The Lamar, The Defence and The Special Teams

[29BmoreBird22]

the answer to that is usage
how he was used as part of the front

he was basically this good last year with a few less pass rush moves to win with
he is now getting the statistical reward for being as good as he was in 2022 as well as 2023

that's why im not worried about "regression", because i think he was almost this good last year and wasnt getting the sack numbers (partly because of how we used calais) - he's been my guy since before we drafted him, and so ive closely followed him through his seasons

he has a skillset that is rare in the NFL with his combination of power, burst, speed and bend - and that's tough to handle
yes he's been the beneficiary of some sacks as the contain player - but also worth noting that one of the biggest pass rushing blights for the ravens over the last umpteen years has been the inability to actually finish sacks

If he kept his current pace and sack rates, he'd be a statistical anomaly and I'd be over the moon if he stayed a Raven.

I think it'd be really tough to expect him to maintain his current pace because of factors outside of his control, such as Clowney and Van Noy keeping a roll out contained, general lack of escapability from a quarterback, playing in less favorable down and distance, etc.

He could be the same player next year as this year and still regress heavily statistically, and I'd expect that.

 

[rossihunter2]

If he kept his current pace and sack rates, he'd be a statistical anomaly and I'd be over the moon if he stayed a Raven.

I think it'd be really tough to expect him to maintain his current pace because of factors outside of his control, such as Clowney and Van Noy keeping a roll out contained, general lack of escapability from a quarterback, playing in less favorable down and distance, etc.

He could be the same player next year as this year and still regress heavily statistically, and I'd expect that.

i wouldnt expect 13 sacks a year
but typically pressures are a lot less variable year-to-year

 

[29BmoreBird22]

OBJ we save cap space by extending him or cutting him - he's going to be unaffected by Madubuike at all

agholor's cheap - will be unaffected by a Madubuike deal if they want him

Duvernay i think will be gone regardless

Queen has priced himself out of baltimore

Clowney will probably do what he's done the last several seasons which is wait out initial free agency (unless someone offers him a bag) and then see where he can get a 1 year deal later in the offseason - if he wants to remain a raven then im sure they can work out a 2-3 year deal for him that will keep his cap hit low in year 1 - either way, if OBJ's cut with a june-1st designation, it may be that the money we save there, helps pay for clowney later in the offseason

Van Noy may stick around, he may not, either way he's not going to be offered much by the ravens to stay im pretty sure

Zeitler i think will be moved on from with a big thank you for your service - he's 34 by the time free agency starts

Moses is still under contract for 2024...

Darby was a nice pickup and would be a nice re-signing if he's interested - he might not be as interested in March to be a backup as he was when Marlo was injured and he was still available in August...

Maulet's cheap - will be unaffected by a Madubuike deal if they want him

if we're just looking to fit Madubuike's tag then we can do that... Bowser will be cut, Ricard with a cut or an extension, Moses with a cut or an extension, Mekari with an extension - we probably dont want to have to do all this stuff just to fit him in with a tag, obviously the idea would be to get him on a long-term deal

Okay, regarding OBJ, someone please explain this to me- his void years were removed, correct? The Ravens essentially must re-sign him or he's a guaranteed 6/1 cut. However, if he's re-signed, his cap number will be dependent on the new deal, yes? He'll be unaffected by the old deal in that sense?

Regarding the rest- the Ravens, according to Brian McFarland, are at $16M under the cap. I'm going to assume that Bowser is 100% gone, which brings it up to $21M. The Ravens will then have an adjustment of $7M for incentives, bringing it down to $14M. To be fair, I'm not 100% on if that $16M figure includes the Bowser roll over or not, so let's say it doesn't and just call it $16M.

Then let's say the Ravens cut OBJ post 6/1 and that covers the Ravens draft class. Let's assume all $16M goes to free agency. Please let me know if any of this is incorrect because I'm using this as a basis for the rest of what I say.

The franchise tag for Madubuike will be $21M. The Ravens could roll the dice with the transition tag, but I have a feeling it'd be very easy for a team to construct a deal that can't be matched and then the Ravens actually get nothing, so let's assume franchise tag.

I think Pat Ricard is a natural option to be cut (I'm 50/50, but with money being tight, I get it.) That's $4M in savings to bring us to $20M. So, the Ravens need *another* cut to get that last $1M. A name I have seen tossed around has been Moses, which is why I mentioned him. That saves around $5M, so now we do have enough for the tag with $4M left over for free agency at all.

However, now the Ravens are at 44 contracts total and have significant holes to fill.

I know guys like Maulet, Clowney, Darby, and Agholor weren't terribly expensive, relatively speaking, but Clowney carried a cap hit of $4.5M and Agholor like $3.5M. Those add up when you're incredibly tight on cap space.

I think it's pretty hard to imagine players like Maulet and Darby won't receive pay bumps and it'd be hard to see that being from the Ravens if everything plays out like outlined above.

Ultimately, I think you'll see a lot of bargain bin hunting in the tier of John Simpson and Maulet. The Ravens might get a Maulet and get pleasant surprises or they could get a lot of Simpsons and that isn't exactly a positive.

I think this will be the toughest offseason for EDC yet.

 

[29BmoreBird22]

i wouldnt expect 13 sacks a year
but typically pressures are a lot less variable year-to-year

We'll have to see. He's already beaten out his prior three year total combined and the Ravens have played ahead at a historic pace, meaning they're facing a lot of passing attempts and favorable down and distance defensively. I think this was the perfect storm of a year for things to line up for him to have a huge statistical year.

 

[Simba]

Okay, regarding OBJ, someone please explain this to me- his void years were removed, correct? The Ravens essentially must re-sign him or he's a guaranteed 6/1 cut. However, if he's re-signed, his cap number will be dependent on the new deal, yes? He'll be unaffected by the old deal in that sense?

Regarding the rest- the Ravens, according to Brian McFarland, are at $16M under the cap. I'm going to assume that Bowser is 100% gone, which brings it up to $21M. The Ravens will then have an adjustment of $7M for incentives, bringing it down to $14M. To be fair, I'm not 100% on if that $16M figure includes the Bowser roll over or not, so let's say it doesn't and just call it $16M.

Then let's say the Ravens cut OBJ post 6/1 and that covers the Ravens draft class. Let's assume all $16M goes to free agency. Please let me know if any of this is incorrect because I'm using this as a basis for the rest of what I say.

The franchise tag for Madubuike will be $21M. The Ravens could roll the dice with the transition tag, but I have a feeling it'd be very easy for a team to construct a deal that can't be matched and then the Ravens actually get nothing, so let's assume franchise tag.

I think Pat Ricard is a natural option to be cut (I'm 50/50, but with money being tight, I get it.) That's $4M in savings to bring us to $20M. So, the Ravens need *another* cut to get that last $1M. A name I have seen tossed around has been Moses, which is why I mentioned him. That saves around $5M, so now we do have enough for the tag with $4M left over for free agency at all.

However, now the Ravens are at 44 contracts total and have significant holes to fill.

I know guys like Maulet, Clowney, Darby, and Agholor weren't terribly expensive, relatively speaking, but Clowney carried a cap hit of $4.5M and Agholor like $3.5M. Those add up when you're incredibly tight on cap space.

I think it's pretty hard to imagine players like Maulet and Darby won't receive pay bumps and it'd be hard to see that being from the Ravens if everything plays out like outlined above.

Ultimately, I think you'll see a lot of bargain bin hunting in the tier of John Simpson and Maulet. The Ravens might get a Maulet and get pleasant surprises or they could get a lot of Simpsons and that isn't exactly a positive.

I think this will be the toughest offseason for EDC yet.

But again, you talk about all of these different guys that we’re losing like they all aren’t on the older side already, sans Queen obviously. We’re not losing a bunch of guys in the prime years of their careers. If we’re lucky, they have 1-2 years of quality play left. Why would we mortgage the future of an interior rusher that can have impact for the life of that contract for guys that are closer to retirement than anything else? I also understand that we need to replace them with a body on the depth chart, but we’ve long been adept at finding guys off the scrap heap (just like most of these guys). Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t. I’ll hedge my bets on the guy that’s grown each year to continue growing rather than running it back with guys at the end.

Not to mention, some of these guys might get a pay bump but it’s not like they’re going to be out there getting these huge multi-year deals. If we really want to retain them, there’s a good chance we void year the fuck out of them because the long term impact of guys at this level would be minimal.

 

[allblackraven]

Okay, regarding OBJ, someone please explain this to me- his void years were removed, correct? The Ravens essentially must re-sign him or he's a guaranteed 6/1 cut. However, if he's re-signed, his cap number will be dependent on the new deal, yes? He'll be unaffected by the old deal in that sense?

Regarding the rest- the Ravens, according to Brian McFarland, are at $16M under the cap. I'm going to assume that Bowser is 100% gone, which brings it up to $21M. The Ravens will then have an adjustment of $7M for incentives, bringing it down to $14M. To be fair, I'm not 100% on if that $16M figure includes the Bowser roll over or not, so let's say it doesn't and just call it $16M.

Then let's say the Ravens cut OBJ post 6/1 and that covers the Ravens draft class. Let's assume all $16M goes to free agency. Please let me know if any of this is incorrect because I'm using this as a basis for the rest of what I say.

The franchise tag for Madubuike will be $21M. The Ravens could roll the dice with the transition tag, but I have a feeling it'd be very easy for a team to construct a deal that can't be matched and then the Ravens actually get nothing, so let's assume franchise tag.

I think Pat Ricard is a natural option to be cut (I'm 50/50, but with money being tight, I get it.) That's $4M in savings to bring us to $20M. So, the Ravens need *another* cut to get that last $1M. A name I have seen tossed around has been Moses, which is why I mentioned him. That saves around $5M, so now we do have enough for the tag with $4M left over for free agency at all.

However, now the Ravens are at 44 contracts total and have significant holes to fill.

I know guys like Maulet, Clowney, Darby, and Agholor weren't terribly expensive, relatively speaking, but Clowney carried a cap hit of $4.5M and Agholor like $3.5M. Those add up when you're incredibly tight on cap space.

I think it's pretty hard to imagine players like Maulet and Darby won't receive pay bumps and it'd be hard to see that being from the Ravens if everything plays out like outlined above.

Ultimately, I think you'll see a lot of bargain bin hunting in the tier of John Simpson and Maulet. The Ravens might get a Maulet and get pleasant surprises or they could get a lot of Simpsons and that isn't exactly a positive.

I think this will be the toughest offseason for EDC yet.

Restructuring Marlon and Andrews would free up quite a nice chunk of space and considering they are still young, it's a no brainer.

I don't think we will be in a hurry to cut Ricard, either. He might get extended, too.

 

[29BmoreBird22]

But again, you talk about all of these different guys that we’re losing like they all aren’t on the older side already, sans Queen obviously. We’re not losing a bunch of guys in the prime years of their careers. If we’re lucky, they have 1-2 years of quality play left. Why would we mortgage the future of an interior rusher that can have impact for the life of that contract for guys that are closer to retirement than anything else? I also understand that we need to replace them with a body on the depth chart, but we’ve long been adept at finding guys off the scrap heap (just like most of these guys). Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t. I’ll hedge my bets on the guy that’s grown each year to continue growing rather than running it back with guys at the end.

Not to mention, some of these guys might get a pay bump but it’s not like they’re going to be out there getting these huge multi-year deals. If we really want to retain them, there’s a good chance we void year the fuck out of them because the long term impact of guys at this level would be minimal.

Again, I don't expect that all those guys will be back, but you have to have someone to replace them and if you're investing that much into a singular player, you're looking at the Ojabo's and JAD's of the roster to take their place and that's not exactly an ideal situation, regardless of whether or not I think Madubuike is worth the contract in the first place.

I also am wary of void years due to how it's worked out for the Saints where they're slowly bleeding high end talent and in a perpetual state of mediocrity with no end in sight because they have to mortgage future cap to even get under year after year. I'm not even sure they could realistically blow it up and start over this year because their cap is so dire, but I digress.

 

[29BmoreBird22]

Restructuring Marlon and Andrews would free up quite a nice chunk of space and considering they are still young, it's a no brainer.

I don't think we will be in a hurry to cut Ricard, either. He might get extended, too.

Marlon is an interesting one to me. He's been on a steady decline, albeit still playing well, since 2019 and obviously injuries have been huge this year. I'd imagine he's in the same boat as Stanley- someone you could restructure, but someone you aren't necessarily dying to.

If the Ravens restructured Mark and reduced his salary to $1M, they're only saving $3M against the cap. I could definitely see him as a restructure candidate, or even an extension, but it's not saving significant cash just to restructure.

 

[rossihunter2]

Regarding the rest- the Ravens, according to Brian McFarland, are at $16M under the cap. I'm going to assume that Bowser is 100% gone, which brings it up to $21M. The Ravens will then have an adjustment of $7M for incentives, bringing it down to $14M. To be fair, I'm not 100% on if that $16M figure includes the Bowser roll over or not, so let's say it doesn't and just call it $16M.

has he already adjusted to add on additional rollover cap space from this year (around 4m i think)?
and are you sure he hasnt already added the 7m incentives to get to 16m?

the situation re: losing guys is not atypical for us every year tbh
we sign a bunch of vets on 1 year deals who play well and they either come back on similar deals or they get pay bumps elsewhere and we replace them with a different version of them

e.g. arthur maulet is just what kyle fuller might have been in 2022 with a healthy season, KVN is not dissimilar to what Houston was a year earlier with worse personnel around him

the other part of this is that while the cap gets tight, there arent many madubuikes (or other 3 down interior DL) in the league
there are tons of guys like the ones we'll need to replace

the 80/20 rule relies on there being someone to do 80% of what madubuike does who's available at all, let alone at 20% of the price...

and most seasons from here on out are gonna be tough offseasons with tough decisions, but we have to retain our best players and draft well and rely on udfas for depth at others - we're not going to be able to make big moves on the vet market with the stars that make this team go

retain madubuike and you've got the middle of your team on both sides of the ball set for years... Lamar, Linderbaum on offence and Madubuike, Roquan and Hamilton on defence

 

[ndub]

You get rid of a star players in his prime for a bunch of veterans nearing retirement in a couple years and you'll end up with what we had before. A mediocre playoff team that would be lucky to win one playoff game. You keep your best players no matter what

 

[29BmoreBird22]

has he already adjusted to add on additional rollover cap space from this year (around 4m i think)?
and are you sure he hasnt already added the 7m incentives to get to 16m?

the situation re: losing guys is not atypical for us every year tbh
we sign a bunch of vets on 1 year deals who play well and they either come back on similar deals or they get pay bumps elsewhere and we replace them with a different version of them

e.g. arthur maulet is just what kyle fuller might have been in 2022 with a healthy season, KVN is not dissimilar to what Houston was a year earlier with worse personnel around him

the other part of this is that while the cap gets tight, there arent many madubuikes (or other 3 down interior DL) in the league
there are tons of guys like the ones we'll need to replace

the 80/20 rule relies on there being someone to do 80% of what madubuike does who's available at all, let alone at 20% of the price...

and most seasons from here on out are gonna be tough offseasons with tough decisions, but we have to retain our best players and draft well and rely on udfas for depth at others - we're not going to be able to make big moves on the vet market with the stars that make this team go

retain madubuike and you've got the middle of your team on both sides of the ball set for years... Lamar, Linderbaum on offence and Madubuike, Roquan and Hamilton on defence

I see that he has the roll over at around $2.3M. I thought it was odd he wouldn't have counted Bowser in that already given Bowser has accumulated toward the cap with every week. But, I am 100% sure he did not account for the incentives in his $16M because he had negative adjustments at $0.

Yes, I agree entirely that the Ravens have done decently well with bargain hunting and we certainly remember the good ones. The issue is, for every Darby or Maulet that signs for dirt cheap, there's a Ya Sin or Simpson and when you start to have to rely on too many Simpsons or Ya Sins... that's my concern because we've already seen what a depleted offense looks like (2021, which was Lamar's worst year, in my opinion.)

My point has always been- if signing Madubuike came at the expense of Zeitler, Moses, Simpson, Edwards, Dobbins, OBJ, Duvernay, and Agholor (and equivalent level replacements), do I think Madubuike can do enough to make up for those losses? I don't think if we placed this Madubuike into 2021 that it makes much of a difference overall.

 

[airconteka]

I've got to give you guys credit, pages and pages of text trying to convince each other who's right. All that effort exerted flexing your superior football knowledge, pages and pages of it. Only to realise only an idiot would invest this much time on whats a DT worth

 

[29BmoreBird22]

I've got to give you guys credit, pages and pages of text trying to convince each other who's right. All that effort exerted flexing your superior football knowledge, pages and pages of it. Only to realise only an idiot would invest this much time on whats a DT worth

Discussing Ravens free agents on a Ravens forum. Who would do that? What an idiot.

Oh wait... that's what this forum is for...

 

[airconteka]

Discussing Ravens free agents on a Ravens forum. Who would do that? What an idiot.

Oh wait... that's what this forum is for...

Well at the very least, discuss it in the free agents thread. It's a boring to and fro that has nothing to do with the Texans game.

 

[29BmoreBird22]

Well at the very least, discuss it in the free agents thread. It's a boring to and fro that has nothing to do with the Texans game.

Is anyone even still discussing the Texans game?

 

[ndub]

Is anyone even still discussing the Texans game?

I mean... To be fair, the Madubuike talk is off topic to this thread, and it'd probably attract more attention being over in the FA thread or even in it's own Madubuike thread itself. Idk

 

[JoeyFlex5]

I've got to give you guys credit, pages and pages of text trying to convince each other who's right. All that effort exerted flexing your superior football knowledge, pages and pages of it. Only to realise only an idiot would invest this much time on whats a DT worth

I am indeed an idiot

 

[JoeyFlex5]

Is anyone even still discussing the Texans game?

Here we go

Lmao

 

[ndub]

Here we go
View attachment 5887
Lmao

If Joe Thuney doesn't play this man-beast will eat

 

[JoeyFlex5]

I honestly think I addressed everything and you addressed literally zero of my questions from my longer post, so at this point, I'm just going to assume there's nothing more to contribute.

As an edit: I just went back in your post history and read every post to make sure I didn't miss anything and really what I saw boiled down to-

"He's got a lot of sacks and pressures. We can't let him walk. He's got great stats. Have to keep him."

The only nuance that I really saw was suggesting that Madubuike's interior pressure has led to a pocket that cannot be stepped up into and it has benefitted Clowney and Van Noy, which I think is a totally fair point. I think they work really well in tandem based on the sack footage I've seen, but it's a really fair point.

But again, I'm trying to look at why his stats took this meteoric, unprecedented rise and you're basically going, "I don't like it. Doesn't make Madubuike look good. I will ignore."

I felt I added a lot of context by using examples as to why PRWR shouldn’t be almost the sole determining factor, and you’re basically going “I don’t like it, doesn’t make PRWR look good, I will ignore.”

But that’s aight, that’s why I’m choosing to move on here, lots of brick walls arguing with eachother over this