Random Ravens Thoughts: New Forum Edition

[Integrity]

On 11/8/2022 at 6:09 PM, wackywabbit said:

Yea, I openly admit I'm biased and irrational because I root so hard for this kid*. He comes across so genuine and his joy is COVID-level infectious. 

*Apparently, I now call a dude** 6 years younger than me "kid" now. 

**Lamar not the actual kid

He absolutely does have an infectious joy about him.  Remember the way Mark Ingram used to look at him?

 

[baltimoreRebel]

On 11/8/2022 at 6:12 PM, wackywabbit said:

Also love how everyone on the team or ever on the team with him loves and defends Lamar consistently. You DEFINITELY don't see that with every QB around the league.

Also.... can you guys believe that we just saw Ronnie Stanley play 68/68 offensive snaps and that he looks like a dude worth a 100M contract?!?! This is very quietly the best development of the season for this team.

There's a few folks in here that owe Stanley a big apology.. 

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

47 minutes ago, baltimoreRebel said:

There's a few folks in here that owe Stanley a big apology.. 

ducks and runs away

[DreamKid]

2 hours ago, baltimoreRebel said:

There's a few folks in here that owe Stanley a big apology.. 

I don't think anyone insinuated he was a bad player, did they?

The discussion around him was that he was healthy and needed to be back on the field. I was in that camp and certainly feel vindicated by seeing him immediately return to form. Just shows he was ready all along. Also that stupid rotation plan they had him on was only stopped due to Ja'Waun James' injury, so there's some silver lining to that situation. 

Happy to have him back protecting Lamar.

[diamondbull424]

4 minutes ago, DreamKid said:

I don't think anyone insinuated he was a bad player, did they?

The discussion around him was that he was healthy and needed to be back on the field. I was in that camp and certainly feel vindicated by seeing him immediately return to form. Just shows he was ready all along. Also that stupid rotation plan they had him on was only stopped due to Ja'Waun James' injury, so there's some silver lining to that situation. 

Happy to have him back protecting Lamar.

I don’t think that’s a completely fair evaluation. We know that he’s now 100% and we can assume that his ankle has been good for a bit, perhaps when he returned in training camp.

But we can’t assume that his lower body strength and endurance were at the levels needed to be at an All Pro level.

It’s like I tried saying months back. His ankle could be fully rehabilitated, but you’re not going to want to start pushing the lower body strength to your limit until there’s no threat of reinjury based off of how last season went where he came back too early.

When I was in 11th grade and had a high ankle sprain I went from squatting 475 lbs down to something like 350 lbs because I could feel the pain in my foot as I carried the weight. Had to weight until I healed to carry the extra weight and by then I lost gains.

I’m not a sports science expert, but I can only imagine Stanley needed the extra time after ankle health and after ankle mobility to build back strength and NFL endurance. Had we rushed him back he might’ve pulled a hamstring or something because his body wasn’t properly conditioned. And we know from numerous accounts that it’s hard to make those same kinds of gains in-season due to the grind of NFL games.

Though I’m glad to see him back, I was afraid he was going to be a waste of $100m if he couldn’t truly get back to form.

[DreamKid]

12 minutes ago, diamondbull424 said:

I don’t think that’s a completely fair evaluation. We know that he’s now 100% and we can assume that his ankle has been good for a bit, perhaps when he returned in training camp.

But we can’t assume that his lower body strength and endurance were at the levels needed to be at an All Pro level.

That's the thing though, you can't assume that with anyone returning. Which is why the opportunity to sit out games when you're completely healthy and have practiced for a month isn't afforded to anyone- especially integral players like a franchise LT. Guys like Marlon Humphrey, Marcus Peters, etc were dealing with actual injuries and fighting through them to play because we needed them. 

We were down to starting Faalele(who had never played LT before) against the Bills over Stanley for no real reason. His struggles directly contributed to our loss as well. Lamar's protection wasn't the same and his internal clock was sped up. 

I'm glad it's all over now and Stanley is back, but I think it's fair to have questions over how that situation was handled. Risking Lamar's health and protection just because you're waiting for Stanley to possibly feel  like an All Pro during practice again will always stick out as bonkers to me. 

[diamondbull424]

53 minutes ago, DreamKid said:

That's the thing though, you can't assume that with anyone returning. Which is why the opportunity to sit out games when you're completely healthy and have practiced for a month isn't afforded to anyone- especially integral players like a franchise LT. Guys like Marlon Humphrey, Marcus Peters, etc were dealing with actual injuries and fighting through them to play because we needed them. 

The opportunity cost here then is that maybe Stanley comes back early as you mention and as opposed to returning at an All Pro level he returns at only an above average level because he’s not as strong as he would normally be.

Would you rather take an All Pro Stanley heading into a playoff run or would you rather have an above average Stanley for the entire season?

They may seem mutually exclusive, but if you can’t make strength gains in season, your in-season potential could be capped.

I’m not necessarily giving the Ravens strength and conditioning coaches the benefit of the doubt, but they had a plan and executed it and it’s worked. We don’t know if some other plan that had Stanley return sooner would have worked.

1 hour ago, DreamKid said:

I'm glad it's all over now and Stanley is back, but I think it's fair to have questions over how that situation was handled. Risking Lamar's health and protection just because you're waiting for Stanley to possibly feel  like an All Pro during practice again will always stick out as bonkers to me. 

Agreed. I honestly doubted he would be this good. I figured maybe he’d be more of an above average to pro bowl level guy and not an All Pro level guy.

[DreamKid]

On the topic of players returning from an injury/time off, here's a Dobbins update-

 

[diamondbull424]

2 hours ago, DreamKid said:

On the topic of players returning from an injury/time off, here's a Dobbins update-

 

Yeah, I’m glad he decided to shut it down. He definitely didn’t look like himself in camp early. I was surprised he looked as good as he did when he started playing this season.

But if we can have a healthy JKD for the playoffs, maybe coming back with a quarter of the season left to dust off some rust… with Kenyan Drake, who is sort of a slightly poor man’s JK Dobbins (brings similar rushing style, but probably slightly less explosive, and less contact balance), Bus Edwards, and Flash Hill… and talk about an incredibly formidable rushing attack. That would absolutely be the deepest collection of running back talent in Ravens history (and I’d be curious to see the most deep RB groups in NFL history as I’d imagine it’d have to be up there).

[DreamKid]

Was playing the new COD online and came across someone named 'Ray Rice'. I guess edge lords still think there's some impact to be farmed there all these years later. 🤷‍♂️

[baltimoreRebel]

On 11/10/2022 at 3:15 PM, DreamKid said:

I don't think anyone insinuated he was a bad player, did they?

The discussion around him was that he was healthy and needed to be back on the field. I was in that camp and certainly feel vindicated by seeing him immediately return to form. Just shows he was ready all along. Also that stupid rotation plan they had him on was only stopped due to Ja'Waun James' injury, so there's some silver lining to that situation. 

Happy to have him back protecting Lamar.

More the questioning of his intentions and toughness. Insinuating that he's milking the franchise for money and may never play again. 

Calling for him to retire and questioning his work ethic after all the work he out in to come back. That's what I'm referring to. 

[DreamKid]

1 hour ago, baltimoreRebel said:

Calling for him to retire and questioning his work ethic after all the work he out in to come back. That's what I'm referring to. 

That discussion was centered around Ronnie's mental state, not his work ethic. Ronnie was long since rehabbed(never reinjured the ankle back in 21' either- he opted to have another surgery he previously turned down- there was no additional injury/reinjury), fully healthy, and had practiced for over a month. Harbaugh said Stanley should return "When he feels like an All Pro again". Which raised the question of okay, well what if he doesn't ever feel that way again? 99% of players in the NFL are dealing with something week to week be it tightness, soreness, stiffness, whatever. If feeling like an All Pro was the criteria for players returning- half the league wouldn't come back from injury. And we didn't even need an All Pro, we just needed someone to protect Lamar besides a Rookie OT in Faalele who had 5 years total football experience and no experience playing on the left side(Lamar's blind side). So if it all came down to Ronnie just not being mentally comfortable with his new post injury physical reality, fair enough, but he then needed to retire and we needed to move on. -- A perfectly reasonable position to hold at the time, and a vindicated one with Ronnie returning to high end play immediately. 

If Lamar was fully healthy and had practiced for a month, but Harbaugh was holding him out until he "Felt like an All Pro again"..... fans would be frothing at the mouth with anger and Biscotti would fire Harbs on the spot. Right now Lamar is not playing anywhere near his peak level(I'm sure he's doesn't currently 'feel' like an All Pro), but again, sitting him would be unthinkable. Same goes for the other cornerstone players like Marlon who were dealing with actual injuries at the time and still playing. 

The situation deserved extreme scrutiny, and there was never any malicious intent behind the questions raised. I'm beyond happy to have Stanley back protecting Lamar and I hope he stays healthy and productive for a long time.

[baltimoreRebel]

On 11/12/2022 at 2:07 AM, DreamKid said:

That discussion was centered around Ronnie's mental state, not his work ethic. Ronnie was long since rehabbed(never reinjured the ankle back in 21' either- he opted to have another surgery he previously turned down- there was no additional injury/reinjury), fully healthy, and had practiced for over a month. Harbaugh said Stanley should return "When he feels like an All Pro again". Which raised the question of okay, well what if he doesn't ever feel that way again? 99% of players in the NFL are dealing with something week to week be it tightness, soreness, stiffness, whatever. If feeling like an All Pro was the criteria for players returning- half the league wouldn't come back from injury. And we didn't even need an All Pro, we just needed someone to protect Lamar besides a Rookie OT in Faalele who had 5 years total football experience and no experience playing on the left side(Lamar's blind side). So if it all came down to Ronnie just not being mentally comfortable with his new post injury physical reality, fair enough, but he then needed to retire and we needed to move on. -- A perfectly reasonable position to hold at the time, and a vindicated one with Ronnie returning to high end play immediately. 

If Lamar was fully healthy and had practiced for a month, but Harbaugh was holding him out until he "Felt like an All Pro again"..... fans would be frothing at the mouth with anger and Biscotti would fire Harbs on the spot. Right now Lamar is not playing anywhere near his peak level(I'm sure he's doesn't currently 'feel' like an All Pro), but again, sitting him would be unthinkable. Same goes for the other cornerstone players like Marlon who were dealing with actual injuries at the time and still playing. 

The situation deserved extreme scrutiny, and there was never any malicious intent behind the questions raised. I'm beyond happy to have Stanley back protecting Lamar and I hope he stays healthy and productive for a long time.

Lol stop. 

[DreamKid]

Foster Sarell is playing RT for the Chargers right now?.... Damn, that's crazy. One of our 21' UDFAs.

[AngusMcFife]

Looks like our old friend Baker Mayfield will be starting against us this week 😂