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2018 State of the Ravens: Bisciotti Solo Edition (2/2/18)

Steve believes outside of firing John which he doesn't want to do. Cutting Flacco who he says has a great shelf life at 33 (he evidently dealt with a herniated disc - very painful) is not happening. Marty was kept because Flacco wanted him and so we'll see how the two perform next season. Overall, he was unapologetic for the continuity of the team's key decision makers. He feels okay with doing a couple of extensions with players to free up cap room. So, we'll see how the fans react next year when they fail to make the playoffs yet again given the tough schedule.
 
He got very defensive 3 times.

Has the team stagnated
Are they at a crossroads
Teams don't fear us anymore

I actually think all 3 are true and would actually liked him to answer the questions.

Apart from those 3 questions he was quite honest.

Ozzie signed an extension a number of years ago and it was agreed eric would take over when it finished. Ozzie will stay on as a scout

Considered getting rid of harbs.

Harbs isn't in a playoff or die situation otherwise he'd fire him now.

Offense was boring and conservative early and this was a direct result of flaccos back injury. Mentioned 2nd highest scoring offense in 2nd half of the year.

Said defense is set personnel wise. Specifically mentioned had a lot of injuries and were horrible at sacking the qb. Horrible im pretty sure was his exact wording.

He mentioned they will be able to make a big splash in free agency for the offense and can restructure players like williams to do it. Whole offseason will be about strengthening offense. Was specifically told by kevin not to mention names as thats tapping up(possible trade??)

Mentioned the last 2 yrs missing the playoffs came down to two plays (pitts and cinci) and injuries.

Didnt lose big voices in the locker room outside of ray and ed since the superbowl.

Wants to look at lowering concessions but is in the middle of a contract.

Ticket prices will stay the same.

Doesnt think kneeling effected attendance because it was a problem last year. Thinks winning football will put bums in the seats again.

Wishes he could have spoke to the players before jax game and have dealt with it differently than kneeling.

Think that about sums it all up
 
I do appreciate Steve's emphasis on the defensive personnel all but confirming the obvious two year plan thing that @rossihunter2 and I have been preaching this whole time. While I do consider interior rush a massive need, I think it is good that we at least are acknowledging that this was indeed the long term plan.
Watching the conference now. I don't see the "He's content with mediocrity" thing. He did not come in an actively say that Harbaugh is here for the long run etc, etc etc. He's clearly displeased but like I said.. He wasn't going to throw anyone under the bus.

Just as I expected. Which is good. If he had deviated onto a different path that would have been concerning.
 
Ozzie in my opinion has suffered from two massive problems since 2012.

1. Too many cooks, one kitchen. Decosta has been running the draft for a few years now. Since 2014 I believe, and 3 of those drafts look good with one looking like a DISASTER in 2015. Makes me wonder if he and Decosta occasionally butted heads in the war room.
2. You knew this was coming. Bias. We have drafted 5 Alabama Players and 2 Michigan players in the past 8 years. Two of those players have been horrible, one has been very good, one looks like he's going to be a good player, and then the others are total unknowns. Not gonna lie. I'm sick this. For those who say that "Ozzie's Alabama bias plays no role". Really? Despite character concerns from Cam Robinson and the fact that his tape was TERRIBLE we were still considering him. I can personally guarentee you that if we had the options between Marshon Lattimore and Marlon Humphrey last draft we would have taken Marlon because Alabama. His Bama bias is apperant and obvious. It makes us predictable come draft day which likely contributes to the fact why NO ONE wants to trade back with us. Even in 2014 where we took CJ Mosley, a damn good player, we passed him up for not only a superior prospect in Brandin Cooks, but that was also a much larger position of need. Sorry, I'm not going to miss this.

Ozzie's had a hell of a career and nobody can take away that legacy from him.. But I do believe that blatant Alabama bias does make us predictable on draft day. We can't have that anymore.
I was saying this to a (Bucs fan) friend before the start of last year, but I think he's stuck in the 2000s. The draft has been all about building in the trenches and stuffing the run, which is important but the extent of his adaption to the modern game seems to have been to add lots of DBs to his lots of DTs. It feels like on the current trajectory our best case scenario is that we end up like the Chiefs, but I'm finding it hard to justify how we'd end up getting better results than the Chiefs. The guy was pretty stunned to hear that so it seems Ozzie still has a lot of cred around the league, but that probably plays into the rule that it takes a few years for someone's reputation to catch up once they've lost a couple of steps.

The Alabama bias hasn't really been an issue until about 2014, but it feels like he went full homer from that year and hasn't let up and wouldn't any time soon if he still had the reins.

I forgot this was on so I'm looking forward to the whole thing being uploaded, but from the cliff notes it looks like he was pretty candid about what's been going wrong. I wonder what his plans are in terms of recruiting new scouts or engaging some of the analytics firms other teams seem to use.
 
I thought he was, as always pretty forthright. He did come across as rather condescending regarding the "fear" question.
In Old Testament lingo, a definition of fear is actually respect. I think Bisciotti knows this is what was intended in the question but dismissed it as silly rather than answer.
Does this team have an identity league wide? NO.
Do good teams respect us? I wonder anymore.
 
I thought he was, as always pretty forthright. He did come across as rather condescending regarding the "fear" question.
In Old Testament lingo, a definition of fear is actually respect. I think Bisciotti knows this is what was intended in the question but dismissed it as silly rather than answer.
Does this team have an identity league wide? NO.
Do good teams respect us? I wonder anymore.
All of my Pats fan family (wife is from MA) respect the Ravens. They respect the Ravens and the Giants.
 
i sure hope decosta is more open minded and not stuck on the bpa method. if there is a specific need sometimes you need to draft that need instead of grabbing a position that isnt too needy but the board laid out says to draft him. much respect for ozzie but it is time to see what decosta can do. bisciotti made a great point regarding the loss of senior scouts and replacing them with rookies. it has definitely hurt as evidenced by several mediocre drafts in recent years. draft some players with an edge to them. ozzie and suggs farewell tour next season so win the whole damn thing
 
I do appreciate Steve's emphasis on the defensive personnel all but confirming the obvious two year plan thing that @rossihunter2 and I have been preaching this whole time. While I do consider interior rush a massive need, I think it is good that we at least are acknowledging that this was indeed the long term plan.

i think the bigger confirmation that this year is the final year of a plan is the fact that ozzie's contract and the pre-ordained handover is set for next offseason i.e. after the plan is supposed to finish and set the stage for the new gm going forward to build the team his own way (if eric wants to change the method at all)
 
He got very defensive 3 times.

Has the team stagnated
Are they at a crossroads
Teams don't fear us anymore

I actually think all 3 are true and would actually liked him to answer the questions.

in terms of stagnation he's not gonna admit to that
and despite not answering that question later he did bring up the fear factor later in the presser with relation to how he likes the ravens to have a dominating defence

as for the crossroads thing i completely sympathise with him not answering that question because as he rightfully said... what does being at a crossroads even mean...? what's telling is the journo didnt really have any response so there wasnt really much of a question to answer - in this case out of the 3 i feel like it was more of a tired of the bullshit type response than a defensive one...
 
The Alabama bias hasn't really been an issue until about 2014, but it feels like he went full homer from that year and hasn't let up and wouldn't any time soon if he still had the reins.

the bama picks havent not worked out for us since then though have they? last year i think literally any gm would have taken a bama player at the 16th pick given who was on the board - it was just which bama player - likewise timmy williams was a bargain

the only other bama player we've taken since 2014 is CJ... not a bad pick either...

i really dont think the bama "bias" is a thing in the sense that we eschew better talent from other schools just to take the bama guy just coz

in fact if we'd actually shaded towards bama even more we might have not busted on some players - we might have derrick henry in stead of correa, we might have landon collins in stead of perriman...
 
i sure hope decosta is more open minded and not stuck on the bpa method. if there is a specific need sometimes you need to draft that need instead of grabbing a position that isnt too needy but the board laid out says to draft him. much respect for ozzie but it is time to see what decosta can do. bisciotti made a great point regarding the loss of senior scouts and replacing them with rookies. it has definitely hurt as evidenced by several mediocre drafts in recent years. draft some players with an edge to them. ozzie and suggs farewell tour next season so win the whole damn thing

i have 2 problems with this:

1) BPA already includes need - the whole point of it is that its a board that takes into account the quality of the player, the off the field stuff and the positional fit/need - it's why (as Bisciotti said in the presser just today) we wont be taking a defensive lineman in round 1... if other teams all draft for need and a player not at a need position but of a high quality falls to us then we should take them - likewise if we have 2 similarly rated players on the board then we naturally take the biggest need...

2) the other problem i have with what you said is that eric decosta already runs the draft... we've seen what decosta can do and by most accounts (outside of 2015) it's been pretty good so far on the whole - some disappointing misses but also some phenomenal hits...
 
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