Random Ravens Thoughts: New Forum Edition

[RavensfanRD]

So they're saying Brandon Williams will be out against the Titans. We're in big trouble, lol

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

19 minutes ago, RavensfanRD said:

So they're saying Brandon Williams will be out against the Titans. We're in big trouble, lol

Derrick Henry might actually set an NFL record for rushing yards because we all know the run defense is going to crumble and the coaching staff will be like "injuries killed us! We can't stop the run without Brandon Williams!"

[baltimoreRebel]

4 hours ago, AFlaccoSeagulls said:

Derrick Henry might actually set an NFL record for rushing yards because we all know the run defense is going to crumble and the coaching staff will be like "injuries killed us! We can't stop the run without Brandon Williams!"

If BW is out and Calais too? I'm calling this one an L unless there's some miracle that occurs. 

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

6 minutes ago, baltimoreRebel said:

If BW is out and Calais too? I'm calling this one an L unless there's some miracle that occurs. 

Yeah they're both out. Derek Wolfe is our only hope, and maybe they'll call in Jihad Ward or something else but I'm not hopeful.

[baltimoreRebel]

I'll preface this by saying I love Harbaugh. Always will. He has really annoyed me in recent years though. Let's say for the sake of argument, he's fired after this season (very unlikely) 

Who are some coaching candidates you'd like to see considered? I have 3 in mind. 

Wink Martindale - He just fits the Raven mentality. He's a no BS kind of guy and I think he's the type of coach who players love to play for. 

Robert Saleh - Again. He fits the Raven mold. Highly energetic and another guy that players love to play for. 

Eric Bieniemy - His resume speaks for itself. I believe he's snatched up after this year by someone without a doubt. He's just too good to go another year without being hired as a HC. 

Anyone else ready for a new regime if Harbs can't get at least a playoff win with this talented roster? 

[baltimoreRebel]

5 minutes ago, AFlaccoSeagulls said:

Yeah they're both out. Derek Wolfe is our only hope, and maybe they'll call in Jihad Ward or something else but I'm not hopeful.

Has Calais been confirmed. I thought Harbaugh said he was a maybe. 

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

11 minutes ago, baltimoreRebel said:

I'll preface this by saying I love Harbaugh. Always will. He has really annoyed me in recent years though. Let's say for the sake of argument, he's fired after this season (very unlikely) 

Who are some coaching candidates you'd like to see considered? I have 3 in mind. 

Wink Martindale - He just fits the Raven mentality. He's a no BS kind of guy and I think he's the type of coach who players love to play for. 

Robert Saleh - Again. He fits the Raven mold. Highly energetic and another guy that players love to play for. 

Eric Bieniemy - His resume speaks for itself. I believe he's snatched up after this year by someone without a doubt. He's just too good to go another year without being hired as a HC. 

Anyone else ready for a new regime if Harbs can't get at least a playoff win with this talented roster? 

Not point in even discussing it because it's not gonna happen, and if it did the last person I would want is Wink. He's not a HC guy. Bieniemy would be my top choice, but again this isn't gonna happen, nor should it.

10 minutes ago, baltimoreRebel said:

Has Calais been confirmed. I thought Harbaugh said he was a maybe. 

Technically he's a maybe, but I think it's like 85% he's not playing this week.

[DreamKid]

3 minutes ago, baltimoreRebel said:

Anyone else ready for a new regime if Harbs can't get at least a playoff win with this talented roster?

I'm open to it. It would have to be a clear upgrade, and us securing a long term rising talent at HC to pair with Lamar- but I'd be down.

2 minutes ago, AFlaccoSeagulls said:

but again this isn't gonna happen

Nope. Roman won't be fired either. Really, nothing will change. All we can hope for is better players coming in by way of our true organizational strength(GM/FO), and strong progression from key players in a COVID free offseason. Some better injury luck too. 🤷‍♂️ That's about it.....

[DreamKid]

It's very important for us to close out this season strong. Even if a championship in 2020 is off the table. This current squad is getting a bad reputation and giving off a suss energy that's plain to see. Some combustible elements in house too. We could soon find ourselves losing the 'destination team' label that has aided us so much(especially with FA and FastTrack trades).

There needs to be some injection of hope and energy from somewhere to keep that purple light shining. Gone is the anomaly Ray Lewis who could light this franchises fires single handedly. We need a hero to emerge from somewhere.  

[diamondbull424]

I’m not ready to sound the alarms on this season. Call me an ever optimist... or an unhealthy realist? But I see potential still for this season. The negatives are all clear and easy to see, for sure. However the positives are that even with Greg Roman being suspect and with the complacency Harbaugh can show on occasions... our organization IS willing to be aggressive and Harbaugh has well. He once fired an OC in the middle of what would become our SB run. And that year was even worse IMO. There was literally a mutiny of VETERANS, Ed Reed included who were fed up.

So when I look at this season, we absolutely needed the adversity to build this team. Sure we’ve lost 3 games on the year, but let’s be real. When healthy, we have one of the best defenses in the NFL. Sure we lost to the Patriots, but BB is the best coach in NFL history and our coaches aren’t going to be able to compete with his level of coaching in a monsoon. We’ve also lost to Harbaugh’s daddy (because Reid always sons him) and we lost to the Steelers in a game that pending Lamar not having one of his worst turnover games of his career, we likely win.

DeCosta brought in Dez Bryant and he’s been in our offense learning for about enough time that we could expect to see him seeing more snaps and more trust out there. We’ve seen Lamar cooking more and more as of late and looking comfortable out there. He looks far more in a groove than he did to start the season. Our OL while imploded in that game, held up well vs top 5 front 7’s in the league. We have a talented group of RBs. Our WR talent isn’t as bad as the stat column makes it look. While I don’t have the faith and confidence that Roman will draw up a creative passing attack, out of necessity, we will likely HAVE to go with more sets that put 3 and 4 WRs out on the field at one time. Many of those WRs are great and physical blockers to boot; Dez Bryant, Miles Boykin, Devin Duvernay, and Willie Snead can all be physical out there.

Perhaps I’m drinking the purple nectar of the gods, but Miles Boykin on CB3’s and CB4’s COULD potentially unlock his inner Chase Claypool or at least his inner Breshad Permian once he gets mismatches. Willie Snead is tough and physical. Duvernay can get us YAC and destroy a seam. Hollywood while he needs to definitely stop complaining if he’s not going to win 1v1, he’s still a good #2 WR type in that John Brown mold. Then you’ve got Dez Bryant who will be a physical blocker and will definitely be looking to show out to resurrect his career. More spread sets means we can see James Proche’s elite hands at work within the offense a few snaps a game.

Lastly, the Titans defense definitely has been quite leaky as of late. Spreading them out and attacking might’ve been our best bet to beat them anyway. But whether we win that game or lose it. If we can get Calais Campbell back for the Steelers game and Jimmy is back and ready to go, than we have the ability to pull the win off. Winning the division or not, is irrelevant to me this season. Who cares about having home games during COVID anyway. Plus this team is 4-1 on the road and 2-2 at home this season. We’d probably do better as an “underdog” 5 seed than we ever did as the favorite #1 seed having taken weeks off to allow complacency and overconfidence to set in. I’m still pissed off that we lost to the Patriots and if we lose to the Titans because we can’t stop the run and they keep us off balance, so be it. The real season starts on Thanksgiving. Going 6-0 to close out the season at 12-4 is exactly the kind of momentum we would love to have entering into the playoffs. We wouldn’t be peaking too soon as we were last season. The Steelers are in peak mode, but is it too early? We’ll see....

[drd23]

I agree with AFS on it being a moot discussion because Harbaugh isn't going anywhere (and nor should he be unless the unlikely occurs and there's a full on mutiny in the locker room) and that I wouldn't want Martindale to be the Ravens HC if for some reason the job was open.

IDK about Bieniemy as I didn't really pay all that much attention to the coaching hire discussions last off-season, but I do think that an offensive-minded HC would fit better when you've got a fairly established defensive culture but a very young offense

[diamondbull424]

2 hours ago, baltimoreRebel said:

I'll preface this by saying I love Harbaugh. Always will. He has really annoyed me in recent years though. Let's say for the sake of argument, he's fired after this season (very unlikely) 

Who are some coaching candidates you'd like to see considered? I have 3 in mind. 

Wink Martindale - He just fits the Raven mentality. He's a no BS kind of guy and I think he's the type of coach who players love to play for. 

Robert Saleh - Again. He fits the Raven mold. Highly energetic and another guy that players love to play for. 

Eric Bieniemy - His resume speaks for itself. I believe he's snatched up after this year by someone without a doubt. He's just too good to go another year without being hired as a HC. 

Anyone else ready for a new regime if Harbs can't get at least a playoff win with this talented roster? 

If we made the switch and kept one of our internal coaches to command the team, I’d go with James Urban. Lamar has seemingly had a great relationship with him. Urban spent time on those Cincy rosters where they were churning out successful WRs. He’s also within that Andy Reid line. He’s young, but experienced. He seems no nonsense. He was one of the best WR coaches in the league and Lamar with a full offseason to work with Urban (and his QB tutor) groomed him into an MVP candidate. I don’t know. Urban just gives me legit HC type vibes. Whereas Roman and Wink, I never felt that way about those guys.

Its sort of a moot point though because I think Harbaugh still has through the 2022 season in terms of pull. If this team isn’t a perennial contender or is missing the playoffs/regressing than I think he’s probably on the hot seat come 2023. This season would be written off as a covid impacted season. If we’re not doing hot in 2021 then the regime would be facing lots of pressure to ship up.

[AngusMcFife]

LOL no way Harbaugh is gone after winning coach of the year in 2019.

I wouldn't be surprised if Roman is fired though. National pundits like Steve Young are calling out the Ravens offensive system, saying it's holding Lamar back. Lamar mentioned the defenses are calling out the plays. I know Harbaugh is loyal to a fault, but he's gotta know that Roman has a shelf life and it is soon expiring. 

[diamondbull424]

Yeah, I think a better question would be who would the Ravens next offensive coordinator be.

I think we already know the answer to that question considering, Harbaugh has consistently over the years seemed to add a veteran coach to his roster for a couple years before elevating them into a new role. Culley seems like his obvious selection to take over calling plays, especially considering he’s already the pass game coordinator. Though I’d love to see what Urban could do in that capacity. Keep Culley in reserve for the potential event that our offense breaks back out in 2021 and earns Urban a HC gig.

If the team doesn’t win a playoff game, I think Harbaugh does the same thing he did to Marty, with Roman. Tries to retain him as the run game coordinator, but switch Culley over towards OC to call the plays instead. Though depending on how everything looks, perhaps he does it anyway, like you said.

[AngusMcFife]

35 minutes ago, diamondbull424 said:

Yeah, I think a better question would be who would the Ravens next offensive coordinator be.

I think we already know the answer to that question considering, Harbaugh has consistently over the years seemed to add a veteran coach to his roster for a couple years before elevating them into a new role. Culley seems like his obvious selection to take over calling plays, especially considering he’s already the pass game coordinator. Though I’d love to see what Urban could do in that capacity. Keep Culley in reserve for the potential event that our offense breaks back out in 2021 and earns Urban a HC gig.

If the team doesn’t win a playoff game, I think Harbaugh does the same thing he did to Marty, with Roman. Tries to retain him as the run game coordinator, but switch Culley over towards OC to call the plays instead. Though depending on how everything looks, perhaps he does it anyway, like you said.

Culley is a lifelong WR coach, I don't think he is considered OC material. 

I don't think Roman would stay after being demoted. Mornhinweg didn't. Roman could probably be a HC for a college team, that seems more suited for him. 

I wonder if there is a coach from the Kubiak/Shanahan tradition that might work out. Someone who can get our O-line playing at a high level again, but also has some better passing concepts than Roman.