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The Offensive Line Thread

rossihunter2 said:
i feel like we played a pretty weak schedule that year though if im not mistaken
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They matched up with the AFC West and the NFC West that year so I would have to disagree on that front.

I honestly am amazed at how they managed to look competitive in so many games despite not having any talent left due to injuries. That alone is why Harbs is to me an elite. How can you possibly be competing with these teams with your top receiver being Aiken and no one behind him who is any good.
 
Adreme said:
They matched up with the AFC West and the NFC West that year so I would have to disagree on that front.

I honestly am amazed at how they managed to look competitive in so many games despite not having any talent left due to injuries. That alone is why Harbs is to me an elite. How can you possibly be competing with these teams with your top receiver being Aiken and no one behind him who is any good.
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Very well said and then you look at our 2013 season. It was known as the mass exodus and YET 5 out of our 8 losses were decided by 8 points or fewer. Plus, we were ONE game for clinching another playoff spot.

Is Harbs perfect? Nope. But I appreciate the fact that he gets his team competing week in and week out. Now once this o-line continues to play this well and we get B-Will back, I think we can do well this season.
 
Lost_In_Translation said:
Yes... They're real..

But this isn't the NBA or MLB. Trades for big name stars in the NFL are rare, and for a good reason. And prized offensive linemen don't grow on trees. Teams tend not to get rid of them.

And even with high prizes that could be on the block like Norwell. Norwell is going to be a FA next season anyway, and the panthers cannot afford to resign him. So tell me, why in the ever-loving fuck would an NFL team trade with the panthers for him when next offseason they could just sit and wait for him to be a FA next offseason and not give up future capital(draft picks) in order to get him. "But what about Eugene Monroe". That's different. We were far more desperate at the time and took advantage of an idiotic front office to get Monroe for basically nothing. Not only that, but it was a risky trade because some other team would have been able to sign Monroe off of the free agent market. We were lucky we were able to retain him.

A trade would be incredibly risky. Only options available would be guys who are on the last years of their deal and even though we'd get "first dibs", it'd still be no guarantee that we'd be able to retain them.

Don't get me wrong. Neglect of the oline is straight up the main reason I think this season is going to blow up in our face eventually, but trading for someone is an incredibly unrealistic and risky option.
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I get what you’re saying and agree with the point behind the narrative but your attempt to show the ridiculousness of a trade for certain players is a touch in itself ridiculous. Monroe isn’t the only example where a team traded for a guy in the final year of his deal. We saw this as recent as last year with the Patriots and Collins. This stuff does happen and it makes sense for both teams depending on the compensation surrendered and acquired.

That said, I don’t think we’re getting Norwell because it would mean the Panthers want to lose him this year. They are currently atop of their division so trading their starting LG seems like a brain dead idea to me. Sounds optimistic and foolish to think that’ll happen because why would they do that? I think Sami is the one who came up with that idea and it would be awesome but it takes two to trade and while the Panthers will probably lose him next year, people are missing that he could help them win this year and that has value, too—especially to a 4-1 team.
 
Adreme said:
They matched up with the AFC West and the NFC West that year so I would have to disagree on that front.

I honestly am amazed at how they managed to look competitive in so many games despite not having any talent left due to injuries. That alone is why Harbs is to me an elite. How can you possibly be competing with these teams with your top receiver being Aiken and no one behind him who is any good.
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I absolutely agree
 
Adreme said:
First off if you are going to argue that going 0-16 is the exact same as going 9-7 I am going to point at you and laugh because there is really nothing else that can be said other than to laugh. One means you were an awful football team and the other means you were 1 or 2 plays from making the playoffs.

That being said yes when your only losing season is due to everything getting injured yes you get a pass. Hurst was starting BECAUSE of injury. The Ravens lost all of there best players on both defense and offense and still went 5-11. Think about how insane that is. A team that had no playmakers on it, no QB, the remnants of a good defense but lacking its top 3 players which meant a bad secondary a bad front 7 and on offense a bad OLine a bad QB and no real weapons. That 2015 had no business winning 5 games and yet they did. I would actually be more annoyed by it if the Ravens hadnt gotten in my eyes the perfect player out of the top 6 for them so they certainly didnt win more than they needed to.

I get when people have an opinion based on emotion and they are not going to swayed by logic and reason but can you at least admit that your desire to see Harbs gone is not based on anything you want to see done differently or anything he has done wrong, or really anything other than feeling like we should have done better and not caring about why that did not happen.
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First of all we never went 0-16 under Billick so thats an irrelevant hypothetical scenario, we finished 2nd, 3rd, 1st and 4th, we made it to the divisional playoffs one year before going 5-11 when McNair fell off a cliff, thats when Billick was fired. The point is that we are not holding Harbaugh to the same standard that we held Billick, after almost a decade we are still inconsistent, Harbaugh still gets outcoached, adjusts poorly and gives way too many snaps to guys who have no buisiness being on an NFL field without covering their weaknesses.
 
BloodRaven said:
First of all we never went 0-16 under Billick so thats an irrelevant hypothetical scenario, we finished 2nd, 3rd, 1st and 4th, we made it to the divisional playoffs one year before going 5-11 when McNair fell off a cliff, thats when Billick was fired. The point is that we are not holding Harbaugh to the same standard that we held Billick, after almost a decade we are still inconsistent, Harbaugh still gets outcoached, adjusts poorly and gives way too many snaps to guys who have no buisiness being on an NFL field without covering their weaknesses.
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Lets make this simple. I will list the Ravens records by year and you can see why the Ravens were a model of inconsistency under Billick while far more consistent under Harbs

2000: 12-4 SB
2001: 10-6 lose div round
2002: 7-9 no playoffs
2003: 10-6 lose WC
2004: 9-7 no playoffs
2005: 6-10 no playoffs
2006: 13-3 lost div round
2007: 5-11 no playoffs

Honestly the worst part of those records is that the Ravens cost themselves games by being undisciplined and should have been far better. It was not just that the Ravens were bad 3 of 4 years, its that the Ravens were pretty much not getting it done since 2001 other then 1 good year in 2006 which showed what could have been.

Now lets start the Harbs era (yes I am 100% avoiding spelling his full name on purpose)

2008: 10-6 lost conf champ
2009: 9-7 lost div round
2010: 12-4 lost div round
2011: 12-4 lost conf champ
2012: 10-6 SB
2013: 8-8 no playoffs
2014: 10-6 lost div round
2015: 5-11 no playoffs
2016: 8-8 no playoffs

Now 2015 was a weird year and I get that your opinion is basically "yes every good player got injured and it was a tough schedule but they still should have won and made the playoffs because reasons" but the thing I want you to look at is the consistency. With the Billick Ravens the record was all over the place. You had no idea what you had and no idea what would happen, but Harbs is able to get the most out of the roster he has and it shows by the fact that there are not random spikes and ebbs in the record. When a team has massive swings in there yearly record I have to wonder how well they are being coached especially when there is not a lot of talent turnover, however the Ravens only really took a 2-3 game drop off in record after a massive talent turnover after the SB and a bunch of signings that did not work out that really hurt the roster (Pitta, Rice, Monroe).

Right now the Ravens have a young talented core that if they could stop getting hurt all the time would be contending for SB titles. Obviously a few more OL will be nice but the team has a lot of talent at a lot of positions and are deep at those positions as evidenced by the fact that they are still competitive.
 
Adreme said:
Lets make this simple. I will list the Ravens records by year and you can see why the Ravens were a model of inconsistency under Billick while far more consistent under Harbs

2000: 12-4 SB
2001: 10-6 lose div round
2002: 7-9 no playoffs
2003: 10-6 lose WC
2004: 9-7 no playoffs
2005: 6-10 no playoffs
2006: 13-3 lost div round
2007: 5-11 no playoffs

Honestly the worst part of those records is that the Ravens cost themselves games by being undisciplined and should have been far better. It was not just that the Ravens were bad 3 of 4 years, its that the Ravens were pretty much not getting it done since 2001 other then 1 good year in 2006 which showed what could have been.

Now lets start the Harbs era (yes I am 100% avoiding spelling his full name on purpose)

2008: 10-6 lost conf champ
2009: 9-7 lost div round
2010: 12-4 lost div round
2011: 12-4 lost conf champ
2012: 10-6 SB
2013: 8-8 no playoffs
2014: 10-6 lost div round
2015: 5-11 no playoffs
2016: 8-8 no playoffs

Now 2015 was a weird year and I get that your opinion is basically "yes every good player got injured and it was a tough schedule but they still should have won and made the playoffs because reasons" but the thing I want you to look at is the consistency. With the Billick Ravens the record was all over the place. You had no idea what you had and no idea what would happen, but Harbs is able to get the most out of the roster he has and it shows by the fact that there are not random spikes and ebbs in the record. When a team has massive swings in there yearly record I have to wonder how well they are being coached especially when there is not a lot of talent turnover, however the Ravens only really took a 2-3 game drop off in record after a massive talent turnover after the SB and a bunch of signings that did not work out that really hurt the roster (Pitta, Rice, Monroe).

Right now the Ravens have a young talented core that if they could stop getting hurt all the time would be contending for SB titles. Obviously a few more OL will be nice but the team has a lot of talent at a lot of positions and are deep at those positions as evidenced by the fact that they are still competitive.
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Great post but you're missing pieces of context, I compared the Billick and Harbaugh era because 3 out of their last 4 seasons ended in failure and the last time we went 5-11 we fired our HC, Harbaugh is in the hot seat. Other than that it's apples for oranges because the only steady QB situation that Billick had was one year from McNair before he fell off a cliff, we won our SB almost 5 years ago with Billicks holdovers and have declined ever since, don't agree? tell me if this team has improved since then.
 
Can we talk about RYAN JENSEN!!!! This guy is awesome it is so nice not watching Flacco get beat on his drop back by Zutah being pushed into him. Jensen is a massive tough man mover. He had one of the best PFF grades yesterday. I think he is the toughest guy on the team, and maybe one of the strongest. Please sign this guy now I truly think he is the future centerpiece of our life. He is the mean streak we need.
 
purplepittabread88 said:
Can we talk about RYAN JENSEN!!!! This guy is awesome it is so nice not watching Flacco get beat on his drop back by Zutah being pushed into him. Jensen is a massive tough man mover. He had one of the best PFF grades yesterday. I think he is the toughest guy on the team, and maybe one of the strongest. Please sign this guy now I truly think he is the future centerpiece of our life. He is the mean streak we need.
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I'm glad to be wrong about Jensen putting it all together, he's kicking ass out there. Also I knew Howard would at least get some push on our right side but he's been better than advertised and having a resurgence, I don't know if he lasts 4 years with injuries in recent years but he's been a welcome addition.
 
im surprised hurst is doing well at LG.

dude should stick around as a quality back up at least.
 
I'm not sure our line will look as good against Chicago as last week. Oakland mostly bring pressure from the edges and our tackles are good.
Chicage can bring a bit more pressure up the middle against our guards. If Chicago can do that and stop the run it could look like Jacksonville / Pittsburgh again, though that's a worst case scenario.
 
BloodRaven said:
Great post but you're missing pieces of context, I compared the Billick and Harbaugh era because 3 out of their last 4 seasons ended in failure and the last time we went 5-11 we fired our HC, Harbaugh is in the hot seat. Other than that it's apples for oranges because the only steady QB situation that Billick had was one year from McNair before he fell off a cliff, we won our SB almost 5 years ago with Billicks holdovers and have declined ever since, don't agree? tell me if this team has improved since then.
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You aren’t looking at the big picture and why we missed the playoffs and even remained competitive in the years we missed the playoffs. Including the 5-11 years. The other two years we missed the playoffs we were 8-8 and competitive. If the team was competitive in the 3 out of 4 years we missed the playoffs under Billick he wouldn’t have been fired. In 2004 we were competitive but the other two years under Billick we weren’t.

All we want you to look at as the big picture. Not just that they missed the playoffs 3 of 4.
 
RavensMania said:
You aren’t looking at the big picture and why we missed the playoffs and even remained competitive in the years we missed the playoffs. Including the 5-11 years. The other two years we missed the playoffs we were 8-8 and competitive. If the team was competitive in the 3 out of 4 years we missed the playoffs under Billick he wouldn’t have been fired. In 2004 we were competitive but the other two years under Billick we weren’t.

All we want you to look at as the big picture. Not just that they missed the playoffs 3 of 4.
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I dont really consider an 8-8 season to be "competitive", but heres another way of looking at it, Billicks Ravens won 2 more games in his last 4 seasons than Harbaugh has.
 
BloodRaven said:
He isn't doing well, judging by the eyeball test hes doing quite poorly and PFF has him as our worst lineman.
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I honestly can't take PFF too seriously when it comes to lineman and it's pretty difficult to judge lineman without playing the position because it isn't always as simple as just block the person in front of you.

I'm surprised they don't have Skura or Jermaine lower.
 
Tru11 said:
for a back up tackle having to start on the fly as a LG im not sure what you expect from him tbh.
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For the position I dont expect world beaters just maulers who can move people off the ball, what I expect from Hurst is more of the same bad performances.
 
29BmoreBird22 said:
I honestly can't take PFF too seriously when it comes to lineman and it's pretty difficult to judge lineman without playing the position because it isn't always as simple as just block the person in front of you.

I'm surprised they don't have Skura or Jermaine lower.
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I dont usually cite their cummulative grades but a lot of users here believe in them, in this case the oline grades align with what my eyes are telling me.
 
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