Exactly. He's far from infallible but we could also be Tennessee or New Orleans or either New York team or insert probably 15 other teams here.
-
Welcome to PurpleFlock! Sign up here so that you can chat with your fellow Ravens fans.
The Embarrassment, the Blowout and the Coaching
- Thread starter rossihunter2
- Start date
Which ones? I'm drawing blanks here. Smith was one with the benefit of hindsight, but that guy took a leap immediately after leaving that few could foresee coming. Granted, we did franchise tag Matt Judon, which was undeserved. I don't think we got rid of that guy fast enough.
This is broadcast tape review and only a bit into Q2, but I'm gonna stick steadfast on my defensive assessment to this point... it is somehow the most vanilla and most complex philosophy at the same time. I don't even know how to evaluate players in this mess right now.
These guys are absolutely lost in zone. Multiple guys seemingly occupying the same spot near constantly. And yes, there's some blame to the players for not being disciplined, but we're 5 weeks in at this point and the same issues have plagued us for 4 of the 5 games. Something has to give schematically to make this thing work, especially with a bunch of young guys coming in fairly cold.
Communication looks awful and I'm sure that's an extension of the above and a rookie having the green dot. Starks and Lowery looked like they were trying to figure out shit on the fly on the backend.
And then it just looks like we have guys thinking and thus trying to do too much. I've seen multiple reps where an edge guy has seemingly thought about contain on an obvious pass vs. going to get the QB. An extension beyond this game, but I don't think it's a heavy coincidence that Mike Green was excelling in preseason in a vanilla, go get get the QB type of defense. Now they've got him playing contain, dropping into coverage, taking snaps at SLB for some reason, etc. Preaching the fundamentals is useless if a guy has to think so much that he can't maintain the fundamentals.
And finally, we're going nowhere with this DL. Jones is obviously still hurt so maybe him getting healthy gets us back to something positive. Jenkins has been a more than fine rotational option that unfortunately has had to take way too many snaps. The rest have had flashes but they are consistently getting dominated off the snap. We're never going to win when we're losing that war so badly.
I don't even know if I'll watch anything beyond what I have because there's genuinely nothing fruitful to take out of it without knowing the calls and responsibilities fully. It's just a constant mess of confusion and losing battles.
These guys are absolutely lost in zone. Multiple guys seemingly occupying the same spot near constantly. And yes, there's some blame to the players for not being disciplined, but we're 5 weeks in at this point and the same issues have plagued us for 4 of the 5 games. Something has to give schematically to make this thing work, especially with a bunch of young guys coming in fairly cold.
Communication looks awful and I'm sure that's an extension of the above and a rookie having the green dot. Starks and Lowery looked like they were trying to figure out shit on the fly on the backend.
And then it just looks like we have guys thinking and thus trying to do too much. I've seen multiple reps where an edge guy has seemingly thought about contain on an obvious pass vs. going to get the QB. An extension beyond this game, but I don't think it's a heavy coincidence that Mike Green was excelling in preseason in a vanilla, go get get the QB type of defense. Now they've got him playing contain, dropping into coverage, taking snaps at SLB for some reason, etc. Preaching the fundamentals is useless if a guy has to think so much that he can't maintain the fundamentals.
And finally, we're going nowhere with this DL. Jones is obviously still hurt so maybe him getting healthy gets us back to something positive. Jenkins has been a more than fine rotational option that unfortunately has had to take way too many snaps. The rest have had flashes but they are consistently getting dominated off the snap. We're never going to win when we're losing that war so badly.
I don't even know if I'll watch anything beyond what I have because there's genuinely nothing fruitful to take out of it without knowing the calls and responsibilities fully. It's just a constant mess of confusion and losing battles.
Davesta
Ravens Ring of Honor
gtalk12
Ravens Ring of Honor
The year Judon walked we also lost Yannick and Jihad Ward. That was the year we drafted a guy with no sacks in Oweh and what was left of Justin Houston.
Judon was a bonehead but he produced for us. I am not a fan of letting guys who produced walk if they are affordable which in most cases it seems like we penny pinched.
Now I see this kid Robinson who is clearly a good piece to have. Are we going to let him walk too? Our defensive line has been vulnerable for too long and thanks to Mads we had the illusion of a decent line.
I don't think the right move was to let all these guys walk nor am I saying we keep them all but shouldn't we have kept at least 1 or 2 of these guys?
Jihad Ward
Patrick Queen
Judon
ZDS
Calais
Clowney
OL is also super jekyll and hyde right now. They can be great at run blocking and terrible and pass blocking one week, and then flip it around the next. It looks like the latter this week. Feel like it was actually one of the better pass protection weeks this season. Do think we'd benefit by spreading the offense out a bit to try to get the run game going again. But a week with Cooper Rush at the helm doesn't say much.
rmcjacket23
Ravens Ring of Honor
I've seen people calling for Huntley after one week.
To be clear, I think Huntley is dogshit and always has. I think he's basically like a fringe 3rd stringer, and nowhere close to a competent backup.
IF this team had a defense that could hold teams under 20, and a running game that actually worked, I'd put Huntley out there. If nothing else because he'll be super conservative, run a lot, and hopefully avoid big mistakes.
I want Rush out there because he's clearly not afraid to throw the ball, not afraid to throw it down field, and shouldn't give a fuck if he has turnovers. This team is going to need to score 20+ every single week to have a chance to compete right now. We're not good enough to play ball control and win a mucked up game.
I want absolutely nothing to do with seeing Tyler Huntley throw it 30+ times.
3 INTs looks bad but Andrews bobbled one and Bateman pulled up on one. I'm not faulting him for those. Do wish he'd speed up his reads a little but because he threw some other danger balls by keying late, but I'd still run it back and see what happens.
i dont know that there's a list of GMs that would reasonably have EDC outside of the top 10
in hindsight, patrick queen was a big loss
zeitler is probably the only guy that got away recently that you'd have any real regrets about
JoeyFlex5
Hall of Famer
I feel like a good bit of EDCs roster building philosophy on offense is influenced by Lamar, and on defense it’s been circumstantial. Lamar makes for an unorthodox offense and a RB/TE group gets a shit ton more value out of Lamar for less capital than WRs and OL, but it hasn’t worked out long term because the OL has just been ignored too much.
On defense I think it’s just been hard to get our hands on edge and interior rushers, and much easier to find high end talents(at the time) at positions like S, CB, and LB.
It really is a shame that year after year it feels like the obvious best player available has been a db because that’s just how the board fell, there’s been an abundance of DB talent coming out of college to the point that they keep falling to our late first.
I wouldn’t have wanted any available player over Wiggins or Hamilton for example, not at the time of picking, not even close. I loved Jordan Davis but I was ecstatic that the eagles jumped us for him instead of Hamilton, and I was ecstatic that Wiggins was the guy that fell instead of Terrion Arnold. Hard to fault Eric for those picks, but when it keeps happening we really suffer as a team, especially when the defensive playcalling is nullifying the huge investment we’ve made.
Ward has been statistically one of the least effective and efficient pass rushers in the league since leaving us, so I'm surprised to see him mentioned. I personally thought he was middling in Baltimore, but within the 3 years of leaving us, the highest he's ranked in either win rate percentage or pressure per rush was 137th. He'd be by far the most affordable of the bunch, but I wouldn't consider him worthy of a roster spot, let alone future regret.
Queen has thankfully been abysmal since departing. He's been one of the worst coverage linebackers of anyone playing full-time since 2024. Could he have fared better here? Perhaps. But he's playing in a solid front seven and is struggling despite the surrounding talent. It's a bullet dodged given that he's one of the Top 7 highest paid LBs in football.
Judon wasn't just a headcase. He was one of the biggest cleanup artists Pro-Bowlers I've charted since Connor Barwin. I went back and looked at my season review of his. I'll spare you the long notes, but of the 14 QB hits and 7 sacks, I counted 2 and 3, respectively, that he himself created. He went on to become the highest paid Patriot defender in franchise history and continued the trend but on a larger scale. An overpaid paper tiger, in my eyes.
Smith is arguably the biggest what-if, but he also looked like a totally different player in Green Bay. They paid him on what they hoped he'd be and it paid off, but that isn't a sound business strategy when you're giving out top contracts. With the benefit of hindsight, he was the best player that left and dominated thereafter.
Campbell would be at the top of my list of the ones I would've loved to keep. I think his presence both on and off the field was invaluable. Him and Kevin Zeitler are at the top of the list.
Clowney definitely had some juice left in the tank. He did sign a two-year $20 million contract, which I believe we couldn't afford, but I could be mistaken.
JoeyFlex5
Hall of Famer
Agreed, we’ve been so close and it’s been working for us up until the toughest games in January, and we also have aging veterans at some spots so we’re drafting guys that we won’t “need” for another 1-2 years, so it could be that Eric felt there was no need to shift away, but now things have just come to a head.
This would absolutely be the time for Eric to shift philosophy, see if you can just take your attitude towards taking best player available, and limit the positional groups so you are addressing the places where you’re totally barren of talent, and applying your philosophy to only these positions, namely DL/edge and OL. Spend 2 drafts attacking the absolute shit out of both trenches because at this point we’ve exhausted the secondary with first round picks
And just to add on here to be clear, I am far from suggesting that we give up the whole draft to move up 20 spots in the early rounds. That's not a path to success. But if you're within a few picks in the day 2-early day 3 range and there's a guy you like, use that mid-late pick and get that guy. I understand the need for cheap depth with us paying so many guys, but a CB7 or WR6 that may get his fighting chance in 3 years is much less valuable to me than taking a swing at filling a hole.
gtalk12
Ravens Ring of Honor
To me there is value in guys who played decent for us. Queen played significantly better next to Ro. Right now, any of those guys would help us.
Hindsight is 20/20 of course.
Zeitler walking was huge. Tyler is working between two guards with terrible play right now. Especially to his left.
exactly this
this year is probably the year i would have taken the non-DB and taken josh simmons over starks but it's not like starks was a reach or anything
it feels like a trend because we've drafted 3 DBs in the first round in 4 years but correlation does not equal causation...
and while 1st round picks are important, we've also drafted in the first 2 rounds since 2019:
3 WR
3 DB
3 EDGE
2 OL
1 LB
1 RB
If I expand it to first 3 rounds:
5 WR
5 EDGE
5 OL
4 DB
3 LB
2 DL
1 RB
does that not look like prioritising high value positions???
the issue has been that we've been unfortunate that the EDGEs haven't panned out for various reasons and that it's rare we get a chance to grab a high-quality DL
also because you consistently find role players in undrafted free agency
all the more reason to take a risk and see if you can grab 1 more good prospect on day 2
And we generally do well in phase 46 of free agency too. If you have to replace a draft pick with someone on the vet minimum for 4 years in a row, so be it.
rmcjacket23
Ravens Ring of Honor
I frankly have no issues with how we've approached first round picks, or what we've done with the secondary.
For me, it comes down to understanding your organizational strengths/weaknesses, and most importantly, understanding which positions you can without high end players and which one's you can't. It's not universal of course, but it's not overly hard.
The main questions are around positional value. Was paying $20M/yr to an off-ball linebacker the best use of financial resources? As good as he was last year, there's questions about whether giving $15M/yr to a 30 year old RB is a good use of financial resources. You could question whether paying $13M on a 5th year option to an OLB who doesn't have a strong track record of getting to the QB is a good use of financial resources. Was $11M for Mark Andrews a good use of financial resources?
I think if you looked league wide, off-ball linebackers and RBs are two positions that a lot of teams simply go "cheap" on, because most running games live or die by the Olineman in front of them, not a lot of teams can run the ball well anyway (making off-ball LB play less important), teams run a lot more Nickel/Dime packages than ever, which takes off-ball LBs off the field, and most of them can't cover anyway.
I think even if you look at the EDC era, I think our draft strengths are in the secondary and at TE, meaning I feel better about our ability to draft and develop players in those groups than I would paying for them. I actually think our Dline work has been pretty good, especially in run D, though its hard to find premier interior rushers where we typically draft.
Where we are clearly weak, draft-wise, is on outside pass rushers and interior Oline. We've struggled in that area for a long time now. That, in my opinion, means we should prioritize those positions via FA or via trade markets. The latter we've done some of, the former we've done very little of.