Do you think that maybe it’s possible that those same players you listed for longevity purposes, are the exact reasons we were never able to sign a prime and premiere FA? Those guys are literally the reasons we were in cap hell from 12-18, most of them being extremely high priced and doing next to nothing on the field IF they even saw the field.
That’s what our drafting gets us.
And also let’s not act like this coaching staff developed any of those players. We haven’t developed a prospect into a quality player in idk how long aside from ZDS, Stanley, Judon, Tavon, Humphrey, pierce, and Lamar. Don’t tell me andrews because we didn’t develop him, that man was born a baller. That might be a decently long list but 2 of those players are above average at best and will command top dollar anyway, one has been injured for 50% of his career, and one is a run stuffer and nothing more. Stanley, Humphrey, and Lamar are looking like the only players we’ve been able to develop into real deal franchise caliber players. We’ve been horrible at drafting and even worse at developing. The stockpiling of picks and re signing our average home grown talents and not having the cap space to make splash moves as a result, has been the reason we’ve hovered at .500 for 7 years.
You’re suggesting more of the same it sounds like. This team needs to make some splash moves while they have a star qb and some other offensive stars on rookie deals(assuming Hollywood actually becomes a star). This whole stockpiling picks and being frugal thing has not worked before and it won’t work now. This team can’t draft or develop pass rushers and until we make a move for a proven entity there then we will get carved up by every solid qb in the league
And also you talk about length, but despite these players typically staying 2-3 years, they’re often some of the best players on the team for that stretch. Steve Smith, dumervil, Daryl Smith, Eric weddle, we’re all honestly in the conversation for best player on the team at some point in their time here, Steve Smith went on a tear in year 1 and before his Achilles in year 2 was on a league leading pace, dumervil was racing for top sacker in the league, Daryl Smith was an absolute stud and our 2nd best defender after jimmy in 2013, weddle as we now see was the glue to the leagues best secondary.
Of those long term guys you mentioned we had jimmy who can fall into that same category and even he has hindered our cap big time while sitting on the trainers table
1. To answer you question... no, not really. I don't think those players are the main reasons why he haven't signed premiere FAs. I don't think we would have signed premier FAs even if we didn't have Pitta's dead money, or Ray Rice's dead money (really shouldn't be in this argument, since predicting or anticipating his demise isn't really possible). We didn't have a GM or assistant GM who really liked to sign premier FAs, and if we had more capital, we would have retained our own players instead. We would have kept KO and/or Wagner, and we probably would have kept CJ too. I'm not even sure there's a reasonable argument to be had that the Ravens would have really even considered going after a top tier FA in any of those previous years.
The reality is that, from a cap perspective, it begins and ends with Joe. None of the other players really matter. Nobody really thinks we weren't able to build better than an average roster for 5-6 years because Dennis Pitta cost like $7M one year in dead money, or Monroe cost like $7M another year. Even Rice's impact was completely gone by 2016. Like these guys just never made that much, then or now.
When you have a QB who's taking up 20% of the salary cap space, you have to draft your way to better players. There's no way around it. Everybody knew you had to commit to him after 2012, everybody knew by 2015 that the structure of that contract was terrible, and everybody knew in 2016 that you had to restructure it.
2. Sure, some of those players were among the best on the team. That's not saying much however, because on better teams, they wouldn't be. Steve Smith is the best receiver on your team because you make virtually no commitment, FA or the draft, to add talent to the position. Same thing with Safety... we haven't really even attempted to have a young, quality Safety on this team in over a decade. All we've done for the last decade plus is sign FA safeties... literally. Part of that is from poor drafting, and the other part is from not drafting at all. Legitimately not even making an attempt to get better players there.
3. I'm not sure where you're expecting to find all these stud players to be honest. A baron wasteland would be a good description of the place you go to find FA pass rushers, WRs, etc. There's a reason they're not available... because most teams in the league have plenty of money to spend, and most teams have no issue paying them if they want to keep them. In case you hadn't noticed, there are minimal teams who can't afford to retain their own players if they want to. And if they don't want to, we should be asking why.
You'll end up paying top dollar for guys like Judon and ZaDarius Smith. Those are the guys who are available. Von Miller's don't become available. There's only one place you can find those guys, and its not FA.
You can find a Dumervil... a 30 year old guy with 1-2 solid years left. And that's what we got out of him mostly. Those are the guys who are available in FA most of the time.