Signings, Cuts, Trades

[RavensMania]

I actually like this move. Urban was decent last year and Worley seemed like he had potential.

I like the plan of adding cheap role players in FA. (Maybe it's another positive Lamar sign too?) I'd like the Ravens biggish FA move to be at corner, where there are better options and value, and tackle WR via the draft.

For one thing, the Ravens already have a lot of young CBs and it doesn't seem like EDC has a very good eye for drafting them, do we really want to clog the roster up with more when there might be affordable ready made answers available.

On the other hand the FA WR picture looks grim. A useful player is going to be expensive. EDC actually has a better draft record at WR than CB, too.
My plan would be to re-sign Robinson, add another vet at about that level and then double up on WR in the draft.

I like the Urban and Worley signings as well, but to say that EDC doesn't have a good eye at drafting CB's is ridiculous. He hasn't drafted one above the 4th round, but he has drafted Safeties high. He had a say in Humphrey. He may not have been the GM, but he had a lot of input into drafting him. I'm going to have to disagree with you on that point, but you are entitled to your opinion.

 

[UPennChem]

Worley had weeks where he was a straight up animal in coverage

I think he's legitimately good enough to make the 53 as CB5/6

 

[QtR Nevermore]

I like the Urban and Worley signings as well, but to say that EDC doesn't have a good eye at drafting CB's is ridiculous. He hasn't drafted one above the 4th round, but he has drafted Safeties high. He had a say in Humphrey. He may not have been the GM, but he had a lot of input into drafting him. I'm going to have to disagree with you on that point, but you are entitled to your opinion.

Stephens was a 3rd (just barely)

EDC hasn't drafted a corner high, but he has taken a 3rd, 3 4ths and a 5th and only had a mixture of busts (Wade Iman) , disappointments (Stephens, Pepe), and disappointments heading towards bust status (Armour Davies) to show for it.

You don't expect perfection in the mid-to - late rounds but nor do you expect very little to nothing at all from 5 picks between 104 - 160. That's still a useful stretch of the draft. I'd say that's a disappointing return so far.

Peters trade aside, his FA moves at the position haven't worked out great either, so it's fair to question his eye for the position.

 

[rmcjacket23]

Stephens was a 3rd (just barely)

EDC hasn't drafted a corner high, but he has taken a 3rd, 3 4ths and a 5th and only had a mixture of busts (Wade Iman) , disappointments (Stephens, Pepe), and disappointments heading towards bust status (Armour Davies) to show for it.

You don't expect perfection in the mid-to - late rounds but nor do you expect very little to nothing at all from 5 picks between 104 - 160. That's still a useful stretch of the draft. I'd say that's a disappointing return so far.

Well, if you look back historically, Ravens haven't really done well with Corners in beyond day 2. I think that's also a general struggle league wide.

Only impactful Corners in the mid-rounds were Webb and Young, and neither were like high-level Corners either.

Most of the great Corners in this league were first round draft picks. I think the Ravens using a first rounder on a Corner is a very strong possibility, and may even be the most likely one.

Also with the caveat that guys like Stephens, Pepe, JAD are very young players, and Corner is a notoriously difficult position to transition to in the NFL. Marlon was a first round pick, and he was a rotational Corner the first year he was here mostly. Same with Jimmy Smith.

A lot of these guys, including one's I referenced (Webb, Averett, etc.) didn't make strides until years 3-4.

 

[redrum52]

Well, if you look back historically, Ravens haven't really done well with Corners in beyond day 2. I think that's also a general struggle league wide.

Only impactful Corners in the mid-rounds were Webb and Young, and neither were like high-level Corners either.

Most of the great Corners in this league were first round draft picks. I think the Ravens using a first rounder on a Corner is a very strong possibility, and may even be the most likely one.

Agree with all of this except the Webb slander. You've crossed the line good sir!
Webb was a being sent from the heavens before that 2nd acl.

 

[Thezone27]

Stephens was a 3rd (just barely)

EDC hasn't drafted a corner high, but he has taken a 3rd, 3 4ths and a 5th and only had a mixture of busts (Wade Iman) , disappointments (Stephens, Pepe), and disappointments heading towards bust status (Armour Davies) to show for it.

You don't expect perfection in the mid-to - late rounds but nor do you expect very little to nothing at all from 5 picks between 104 - 160. That's still a useful stretch of the draft. I'd say that's a disappointing return so far.

Peters trade aside, his FA moves at the position haven't worked out great either, so it's fair to question his eye for the position.

He has a great eye for safety, so they can all just play corner lol

 

[Adreme]

Stephens was a 3rd (just barely)

EDC hasn't drafted a corner high, but he has taken a 3rd, 3 4ths and a 5th and only had a mixture of busts (Wade Iman) , disappointments (Stephens, Pepe), and disappointments heading towards bust status (Armour Davies) to show for it.

You don't expect perfection in the mid-to - late rounds but nor do you expect very little to nothing at all from 5 picks between 104 - 160. That's still a useful stretch of the draft. I'd say that's a disappointing return so far.

Peters trade aside, his FA moves at the position haven't worked out great either, so it's fair to question his eye for the position.

Honest question: if you are a day 3 pick and you end up as depth/fringe starter, isn’t that the expectation? Furthermore if you are simply living up to that expectation can you be a bust?

 

[rmcjacket23]

Stephens was a 3rd (just barely)

EDC hasn't drafted a corner high, but he has taken a 3rd, 3 4ths and a 5th and only had a mixture of busts (Wade Iman) , disappointments (Stephens, Pepe), and disappointments heading towards bust status (Armour Davies) to show for it.

You don't expect perfection in the mid-to - late rounds but nor do you expect very little to nothing at all from 5 picks between 104 - 160. That's still a useful stretch of the draft. I'd say that's a disappointing return so far.

Peters trade aside, his FA moves at the position haven't worked out great either, so it's fair to question his eye for the position.

lol, I mean, OK, but when did he need to draft any Corners? He's been the GM for five years, and 2022 was like the first year where it was like "yeah, you should probably draft some".

He's had Marlon from '18-Present
Carr from '18-'19
Jimmy from '18-'21
Peters from '19-Present
Young from '18-'21

And that's on top of guys like Averett, who was here as depth pretty much the entire time.

So I'm not sure its a question of his "eye" for the position as much as his eyes telling him that there's very little reason to invest a high pick in a Corner when you're 3-4 deep at the position already because you invested so heavily before him.

I would generally expect day 3 picks to not be high quality corners, because they rarely are. They're normally depth types who can play in sub-packages or not struggle badly when injuries occur.

Also really wouldn't be taking the "disappointment" stances with day 3 rookies. Incredibly short-sighted, really really really bad opinion by you. Jimmy Smith didn't do much his rookie year.

 

[JoeyFlex5]

Stephens was a 3rd (just barely)

EDC hasn't drafted a corner high, but he has taken a 3rd, 3 4ths and a 5th and only had a mixture of busts (Wade Iman) , disappointments (Stephens, Pepe), and disappointments heading towards bust status (Armour Davies) to show for it.

You don't expect perfection in the mid-to - late rounds but nor do you expect very little to nothing at all from 5 picks between 104 - 160. That's still a useful stretch of the draft. I'd say that's a disappointing return so far.

Peters trade aside, his FA moves at the position haven't worked out great either, so it's fair to question his eye for the position.

I can’t get behind this at all,

Stephens so far has been a pleasant surprise, a late pick in a draft that barely had 100 draftable players and he’s been at worst a quality cb3/4 who also lines up at safety. Pepe and armour-Davis are sooooo early that you legit can’t make a single determination about them, day 3 rookies who stuck around for their entire rookie year even through injuries is already a good look. In FA he’s made 2 meaningful moves at corner, peters and fuller, both players put their foot on the turf at one point and their ACLs self destructed, again, tough to make a determination regarding EDC.

Frankly it looks to me like injuries have been far and away this teams biggest problem for 3 straight seasons and it’s hard to pin injuries on Eric. Like yeah fuller had some ACLs prior to signing, but that’s not enough to say EDC has no eye for the position.

 

[QtR Nevermore]

Incredibly short-sighted, really really really bad opinion by you.

So, you're on the fence about it?

I think your expectations of Day 3 picks are a little low. Rounds 4 -7 have a c. 25 -30% hit rate for teams finding useful players. It only drops a few % points per round, so, over time, teams should expect to find some starters in Rds 6 & 7. EDC has taken most of his Day 3 corner shots in or around R4. Even he probably would have expected to have a little more to show for those picks, if he was honest.

I'm not going to kill him for it. Luck is probably the biggest factor at that stage but it's not the only factor. Is he gambling on the wrong traits? Maybe.

I mostly made my point to argue against the notion among Ravens fans that they should stay away from drafting WRs (because they're bad at it) and that they should draft CBs instead (because they're good at it). I don't think that's been true under DeCosta.

 

[rmcjacket23]

So, you're on the fence about it?

I think your expectations of Day 3 picks are a little low. Rounds 4 -7 have a c. 25 -30% hit rate for teams finding useful players. It only drops a few % points per round, so, over time, teams should expect to find some starters in Rds 6 & 7. EDC has taken most of his Day 3 corner shots in or around R4. Even he probably would have expected to have a little more to show for those picks, if he was honest.

I'm not going to kill him for it. Luck is probably the biggest factor at that stage but it's not the only factor. Is he gambling on the wrong traits? Maybe.

I mostly made my point to argue against the notion among Ravens fans that they should stay away from drafting WRs (because they're bad at it) and that they should draft CBs instead (because they're good at it). I don't think that's been true under DeCosta.

Is that % rate reflective of the position group, or all positions? Kind of a critical detail. The more valuable the position is (QB, WR, CB, for example), the steeper the drop off is as the draft progresses. You can find plenty of useful players at lower valued positions (Guard, Center, Interior Dline, LB) in the middle to late rounds, so that's certainly propping up that rate.

Ravens shouldn't stay away from drafting any position group. Quality teams get their best players from the draft in practically every situation. They shouldn't take less shots at WR. They should take more shots.
Same with Corner.

The difference is they haven't had a reason to draft a Corner early in the last 4-5 seasons, because they were flush with good one's. That's a byproduct of the disaster that was the 2014 season. So I'm not sure you can grade somebodies ability to draft a position or not when they make essentially zero attempts at doing it and without reason to do it.

If you think you're in a position to evaluate whether a day 2 or day 3 pick is useful at the position after a year, go for it. Won't find a lot of agreement among actual talent evaluators on that one.

 

[QtR Nevermore]

Is that % rate reflective of the position group, or all positions? Kind of a critical detail. The more valuable the position is (QB, WR, CB, for example), the steeper the drop off is as the draft progresses. You can find plenty of useful players at lower valued positions (Guard, Center, Interior Dline, LB) in the middle to late rounds, so that's certainly propping up that rate.

Ravens shouldn't stay away from drafting any position group. Quality teams get their best players from the draft in practically every situation. They shouldn't take less shots at WR. They should take more shots.
Same with Corner.

The difference is they haven't had a reason to draft a Corner early in the last 4-5 seasons, because they were flush with good one's. That's a byproduct of the disaster that was the 2014 season. So I'm not sure you can grade somebodies ability to draft a position or not when they make essentially zero attempts at doing it and without reason to do it.

If you think you're in a position to evaluate whether a day 2 or day 3 pick is useful at the position after a year, go for it. Won't find a lot of agreement among actual talent evaluators on that one.

That's across all positions.

I agree that the Ravens shouldn't stay away from any position in the draft based on history, but they should try to learn from picks that missed (as I'm sure they do). If the Front Office waited for every rookie contract to fully play out before judging whether each pick was a good one or not, they'd be in real danger of compounding their mistakes.

If forming early judgments based on actual play on NFL fields is good enough for the FO, why am I, whose opinion doesn't matter at all, not allowed to do the same? It's not as I'm cutting them or anything, just saying I've been disappointed in EDC's CB picks.

 

[rmcjacket23]

That's across all positions.

I agree that the Ravens shouldn't stay away from any position in the draft based on history, but they should try to learn from picks that missed (as I'm sure they do). If the Front Office waited for every rookie contract to fully play out before judging whether each pick was a good one or not, they'd be in real danger of compounding their mistakes.

If forming early judgments based on actual play on NFL fields is good enough for the FO, why am I, whose opinion doesn't matter at all, not allowed to do the same? It's not as I'm cutting them or anything, just saying I've been disappointed in EDC's CB picks.

Is it good enough on the FO? Do you think they've written off Stephens, JAD or Pepe? I don't. In fact I think at least two of them will be receiving a lot of playing time this year. Pretty much out of necessity if nothing else.

There's a difference between an entire rookie contract (4 years) and one year. One is a short sample size, the other is a much longer sample size.

Not to mention that the Ravens have a long, long, long list of guys who haven't done much at all until year 3 or year 4, then either get extended here or sign elsewhere for a boatload of cash.
See Ben Powers next week.

As for learning from their mistakes, I'm sure they do. Slippery slope though. If you say "I'm never going to take a developmental WR in the first round", then you're going to miss out on some pretty damn good players. And the fanbase will, of course, bash you for that, because that's how the fanbase does things. I think there's things you can learn from a diligence perspective, from a positional value perspective, etc., but I really don't know what you can learn from drafting Bateman that's going to impact how you draft other receivers.

 

[QtR Nevermore]

Is it good enough on the FO? Do you think they've written off Stephens, JAD or Pepe? I don't. In fact I think at least two of them will be receiving a lot of playing time this year. Pretty much out of necessity if nothing else.

There's a difference between an entire rookie contract (4 years) and one year. One is a short sample size, the other is a much longer sample size.

Not to mention that the Ravens have a long, long, long list of guys who haven't done much at all until year 3 or year 4, then either get extended here or sign elsewhere for a boatload of cash.
See Ben Powers next week.

As for learning from their mistakes, I'm sure they do. Slippery slope though. If you say "I'm never going to take a developmental WR in the first round", then you're going to miss out on some pretty damn good players. And the fanbase will, of course, bash you for that, because that's how the fanbase does things. I think there's things you can learn from a diligence perspective, from a positional value perspective, etc., but I really don't know what you can learn from drafting Bateman that's going to impact how you draft other receivers.

I said I was disappointed in them. Not that they should be written off. (But again, what does it matter if I, on my sofa, write them off?)

We aren't just looking at first year players (some are already busts, there's still hope for others) but, yes, I do think the Ravens should be re-assessing their evaluations in the light of the evidence from even Year 1, relative to their expectations for each player.

Did they expect Pepe and Armour-Davis to be behind several street FAs just brought into the building the previous week? I doubt it, but, if so, great job guys! If not, they should obviously try to learn from their mistakes.

I don't think that's controversial nor do I see how that means "never draft a project". It's about how well picks meet your expectations. You expect a project to take time to develop.

 

[rmcjacket23]

I said I was disappointed in them. Not that they should be written off. (But again, what does it matter if I, on my sofa, write them off?)

We aren't just looking at first year players (some are already busts, there's still hope for others) but, yes, I do think the Ravens should be re-assessing their evaluations in the light of the evidence from even Year 1, relative to their expectations for each player.

Did they expect Pepe and Armour-Davis to be behind several street FAs just brought into the building the previous week? I doubt it, but, if so, great job guys! If not, they should obviously try to learn from their mistakes.

I don't think that's controversial nor do I see how that means "never draft a project". It's about how well picks meet your expectations. You expect a project to take time to develop.

Which street FAs are you talking about? Pepe played a lot more Corner than anybody not named Marlon, Peters or Stephens (or Hamilton at Nickel). JAD spent the last like half the season on IR, and played very little before that, because he was much lower on the depth chart.

If I just went based on the opening day depth chart, I'd expect Pepe and JAD to be the #5 and #6 Corners. They'd be behind Marlon, Peters, Stephens and Fuller. So I think they pretty much lived up to that.

They also played less because the Ravens realized how versatile Hamilton was, and that he could play Nickel Corner with two Safeties already on the roster. I suspect that won't happen as much this year, given that Clark will almost certainly be gone. Unless they think Stone can provide the same ability.

Regardless, while I think they'll add to the DB room (because they need better players), Pepe and JAD are basically #3 and #4 on the depth chart today, meaning if they don't add sufficient players, they'll play a lot. And my guess is one of them will play a good amount this year.

 

[Dom McRaven]

@purplepittabread88 and @RavensMania , can we merge this thread with the Offseason Thread? It's basically the same thing if we're being honest.

 

[rossihunter2]

@purplepittabread88 and @RavensMania , can we merge this thread with the Offseason Thread? It's basically the same thing if we're being honest.

they crossover somewhat at this point in the year but clearly diverge at certain points in the offseason and also as soon as the offseason ends...

 

[purplepittabread88]

we can lock this thread until August if people think that should be done. As @rossihunter2 mentioned, they are different but do cross over

 

[rossihunter2]

we can lock this thread until August if people think that should be done. As @rossihunter2 mentioned, they are different but do cross over

no point locking it
this thread is busiest when free agency opens

 

[Dom McRaven]

we can lock this thread until August if people think that should be done. As @rossihunter2 mentioned, they are different but do cross over

no point locking it
this thread is busiest when free agency opens

Understood. I just felt like we'd discuss any signings, cuts, trades in the other thread too but no biggie though.