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The Random Thought Thread
- Thread starter The Greek
- Start date
i want to see stephens continue to trigger on stuff quicker - especially running the alley and as the deep safety coming downhill and breaking on some of the underneath stuff
but the upside he's shown is awesome - he's already fit in really well within the coverage unit and has shown some great communication and instincts in zone picking up and passing guys off and in man coverage he's got corner technique and great burst and speed to close on the ball
Ellicottraven
Ravens Ring of Honor
He clearly is mad to even make that blasphemous suggestion.
JoeyFlex5
Hall of Famer
I think with Stephens we not only got a “good” player in round 3, I think we got a special player. Stephens is so far ahead of where you would expect him to be, he’s just a football inclined individual, he’s got it between the ears, and he’s also athletically gifted.
idk about special but he's about as athletically gifted as you can be for a safety - we havent seen that manifest in any sort of range over the top yet but that will come as he sees more
safeties for the ravens this year when playing single-high have been playing so deep it's like they're on a different planet and they truly become a "safety valve" rather than a true threat in the coverage
i think what we've seen so far is a natural feel for coverage and some athletic gifts and some intelligence - i think the big step is going to come from experience, game-time and film-study... worth remembering this only like his 3rd year of playing defence and his 1st year playing safety - those pictures he's seeing are still somewhat the wrong way around
JoeyFlex5
Hall of Famer
That’s what I’m saying though. He’s looking like this in the nfl and he started playing defense at a small school 2 years ago and at a different position than he’s playing for us as a rookie.
not that he’s playing special right now, just that if he looks like this, given the situation, then I think he’s gonna be special.
At a bare minimum, he should be a matchup specialist type of guy. Still a lot of room to grow there so you hope you get more but I'd be surprised if we don't get something good out of him with what he's shown so far. Just extremely moldable and shows a lot of things that you don't see from a rookie too often.
100% - already showing us that he's at least a decent replacement level safety (and probably already better than that tbh)
but it was a great sign that since early in training camp he clearly was already the 3rd safety and starting dimebacker (a role we thought might be jimmy smith's) and then even better when that held over into preseason and into week 1 - and he clearly just fit well with confidence in that role - communicated well and really the most encouraging was the way he was seamlessly picking and dropping off guys in coverage as that deep safety (and i can think of 1 PD in the redzone earlier in the year that was exceptionally quick processing from Stephens)
Dom McRaven
Hall of Famer
Now..................if ONLY we can get rid of these communication breakdowns from the secondary as a whole.
Browns loss now means that the highest we can pick is 14th
range of outcomes if ravens lose against the steelers is only 14th-16th (and 18th if we win)
the only games that matter in terms of where we pick (excluding worrying about playoffs)
Steelers - Ravens
Saints - Falcons
Dolphins - Pats
range of outcomes if ravens lose against the steelers is only 14th-16th (and 18th if we win)
the only games that matter in terms of where we pick (excluding worrying about playoffs)
Steelers - Ravens
Saints - Falcons
Dolphins - Pats
amazing how pissed we all were when we signed him. I mean Rossi, who watches 3,000 players hadn't even heard of him.
Such a weird draft completely devoid of talent, and there was still a guy none of us knew. Made me feel good when they started pumping him up on the feed though saying lots of teams liked him. Shows that teams really cast a wide net.
I think that comes from all the youth that has had to play. I mean in 90% of the games we seem to run into each other.
as limited as this draft was we still were lucky enough to land Bateman and Oweh late in the 1st, Stephens in the 3rd and even Wallace seems like he has some potential. If Cleveland can step up in year two and Ar'Darius Washington, than we nailed it.
Best thing we did was trade a pick for a 4th rounder in the 2022nd draft.
Dom McRaven
Hall of Famer
We owe his play to Dom, due to him #SIIE'ing him
@lostintranslation texted me after the pick and said, well atleast it's not Shawn Wade. I swear to god he said that. lol
we should have been able to guess something was up after malcolm koonce who was a day 3 type player got taken in the mid-3rd and then the cowboys took nahshon wright who nobody had ever heard of from oregon state lol and who's only notable play so far this year was being the recipient of a helmet catch on special teams this week against the cardinals
at least when i looked up stephens straight afterwards i could find people who'd done breakdowns and been hyping him up as under the radar - my guess is that a lot of the big draft media analysts just didnt ask for or didnt watch smu tape last year (in the same way that who's asking for oregon state tape lol)
but yeah you could see by the fact that we happily just gave a pick away for a 2022 one and also picked a FB we clearly had no intention to keep that this draft was short on depth
im gonna need Tyre to get healthy and Cleveland to go do some yoga or pilates or something and come back and compete for that G role and let's finally have someone just outright win it in camp and not get injured - tbf to Tyre he's won the RG and LG start in 2 consecutive offseasons and then got injured and we've had to have Powers play a bajillion too many games - ill be very disappointed if Powers wins that competition by default (again)
it's a shame ardarius got injured when he did (and mid-week too) because there have been snaps for him down the stretch which would have been nice to get under his belt at both corner and safety
Dom McRaven
Hall of Famer
I can not wait to hear all of you guys analyses on these upcoming draft prospects. Looking forward to see which candidates I want to #SIIE.