Cville-Raven
MVP
I do expect CJ will seek top of the league ILB money with contracts inflating.
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2018 Free Agency
- Thread starter purplepittabread88
- Start date
Sandtown
Pro Bowler
Wish I could read it because every time I click on the link or go to the site it keep telling the page may be temporarily closed and etc.
JO_75
Hall of Famer
Looking at Spotrac, the highest GTD amount given to a Inside Linebacker is $34.3M which is Luke Kuechely. He averages $12.3M a year as the highest paid linebacker in the league. Bobby Wagner has the 3rd highest GTD amount at only $21.9M. Anthony Hitchens has $25M GTD from the Chiefs is second. I think we keep him but we'll have to make him the second highest or even highest(until Luke gets a new contract) ILB in the league.
Willbacker
Ravens Ring of Honor
I would just let him play out this contract and then possibly use the transaction tag just to see what his market value is. I just don't want another backloaded contract just to give us a little salary cap release. 3 mil the 1st yr then 10-11 mil hits the next 4-5 yrs. Screw that shit.
i disagree entirely - if he hits the transition tag he's gonna get a massive deal with huge guarantees that we wont be able to match at all
and there's no issue with backloading the deal as long as the deal is 4-5 years because the next CBA will happen after the 3rd year of his deal at which point the cap likely balloons which makes the cap hits manageable anyway (and assuming CJ ends up a raven for life which we all hope and expect at this point he likely gets extended before the end of his deal anyway to even out those backloaded cap hits anyway + it wont be a fully guaranteed deal either so as long as the guarantees are less than half the overall value of the deal then it's financially very manageable)
i really dont understand what it is about CJ Mosley that has fans suddenly willing to let him leave the team?
any team in the league would love to have him and almost all of them would pay him ridiculous money to play for them
Willbacker
Ravens Ring of Honor
Well with the last CBA deal the cap actually went down significantly but it was very owner oriented. I don't know I seen CJ miss too many tackles last year for my liking and he's defiecent in pass defense. There's plenty of ILB depth in the draft ( Jack Cichy and Josey Jewell for ex) that can be had in the lower rds. I'd roll the dice and if nessassary franchize tag but if they do a 5 yr deal then we stuck again next year where he'll just be another high paid defensive player even tho we should be alleviated by probally releasing Weddle and Suggs for the moment being released from the books.
go to russellstreetreport and read the article called damage control
CJ had a few bad games and got victimised later in the year in man coverage but has never been anything less than above average as a linebacker at worst and when he's been at his best he's been one of the top 3 linebackers in the league... im actually fairly unimpressed with the depth at linebacker in this draft - there's very little athleticism in the group - im seeing a lot of guys who look like dimebackers or hybrid-safety types and im seeing a lot of 2 down linebacker types with unspectacular sideline-sideline movement
im not rolling the dice at all on a random 4th round pick at linebacker - not to mention we already have 1 hole at linebacker, why add another hole at linebacker
i also think its weird that we shouldnt expect to have high paid defensive players - if you dont pay top dollar for top players then you likely end up with a team of average players...
and just as a point - CJ's cap hit this year is probably higher than it would be with a long term deal...
the longer it takes to sign him, the more it costs us to sign him in the end...
i just dont see what more he has to do for us to pay him?
allblackraven
Hall of Famer
Why not? He's worth every cent of what he's asking and at the end of the contract he'll barely hit 30 years of age.
Willbacker
Ravens Ring of Honor
Well the one thing that worries me Rossi is people talk about him being the defensive captain but yet I hardly see any audibles if any and the lack of shifts. I understand your worries about our lack of ILB's since we're looking at guys like Onwauser and Correa which is just...........bad but yet you can usually find a Daryl Smith type of veteran that can man the role for a little while if needed. Navorro Bowman could be an example for this year.
Yes I do expect to have some high paid defensive players but we already have that in Brandon,Jefferson and Jimmy. If you want good veteran depth you gotta limit the 10-12 mil per year contracts.
As far as the draft Ozzie is usually pretty good at drafting ILB's (why they switched Correa to ILB and got Bowser more as an OLB idk) but maybe draft one in the mid rds and possibly score again on a udfa (Bam Bradley?) but I just wouldn't be pulling the trigger just for cap relief. He's just not worth top 2-3 pay at the ILB position imo.
Willbacker
Ravens Ring of Honor
what do you mean you never see audibles? we have one of the most complex defences that uses so much late movement late in the snap count to add confusion to the offensive playcalling - he was the playcaller for one of the most dangerous defensive packages in the nfl last year i.e. the ravens dime package - even when CJ is not on the top of his own game he is absolutely on top of the mental game - you can tell from the way he moves that he's probably one of the best tape watchers on the defence and the way he takes advantages of qbs is incredible even when there's no pass rush
yes some of that is on the DC but remember the communication shuts off after 15 seconds and when an offence huddles up they often dont even get in formation until after that 15 second timer shuts off the DC's mic so CJ is lining the players up and adjusting the playcall that he's been given
there's a reason Suggs still calls him half-man-half-amazing
i guess we just disagree but to me CJ is clearly worth a top 3 ILB payday given that there's only 2 ILBs in the league who've consistently been ahead of him since he entered the league... - and you also have to remember in terms of those "10-12 mil per year contracts" that jimmy only has 2 more years left on his deal and we can get out of it at the end of this next year, jefferson only has 3 more years on his contract but we can get out of it as the end of this next year
that leaves brandon williams as the only surefire long term commitment on this defence in terms of contracts - CJ is a no brainer... linebackers like him really dont turn up every year
and if we pick up a linebacker in the 1st round - we should still pay CJ because who better in the league outside of maybe Kuechly (who's unmatched in tape study and reading the offence) at calling defences - he's better than bobby wagner at that (even if bobby wagner is a better player than CJ individually)
allblackraven
Hall of Famer
Probably not but he's done very well his first 4 years and I think he'll improve and get to the similar level.Idk maybe we can get an LSU guy.. You think he's better than Kuechley?
Kuechly signed his deal 3 years ago. Times are changing, money is going up. If there's a guy to reset the market, I think it's Mosley.
Willbacker
Ravens Ring of Honor
Well it just seemed to me that every time we were caught in a blitz by a hard count and the QB audibled we didn't. Same guys showing blitz still came. Those 15 seconds that are left is what I'm talking about. Mosley is very good don't get me wrong but I believe he's overrated. Being healthy is what gives him numbers.
i dont agree with that at all - i remember once last year where we were obviously caught in a blitz and didnt change the call but i also saw multiple times where we showed blitz and it was a natural disguise or where we showed blitz and the offence thought it was a disguise and we blitzed anyway with a double bluff - and i saw multiple times where we showed blitz, the qb changes the call or points out the protection and we audibled out of the blitz or reset the DL to make it harder for the protection to deal with - the number of times Mosley would step forward to the line to get Henry or Williams or Davis to re-align maybe 5 seconds pre-snap was not insignificant - Mosley puts the other players around him in a position to succeed and that's something i think is not necessarily so easy to see for fans at times
mosley is as good as anyone outside of kuechly at the mind games
and dont forget in terms of those blitzes that still come that Mosley is the defensive playcaller but he's also limited by the playcall from the coordinator - he cant change everything and sometimes he has to trust the situational playcall
Willbacker
Ravens Ring of Honor
You only seen it happen once. I seen it way more than once since it was one of the complaints I would lay out on the Dean Pees thread. I'd be looking at the tv. Audible. Audible Arrrggghhhh!!
Like always rossi we cant agree lol. If they sign him tho I'm not gonna ditch my ravenfandom and just gonna hope for the best. I'm not gonna totally hate but I damn sure ain't gonna love it.
you dont know how many of those audibles were initial disguises that were supposed to happen anyway - if the fans on the tv spot it straight away then its likely a double bluff or something more subtle - or the defence is confident that the offence cant handle the initial blitz playcall - or maybe its part of baiting the qb to throw to a particular hot read that they've identified on film so they know what area to clog behind the blitz so that they either get the qb to throw a dangerous pass or force the qb to hold onto the ball longer and get sacked or pressured or hit or force a throwaway...
there's more to not audibling out of a blitz - CJ is so often talking and calling right down to the ball being snapped yet that blitzer isnt moving - that likely means that there's more disguises coming or the coverage is being adjusted behind the blitz - or maybe they drop someone from the line to add more confusion...
what will have also played into it is that the ravens weren't a high volume deceptive blitzing team - we would often show blitz and drop into coverage so a blitz look actually turning into a blitz would be hard to identify for an offence - that's why our single/double safety blitzes almost always hit home
Cville-Raven
MVP
lmao so true. Dissatisfied fans will always undervalue good players on an underperforming team. It is what it is I guess. He’s probably the most reliable defensive player we’ve drafted in the last decade or so. I have no why you’d just let him leave and assume you’re getting a good replacement from FA or UDFA. Zach Orr was nice and all but there was definitely a drop off when CJ got hurt and we had to rely on Orr as the centerpiece. There are a few other players at his position who have produced at his level the last 4 seasons. Look at what Telvin Smith got, he’s going to get something in that range and then some.
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Oldfaithful
Hall of Famer
I hate how everyone routinely lowballs CJ on here yet they talk up players that NEVER FUCKING DESERVE IT. One year it was Crockett, another it was Urschel, last year it was Orr.... Yet "CJ sucks." CJ makes the defense tick and is one of the most cerebral players in the game and unlike other ILBs is one who does the dirty work. Without him, Orr does not have that overrated season. There's a reason the defense falls off hard whenever the guy is either playing through injury or out completely.
I hated in principle paying Brandon Williams all that money. He's so one dimensional it's not even funny. Give CJ whatever the fuck he wants money wise. He's not even one of my favorite ravens but I literally have to give credit where credit is due
I hated in principle paying Brandon Williams all that money. He's so one dimensional it's not even funny. Give CJ whatever the fuck he wants money wise. He's not even one of my favorite ravens but I literally have to give credit where credit is due
allblackraven
Hall of Famer
It's very important to mention that "out completely" happened exactly twice in 4 years.