Ravensnation5220
Ravens Ring of Honor
Yup we are in agreement this year for a change lol
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The Random Thought Thread
- Thread starter The Greek
- Start date
Honestly I'm very worried about Miller's injury issues... I know he's a good player but so is Campanaro and I don't want to draft Camp 2.0 in the second.
Oldfaithful
Hall of Famer
http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/ravens/ravens-insider/bs-sp-ravens-mailbag-20180223-story.html
Not happy about Woodhead being released at all. He's old but that man can still go to work.
Let's release one of the only things about our offense that didn't totally suck last offseason. Good job FO. Fuck you Ozzie.
Not happy about Woodhead being released at all. He's old but that man can still go to work.
Let's release one of the only things about our offense that didn't totally suck last offseason. Good job FO. Fuck you Ozzie.
allblackraven
Hall of Famer
Bah, he'll miss half the season again
Oldfaithful
Hall of Famer
I could see that being a massive issue if he wasn't so cheap to begin with. We're talking about a super reasonable contract. Sure, "we're desperate" but he's one of the few things that DOES work about this offense.
As we approach FA I do have to wonder what our move is. I'd personally go find a cap casualty and get Norwell to beef up the oline. Move Yanda to C to prolong his career. Get a few pass catchers in the draft and solidify the final Oline spot on the team somehow. But I do think we go after more defenders than anticpated in FA. I'd be fine with Todd Davis, Avery Williamson, or Nigel Bradham, but I just don't know
it kills me that wagner got injured in the game vs us - that injury against us (when we were wiping the floor with the lions anyway) has lost us 3 rounds of a comp pick...
self-harm at its best
also 100% agreed no way we should be cutting woodhead
DeVito52
Ravens Ring of Honor
Woodhead has played 2,3, and 8 games in 3 of the last 4 seasons.
Woodhead is a good player, but availability is the best ability. The same people that are arguing that Carr should stay because of his durability are the same ones that should be saying it wouldn’t be a terrible decision to let Woodhead go. Yes he’s cheap but I’d rather take a later round Swiss Army knife type RB to replace him. If we have an idea on how we are going to replace him, I’m fine with letting him go.
Woodhead is a good player, but availability is the best ability. The same people that are arguing that Carr should stay because of his durability are the same ones that should be saying it wouldn’t be a terrible decision to let Woodhead go. Yes he’s cheap but I’d rather take a later round Swiss Army knife type RB to replace him. If we have an idea on how we are going to replace him, I’m fine with letting him go.
allblackraven
Hall of Famer
I personally only wish that we don't screw ourselves for the future by being too creative with restructures and ride the season as best as we can because, honestly, we have no shot of making it to post season. Time to start the purge, get DeCosta clean table, let him find the coach he wants to work with and start building the real team.
I wouldn't mind letting Woodhead go and draft a scat back in the late rounds.
Tank
Hall of Famer
Did I miss something? He's not gone yet.
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cdp
Ravens Ring of Honor
I just browsed through some possible restructures. B.Williams could've been cut 2019 before the 1st restructure happenend,now we can't cut him in 2019 and maybe even 2020. The F.O. really needs to structure these contracts better. No workout bonuses and barely a roster option n any contract.
I personally wouldn't do any restructure at all, none of the possible contracts are structurewise interesting to me. Only way is to extend Jimmy, C.J or Yanda.
availability is only the most important ability when the rest of your team's receiving options aren't trash...
woodhead brings something to the table that no one else on the team offers (outside of maybe campanaro who is also a free agent and also struggles with availability) - our passing offence was at its best when woodhead was on the field - he's the best blocking tailback we have and he's one of the top route runners on the team at any position and can split wide, into the slot, into a blocking set and into the backfield and be a threat in all of those separate situations...
if we find a young guy in the draft then sure you can think about cutting him but i dont see why we would cut him when it would save us hardly any money at all - we save 800k against the cap by cutting him which makes not a jot of sense to me...
Oldfaithful
Hall of Famer
Nope. Giving up is not a good idea. Throw in the towel?
I know you're not particularly high on the team but a total rebuild would be asinine. Next year's schedule worries me too but there's a few teams that we can give trouble. Denver is a beatable team even if they get Cousins(that oline is abysmal and that defense was gutted and will continue to be gutted if they want to get him), KC will likely have somewhat of a down year with Mahomes there(sure he looked good in his one start but defenses will eventually get into his head), Tampa Bay can never seem to get it together, Falcons are beatable so long as Sark is still their OC though it will be a tough game to win, Carolina. Pittsburgh's defense is PATHETIC and they have even less room to work with and they're gonna probably lose a few key players in an effort to keep Bell so they are likely to be more beatable. The Browns even if they take the right QB(Rosen) are still young and might have growing pains. Oakland's defense needs SERIOUS work overall outside of Mack and it's unlikely they can fix all of their needs in one year, though I do expect Carr to bounce back. That will be a tough game. San Diego is a sneaky super bowl contender. Carolina is a tough matchup but if we make some upgrades on offense they're beatable. Buffalo is a winnable game.
It's a tough schedule but giving up is just a stupid idea. With the right moves, in a PATHETIC AFC.. Playoffs is not impossible.
Here's why I think that.
Defensively we're set for the future. Sure, Suggs and Weddle are two of our best players and are older but Weddle has always been more of a positional football IQ guy and Suggs looked like he still was a great athlete for the position and turned the clock back somehow. Plus pass rushers like Suggs who are very technical have been able to be effective later into their careers even with a decrease in snaps. Not to mention you always need veteran leadership and Weddle is still one of the smartest defensive backs in the league and it'll be interesting to see him operate without Pees' complicated scheme where he would take Jefferson's duties away, and Jefferson would take away his duties.
Jimmy may be injury prone but the secondary is still set. Tavon Young looked incredibly promising as a rookie both on the inside and the outside. Canaday looked good as a slot CB too, and Humphrey played like a legit #1 as a rookie depsite a few fools wanting to move him to strong safety. Jefferson's "bad" season was an exaggeration if anything and him in a more aggressive defense is a VERY promising thing. CJ Mosley played through an injury in the back half of the season.. And it showed especially in coverage. Especially in the PIT game. And @Truth pointed out that we lined him up too far back. A healthy CJ is NOT an overrated LB.
Defense blew it down the stretch but injuries were a far bigger detriment than you give us credit for..
Offensively is where we have issues. Consider this. Flacco is getting older and looked MUCH better in the second half. Why? You may think it's because of his no caring attitude(which is bullshit. He has on numerous occasions throughout the years held himself accountable) finally fading. I think there were two factors at play here. 1. I believe the coachspeak about the back injury. He just looked uncomfortable for the first half and stiffer than usual. 2. His mechanics cleaned themselves up post injury. Sure the WRs sucked and the oline was overrated due to competition. But Flacco was sharp in the second half. Make no mistake, he's not the reason we lost the Bengals game in the second half. He showed up and brought the team back. My confidence in Joe, which at times I was chastised for, was confirmed. He stays healthy his inconsistencies be damned.. I think he can win us another SB. I think Urban does wonders for him as he's had success as a QB coach.
The one positive that did come out of last season for us is we found our identity again on offense in the second half of the season. Collins is a franchise back. He made that offensive line look better than it actually was. Skura and Hurst were both ABYSMAL last season and he still almost broke 1000 despite him not getting significant playing time until halfway through the season. It is not a coincidence that the offense got it's shit together when we finally figured out to stop relying heavily on the committee and to lean on him more. We make upgrades on the oline and suddenly Collins is probably a top 10 RB in terms of yard wise if he can stay healthy and play the full season. Hell, he would've been that THIS season if we used him more. Add in the fact that a healthy Dixon is a borderline starter himself and we suddenly might have one of the better tandems in the league. Both of them can create their own yards. We go go get real guards and move Yanda to center and Collins might actually be a pro bowler. We found the man we should run the offense through. It's a shame we are letting Woodhead, but Dixon is a quality receiving option out of the backfield himself.
And... if we make acquisitions in the passing game. They don't even have to be elite, just good enough.
Sorry dude. Flacco is 33. Back half of last year proved to me that he could still play. That means we have a small window of opportunity. You really want to give up? That's what quitters do. We're in more of a position to succeed than fail. This team is literally one or two offensive linemen away(and we still have to account for Yanda coming back) and a few WRs away from being one of the most balanced teams in the league.
It won't be an easy road. And failure is a possibility. But blowing up the team and rebuilding when we're not in the worst position ever is just a dumb idea. We play our cards right we could very well be the best team in the division next year given that the Steelers themselves are going to have to purge certain areas of the team to keep Bell.
allblackraven
Hall of Famer
#22 isn't getting tougher, Weddle and Suggs aren't getting faster. And they were our 3 best players on defense. Add Carr (shows always but can't cover deep) and few younger players coming off serious injuries and you have Humphrey and Jefferson, to less extent Canady, to rely on in that secondary.
Apart from Judon, our pass rush sucks big time - off the edge and from the inside. Since coach Brooks passed, our D lineman forgot to play. We have a single proper inside linebacker. We still have no idea what Bowser and Tim Williams can do.
On the offense, just how do you propose to find few WRs we're now short of with what looks to be underwhelming FA and our miserable cap space?
BTW, Crockett Gillmore gained 40 pounds and is being evaluated as a possible O line addition. That's what we can afford.
I never said we should give up but I try to be objective and realise that we don't have resources to do anything meaningful in this FA and a quick glance at our schedule makes me think we'd do real well if we don't have a losing 2018 season.
Your optimism is not backed up by reality.
Oldfaithful
Hall of Famer
No. Your outlook doesn't account for all scenarios. Reality is a harsh bitch sometimes, but there's a way to make this work. Manipulating cap space is not as difficult to do as you think.
1. There's ways to open up cap that wouldn't screw us over for the future. You are forgetting to account the fact that the cap has gone up a substantial amount every year, and will probably continue to do so for awhile. So fuck that excuse. Especially since we are reaching the point where a lot of our people in the future will be off the books 2 years from now anyway.
2. Sure.. We have unknowns, but those two are unknowns with upside. The NFL is full of unknowns. For all we know Bowser may be what we're looking for as a coverage backer. Sometimes you have to take a gamble. This is one of those times. Welcome to the NFL. We never know what we have with rookies and we still play them. We didn't know what we had with Collins, we gave him reps, he performed.
3. Um... No. Your notion about Brooks is fucking bullshit. Henry was a quality player for us this year and Pierce and Davis both progressed in terms of development. We don't have an elite talent on the dline but that's the issue. Not the coaching. The dline was not the reason the run defense suffered. I'm tired of that myth. Henry and the others actually graded well in run defense.
Alright. And for your optimism bullshit. No. My optimism has a scenario where it works in reality. You can manipulate a fair amount of cap if we cut off some dead weight and re-purpose resources to the future. Which is the right move here. This "give up" mentality, is how teams end up like the Browns. Two decades of utter failure. I'm glad the fans don't run the team for this reason and this reason alone. The NFL is a marathon, but some teams in long distance mode, and some teams in short distance sprinting mode to get to the finish line. We are approaching the end of our run and have to make moves. We have a few pieces that need to be added and your reasons for being pessimistic are unreasonable, blinded by your utter hatred for Harbaugh for unbestknown to me reasons(I mean I'm not fond of him either but he's not the main issue). I mean I have my issues with him, but he's not the main problem in the slightest
You want reality? I'll give you reality since you decided to just throw my opinion to the side
We can open up $14 million of cap room by cutting Carr, Howard, Webb, Woodhead, Maclin. We're going to extend CJ, likely a backloaded one, we can probably open up $4 mil of cap room there. Jimmy is going to get extended too, likely open up some cap this year. That should put it around $33 mil of space. Yanda and Weddle are paycut candidates, so possibly more. Sure, ERFAs are a thing but outside of Jensen we have nobody worth resigning. Tbh. But we can afford more than Crockett Gillmore even after all the cuts and we both know it. Don't give me that bullshit because that's what it is. Don't give me this bullshit that there's a way this doesn't work.The draft also needs to have some resources allocated to it but your belief that we are totally fucked cap wise is just false. We've done more with less and some of the guys we want to keep are not going to be expensive.
Future be damned. We're in sprint mode. Go big or go home. Harbaugh is in his last stand. Sure, we have to overcome adversity but what NFL team doesn't. It may look bleak but there's a way to make it work. It may not be a way you like, but you don't run the team, and outside of @Truth I'm glad none of us run it either.
I have my concerns too and am not as optimistic as you think I am.. But there is a way to make this work and we all know it. There are teams with less cap, and a lot of the teams with a ton of cap are going to spend it on their guys. The fact that we were in active trade negotiations for Jarvis Landry show that the FO has some kind of a plan for the cap. Your "reality" is exaggerated pessimism. It may not look it, but we are in a far better position than we were last season. Our team was better than it was last season, especially down the stretch. Injuries killed us but now we have depth at every position on the defense except for ILB, where we could use another coverage guy. There's a ton of high upside guys here that might benefit massively from the scheme change(I know Micheal Pierce and Henry are probably VERY happy about it). It's the offense I'm more worried about but this team is a defensive team. That's not the problem in the slightest. So what if we have unknowns. Welcome to the NFL.
Nobody saw Jacksonville and Minnesota being this good this season. Nobody thought we could do shit in 2014. Nobody thought we could win it all in 2012 with the injuries we had. Guess what all of those had in common? They took gambles, only Jacksonville spent a hefty amount of money in FA and they took risks. We have to do the same.
So don't you dare say that my optimism is not grounded in reality. There's a scenario where all of this crap works. Smh
DeVito52
Ravens Ring of Honor
Which is why I doubt we cut him. I’m just saying I don’t want to have to rely on him. A good scenario would be that we keep him AND draft a good replacement for him.
Oldfaithful
Hall of Famer
I could see us cutting him because we are getting Dixon back as the #2 and he's a quality receiving option and so is Buck if we're being honest.
I don't want to do it, I think it's dumb, but I somewhat get it. Those three are a young corps and frankly have the potential to be one of the best RB trios in the league.
They are different types of receiving options though - dixon I’ve not seen enough of his route running to tell for sure but buck isn’t a route runner - he’s more of a sure pair of hands in the flat or checking down but not much more
Woodhead is a bona fide route runner - If im honest id think of him more as a slot receiver than a running back
allblackraven
Hall of Famer
That doesn't work for me. Don't want backloaded contract extensions.
I understand the negative to backloaded contracts, but with the cap going up as much as it has the last several years, it's not as much a negative as it was in the past. Sure it would be great to keep contracts level, but in reality, it doesn't work that way that often anymore.