But if the money was here and not there, he'd be here I'd bet. So while we all pretty much knew he wanted to be in LA, it was about them ponying up the money to do so.
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Signings, Cuts, Trades
- Thread starter RavensMania
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rmcjacket23
Ravens Ring of Honor
Seems like its been that case for the Ravens recently. When was the last big investment we made at that position? We drafted Mosley and Queen, and let the former walk in FA.
UPennChem
Hall of Famer
Absolutely agree. But for every Raven rumor of continued interest, there was one from LA. That's how we knew we had no chance. Im not saying he disliked it here or anything.
UPennChem
Hall of Famer
Very confused by this. Ray Lewis and Jameel McClain. CJ Mosley and Daryl Smith. And most recently 2 high picks in PQ and Harrison. It's just that one hasn't panned out. Also the competitive offer to Wagner...
rmcjacket23
Ravens Ring of Honor
So... 7-8+ years ago?
Harrison was a 3rd round pick. That's a high pick for a ILB? I don't know that you could call a 3rd round pick a high pick for any position. Maybe FB, Punter, or Kicker.
Daryl Smith signed in 2014. That's 8 years ago, and that wasn't even a big financial investment. We waited well into FA for that one and got him at a bargain.
We draft linebackers. We don't necessarily pay them, and as far as I can tell, we never go hunting in the top tier FA market for one.
Competitive offer to Wagner makes some sense, but that's literally the first time I've seen this team take an active and significant financial interest in an ILB in many, many years. Your examples are pretty good proof of that.
rmcjacket23
Ravens Ring of Honor
allblackraven
Hall of Famer
So, you'd have paid CJ $100mil to keep him in Baltimore?
Yeah, didn't think so.
We drafted PQ next. How many 1st round picks you want spent on middle linebacker?
I mean we upped the offer for Z - they literally gave us a counter-offer that we agreed to and then still walked away
Bobby clearly wanted to go to the rams and it didn’t matter what we offered if the rams were close
UPennChem
Hall of Famer
You're confusing what I said. Maybe I wasn't clear enough. I wasn't saying that the Ravens go get big name ILB in FA. I said it's a very valued position in the defense. For the entirety of the franchises existence, it has had excellent ILB play. You're totally right that most often the Ravens have drafted to get this excellence. Queen and Harrison were the attempt to replace the Mosley and Smith tandem. Queen has been good enough and Harrison has been bad. The Ravens value the position and that's why given Harrison's play, a serious offer was sent out to Bobby.
My only point is teams have weakness at spots every year. It's just not very typical to see the Ravens have one of those weak spots be at ILB over the course of their entire history.
rmcjacket23
Ravens Ring of Honor
Well I mean we spent basically the same on ET that the Jets spent on Mosley, so you tell me which one would have been a better investment?
I'd like to see us use about one first round pick every 7-8 years on an ILB. I'd like to see us use mid round picks and spent average money in FA on one.
Let me phrase it a different way... compare the Safety position on this team vs the ILB on this team, and see if you can identify the gigantic, gigantic, gigantic differences in approaches to how we value those positions.
Nurps
Ravens Ring of Honor
IM TRAPPED IN A GLASS CASE OF EMOTION
ravenslord
Ravens Ring of Honor
Fuck Wagner. Gonna be a Ravens -Rams Super Bowl with Lamar running circles around a washed up Wagner.
That’s similar to the question I have - we always like to spend up to the cap as best we can but right now we’ve just got this space and we’re running out of guys to spend it on
Do we pivot to clowney? Ogunjobi? Does this let us give Calais a 1 yr deal? Gillmore?
rmcjacket23
Ravens Ring of Honor
I'm not confused. I'm saying your historical view of how the franchise looks at ILBs ended several years ago.
What you are suggesting did not exist in the 2021 season for certain. What you are suggesting did not exist in the 2020 season either. The last significant FA signing at the position was Daryl Smith, circa 2014.
I'm actually quite surprised some of you actually still think its a thing. Like are you next going to tell me we value Dline play also?
Corners, Safeties, Pass Rushers. It's really the only thing this defense has been prioritizing for several years now.
Sure, we made a run at Wagner. A lot of teams did. He's a special, generational linebacker. I'd be disappointed if we didn't. There's also been a lot of really good linebackers in FA the last several years, and we've never been in on many of them. There's a reason for that, and having a first rounder who's not making much isn't a very good reason to not be in on them, especially when you're a base 3-4 team that can play two ILBs a lot. Except, like most teams, we're really not, because almost every base defense in the league at this point has 5 or even 6 DBs in it.
Saying Malik Harrison is a significant investment at ILB is like saying Miles Boykin was a significant investment at WR. Literally the same thing...