Ravens sign DJ Fluker

[AngusMcFife]

20 minutes ago, coordinator0 said:

Yeah, that would be my guess. Smith has no real flexibility as a LT so Fluker coming in as a RG that can move out to RT in a pinch makes sense. Especially with the amount of guys the Ravens have that can step in at RG. 

Hmmm. But who is backup LT if not for A. Smith? We don't have anyone who has experience playing in space except for him. 

[diamondbull424]

24 minutes ago, AngusMcFife said:

Hmmm. But who is backup LT if not for A. Smith? We don't have anyone who has experience playing in space except for him. 

Possibly Patrick Mekari. Was a good collegiate LT. I would prefer to bulk him up to about 320-325 and let him be a Pro Bowl center, but perhaps the team has different designs.

I would prefer leaving Tyre Phillips in at LG vs RG as he can keep a similar drop pattern as he had at LT. I mean if Jermaine Eluemunor can man the LT position for a little bit, I feel confident that with Nick Boyle and Patrick Ricard providing assistance he can be an insurance LT.

Also after looking back over Ben Powers tape of last season with us in the Steelers game and his collegiate tape, can’t help but feel he’s a starter on this OL in the future. Better movement skills than Bozeman, more power than Bozeman... probably what made him the inferior option was playbook knowledge. With a year already in the system... can’t see him not winning one of the guard spots. Where LG or RG. I kind of like him at RG with his added athleticism to help cover for Orlando Brown’s flaw with speed, similar to what Yanda would do. That and both used to play next to each other on that Oklahoma OL with Brown Jr at LT and Powers at LG. So there’s going to be an established chemistry to go to there. That and Fluker being a people mover at LG in the run game is exactly what our OL has been missing upfront. Stanley’s speed would equally also help to balance out Fluker’s issues with speed in pass protection.

Thus I would prefer if Fluker, Bozeman, and Phillips were to battle it out at LG... ideally with Fluker as the victor. Though realistically I also know that Fluker has only played RG in the pros and Powers was a consensus All American at LG at Oklahoma. So I’m sure inserting him in at RG will be the likeliest scenario.

Edited April 28, 2020 by diamondbull424

[AngusMcFife]

26 minutes ago, diamondbull424 said:

Possibly Patrick Mekari. Was a good collegiate LT. I would prefer to bulk him up to about 320-325 and let him be a Pro Bowl center, but perhaps the team has different designs.

I think Mekari can bulk up and be a good player on the inside, but 31 inch arms are just not going to cut it at LT. There's only so much a player can overcome regarding physical limitations. The athletes he faces out there are just too devastating to have short arms. 

[coordinator0]

1 hour ago, AngusMcFife said:

Hmmm. But who is backup LT if not for A. Smith? We don't have anyone who has experience playing in space except for him. 

I don't think there's currently a good option at backup LT. My hope was someone would have been drafted but that didn't work out. Smith certainly doesn't inspire any kind of confidence if the team had to throw him out there. My guess is Brown would flip over to the left side and now Fluker steps in at RT with whatever guy steps up playing backup G. That much line shuffling isn't ideal by any means but it gets the best players out there. That's important. 

[sp6488]

49 minutes ago, coordinator0 said:

I don't think there's currently a good option at backup LT. My hope was someone would have been drafted but that didn't work out. Smith certainly doesn't inspire any kind of confidence if the team had to throw him out there. My guess is Brown would flip over to the left side and now Fluker steps in at RT with whatever guy steps up playing backup G. That much line shuffling isn't ideal by any means but it gets the best players out there. That's important. 

Yea, I think that would be the emergency in-game plan. I'm sure the team will carry a pure OT type on the practice squad and would look to grab someone off the street if the unthinkable happened and we lost Stanley for an extended period.

[Ray Reed]

2 hours ago, sp6488 said:

Yea, I think that would be the emergency in-game plan. I'm sure the team will carry a pure OT type on the practice squad and would look to grab someone off the street if the unthinkable happened and we lost Stanley for an extended period.

Here’s my thing though...is it really unthinkable? Stanley has been a straight up soldier when it comes to playing through injuries but the guy does get banged up a lot. I don’t think it would be unthinkable at all to see him go down for a stretch.

Thats why i’m thinking the team keeps Andre Smith as a pure LT backup contrary to what many people seem to think

[coordinator0]

23 minutes ago, Ray Reed said:

Here’s my thing though...is it really unthinkable? Stanley has been a straight up soldier when it comes to playing through injuries but the guy does get banged up a lot. I don’t think it would be unthinkable at all to see him go down for a stretch.

Thats why i’m thinking the team keeps Andre Smith as a pure LT backup contrary to what many people seem to think

Smith is pretty bad though. And it's not like he has some long track-record of success at LT, he only played there last season in Cincinnati for a few games before being cut in early December. He sat in free agency for a month before the Ravens signed him. I think he's only on the roster as filler currently. 

[CoverZero]

 

[drd23]

My initial thought was that this guaranteed Andre Smith doesn't make the roster and I didn't even consider that he'd potentially make a humongous right side if he slotted in at RG next to Brown.

Either way, looks like a decent signing

[sp6488]

9 minutes ago, CoverZero said:

 

Sure, but OL AV can be a little tricky. I like it, but using it to discern between two individual seasons for the same player, rather than as a cumulative score, is even trickier.

Also, there's this:

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/blog/index2905.html?p=466

Quote

 

OK, so an average team will have 45.5 points to split among the blockers. The 1982 Chargers will have about 77. The 2006 Raiders will have about 22. Here's how we'll split it:

Every lineman, fullback, and tight end gets 1 pre-point for each game played and an additional 5 pre-points for each game started.
Tackles get their pre-points multiplied by 1.3, fullbacks by .7, and tight ends by .3

 

Basically, the system already favors the value of OT over IOL.

[sp6488]

1 hour ago, Ray Reed said:

Here’s my thing though...is it really unthinkable? Stanley has been a straight up soldier when it comes to playing through injuries but the guy does get banged up a lot. I don’t think it would be unthinkable at all to see him go down for a stretch.

Thats why i’m thinking the team keeps Andre Smith as a pure LT backup contrary to what many people seem to think

I was using unthinkable in the sense of "that would be really bad."

[BareYourTeeth]

 

[diamondbull424]

3 hours ago, BareYourTeeth said:

 

They talk about not having receivers that we can recruit to come here because of the style of play, but OL love to be physical... I’m sure we’ll have no shortage of OL that want to come here during Lamar’s tenure because they will be gifted the ability to lineup opposite the defense and dominate their man instead of the defense taking it to them for 70% of the snaps in a game.

[sp6488]

4 hours ago, diamondbull424 said:

They talk about not having receivers that we can recruit to come here because of the style of play, but OL love to be physical... I’m sure we’ll have no shortage of OL that want to come here during Lamar’s tenure because they will be gifted the ability to lineup opposite the defense and dominate their man instead of the defense taking it to them for 70% of the snaps in a game.

I think the nearly immediate Fluker signing points to the org not looking to drastically transform the offense in 2020. Fluker doesn't fit nearly as well if we plan to spread it out and throw the ball 700 times.

[diamondbull424]

28 minutes ago, sp6488 said:

I think the nearly immediate Fluker signing points to the org not looking to drastically transform the offense in 2020. Fluker doesn't fit nearly as well if we plan to spread it out and throw the ball 700 times.

Oh, I never thought we would do that. I know someone in this/another thread (I get confused) thought others were on this idea pattern. But I do think we use significantly more 3 WR sets than we did last season just because Hurst leaving will create a “hands gap” that someone else will need to fulfill... but going from running almost no 3 WR sets to running them maybe 25% of the time would be a huge increase for sure.

Also it also wouldn’t surprise me if we see some more Wing T style formations to get more of these RBs on the field at one time and make better use of Patrick Ricard.

Though I’m sure we’ll be forced to keep it quite vanilla to start out with potentially less practice time to incorporate more creativity into the offense. The coaches the previous offseason went HAM in adding plays into the playbook. I’m sure we’ve only scratched the surface of the playbook for our unique offense that we’ve developed.