UPDATE: Lol nevermind, Harbaugh staying

[AngusMcFife]

46 minutes ago, sp6488 said:

Not a fan of dealing Harbs. The fact that so many teams appear interested in trading for him shows that we’ve got a good thing going. 

The question is, why doesn't Harbaugh want to stay? If he wants to leave, then I think all would be best served by letting him go. 

Is it possible his relationship with the front office soured this season? Perhaps Harbaugh wanted to bring back Flacco once he was healthy, but was overruled. Or maybe Harbaugh gets along with Ozzie but not DeCosta? Something fishy is going on. 

[sp6488]

Just now, AngusMcFife said:

The question is, why doesn't Harbaugh want to stay? If he wants to leave, then I think all would be best served by letting him go. 

Is it possible his relationship with the front office soured this season? Perhaps Harbaugh wanted to bring back Flacco once he was healthy, but was overruled. Or maybe Harbaugh gets along with Ozzie but not DeCosta? Something fishy is going on. 

I think youre making a few assumptions there to say “Harbaugh doesn’t want to be here.”

[SalvadorsDeli]

3 hours ago, sp6488 said:

I think youre making a few assumptions there to say “Harbaugh doesn’t want to be here.”

This is all obviously speculation. But I do think there's something a little odd about the fact that there's still some smoke out there about Harbaugh maybe moving on (now in the form of a trade) even after the public statement from the Ravens. Maybe it's just unfounded speculation, and the other possibility here is that it's Harbaugh doing a little bit of public flexing as a way of creating additional leverage in contract extension negotiations.

But it also wouldn't surprise me if there are some legitimately bruised feelings here on Harbaugh's part. He knows DeCosta isn't the one who hired him and he certainly knows that the organization was leaking word midseason that they were getting ready to move on from him. If there are bruised feelings from that or a breakdown in trust, if Harbaugh feels like he's always going to be looking over his shoulder because he's not fully 'DeCosta's guy' or whatever, then maybe the talk of multiple other NFL teams basically getting ready to get into a bidding war to fight over him feels all the more flattering and appealing. 

[coordinator0]

 

[Ray Reed]

42 minutes ago, BaltimoreTerp said:

This is all obviously speculation. But I do think there's something a little odd about the fact that there's still some smoke out there about Harbaugh maybe moving on (now in the form of a trade) even after the public statement from the Ravens. Maybe it's just unfounded speculation, and the other possibility here is that it's Harbaugh doing a little bit of public flexing as a way of creating additional leverage in contract extension negotiations.

But it also wouldn't surprise me if there are some legitimately bruised feelings here on Harbaugh's part. He knows DeCosta isn't the one who hired him and he certainly knows that the organization was leaking word midseason that they were getting ready to move on from him. If there are bruised feelings from that or a breakdown in trust, if Harbaugh feels like he's always going to be looking over his shoulder because he's not fully 'DeCosta's guy' or whatever, then maybe the talk of multiple other NFL teams basically getting ready to get into a bidding war to fight over him feels all the more flattering and appealing. 

I think the "leak" mid season that we were planning to move on from John was bogus from an "insider source" standpoint. If you go back and look that entire thing was started by Jason La Confora essentially just stating the obvious...if the 4-5 Ravens continue to fall apart Harbaugh won't be back. He speculated just like every other caller on 105.7 was doing at the time...except to give it more credence he used ambiguous language like "internal discussions". He had actually been singing the "harbaugh will be gone" tune over the summer whenever he would go on the radio. I think he threw darts thinking they would stick because he found it very unlikely the ravens would make the playoffs at that point. I find it very unlikely that someone who would have actual insight into the situation on the Steve Biscotti ran Baltimore Ravens were leaking that info to Jason La Confora.

 

[SalvadorsDeli]

47 minutes ago, Ray Reed said:

I think the "leak" mid season that we were planning to move on from John was bogus from an "insider source" standpoint. If you go back and look that entire thing was started by Jason La Confora essentially just stating the obvious...if the 4-5 Ravens continue to fall apart Harbaugh won't be back. He speculated just like every other caller on 105.7 was doing at the time...except to give it more credence he used ambiguous language like "internal discussions". He had actually been singing the "harbaugh will be gone" tune over the summer whenever he would go on the radio. I think he threw darts thinking they would stick because he found it very unlikely the ravens would make the playoffs at that point. I find it very unlikely that someone who would have actual insight into the situation on the Steve Biscotti ran Baltimore Ravens were leaking that info to Jason La Confora.

 

It wasn't just La Confora who reported the Harbaugh rumors, Ian Rapaport among others reported on it as well: 

 

The rumors were already festering at that point in early November, and the Ravens knew that (and could have nipped it all in the bud back then if they had pushed back on the rumors). They didn't deny any of it and waited until late December to publicly back Harbaugh. There was definitely something to all of that and an organization as generally tight-lipped and competent as this one is wouldn't have allowed that story to sit around for 2 months without course-correcting if they didn't also have doubts about whether they wanted to bring Harbaugh back or not. 

 

 

[Ray Reed]

Here's the thing though...NFL teams don't have an obligation to address every rumor that comes out about their team every year. If they did they'd have a new press release every week.

And who would even address that? Biscotti does 1 press conference a year. Ozzie? When has he ever said anything midseason in the history of him being our GM?

The Ravens almost never publicly address things/rumors from a front office/ownership perspective until after the season. That's just not how they do things. So it shouldn't have been any different than any other year when they didn't come out and respond to those rumors.

And there's a reason Rappaport didn't start reporting on that until La Confora did. He just followed Jason's very ambiguous lead.

And obviously they wanted to wait until December to start talking about an extension, they wanted to see if Harbaugh could turn the team around. And he did. But that doesn't mean there was some sort of internal leak about being unhappy with Harbaugh. It just means it was the logical thing to do, so they did it.

Dont forget that La Confora's original report was conclusive. It said "Ravens and John Harbaugh have agreed to part ways after the season". He was dead wrong. No one was feeding him that information, because clearly that decision hadn't been made yet.

[sp6488]

1 hour ago, BaltimoreTerp said:

This is all obviously speculation. But I do think there's something a little odd about the fact that there's still some smoke out there about Harbaugh maybe moving on (now in the form of a trade) even after the public statement from the Ravens. Maybe it's just unfounded speculation, and the other possibility here is that it's Harbaugh doing a little bit of public flexing as a way of creating additional leverage in contract extension negotiations.

But it also wouldn't surprise me if there are some legitimately bruised feelings here on Harbaugh's part. He knows DeCosta isn't the one who hired him and he certainly knows that the organization was leaking word midseason that they were getting ready to move on from him. If there are bruised feelings from that or a breakdown in trust, if Harbaugh feels like he's always going to be looking over his shoulder because he's not fully 'DeCosta's guy' or whatever, then maybe the talk of multiple other NFL teams basically getting ready to get into a bidding war to fight over him feels all the more flattering and appealing. 

It’s of course all speculation, but I think the most logical answer is Harbaugh exercising the leverage he has to get the biggest extension possible. 

[SalvadorsDeli]

1 minute ago, Ray Reed said:

Here's the thing though...NFL teams don't have an obligation to address every rumor that comes out about their team every year. If they did they'd have a new press release every week.

And who would even address that? Biscotti does 1 press conference a year. Ozzie? When has he ever said anything midseason in the history of him being our GM?

The Ravens almost never publicly address things/rumors from a front office/ownership perspective until after the season. That's just not how they do things. So it shouldn't have been any different than any other year when they didn't come out and respond to those rumors.

And there's a reason Rappaport didn't start reporting on that until La Confora did. He just followed Jason's very ambiguous lead.

We literally put out a press release last week announcing Harbaugh was staying. Which shows that both they knew that was an open question, because of all of the rumors, and also shows that we are willing to put out a public statement once we have something to say. Yeah, you don't put out a press release on every little rumor, but this wasn't just any old rumor, this was a story leading off national coverage in the NFL when it leaked. All they had to do to put the rumors to bed back in October/November is text Schefter, etc. telling them that the rumors are bogus. And they didn't. We can either believe it took them 2 months to notice that people weren't sure whether Harbaugh was staying or not, or look at the more likely scenario that the rumors were out there because the organization were the ones laying the groundwork for an eventual Harbaugh firing/putting him on notice in a public way.

Personally, I suspect that there are probably 2 big reasons why Harbaugh was put on the hot seat in a public way and then had that message reversed when it did. One, it's possible DeCosta had specific replacements in mind, rather than wanting to move on from Harbaugh no matter what, but those feelers didn't work/we didn't get assurances that our targets (David Shaw, perhaps?) would take the job. And secondly,, and this is the bigger reason - Harbaugh simply changed their minds both by going on a big winning run and doing it with Lamar Jackson at QB, thus giving leadership reason to believe he can be the one to develop Lamar moving forward.

It'll be interesting to see how the extension conversations goes. Especially knowing that teams like Denver and Miami are willing to offer him a proverbial blank check, I doubt Harbaugh is going to settle for a short-term extension - he'll want a genuine long term commitment from the Ravens. But if you're the Ravens, are you confident enough in someone you were thinking about moving on from 2 months ago to then go and offer him a lucrative 5ish year contract? The only way I see this working out is if the Ravens bend on that - if they only offer a short term 2 or 3 year extension that basically says he's not fully off the hot seat, then I bet he walks away and we end up having to look down the trade route. 

 

 

[drd23]

Not that its of any surprise, but seeing as how his name was brought up earlier in the year

 

[AngusMcFife]

On 12/31/2018 at 5:14 PM, BaltimoreTerp said:

if you're the Ravens, are you confident enough in someone you were thinking about moving on from 2 months ago to then go and offer him a lucrative 5ish year contract? The only way I see this working out is if the Ravens bend on that - if they only offer a short term 2 or 3 year extension that basically says he's not fully off the hot seat, then I bet he walks away and we end up having to look down the trade route. 

 

I think coming in to the season, the FO knew Harbaugh could coach a quality defense and special teams if the team stayed health.

But the major question was, was he committed to being innovative on offense, could he be flexible and adapt the offense to the new offensive-friendly league?  

Once those questions were answered, I can see how the FO would be willing change their stance on Harbaugh so quickly. 

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

2 hours ago, AngusMcFife said:

I think coming in to the season, the FO knew Harbaugh could coach a quality defense and special teams if the team stayed health.

But the major question was, was he committed to being innovative on offense, could he be flexible and adapt the offense to the new offensive-friendly league?  

Once those questions were answered, I can see how the FO would be willing change their stance on Harbaugh so quickly. 

I'm not going to spend much time on this though because it's a moot point now, but we were able to mold an entire offense around Lamar Jackson's strengths in basically a full week of practice. Why were we never able to do that for Joe Flacco in like 6 years?

[DreamKid]

8 minutes ago, AFlaccoSeagulls said:

I'm not going to spend much time on this though because it's a moot point now, but we were able to mold an entire offense around Lamar Jackson's strengths in basically a full week of practice. Why were we never able to do that for Joe Flacco in like 6 years?

What do you mean?

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

Just now, DreamKid said:

What do you mean?

How were we apparently never able to maximize Flacco's talent/strengths in an offense over the course of several years and several coordinators, but did so with Lamar Jackson in a week?

[DreamKid]

1 minute ago, AFlaccoSeagulls said:

How were we apparently never able to maximize Flacco's talent/strengths in an offense over the course of several years and several coordinators, but did so with Lamar Jackson in a week?

Well not many serviceable QBs have the running threat/ability to make this kind of offense work. Lamar is special. It's easier to build an offense around a generational weapon like Jackson. Traditional QBs need a good line and good set of weapons to get things going. Flacco initially had weapons that gelled with his skill set like Mason & Heap, and later we added deep threats like Torrey & Jacoby to take advantage of his arm. Also his height helped him build a connection with little RR spilling out of the backfield. Building around a traditional QB primarily means consistently hitting on Draft Picks, and then getting good coaches to install a system for it all. Luckily for LJ8 we had the right guy to install(Roman), in house. Though drafting him probably was influenced because of that.

Lamar can make your job easier with the attention he commands in the run & pass game. From there when you have weapons like Mark Andrews & Snead taking advantage, you can really get some things going. We've got a good nucleus here for Lamar and should expect big things.