Who is to blame for the Ravens offense?

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

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However what has changed, and this is largely based on opinion, is the type and caliber of players we have selected. This I believe to largely be a Harbaugh and Biscotti influence; meaning we've tended to avoid guys with any type of character concerns up until recently. We've elected to get the clean cut, ideal locker room guys, and in doing so we have passed on some obvious, but troubled talents.

Maybe as of the past few years, but it wasn't that long ago that this team drafted Jimmy Smith in the 1st round and he had well known problems coming out of college. I think once the Ray Rice scandal hit, we changed everything.

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Brandon Williams, Kyle Juszczyk, Ricky Wagner, Ryan Jensen, CJ Mosley, Timmy Jernigan, Crockett Gillmore (injured), Brent Urban (injured), Carl Davis, Za'Darius Smith, Ronnie Stanley, Tavon Young, Alex Lewis (injured), Kennth Dixon (injured/suspended), Matt Judon, Maurice Canady,

Out of this list, the only average or better players are: Brandon Williams, Juice, Wagner, Mosley, Jernigan, and Stanley. And that's 5 years worth of drafting, and none of them are all-pros. There are guys who have a chance to be good, like Tavon Young, Matt Judon, and Kenneth Dixon, but the rest are just largely depth guys. IMO, you could go to any team in the league that is average or better and make the same list of guys.

[RavensTillIDie]

16 minutes ago, Darth Pees said:

Maybe as of the past few years, but it wasn't that long ago that this team drafted Jimmy Smith in the 1st round and he had well known problems coming out of college. I think once the Ray Rice scandal hit, we changed everything.

Out of this list, the only average or better players are: Brandon Williams, Juice, Wagner, Mosley, Jernigan, and Stanley. And that's 5 years worth of drafting, and none of them are all-pros. There are guys who have a chance to be good, like Tavon Young, Matt Judon, and Kenneth Dixon, but the rest are just largely depth guys. IMO, you could go to any team in the league that is average or better and make the same list of guys.

All-Pro is more perception than anything, specifically team centric perception. You're telling me guys like Williams, Juice, Mosley, Wagner, and Stanley aren't all all top-5 at their position, minimum top-10? That aside, my point was that, in just about any 5 year stretch of time, Ozzie is hitting on about the same rate of star players. It's just the results of the team and a litany of injuries that have altered the perception as far as his ability to evaluate and draft talent.

[paraven]

1 hour ago, RavensTillIDie said:

I think there's two things wrong with this assessment, personally. The first is that, it's a bit misleading to say that Ozzie hasn't had good drafts since 2008. We've certainly managed to find some really good players since 2008, and even prior to that, at most we'd find 3-4 really good players in any draft out of say 7 or 8 picks. Ozzie and the front office have been hitting at roughly the same rate of successful draft picks, so that's not what's changed.

However what has changed, and this is largely based on opinion, is the type and caliber of players we have selected. This I believe to largely be a Harbaugh and Biscotti influence; meaning we've tended to avoid guys with any type of character concerns up until recently. We've elected to get the clean cut, ideal locker room guys, and in doing so we have passed on some obvious, but troubled talents. Furthermore, we've had such sustained success under Harbaugh that it's been a dual edged sword. While everybody loves a winner, if you don't win the Super Bowl in a given year, the only prize you get is a lower draft pick. Making the job of the front office that much harder to secure elite talents, which typically go early in the draft. All that considered, not many GMs can say in a 5 year span they've selected players like: Brandon Williams, Kyle Juszczyk, Ricky Wagner, Ryan Jensen, CJ Mosley, Timmy Jernigan, Crockett Gillmore (injured), Brent Urban (injured), Carl Davis, Za'Darius Smith, Ronnie Stanley, Tavon Young, Alex Lewis (injured), Kennth Dixon (injured/suspended), Matt Judon, Maurice Canady, and all the guys from this year who look like they will be serious contributors moving forward.

Ozzie can certainly take some blame for not adequately setting up the roster to be able to sustain all our injuries, but to be fair, there aren't many (if any) GMs that could have potentially foreseen the litany of injuries we've suffered this year and had a "next man up" for every single position. All this to say I still think Ozzie has it, whatever you classify "it" as. However, continuous injuries, (probably) being given direction to avoid certain types of troubled players, and having low draft selection year after year certainly haven't helped Ozzie or the front office live up to their billing as (one of) the best in the league.

How many of those are game changing players? they are good players dont get me wrong, but non are players you can build around.

[RavensTillIDie]

Just now, paraven said:

How many of those are game changing players? they are good players dont get me wrong, but non are players you can build around.

That statement makes no sense to me. How do you build around anything other than a quarterback in this league? More so, how do you build around non skill position players in this league? Brandon Williams, Mosley, and Stanley are all cornerstones of any good franchise. However, this is football, and great players alone can't do much to stem the tide of mediocrity around them, both in terms of other players (either sucking or getting injured) and poor play calling.

I mean, even when we drafted transcendent talents like Ray Lewis and Johnathen Ogden, that didn't stop the franchise from having 4 losing seasons in a row (1 of those at .500) before going 12-4 and winning a Super Bowl. And even after that Super Bowl, with the same aforementioned guys plus the addition of Ed Reed and Suggs, we still had losing seasons in 3 out of 7 years, failing to make the playoffs 4 out of those 7.

We knew what we were getting when we signed Flacco to that contract in 2012; it was a reward for a Super Bowl win with the hope of him building on the playoff run. Joe never really evolved beyond that point, but in waiting around for him to get better, the front office's hands were also tied in terms of selecting another player to build around. We've tried to add skill position players, specifically at wide receiver, but we failed in that regard. However, that's nothing new. It's a trend that has continued since the start of this franchise. That doesn't take away from all the great non skill position players we have acquired.

Once again, I don't get the argument you are trying to make against Ozzie. Not to say he has been the best in the league at drafting, but statistically speaking, he's been no worse than his career average. So, either he's always "sucked" by said definition. Or, the current state of the franchise has altered your perception of his as a GM, when the truth is there is only so much he can do and things like injuries, bad play calling, and draft restrictions/guidance from management are out of his hands.

[paraven]

58 minutes ago, RavensTillIDie said:

That statement makes no sense to me. How do you build around anything other than a quarterback in this league? More so, how do you build around non skill position players in this league? Brandon Williams, Mosley, and Stanley are all cornerstones of any good franchise. However, this is football, and great players alone can't do much to stem the tide of mediocrity around them, both in terms of other players (either sucking or getting injured) and poor play calling.

I mean, even when we drafted transcendent talents like Ray Lewis and Johnathen Ogden, that didn't stop the franchise from having 4 losing seasons in a row (1 of those at .500) before going 12-4 and winning a Super Bowl. And even after that Super Bowl, with the same aforementioned guys plus the addition of Ed Reed and Suggs, we still had losing seasons in 3 out of 7 years, failing to make the playoffs 4 out of those 7.

We knew what we were getting when we signed Flacco to that contract in 2012; it was a reward for a Super Bowl win with the hope of him building on the playoff run. Joe never really evolved beyond that point, but in waiting around for him to get better, the front office's hands were also tied in terms of selecting another player to build around. We've tried to add skill position players, specifically at wide receiver, but we failed in that regard. However, that's nothing new. It's a trend that has continued since the start of this franchise. That doesn't take away from all the great non skill position players we have acquired.

Once again, I don't get the argument you are trying to make against Ozzie. Not to say he has been the best in the league at drafting, but statistically speaking, he's been no worse than his career average. So, either he's always "sucked" by said definition. Or, the current state of the franchise has altered your perception of his as a GM, when the truth is there is only so much he can do and things like injuries, bad play calling, and draft restrictions/guidance from management are out of his hands.

ok maybe I should say he has failed to draft skill players. either way there are no playmakers on this team that can take a game over

[RavensTillIDie]

24 minutes ago, paraven said:

ok maybe I should say he has failed to draft skill players. either way there are no playmakers on this team that can take a game over

I agree, but again, that has always been an issue with the Ravens and the way Ozzie has constructed the team. There's only two guys we've drafted off the top of my head who would even fit the moniker of playmaker during their time in Baltimore; Jermaine Lewis and Ray Rice. The former was a play maker primarily on special teams and the latter, well we all know the extenuating circumstances that lead to his dismissal from the team. Given that, we've still managed to be a fairly successful franchise, as evidence by the two Super Bowl wins in under 2 decades. Whereas you have other teams with 0 championships over multiple decades of existence. So, imo it's not necessarily that a lack of elite skill position players has hurt us as a franchise, it's just shockingly more evident given the current state of the team.

With that said, would it be nice to have a guy Joe could just lob it up to like an AJ Green, DeAndre Hopkins, Julio Jones, etc? Or even a dynamic RB who could shoulder 30+ touches per game like Bell, Elliott, Gurley, etc? Sure, but you typically have to be picking really high to get a guy like that, and due in large part to our success, we just haven't had that luxury. And the few times we have been in that position in recent years, the draft classes just haven't had that super elite skill player available high in the draft or the one's we really liked were taken before our selection.

So, in my mind, it's nice to want to blame our troubles on Ozzie and the front office. But outside of mortgaging our future or having a crystal ball, how exactly should he have gone about getting one of these said skill position players?

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

4 hours ago, RavensTillIDie said:

All-Pro is more perception than anything, specifically team centric perception. You're telling me guys like Williams, Juice, Mosley, Wagner, and Stanley aren't all all top-5 at their position, minimum top-10? That aside, my point was that, in just about any 5 year stretch of time, Ozzie is hitting on about the same rate of star players. It's just the results of the team and a litany of injuries that have altered the perception as far as his ability to evaluate and draft talent.

Most of those positions are solely because there's not very many good players there to begin with. How many "good" 3-4 NT's are there? How many "good" RT's are there? How many "good" fullbacks are there? etc. etc.

I disagree about star players. He's hitting on guys who are quality starters, but we have no star players, especially at any sort of skill position.

[RavensDefense3]

it's injuries mostly, we need a new training crew and a new coordinators. both of our coordinators got fired from their previous teams until we picked them up. that's pathetic, surely we can do better. im still fine with ozzie and harbaugh though. we're one of the most injured teams in the league and we look like a 8-8 team. just dont get annihalated with injuries, and invest more on coordinators and i think we'll be play off contenders again very soon.

[berlin calling]

part of it to me is the missing skill of developing and coaching players up. you cannopt expect every college player to immediately grasp an NFL pro style offense / defense.

yet to me it seems especially DP expects his new arrivals to either be able to fill the position he wants them to play or be benched. sink or swim.

same with receivers / TE, somebody should be able to teach them some pro routes and tell them to train catching the ball as long as they manage to do it consistently. just pure mathematics tell me that there must be some of the receivers drafted over the last years who could have been coached up to catch the f*cking ball with their hands not their body, go up and fight for the ball not wait for it to drop in their hands.

[berlin calling]

just came upon this and wanted to share.

can definitely relate to what Pitta is saying, basically Harbaugh and his buddies installing a stripped down, risk-adverse, ultra conservative style of offense.

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"Right now, Joe has one read and then he's got to check it down if it's not there," Pitta told WBAL Radio in Baltimore. "That's really the offense they have set up for him. It's difficult to play quarterback under those circumstances."

and yet in fully neglect still repeating the same story,m if only everything would go to plan we'd have a good offense. getting so tired of him really.

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"Players have to go out there and play great. They have to execute," coach John Harbaugh said. "If you're talking about offense -- we need to complete passes, we need to run the ball well, we need to protect our quarterback, we need to go up and make catches, we need to execute, we need first downs, we need to score points. It's not about playcalling; it's about all of us together, going out there and playing winning football in all three phases.”

 

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

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"Players have to go out there and play great. They have to execute," coach John Harbaugh said. "If you're talking about offense -- we need to complete passes, we need to run the ball well, we need to protect our quarterback, we need to go up and make catches, we need to execute, we need first downs, we need to score points. It's not about playcalling; it's about all of us together, going out there and playing winning football in all three phases.”

John Harbaugh never ceases to amaze with how he can say so much, yet say so little.

The thing about this offense is that it is conservative, but not in the way it should be. Why are we running an offense based around throwing 0-5 yard passes while neglecting to hand the ball off 20-25 times a game to the ONLY player who has been producing this year? Not only is the offense conservative, it's just insane how it's being schemed. We've seen with Marc Trestman what happens when you put the ball in Flacco's hands 30-40 times a game, why are we STILL repeating this same nonsense and expecting different results?

Heck, I almost hope we do "let it rip" on offense, just so we can see another Flacco 5 INT game and then have everyone wondering what the heck went wrong. It's not a mystery, this team does well when we take the ball out of Flacco's hands and run the ball more.

[DontTazeMeBro]

Mostly the OL. I can’t even blame Ozzie too much for that because if we had Lewis and Yanda it would probably be one of the better lines in the league.

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

1 hour ago, DontTazeMeBro said:

Mostly the OL. I can’t even blame Ozzie too much for that because if we had Lewis and Yanda it would probably be one of the better lines in the league.

Our offensive line actually ranks rather highly this year, contrary to popular belief:

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ol

Can't say I put much blame on the OL with how well they seem to be performing by the stats.

[DontTazeMeBro]

1 minute ago, Darth Pees said:

Our offensive line actually ranks rather highly this year, contrary to popular belief:

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ol

Can't say I put much blame on the OL with how well they seem to be performing by the stats.

We all watch almost every game. They have their moments sometimes. But it’s clear as day this line sucks 

And I’ve never seen analytics reflect the things teams do to compensate for their terrible lines. Quick passes, extra blockers,etc

[coordinator0]

I'm not convinced Collins can actually handle a 20-25 carries a game workload either. It's certainly worth trying, but keeping him in the 15 carry range with his current effectiveness is fine with me.