Signings, Cuts, Trades

[rossihunter2]

I suspect those guys net us a max 5th round pick. I’d be surprised if we got more than that for any of them. I guess Jimmy could get a 4th if he did leave because I imagine it would be for a considerable sum as I expect us to re-sign him if it’s 7m

I didn’t yet comment on the Clark move but man is this a great move. Our secondary comes back very intact with a starting core players of Humphrey & Peters outside and Young inside with Clark & Thomas at S. We only need depth and have that with Marshall but that’s about it imo. Definitely need a 4th CB with the offenses we will face. It also assuredly means bye Felicia to Tony

yeah we've got marshall and we've got averett down the bottom of the roster - if averett doesnt improve though i expect marshall to win that spot purely on a special teams basis - and the other variable is what we do with brandon carr and my guess is we keep him at 6m if we cant get anything done with jimmy and carr might be a better fit given who we have in our secondary already because he would slot in as the 3rd outside corner who can spell when necessary but also jump in on dime or quarters packages as a deep safety (albeit id prefer it if deshon elliott won that role this offseason - i still cant get over how good deshon was in that 1 game after tony jefferson got injured - only for deshon to get injured by justin bethel while showing off his range lol - how ironic)

at the moment we've got Humphrey, Peters, Tavon, ET, Chuck all under contract as the starters, we've got deshon coming back as the 3rd safety but that's it

we've technically got TJ still but he's basically gone for the 7m saving and we've technically got brandon carr too but he's on an option so we do still have to decide whether to pick that option up or not

we're probably going to have to re-sign or find another safety from somewhere - but it could be someone like levine and preferably we either keep carr or jimmy but no guarantee of either - i bet you we add another day 3 corner to this roster though

 

[cdp]

How are you all so confident to not extend Judon? I was pretty sure a couple of weeks ago that it was a no brainer, but now I'm second guessing. The 2nd or 3rd rd pick make sense, but still...

 

[Grim]

Which kind of makes me sad after seeing this tweet. He's such a class act.

Jefferson is a nice and classy dude. It makes me feel bad from a human perspective but it’s a business and he made money. He doesn’t seem stupid either so I assume he saved. He’ll rebound somewhere.

yeah we've got marshall and we've got averett down the bottom of the roster - if averett doesnt improve though i expect marshall to win that spot purely on a special teams basis - and the other variable is what we do with brandon carr and my guess is we keep him at 6m if we cant get anything done with jimmy and carr might be a better fit given who we have in our secondary already because he would slot in as the 3rd outside corner who can spell when necessary but also jump in on dime or quarters packages as a deep safety (albeit id prefer it if deshon elliott won that role this offseason - i still cant get over how good deshon was in that 1 game after tony jefferson got injured - only for deshon to get injured by justin bethel while showing off his range lol - how ironic)

at the moment we've got Humphrey, Peters, Tavon, ET, Chuck all under contract as the starters, we've got deshon coming back as the 3rd safety but that's it

we've technically got TJ still but he's basically gone for the 7m saving and we've technically got brandon carr too but he's on an option so we do still have to decide whether to pick that option up or not

we're probably going to have to re-sign or find another safety from somewhere - but it could be someone like levine and preferably we either keep carr or jimmy but no guarantee of either - i bet you we add another day 3 corner to this roster though

I’m worried about our depth at CB if we lose Jimmy or Carr tbh. I don’t trust Marshall and Averett is eh. I absolutely think we add another CB in this draft at some point. I know people hate the early CB pick but I could see it happen. I could also see it not and we get a guy in what I think will be the fourth round. I suspect we’ll target a CB in FA who is cut or something. There’s plenty of guys out there who could fit this bill. I’m really confident we bring back Jimmy though unless we find someone better out there. I can also see a scenario where we left Jimmy walk and sign a cut FA CB to replace him and he goes somewhere and gets us a 4-5th round comp. it would be very Ravens-like, but I suspect we prioritize retaining Jimmy in that scenario but you never know.

 

[Grim]

How are you all so confident to not extend Judon? I was pretty sure a couple of weeks ago that it was a no brainer, but now I'm second guessing. The 2nd or 3rd rd pick make sense, but still...

I’m okay with either outcome honesty but I’m not entirely sold on him. I really like Judon and think he’s a valuable #2 pass rusher and LB but he’s not a dominant player. He doesn’t take over games. I’d love him back but I question how much he benefitted from the secondary this year and being the top option in an underwhelming pass rusher corps. Would it hurt to lose him? Yeah, and I’d like to keep him for a year. Would I be upset if we lost him? No, because I don’t think the drop off is that significant. I’d sooner re-sign McPhee and Ward and bring back Bowser and Ferguson and sign a FA or trade for one and draft a guy than re-sign him.

 

[rossihunter2]

I’m worried about our depth at CB if we lose Jimmy or Carr tbh. I don’t trust Marshall and Averett is eh. I absolutely think we add another CB in this draft at some point. I know people hate the early CB pick but I could see it happen. I could also see it not and we get a guy in what I think will be the fourth round. I suspect we’ll target a CB in FA who is cut or something. There’s plenty of guys out there who could fit this bill. I’m really confident we bring back Jimmy though unless we find someone better out there. I can also see a scenario where we left Jimmy walk and sign a cut FA CB to replace him and he goes somewhere and gets us a 4-5th round comp. it would be very Ravens-like, but I suspect we prioritize retaining Jimmy in that scenario but you never know.

absolutely we need a 4th guy we can count on - but we have the team option on carr so i think that's the backup plan if we dont re-sign jimmy - would be surprised if we dont retain either of them but stranger things have happened - but you know with ozzie in the building and EDC having spent his entire career here that they arent going to let us go into the season with only 3 corners - we had 4 going into training camp this year and it wasnt enough - we had to go and trade for another so no way we enter this offseason with just 3

i dont think we'll add a CB early unless we're planning for marlon to be gone in 2 years time which seems unlikely to me - but i meant the day 3 pick i expect we spend on a corner will be a supplementary type of pick - a developmental player like averett and marshall who have the tools to potentially work out but maybe are missing some production etc. - alternatively i could see us looking for a backup slot guy on day 3 too

 

[purplepittabread88]

I would really love it for Tony to catch on somewhere else and be a superstar. he just has never worked as well as we thought he would in our defense. I think we all the blitz and risks in our scheme, a safety who isn't great at man coverage isn't our need. But hell. If this was 15 years ago TJ would weigh 15 pounds more and be a superstar.

 

[rmcjacket23]

it depends what they do with the existing money on the rookie deal but yeah there's no reason not to have the first 2 years at least close to the average yearly rate - but front-loading is a luxury of teams with loads of cap space - the rams and eagles did not have much available cap space when they signed those deals

what's promising is it looks like EDC is structuring contracts now with other players and getting the salary cap into a place where a lamar contract could work within the contract framework that EDC seems to prefer (i.e. a lot flatter)

i have no problems with a flatter contract at all - but there's going to be an astronomical difference between jimmy g's contract and all these other ones because he got paid at a discount a little bit - his inflated year 1 cap hit to create flatter cap hits down the line is going to be probably less than the average/yr of any deal that mahomes, lamar and watson get

russell wilson's deal is probably the best deal we can use as a prototype but even that's slightly back-loaded - inevitably any deal you create will naturally have inflation cap hits if your team is competing because the salary cap as a trend increases every year but teams that compete every year are likely to be closer to the salary cap than those that arent

but russell wilson's extension has cap numbers of 26m, 31m, 32m, 37m, 39m on a 4 yr extension that was 4 for 140m at a 35m/yr average

I agree. Wilson's structure is perfectly fine. I'm not expecting a $35M/year deal to be exactly $35M every year against the cap.

But there's no year-over-year jump on that deal of more than $5M, which means his contract is basically growing with the rate of inflation of the salary cap. That's the smart move.

I understand why teams like the Rams would backload... they truly went all-in. But the reality is that if you fail to win that Lombardi, it can really destroy many chances you'll get of coming back. There's nothing threatening about that team right now, and I think in a year or two they could be closer to the worst team in that division than the best one.

 

[JoeyFlex5]

I would really love it for Tony to catch on somewhere else and be a superstar. he just has never worked as well as we thought he would in our defense. I think we all the blitz and risks in our scheme, a safety who isn't great at man coverage isn't our need. But hell. If this was 15 years ago TJ would weigh 15 pounds more and be a superstar.

Idk... guys who can’t see the play develop and can’t fill the alley never really would’ve had a place in the league...

 

[rossihunter2]

I agree. Wilson's structure is perfectly fine. I'm not expecting a $35M/year deal to be exactly $35M every year against the cap.

But there's no year-over-year jump on that deal of more than $5M, which means his contract is basically growing with the rate of inflation of the salary cap. That's the smart move.

I understand why teams like the Rams would backload... they truly went all-in. But the reality is that if you fail to win that Lombardi, it can really destroy many chances you'll get of coming back. There's nothing threatening about that team right now, and I think in a year or two they could be closer to the worst team in that division than the best one.

fully agreed - not only did the rams go full in on paying everyone, they've been trading high draft picks for short term impact players that also means they dont have an influx of young or cheap talent either - it means their roster was so top heavy and incredibly susceptible to 1 or 2 injuries

im not advocating that at all

i think almost everyone on this board would agree with flatter cap hits and I think EDC has shown that he's wanting to do 3 things pretty clearly with our talent and contracts etc.

1. Take care of our own and keep our talent in the building
2. Sign guys early
3. Flatter cap hits across the length of any deal

its clear that those 3 things are philosophically important to him in terms of running this ravens team and i like all of them - but it does rely on us continuing to draft successfully which meshes with him wanting to acquire as many picks in the draft as possible because more picks = more lottery tickets

i mean in the last decade we've found more starters on day 3 than we have in day 2 and that doesnt even include the udfas (it's something like 14 day 3 vs 12 day 2) - part of that is because we've been pretty bad at drafting on day 2 (especially the 2nd round) in that time period - but what's also clearer is that as we've changed philosophy to a more volume based approach (2013 seems to be when we started going for more picks as a trend vs keeping our picks) and in that time period it's 11-6 and 3 of those 6 came in the last 2 years...

coincidentally that time period also meshes with when the 5 year plan for EDC's succession to GM was put in place - and also around the time he started properly running the draft...

interesting i think

anyway ive clearly gone off on a major tangent that's not really relevant to your posts but i thought id go back and find those numbers because your post and my response made me think of it lol

 

[rossihunter2]

Idk... guys who can’t see the play develop and can’t fill the alley never really would’ve had a place in the league...

they'd end up looking like matt elam...

 

[JoeyFlex5]

they'd end up looking like matt elam...

That’s quite a bit what Jefferson looked like this year too, except TJ at least could make a tackle when he initiated contact

 

[rossihunter2]

That’s quite a bit what Jefferson looked like this year too, except TJ at least could make a tackle when he initiated contact

just imagine how bad matt elam would be in this era of the NFL where teams pass all over the field and Elam couldn't cover or tackle and wasn't a great reader or communicator - thank fuck we drafted CJ the next year

 

[Grim]

absolutely we need a 4th guy we can count on - but we have the team option on carr so i think that's the backup plan if we dont re-sign jimmy - would be surprised if we dont retain either of them but stranger things have happened - but you know with ozzie in the building and EDC having spent his entire career here that they arent going to let us go into the season with only 3 corners - we had 4 going into training camp this year and it wasnt enough - we had to go and trade for another so no way we enter this offseason with just 3

i dont think we'll add a CB early unless we're planning for marlon to be gone in 2 years time which seems unlikely to me - but i meant the day 3 pick i expect we spend on a corner will be a supplementary type of pick - a developmental player like averett and marshall who have the tools to potentially work out but maybe are missing some production etc. - alternatively i could see us looking for a backup slot guy on day 3 too

Yeah I know what you meant and I agree. I just wouldn’t be shocked if we did it earlier but I don’t expect it to happen. I personally think the earliest will be the fourth round. We definitely could use another slot guy.

 

[rossihunter2]

Yeah I know what you meant and I agree. I just wouldn’t be shocked if we did it earlier but I don’t expect it to happen. I personally think the earliest will be the fourth round. We definitely could use another slot guy.

its certainly possible that if there's a run at tackle and a run at WR that from what i can tell there's a ton of day 2 corners (albeit ive not done much corner tape yet but that's my impression so far) and its quite possible that when we get to the end of the 2nd round a corner is BPA - that would be a real challenge of our BPA philosophy especially if the grades arent close - that being said id expect EDC to manoeuvre around as we have done the last couple of years to get value and also take players at spots we want to take them

 

[purplepittabread88]

they'd end up looking like matt elam...

or have 126 grams of weed in your car...

 

[RavensMania]

better than I thought

 

[RL52TheGreatest]

or have 126 grams of weed in your car...

#EatGreedy

 

[Edgar]

more and more I am liking the idea of the franchise tag being applied to Judon. If the worst case scenario is paying hm 16million to play SAM for a year while giving you an opportunity to sign him long term, I don't think that is a bad thing; or at least it is preferable to breaking the bank on Clowney. 23 million is a number being bandied around? No way on earth

 

[Sandtown]

Idk... guys who can’t see the play develop and can’t fill the alley never really would’ve had a place in the league...

Tony Jefferson was pretty good for The Cardinals. The problem is that The Ravens didn't use Jefferson to his strengths consistently like The Cardinals did. The expectation was that with Earl Thomas being apart of the team it would give Jefferson more room to play more in the box but The Ravens had issues in their secondary early on in the season due to lack of communication and etc which probably didn't make matters better for Jefferson. Overall it just seem like Jefferson just wasn't a good fit for The Ravens defensive scheme even though he was a solid player in my opinion.

 

[JoeyFlex5]

Tony Jefferson was pretty good for The Cardinals. The problem is that The Ravens didn't use Jefferson to his strengths consistently like The Cardinals did. The expectation was that with Earl Thomas being apart of the team it would give Jefferson more room to play more in the box but The Ravens had issues in their secondary early on in the season due to lack of communication and etc which probably didn't make matters better for Jefferson. Overall it just seem like Jefferson just wasn't a good fit for The Ravens defensive scheme even though he was a solid player in my opinion.

Jefferson had the green dot for a time, thus hes largely at fault in communication lol.