fantasy football' stat

How so? I think it would be absolutely useless in fantasy, and actually has real world applications.

[TheRavengers]

25 minutes ago, steelcityraven said:

Unfortunately.... our FO and HC stated after the season that they thought Joe's injury hurt him this year. I think that survival does (just as you mentioned) to people. They don't make the decisions that are best for the team but the best for survival. Get the ball out of your hand ASAP and hope for the best. That is what Joes season looked like. I guess that I get that from Joe's end... the problem that I have with it... is that if the FO and HC knew that he was unable to perform at the necessary level and that he was simply making survival decisions... why was it allowed to continue.

Why not play Mallet a few games and give us a chance? That is in no way suggesting that Mallet is better then Joe -just say that Mallet is better then a 50% Joe- who cannot go through his progressions bc of the injury that he has or bc of the fear of exacerbating his injury.

Because Mallet doesn't give us much chance. He's on his 3rd team, got kicked off the Texans, has a bad TD-INT ratio overall and the very last time he took over for Joe his second throw was an INT in Cincy. He only got called upon for Baltimore because we had already lost other QBs back in 2015 after Flacco went down, so he was more of a desperation play and even in those 2 games he only played well in one of them.