Free Agency 2019

[rossihunter2]

Markus Golden as a FA is interesting . Struggled coming off injury and taking on a switch to DE last year but if he could sniff his 2016 production moving back to OLB. Shaq Barrett at the right price is also interesting.

yeah i was going through a list of free agents still available and Golden was one who popped off the list to me

 

[Simba]

Also, FWIW, Ingram was revered for his pass protection in NOLA, so if they do sign him, it's not a terrible thing. I think he's a fine player and it'll just depend on price for me.

 

[rossihunter2]

wonder what our defense will look like next season. Feel really bad for Wink, but this year is really going to prove his worth.

i mostly feel bad for him because they rebuilt the defence with and for the guys on the team last season - Weddle, Sizzle and CJ were major parts of that defence and major parts of how that defence was built and how it operated

 

[MarkAndrewsOurSavior]

Well let’s just say that our drafting, signings, and cap management haven’t inspired hope. The tony Jefferson and Brandon Williams signings, the WRs we chose to draft last year, the refusal to address the OL, making picks like Correa over Michael Thomas and bowser over juju and Hurst over Ridley/Hernandez, these moves don’t inspire much hope.

We can have a plan all we want but we have to execute that plan and I just don’t trust us to, and if we have so much cap next year then how are we unable to make a move for a Mitch Morse or Le’Veon bell and fit it under the cap by moving just a few mil into next years cap?

Lamar is gonna have to be something very special for us to even be competitive at this rate, I feel a top 10, maybe even top 5 pick in the 2020 draft coming with this team, and a majority of the fan base turned on lamar because he has even less help than joe had.

I can’t even see lamar being decent this year we have ABSOLUTELY NO ONE and the FA class for playmakers is god fucking awful after we missed on bell, we need at least 2wrs we need to hit on in the draft which i dont seeing, and we have a half an oline with the other half being newborn bums who will allow us to get absolutely bullied in the interior yet again

 

[Simba]

i mostly feel bad for him because they rebuilt the defence with and for the guys on the team last season - Weddle, Sizzle and CJ were major parts of that defence and major parts of how that defence was built and how it operated

This is definitely the big part. I think you can replace all of their current physical skill sets fairly easily. It's the mental side of the game that I'm really worried about. Losing that much leadership and football IQ is tough, and it's also tough to find someone from the outside who can come in and take on that role (Weddle being one of them). Someone internally has to step up, or we have to get lucky and find that rare guy.

 

[rossihunter2]

I can’t even see lamar being decent this year we have ABSOLUTELY NO ONE and the FA class for playmakers is god fucking awful after we missed on bell, we need at least 2wrs we need to hit on in the draft which i dont seeing, and we have a half an oline with the other half being newborn bums who will allow us to get absolutely bullied in the interior yet again

i am worried just because we never draft for need yet we have literally 1 starter at wr and only 6 starts at rb total among the whole group
we cant leave lamar high and dry with no OL help and no receiver help from last year - yes the 2 TEs will likely develop even more but that's not enough - and we have literally no speed on offence outside of chris moore who's got fewer than 500 yards total in his entire career

 

[MarkAndrewsOurSavior]

We were never going to fill all our holes in one offseason. I also don’t think any expected us to do that. I think it’s all nervousness due to anxiety because the Browns appear legitimately good and talented for once and now we’re all worried.

The only thing I am worried about from the browns is their front 4 and our oline. We will get absolutely obliterated up front, we can handle their offense as we still have one of the best secondaries in the league its just a matter as if we can get to baker

 

[Jacquouille]

The colts also had the best oline in the league and andrew luck came back... they were already a good team with luck at qb

We can have a top5 OL next year if we're serious about it. And we also are a good team, despite all the holes.

 

[rossihunter2]

This is definitely the big part. I think you can replace all of their current physical skill sets fairly easily. It's the mental side of the game that I'm really worried about. Losing that much leadership and football IQ is tough, and it's also tough to find someone from the outside who can come in and take on that role (Weddle being one of them). Someone internally has to step up, or we have to get lucky and find that rare guy.

i think the most crucial thing we've done is kept almost the entire DB corps (outside of weddle) because that's what makes wink's defence tick - with those guys in the secondary it opens up the ability to get exotic at the LoS with the alignments and blitz packages etc. but it needs guys with chemistry and pre-snap wizardry to be able to operate it well and that's the biggest loss

but yeah i think it's pretty telling so far that we've kept jimmy and the rest of that db group together - we've got 4 really good corners and a strong safety who improved in his 2nd year with us and we've even got a great dimebacker and some promising young safeties too

 

[Simba]

i think the most crucial thing we've done is kept almost the entire DB corps (outside of weddle) because that's what makes wink's defence tick - with those guys in the secondary it opens up the ability to get exotic at the LoS with the alignments and blitz packages etc. but it needs guys with chemistry and pre-snap wizardry to be able to operate it well and that's the biggest loss

but yeah i think it's pretty telling so far that we've kept jimmy and the rest of that db group together - we've got 4 really good corners and a strong safety who improved in his 2nd year with us and we've even got a great dimebacker and some promising young safeties too

I can't remember who tweeted it, but I saw something a couple weeks ago from one of the Twitter film review guys who had tons of praise for the Ravens secondary for getting shit done without a consistent pass rush. He said it was one of the rare cases where it wasn't a secondary being elevated by good play elsewhere - it was just a damn good secondary that does everything extremely well.

 

[allblackraven]

I can’t even see lamar being decent this year we have ABSOLUTELY NO ONE and the FA class for playmakers is god fucking awful after we missed on bell, we need at least 2wrs we need to hit on in the draft which i dont seeing, and we have a half an oline with the other half being newborn bums who will allow us to get absolutely bullied in the interior yet again

FFS, stop with Bell crap already. We didn't miss on him, we haven't even tried. We have no interest in Bell.

 

[MarkAndrewsOurSavior]

FFS, stop with Bell crap already. We didn't miss on him, we haven't even tried. We have no interest in Bell.

Bell was the only legit playmaker in this free agency, who is left that we can sign to help our franchise qb? Mark ingram and tate lol

 

[SepticeyePoe]

While Bell would have been nice solely for the fact that it's been a long time since this team has had a legit "superstar," I'm not hurt at all that we weren't even in. There's a lot of risk there, especially at that amount. I don't doubt that he would have made a big impact, but at the same time, it's a whole shitload of money to pay for a RB - even though I recognize that he does different things.

Otherwise, what is the expectation for DeCosta at this point? Are people really expecting him to go out and throw this big money at players who are clearly not worth it? I'd argue that Paradis is literally the only deal given so far that I would have matched, but his market was definitely slow and you have to think there's a deeper reason behind that. I don't know... I guess I just don't get it. You either complain about the fact that we have no players, or complain about the bad contracts and dead money. DeCosta is in a no win situation right now, and FA hasn't even technically started.

There are still a lot of quality players available and historically, that's where the Ravens do their work in FA. Let the bad teams throw the big money, and then come in and find the leftovers for a more reasonable rate. The Ingram deal would be surprising to me, but it would also depend on the numbers. I'd be highly shocked if it even approached $7.5M/year as some have said.

Just be patient. The only real guys we've lost so far are Mosley and Suggs. The rest were 100% expected. Mosley you simply couldn't pay $17M a year and I'd bet we can find better ways to spend that money, despite how much I wanted him to stay. Suggs is more of sentimental loss, and I'm sure we can find similar production for the money we were going to give him once things start to clear up.

I recall people here saying Paradis wasn't even a good fit for us anyway.

 

[rossihunter2]

I can't remember who tweeted it, but I saw something a couple weeks ago from one of the Twitter film review guys who had tons of praise for the Ravens secondary for getting shit done without a consistent pass rush. He said it was one of the rare cases where it wasn't a secondary being elevated by good play elsewhere - it was just a damn good secondary that does everything extremely well.

yeah it's a case where our defence worked back to front where we were able to get pressure because of how good our secondary was more often than not - rather than the common alternative where pressure makes the secondary work better

it's why big plays against us in the passing game were so rare because our secondary's ability to cover wasnt predicated on the pass rush eventually getting home

 

[rossihunter2]

I recall people here saying Paradis wasn't even a good fit for us anyway.

yeah he wasnt - perfect in more of a zone scheme which is why im not sure i understand the panthers signing him because they run mostly a power system - he wont be ineffective in a power scheme that runs lots of counters and isos like the panthers do but i think his ceiling is higher and he's more effective in a zone-based system

 

[Simba]

yeah it's a case where our defence worked back to front where we were able to get pressure because of how good our secondary was more often than not - rather than the common alternative where pressure makes the secondary work better

it's why big plays against us in the passing game were so rare because our secondary's ability to cover wasnt predicated on the pass rush eventually getting home

And the only piece we lost was Weddle, who was clearly the weak link when it comes to the physical part of the game. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see Jefferson in more of that disguise roamer type of role where he comes up to the line, bounces out to the TE, runs deep, etc. You have to be a little more calculated with that because Jefferson isn't really a FS, but you could also argue Weddle wasn't with his loss of speed. Obviously we'll take a little hit with Clark/Elliott/someone else, but the main pieces are still in place. If we can find a consistent pass rush, the defense could stay relatively strong. Maybe not 2018 levels, but good enough to still remain competitive.

 

[Militant X 1]

No doubt the moves the Browns are making is a big part of the current panic. They are set to be the favorites to take the division... by a fucking lot and for more than this year.

The Browns are for real! Remains to be seen how DeCosta demonstrates that the Ravens are serious contenders for the division as well.

 

[allblackraven]

The Browns are for real! Remains to be seen how DeCosta demonstrates that the Ravens are serious contenders for the division as well.

We'll try to do that in November/December, not like wannabe teams in March.

 

[rossihunter2]

And the only piece we lost was Weddle, who was clearly the weak link when it comes to the physical part of the game. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see Jefferson in more of that disguise roamer type of role where he comes up to the line, bounces out to the TE, runs deep, etc. You have to be a little more calculated with that because Jefferson isn't really a FS, but you could also argue Weddle wasn't with his loss of speed. Obviously we'll take a little hit with Clark/Elliott/someone else, but the main pieces are still in place. If we can find a consistent pass rush, the defense could stay relatively strong. Maybe not 2018 levels, but good enough to still remain competitive.

FS and SS are so fluid now that im not really worried about it in that sense - jefferson has been labelled as a box safety and is definitely effective when he's close to the LoS but he spent way more of his time in coverage and outside the box last year than inside - albeit its all a bit of a misnomer with the ravens where almost everyone lines up close to the LoS on a lot of obvious passing downs with the way we run that dime defence

im not worried about jefferson in that sense but im worried about the loss of adaptive on field playcalling and the loss of basically all our onfield communicators in 1 year

the main person i see who kind of moved around a lot making calls and adjustments pre-snap that we still have is anthony levine but you cant have a dimebacker calling your defence

im excited about chuck clark and deshon elliott's speed being added to that defence - we do lose weddle's cerebral pre-snap motion and all around boss playcalling etc. but we replace him with guys who have more range (and elliott has shown a knack for getting around the football already albeit in preseason games)

 

[Militant X 1]

We'll try to do that in November/December, not like wannabe teams in March.

That's all good in theory but the reality is that oftentimes what you do in March could lay the foundation for what takes place in November/December. Again, it remains to be seen what DeCosta does to get the Ravens back on top in the division.