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The Random Thought Thread

rossihunter2 said:
this is why guys like EDC are paid so much - they're paid to be flexible, opportunistic and to have contingency plans - it's not like the ravens didnt know that bobby clearly wanted to be in LA and so they had to be ready to not get him in the end

obviously it sucks missing out on ZDS and now Wagner but we already got Williams (who we werent expecting to be available to us... harbs even admitted as much at his coach's breakfast at the owner's meetings)

we'll see who they pivot too but they're not going to not use that cap just because they lost out on wagner - maybe they end up giving it to some of the NFL's middle-class types who we've clearly been trying to avoid a little but who we've historically pursued in phase 3 of free-agency

then again, while we've not obviously showed interest in any of the other bigger name guys out there, we've got the cap to attack someone we might not have "wanted" as much before but will help our team - tretter would fit although it really does seem like they have no interest in adding a C, clowney, gillmore, ogunjobi (health depending) would all fit that kind of bill... the mathieu news surprised me and im confused as to the fit but he'd be that kind of signing too

as others have said before, free-agency kind of just skipped straight from phase 1 to phase 3 - still more guys than id have expected to available at this point are still there
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Pivoting to Tyrann after being spurned by Wagner is eerily similar to signing Earl Thomas after we lost Mosley to the Jets.
 
UPennChem said:
Clowney is just such a weird guy and who's had kind of a weird career. I hope if we do sign him, he can stay healthy
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think he gets a bad rap because he's not an elite pass rusher like people hoped but he is an elite disruptor
he's famous because he knocked the helmet off a guy in the backfield in college - people forget that was a running play lol

he does miss games, but other than tennessee in 2020 and his 2014 rookie year, he's always played at least 3/4 of the season
 
rossihunter2 said:
and i think EDC agrees with you - looking at almost all the names we've been attached too and gone after (ogbah, williams, ZDS, wagner), we've been involved in big deal kind of guys and not the middle-class or ageing vet market much (outside of pierce, goldman and moses)... yet

i think it's pretty clear that EDC wants to make sure we're getting high-level play for the money we spend in free agency and that's why he wants more than just the 10 picks this year

the stated aim has been to get younger on defence - obviously they want to add campbell but i dont think they want to be left picking up stop-gaps in their 30s on cheap 1 yr deals again - ultimately they're not going to turn down an upgrade like houston last year again but i think they want to plug holes with young/dynamic/elite talents and fill out the roster with draft picks

and if that's the case it would be an interesting slight evolution from the previous philosophy of trying to plug every hole with vets before the draft (and i think it's probably a good adjustment given that lots of vets are still hanging around post-draft nowadays if you find that you miss out on a position in the draft)
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I totally agree with this. Let's see if we can't add one more guy like Clowney or Gilmore. I wonder of something like that is more likely to happen after the draft. I think for Clowney in particular it probably will. Not sure about Gilmore
 
rossihunter2 said:
i kinda disagree here - there's no point not using all the cap we have on guys who make the team better just because we didnt land the guy we really wanted
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The problem though is that practically nobody we sign is going to be a one year deal. If I'm just signing a guy for one year, I'm fine with signing just about anybody.

But if you're talking multi-year commitments to these guys, you can't just sign players because you have the space.

The other thing I've pointed out before is that you have some extension candidates (Peters, Lamar) and we've all sort of assumed that we'll need contract restructures also. You don't have to do that if you have space that you don't really need to spend. If the FO doesn't view these guys as difference makers, then you don't have to extend Peters to play this year. You don't have to restructure Marlon. You can roll that space into next year, so when Lamar decides he wants to be on a franchise tag that'll cost $30-35M, you're not using all of your salary cap increase to pay for only him.

Ultimately we'll spend it, but its obviously not a "use it or lose it" situation, and the idea of carrying money into the season is always prudent anyway.

From a practical standpoint, whatever cap space we have now (roughly $7M) has effectively already been spent. It's been spent on draft picks, practice squad players, filling out the rest of the 53 man roster, and having a few million for in-season roster moves (of which last year we needed more than usual due to injuries). So pretty much anything we spend now is going to come via contract restructures or extensions.
 
UPennChem said:
Yeah this all makes a ton of sense. Names to keep an eye on Clowney, Gilmore, Matthieu, and Tretter it seems. Otherwise it might be more of a quantity of quality play.

I used to say ehh are we really gonna draft 10 rookies? I think getting one more key guy and getting younger may be better than signing 4 older guys and only keep say 6 or 7 rookies
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In regards to the draft picks, keep in mind we still have several guys that were on the 53 last year that I expect to be replaced via draft picks or others, so yeah, while I don't expect us to keep 10 players from the draft, 7-8 is realistic.
 
rmcjacket23 said:
In regards to the draft picks, keep in mind we still have several guys that were on the 53 last year that I expect to be replaced via draft picks or others, so yeah, while I don't expect us to keep 10 players from the draft, 7-8 is realistic.
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That's very reasonable to expect. The only weird piece of evidence we have to the contrary which could be total lip service is that EDC has made comments where he makes it sound like 10 picks in this draft aren't even enough and he wants more. Maybe he wants something like 12 expecting only 8 to make it? Maybe he's spewing bull shit? Maybe he's got a real plan to get younger? I'm not sure, but we'll surely see
 
UPennChem said:
That's very reasonable to expect. The only weird piece of evidence we have to the contrary which could be total lip service is that EDC has made comments where he makes it sound like 10 picks in this draft aren't even enough and he wants more. Maybe he wants something like 12 expecting only 8 to make it? Maybe he's spewing bull shit? Maybe he's got a real plan to get younger? I'm not sure, but we'll surely see
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I don't know either. The reality is he may just simply be foaming at the mouth in regards to the depth of this draft class (which I've heard other GMs, coaches, and scouts say the same) and he may just be looking to overhaul some positions. There may be guys like Proche or Ferguson or some of the Oline guys who we think are "safe" that they're looking at and saying "I think we can upgrade right now for cheap".

Possible some of these year 2, 3, 4 players are on the chopping block after this draft class. I really don't know. Or he wants more picks so he can move up or down more to get more quality.

Your guess is as good as mine.
 
UPennChem said:
That's very reasonable to expect. The only weird piece of evidence we have to the contrary which could be total lip service is that EDC has made comments where he makes it sound like 10 picks in this draft aren't even enough and he wants more. Maybe he wants something like 12 expecting only 8 to make it? Maybe he's spewing bull shit? Maybe he's got a real plan to get younger? I'm not sure, but we'll surely see
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it's EDC being realistic - he knows that we arent hitting on all 10 guys because it's a lottery and even in the best case scenario we're gonna miss on guys - take 2018... we picked 12 times and had one of the best drafts you could possibly had and still missed on a 1st round pick and had around a 50% hit rate

so it's exactly that - he wants 12 guys with the understanding that 2 of them might not even be good enough to make it to the 53 in year 1 as rookies (when most rookies make it because of the cheap control and future development opportunities)

12 picks vs 10 picks - those 2 extra (likely day 3) picks are 2 extra darts that give you 2 more chances at finding early and future contributors - gives you a chance to maybe take a shot on a more developmental guy, or another smaller school guy but also lets you take the guy who you know is going to make the roster for 4 years because he'll contribute on special teams

12 draft picks and a bunch of udfas and you might get 7 or 8 contributors (albeit you have to expect you're going to have nearly all of them on the roster in year 1 in some capacity - either on the 53 or maybe on i/r or maybe on the practice squad)
 
rossihunter2 said:
it's EDC being realistic - he knows that we arent hitting on all 10 guys because it's a lottery and even in the best case scenario we're gonna miss on guys - take 2018... we picked 12 times and had one of the best drafts you could possibly had and still missed on a 1st round pick and had around a 50% hit rate

so it's exactly that - he wants 12 guys with the understanding that 2 of them might not even be good enough to make it to the 53 in year 1 as rookies (when most rookies make it because of the cheap control and future development opportunities)

12 picks vs 10 picks - those 2 extra (likely day 3) picks are 2 extra darts that give you 2 more chances at finding early and future contributors - gives you a chance to maybe take a shot on a more developmental guy, or another smaller school guy but also lets you take the guy who you know is going to make the roster for 4 years because he'll contribute on special teams

12 draft picks and a bunch of udfas and you might get 7 or 8 contributors (albeit you have to expect you're going to have nearly all of them on the roster in year 1 in some capacity - either on the 53 or maybe on i/r or maybe on the practice squad)
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I think the interesting thing to go along with this is that he's practically said fuck trying to find late round contributors. If he can swap picks for higher picks, that's the preference. Kinda weird how it works out but I think he realizes that the darts you throw in UDFA are more likely to hit because you have 10-20 or so and 1 or 2 is bound to be decent, where that 7th round dart is up to that one guy or not. But if you can turn it into a 5th rounder instead, then you have a better shot.
 
Simba said:
I think the interesting thing to go along with this is that he's practically said fuck trying to find late round contributors. If he can swap picks for higher picks, that's the preference. Kinda weird how it works out but I think he realizes that the darts you throw in UDFA are more likely to hit because you have 10-20 or so and 1 or 2 is bound to be decent, where that 7th round dart is up to that one guy or not. But if you can turn it into a 5th rounder instead, then you have a better shot.
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to a certain extent for sure - ive not seen us devalue 6th rounders - but EDC shares the same view that i have about the 7th round... get rid of those picks and start recruiting those udfas

but it also works the other way especially when the classes are deeper than last year's (which almost every single one is) - that there's value to trading down in day 3 and acquiring 5th round picks because the difference between the mid-4th and mid-5th in most drafts in terms of quality of prospect is not that big and at that point, most teams's boards are so divergent from one another that you might be able to draft the exact same player a round later

the ravens are also consistently good at not really throwing around tons of bonus money at 1 or 2 udfas (basically putting all your eggs in one basket) - last year was the first time really and that was because, again, it was an historically shallow draft which thinned out the udfa pool also

sometimes the big-named udfa is the guy who makes it (like ardarius washington last year and TCC they specifically targeted) but guys like pat ricard, pat mekari, michael pierce etc. were often not the guys who were expected to challenge for roster spots when we signed them

in terms of the depth in this draft - i know we already have a load of picks in day 3 and especially in round 4 but i would not be opposed (value-wise) to us trading out of the 100th pick and moving out of round 3 and acquiring even more picks that way... looks to me like the drop-off into a larger jumble of talent seems to happen somewhere between the ravens 2 3rd round picks based on what ive seen so far
 
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