Journey to Ring 3: Club Evaluation & Building Another Champion

[DreamKid]

- Ben Cleveland 

- Ben Powers

- Patrick Mekari

- Tyre Phillips

If not one of those names can play competent football or better at LG for us in 2022, I think it's time we take a hard look at Joe D'Alessandris. 

We've quietly started approaching WR levels with the systemic failures at the Guard position. We aren't drafting out the gate plus talents, and the players we do draft aren't developing. It's clearly an issue at the scouting and coaching level. 

When Zeitler retires, we'll be back out on the street for an aged bargain option at the position and possibly forced into dropping an early round pick to guarantee some clear level of contribution at the position. Despite having drafted around 57 mid round guards the last decade. It's embarrassing. 

Lamar & this system make life easier on our IOL, and still no one has emerged from the pack. That needs to change this season. If it doesn't, all options should be on the table. 

[Ray Reed]

On 8/19/2021 at 3:01 PM, Ray Reed said:

Agreed. 

Depth is obviously the major concern at this point, but I’ll be dead honest - i think Ravens fans are going to be unpleasantly surprised at how AV performs this year. I think he will be a below average RT for us - even with the scheme helping him out.

My roommate is a Steelers fan, so I watched a ton last year to root against them/him. He did not play well last year; I was shocked at the grades he got from PFF in all honesty. And from reports so far in camp, and what we’ve seen in his (albeit limited) time in preseason this year - it has not been the seamless transition that i think EDC hoped it would be.

Saw the AV trash a mile away last year haha

Wouldnt have bumped but saw this thread pop up again and it was like 1 page back

[diamondbull424]

2 hours ago, Ray Reed said:

Saw the AV trash a mile away last year haha

Wouldnt have bumped but saw this thread pop up again and it was like 1 page back

Still wondering what you think the solution was. AV was a bad pass protector, but was still above what we saw from Tyre Philips the year before (at OT) and AV was a solid run blocker for us last season.

Unless we trade Oweh and Bateman for Rashawn Slater and a 3rd (or some other deal for an OT that went ahead of us), we probably were’t fixing our LT issues last season regardless of what move we could’ve made. We couldn’t afford any of the top OT free agents because of the stupid cap situation last season. The draft as shown below would’ve largely been a bust.

- Teven Jenkins was out the entire season and had some medical question marks heading into the draft.
- Liam Eichenburg had a great preseason and scored Tyree Phillips level in the regular season according to PFF. Scored worse than AV.
- Walker Little was solid, we could’ve traded away Oweh to move back and take him (though if we had done that, Creed Humphrey was the better OL option and that wouldn’t have solved the OT depth issue). Scored marginally better than AV.
- Samuel Cosmi had terrible PFF grades on the season that were IIRC worse than Liam Eichenburg.
- Dillon Radunz scored worse than Cosmi and definitely worse than AV.
- Brady Christensen had mediocre PFF scores yet was still below AV.
- Spencer Brown went the pick ahead of us in the 3rd round, he also had mediocre scores and was just below AV on the season.
- Cleveland’s James Hudson scored worse than AV.
- Dan Moore was worse
- Josh Ball didnt play.
- D’Ante Smith definitely worse than AV.
- Larry Borom was mediocre but worse than AV.
- Jaylon Moore was worse than AV.
- Tommy Doyle barely played but had trash scores when in.
- Landon Young was trash.
- Stone Forsyth barely played, but in his limited PT he showed he might’ve been good depth and had better scores than AV.
- Larnell Coleman didn’t play.

If anything we dodged a bullet of more OL mediocrity that would’ve plagued up our depth chart long term. Also as I mentioned, I felt we could get good pass blocking out of Mekari at RT if depth was needed and we did.

The only way we could’ve really solved the LT position is to know for certain that Ronnie Stanley wouldn’t recover and either trade up for an OT of the future (that could play either side) and/or use a crystal ball to predict that Morgan Moses would be a cap casualty last season. I suppose we also could’ve used draft or player capital to trade for an OT as well, but we would’ve had to likely overpay as the state of OTs across the league isn’t really in the best spot.

So in retrospect, I think the only thing I would’ve done differently would’ve been throwing the correct dart and selecting Stone Forsyth over Ben Mason and hoped he would’ve looked better than AV as a rookie pass protector. But Ronnie Stanley recovering and being a great to elite pass protector was one of the most ideal and realistic paths to a good OL last season... and largely the same is true this season as well, with the caveat that Patrick Mekari might be able to play some LT at a solid enough level as well if Stanley is done.

What solutions would you have put forth in retrospect to solve the OT depth issues from last season?

[Ray Reed]

On 5/27/2022 at 9:15 PM, diamondbull424 said:

Still wondering what you think the solution was. AV was a bad pass protector, but was still above what we saw from Tyre Philips the year before (at OT) and AV was a solid run blocker for us last season.

Unless we trade Oweh and Bateman for Rashawn Slater and a 3rd (or some other deal for an OT that went ahead of us), we probably were’t fixing our LT issues last season regardless of what move we could’ve made. We couldn’t afford any of the top OT free agents because of the stupid cap situation last season. The draft as shown below would’ve largely been a bust.

- Teven Jenkins was out the entire season and had some medical question marks heading into the draft.
- Liam Eichenburg had a great preseason and scored Tyree Phillips level in the regular season according to PFF. Scored worse than AV.
- Walker Little was solid, we could’ve traded away Oweh to move back and take him (though if we had done that, Creed Humphrey was the better OL option and that wouldn’t have solved the OT depth issue). Scored marginally better than AV.
- Samuel Cosmi had terrible PFF grades on the season that were IIRC worse than Liam Eichenburg.
- Dillon Radunz scored worse than Cosmi and definitely worse than AV.
- Brady Christensen had mediocre PFF scores yet was still below AV.
- Spencer Brown went the pick ahead of us in the 3rd round, he also had mediocre scores and was just below AV on the season.
- Cleveland’s James Hudson scored worse than AV.
- Dan Moore was worse
- Josh Ball didnt play.
- D’Ante Smith definitely worse than AV.
- Larry Borom was mediocre but worse than AV.
- Jaylon Moore was worse than AV.
- Tommy Doyle barely played but had trash scores when in.
- Landon Young was trash.
- Stone Forsyth barely played, but in his limited PT he showed he might’ve been good depth and had better scores than AV.
- Larnell Coleman didn’t play.

If anything we dodged a bullet of more OL mediocrity that would’ve plagued up our depth chart long term. Also as I mentioned, I felt we could get good pass blocking out of Mekari at RT if depth was needed and we did.

The only way we could’ve really solved the LT position is to know for certain that Ronnie Stanley wouldn’t recover and either trade up for an OT of the future (that could play either side) and/or use a crystal ball to predict that Morgan Moses would be a cap casualty last season. I suppose we also could’ve used draft or player capital to trade for an OT as well, but we would’ve had to likely overpay as the state of OTs across the league isn’t really in the best spot.

So in retrospect, I think the only thing I would’ve done differently would’ve been throwing the correct dart and selecting Stone Forsyth over Ben Mason and hoped he would’ve looked better than AV as a rookie pass protector. But Ronnie Stanley recovering and being a great to elite pass protector was one of the most ideal and realistic paths to a good OL last season... and largely the same is true this season as well, with the caveat that Patrick Mekari might be able to play some LT at a solid enough level as well if Stanley is done.

What solutions would you have put forth in retrospect to solve the OT depth issues from last season?

I’m not going to write an entire treatise on every potential pick change from last year’s draft or potential different moves in FA.

For the most part at the time of his signing Ravens fans looked at AVs PFF grade in 2020 with the Steelers and our OL friendly scheme and said “he’ll be a fine T for us”. I disagreed at the time. Thought he would be bad. He proved me right. 

It is what it is. He’s not in the league anymore. I’m not getting into a multi paragraph debate about it.

[warrenblue]

It woudn't be an easy problem to fix and quite honestly you won't be able to fix it in the draft unless you have a top 10 pick. I mean, look at the 2022 draft. How many of those guys could actually start for us day 1 : Ikem, Neal and maybe Cross. That's all in the top 9. Even those guys need more development time. 

We are in a difficult spot because we have a stud LT with a huge contract who happens to be hurt. 

So we can''t afford to go to the open market and overpay for a starting LT, we won't spend high draft capital on an OT and It has been a long time since we got those late OL gems like Ricky Wagner and Ryan Jensen.

Robert Myers, Alex Lewis, Nico Siragusa, Jermaine Eluemunor, Greg Senat, Ben Powers, Ben Bredson, Tyre Philips. That's a pathetic list. Not a single decent starter able to contribute. Our problem wasn't only AV. It was the entire O-Line. 

Since 2015 we have been able to find only 1 single decent OL day 3 in the draft and that was Bozeman. The rest was trash. 

The best solution at the time (at least from the O-Line perspective) would be to slide Orlando to LT and say "fu" to his trade resquest. But that would mean no Odafe Oweh long-term. 

At least the FO realized that they aren't finding those late OL gems  lately so they spent a 1st on a Center stud. I'm very optimistic for our O-Line this season. If Ronnie gets back to his old form, BAL has a top 5 OL this season, regardless who wins the battle for the LG position. 

 

[diamondbull424]

22 hours ago, warrenblue said:

It woudn't be an easy problem to fix and quite honestly you won't be able to fix it in the draft unless you have a top 10 pick. I mean, look at the 2022 draft. How many of those guys could actually start for us day 1 : Ikem, Neal and maybe Cross. That's all in the top 9. Even those guys need more development time. 

We are in a difficult spot because we have a stud LT with a huge contract who happens to be hurt. 

So we can''t afford to go to the open market and overpay for a starting LT, we won't spend high draft capital on an OT and It has been a long time since we got those late OL gems like Ricky Wagner and Ryan Jensen.

Robert Myers, Alex Lewis, Nico Siragusa, Jermaine Eluemunor, Greg Senat, Ben Powers, Ben Bredson, Tyre Philips. That's a pathetic list. Not a single decent starter able to contribute. Our problem wasn't only AV. It was the entire O-Line. 

Since 2015 we have been able to find only 1 single decent OL day 3 in the draft and that was Bozeman. The rest was trash. 

The best solution at the time (at least from the O-Line perspective) would be to slide Orlando to LT and say "fu" to his trade resquest. But that would mean no Odafe Oweh long-term. 

At least the FO realized that they aren't finding those late OL gems  lately so they spent a 1st on a Center stud. I'm very optimistic for our O-Line this season. If Ronnie gets back to his old form, BAL has a top 5 OL this season, regardless who wins the battle for the LG position. 

Agree completely with all of the above.

On 5/29/2022 at 5:54 PM, Ray Reed said:

I’m not going to write an entire treatise on every potential pick change from last year’s draft or potential different moves in FA.

For the most part at the time of his signing Ravens fans looked at AVs PFF grade in 2020 with the Steelers and our OL friendly scheme and said “he’ll be a fine T for us”. I disagreed at the time. Thought he would be bad. He proved me right. 

It is what it is. He’s not in the league anymore. I’m not getting into a multi paragraph debate about it.

Then why bring it up? Most Ravens fans felt that AV was just a mediocre veteran fill in that the hope was he could be better on the right side of the OL (not accurate) and that he could play LT if Stanley wasn’t healthy, preventing us from having to field someone like Tyre Phillips there (accurate).

The worst case scenario came to fruition and that’s what happened. He came in and played LT at a mediocre level. Solid run blocking mixed with below average to bad pass protection overall (though I recall like two good games in pass pro mixed in).

You gravedug your argument to seemingly chest thump your prediction, yet at the time, I asked what your solution would’ve been and you ignored that question then and you’re ignoring it now with the benefit of hindsight.

We had literally just signed Stanley to top OT money before going down with a potentially career altering injury. So outside of adding a stopgap veteran for what little we could afford, what was the genius play?

You can’t seemingly chest bump yourself about being right about a problem when you never proposed a solution to the problem. Everyone here knew OL was a problem area heading into last offseason and EDC addressed it with two veterans and some draft capital; one who bounced back from his 2020 season with the Giants and one who did not bounce back from his 2020 season with the Steelers, but at least kept us from fielding Tyre Phillips at LT.

Edited May 31, 2022 by diamondbull424

[Ray Reed]

13 hours ago, diamondbull424 said:

Agree completely with all of the above.

Then why bring it up? Most Ravens fans felt that AV was just a mediocre veteran fill in that the hope was he could be better on the right side of the OL (not accurate) and that he could play LT if Stanley wasn’t healthy, preventing us from having to field someone like Tyre Phillips there (accurate).

The worst case scenario came to fruition and that’s what happened. He came in and played LT at a mediocre level. Solid run blocking mixed with below average to bad pass protection overall (though I recall like two good games in pass pro mixed in).

You gravedug your argument to seemingly chest thump your prediction, yet at the time, I asked what your solution would’ve been and you ignored that question then and you’re ignoring it now with the benefit of hindsight.

We had literally just signed Stanley to top OT money before going down with a potentially career altering injury. So outside of adding a stopgap veteran for what little we could afford, what was the genius play?

You can’t seemingly chest bump yourself about being right about a problem when you never proposed a solution to the problem. Everyone here knew OL was a problem area heading into last offseason and EDC addressed it with two veterans and some draft capital; one who bounced back from his 2020 season with the Giants and one who did not bounce back from his 2020 season with the Steelers, but at least kept us from fielding Tyre Phillips at LT.

Yeah, I can. You don't get to tell me what to type on a forum. If a player plays bad during the season, people are allowed to point it out when discussing the team without proposing a 7 page syllabus on how to fix it as if we work for the team like you do every post. The same goes when looking ahead/back at a season. If you don't like it mute me. But don't go around with this constant superiority complex because you type tomes on tomes about every single one of your opinions like it's gospel. 

And maybe I wouldn't chest bump (wasn't even the one who bumped this thread btw) about it if you hadn't been so obnoxious during that offseason with the  "wE doNt nEed aN oLine, wE neEd MOAR WEAPONZ. wE'Ll mAkE thE PlaYoFFs eVerY yEar dEspiTe tHe Ol, wE nEed MOAR WEAPONZ fOr sHooToutS iN tHe pLayOffs" take you wrote 900 paragraphs about and ended up being laughably wrong about.

Just mute me dude, I'll be doing the same. You're exhausting lmao. One "damn, called AV being trash last year haha" has turned into Gone With the Wind because that's what it always turns into with you. I'm done engaging with you lol

 

[diamondbull424]

3 hours ago, Ray Reed said:

Yeah, I can. You don't get to tell me what to type on a forum. If a player plays bad during the season, people are allowed to point it out when discussing the team without proposing a 7 page syllabus on how to fix it as if we work for the team like you do every post. The same goes when looking ahead/back at a season. If you don't like it mute me. But don't go around with this constant superiority complex because you type tomes on tomes about every single one of your opinions like it's gospel. 

And maybe I wouldn't chest bump (wasn't even the one who bumped this thread btw) about it if you hadn't been so obnoxious during that offseason with the  "wE doNt nEed aN oLine, wE neEd MOAR WEAPONZ. wE'Ll mAkE thE PlaYoFFs eVerY yEar dEspiTe tHe Ol, wE nEed MOAR WEAPONZ fOr sHooToutS iN tHe pLayOffs" take you wrote 900 paragraphs about and ended up being laughably wrong about.

Just mute me dude, I'll be doing the same. You're exhausting lmao. One "damn, called AV being trash last year haha" has turned into Gone With the Wind because that's what it always turns into with you. I'm done engaging with you lol

 

I’m exhausting because I asked you a simple question that you’ve refused to answer for the last year?

You tried sneak dissing and then got upset at a question?😂

Also you should be a news anchor because you’ve got the sound bite that removes context thing down.

I never stated the OL wasn’t important. I said our OL would be similar to 2020; trading better IOL play for worse OT play; that IOL play was more important for Lamar to succeed. But come playoff time we needed the weapons upgrade to go deep.

We missed the playoffs, but we also had the most injured roster of like the last decade for the entire NFL, attributing that to one positional unit seems quite asinine. We lost defense, OL, run game, and weapons (Bateman/Watkins).

Then on top of it all Lamar got hurt on a screen pass via a perfectly timed blitz by JOK and not on a play where the OL got him killed.

Now if you were calling me out on the “EDC won’t get less than a 1st for OBjr or else…” and call that wrong, you would’ve been right. But I’m not going to sit back and let you twist my argument because you don’t like to read it in full.

 

[ThatJaxxenGuy]

I could see us signing a camp cut veteran receiver. Darius Slayton would be a nice one but it’s a long shot for him to be cut on a super cheap rookie deal.

I hate to say it but Desean Jackson could fill the need nicely for a field stretcher but I know he’s a bit of a head case. 

[ThatJaxxenGuy]

As the summer goes on I’m really starting to get excited about this draft class. I feel like we will likely see some contribution from young guys you need to make a run at a championship.

Kyle Hamilton is an instant impact guy, probably one of the safest players in the draft.

Linderbaum is Linderbaum.

we drafted two corners in the mid rounds, so I’m assuming at least one of them will be “good” given our track record.

we drafted two tight ends, which again given the Ravens track record, I don’t think it’s too crazy to assume that at least one of them will pan out into a really nice player for us. 

Ojabo and Travis Jones are awesome lotto tickets to be holding with sky high potential, so I’m assuming one of them becomes a plus player for us.

A starting Punter who the analytics egg heads love.

then some nice developmental/depth potentially in guys like Badie and Faalele.

 

this draft feels different than the “meh” that fans have been worried about in years past (like 2019). I’m really excited to see which of these guys manage to make plays as rookies.

[sp6488]

On 6/1/2022 at 10:19 PM, ThatJaxxenGuy said:

I could see us signing a camp cut veteran receiver. Darius Slayton would be a nice one but it’s a long shot for him to be cut on a super cheap rookie deal.

I hate to say it but Desean Jackson could fill the need nicely for a field stretcher but I know he’s a bit of a head case. 

There's a few guys out there who could work as a field stretcher. Kind of like that we're playing the waiting game / not getting overly anxious to sign a receiver. Either someone like a Slayton will be cut or a guy like Jackson, Hilton, Fuller, etc. could get tired of waiting and want to sign somewhere. Whoever that guy is probably not going to exceed 30-40% of total snaps, so no reason to get crazy with the $$

[ThatJaxxenGuy]

2 hours ago, sp6488 said:

There's a few guys out there who could work as a field stretcher. Kind of like that we're playing the waiting game / not getting overly anxious to sign a receiver. Either someone like a Slayton will be cut or a guy like Jackson, Hilton, Fuller, etc. could get tired of waiting and want to sign somewhere. Whoever that guy is probably not going to exceed 30-40% of total snaps, so no reason to get crazy with the $$

Yeah for sure. We don’t need anything crazy, just someone to threaten the deep end of the field at least.  
 

I like Proche and Duvernay for their reliable hands but they’re basically replacement level if we’re going from on the field results and not just potential/ our own hopefulness. We could really use a veteran in the room too just for that presence. 
 

I wonder if Steve smith sr still has an old pair of cleats lying around….

[DreamKid]

Hard agree with this. 

Interior pressure was always more valuable than exterior, and now having DIs who can shut down the run while you're in sub packages is a must. Take a team like the Bengals for example, they're looking to spread you out(obviously) and strike deep but they also counter light fronts with slashing runs from Mixon.

Our elite DI room is a big reason why we had so much success on defense this year. That's without Michael Pierce too, who was a force in the games he did play.

- Calais Campbell 

- Michael Pierce

- Justin Madubuike

- Broderick Washington

- Travis Jones

Campbell's future is iffy, and Urban is a FA depth piece but overall that group is just demonic. I mean Washington was playing so good he was able to take playing time away from Travis Jones who has flashed All-Pro level potential as a Rookie. We thought the DIs could pop off going into 22' and they lived up to the hype. 

Next season at minimum we have Pierce back, Buike and Washington contract year feasting, and Travis Jones Year 2. 

Probably one of our Top 3 most stacked position rooms, along with Safety and TE.

[RavensfanRD]

I am still Pro Travis Jones. Boy gonna be a certified beast before its all said and done.

[Ray Reed]

3 hours ago, RavensfanRD said:

I am still Pro Travis Jones. Boy gonna be a certified beast before its all said and done.

Hard agree on Jones. Was my favorite pick from last year's draft.