Almost A Complete Team Failure

Which part of it do you actually disagree with? For the record I'm talking about a healthy team, not the replacement players. I'll tell my opinion on each position

QB - I'm skipping this for now
RB - Question marks, no doubt. A lot of people were high on Dixon though
TE - Watson has played fairly well when actually targeted. Boyle has also. The rest are backups
WR - We've seen what Wallace can do here, even at his age. Maclin seemed like a good replacement for Smith. The rest are trash
T - Stanley is pretty good. RT was a problem
G - Yanda is a stud still. Who do you judge at RG? Lewis, Urschel, Siragusa, or Hurst?
C - Jensen was a huge question mark coming in, but he's been pretty good overall

LB - Mosely has been a disappointment, the #2 ILB has always been a throwaway position to me. Onwusar has played well
D-line - Williams, Pierce, and Urban were playing pretty well together before 2/3rds of that line got hurt. So are you judging by the backups?

I think the defensive criticism is simply nitpicking as we all know you can't be great everywhere under the salary cap. The injuries on offense can be factored I guess, but nobody expects a backup to play significant time at any position. A Ravens team as healthy as the Steelers would be better across the board.

 

Siiiiiiiiigggggghhhhhhhhhh. We are saying the same thing. It's not utter shit, but it hasn't worked in 5 years. Then Harbaugh has to should blame for the lack of preparedness as well.

 

The comment was as to how well Ozzie has put together the roster. If you're willing to say he's done even "ok" on the offensive side of the ball this is a pointless conversation because he has failed miserably. Defensively there are some nice players. There's no question there. Pierce is probably the most impressive of them all but we had a conversation when Guy walked and they shipped Jernigan away for peanuts and you assured me there would be no fall off and listed several guys who had basically never stepped on the field. They played this Sunday without only one guy (Urban) and a Vikings o-line also missing several starters ran it down their throat. Depth is when you lose a couple of guys and the backups come in and perform at an adequate level. The Ravens lost two starters and the backups got trounced. The Steelers would be an example of depth when that had two backups on the o-line against the Chiefs and still rushed for 194 yards. Or any of the multitude of games they've played with a backup right tackle.

But again this conversation is pointless based on your last sentence. If you can really look at these two rosters and think that pre-injuries the Ravens are better across the board your glasses are so purple they have made you blind. That's uttlerly ridiculous.

 

So you said...

"Ozzie put together what seems to be on paper really good roster - sans the OL."

And I said he hasn't put together a really good roster. And somehow we're saying the same thing? Whatever.

 

I heard a caller on 105.7 Sunday give this breakdown.........may be slightly off, but overall picture is pretty accurate I think. Of the past SIX combined draft classes for Ozzie........54 picks total:
-Only 25 are still with the team.
-Only 10 have become starting caliber or were projected to start this year (Osemele, Jensen, Wagner, Juszczyk, Williams, Mosley, Perriman, Dixon, Lewis, Stanley). Of those ten, three weren't resigned and walked for dollars, another three are out for the year due to injury/suspension, or chronically injured (Perriman - who likely won't have 5th year option picked up). That's about a 10% success rate on drafting/retaining starting players long term.....that's pretty bad and becomes expensive if you have to fill in a majority of your starting players with free agents. The 2010-2011 classes don't help that rate much either. This level of success would get a LOT of NFL GMs fired.
-Only three players have made the Pro Bowl or been Pro Bowl caliber while playing with the Ravens (Williams, Mosley, Juszczyk).
-Only ONE player (Williams) has been resigned to a long term deal.
-The early round picks (1-3) usually form the core of your team or at least a majority on one side of the ball. The Steelers entire defense with the exception of V. Williams and J. Hargrave are all 1st/2nd round picks. Its early for the 2016-2017 classes, but if you are optimistic and include Humphrey and a combination of Bowser/Williams/Wormley as 3..............it looks like only SIX of those 20 combined early round picks the last six drafts have become or MAY become impact players for the Ravens. That's 30%. That's pretty bad any way you cut it. No team hits on everyone, but I would think something closer to 50% or higher on day-1/2 should be a reasonable expectation for most GMs. If you can't hit on a good number of early round picks, you better find some middle or late round gems to compensate for higher paid players or those you may not resign.

 

I know you have this love of putting down the Ravens whenever you can, but at least get clarification on my statements before jumping to conclusions. I'll add the extra words. "If the Ravens were as healthy as the Steelers, they would be better across the board than they are currently displaying. This was a simply sentence to say a healthy Ravens team is better than the current Ravens team. I don't even think that's debatable.

Now, again, I listed each position and discussed them on the basis of the intended starter. Feel free to give your opinion for an actual debate and not just some "if you disagree with me then there's no point arguing because I'm always right" type of response.

Lastly, I'm not sure why you even tried to base an argument off one specific game. Okay, the Ravens were fairly healthy on defense against the Vikings and sucked. It does happen, right? The Steelers offense was pretty healthy against the Jaguars right? And the Bears? And, by most of your accounts, have one of the best offensive rosters in the league yet have NOT scored more than 2 offensive TDs in any game this season (something the Ravens have actually done). Would this mean the Steelers offense actually sucks and isn't a good roster? Probably not, right? It'd just mean they are underperforming

 

If that's what you meant no problem but you said...

"A Ravens team as healthy as the Steelers would be better across the board."

It's not like I pulled it out of thin air. This certainly looks as if you were saying the Ravens would be better across the board than the Steelers. On to the rest...

I'm not basing it on one game. They also performed poorly against the run vs. the Steelers, Jaguars and Bears but they did so without Williams so I was trying to be somewhat fair. Although when you are claiming the amount of depth the Ravens fans and beat writers claimed going into the season you should be able to turn to your 4th and 5th d-linemen and still perform better than they did.

I saw your list and it was mostly offense. I'm just not going to waste my time arguing why the Ravens offensive personnel is so poor. I shouldn't have to if we are going to have a truly objective conversation. Top to bottom the Ravens offensive personnel is easily bottom 5 in the NFL both in the skill positions and o-line. Do we really have to debate that?

 

To touch on your points in order:

1. 6 draft classes is an interesting number. I think it's used because the 2012 class really makes the whole "only 25 are still with the team" thing look even worse. 25 of 46 just doesn't look as bad, and 5 is a number most would use.

2. That 10 number is wrong. In addition to "Osemele, Jensen, Wagner, Juszczyk, Williams, Mosley, Perriman, Dixon, Lewis, and Stanley", you're also missing projected starters who got injured like Tavon Young (11). Since you're also missing actual starters on other teams like Simon and Jernigan (12 and 13). Then you're missing players that came into this season as the starter for the Ravens who got injured like Urban (14) or players who went undrafted and earned the start like Pierce (15). Even if you don't count Pierce, that's 14. And if you stretch it to not count Young since he'd have started in the slot, that's 13. Coincidentally, in that same amount of time given, the Steelers have also drafted 13 players who were projected to start or actually did.

3. Meh. People are inconsistent about Probowls so I don't really argue them and never had. Wagner was considered arguably the best RT in football in 2 separate seasons, and yet has no probowl voting.

4. That sucks, but how does it equal bad drafting if the team can't afford to re-sign players that excel? This is about drafting specifically, right?

5. Hmm. I'm under the impression that the draft as a whole is used to find good players, but the early rounds simply give you a higher chance of finding good players. Does this now mean the "impact players" found in, let's say, round 4 don't get counted into a good draft because they weren't in the first 3 rounds?

To continue for point 5, I never got the extreme focus on just the first 3 rounds. People have said the 2008 draft for Baltimore was a good one because they hit on the first and second rounds, but they flat out flopped on every other pick. Meanwhile, the 2013 draft is considered a bust because the first 2 rounds went badly, meanwhile 5 of the 6 picks between the 2nd and 7th rounds are all starters in the league right now, with 3 of them currently being among the highest paid at their position. This logic doesn't make sense to me

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but debating is exactly what I thought we were doing. Unless, as said, it's the whole "I'm right you're wrong" thing again.

From top to bottom, a healthy Ravens offense is not bottom 5 in the NFL in skill positions or o-line. The RBs aren't even in the bottom half of the league right now (higher than the Steelers btw). RBs are highly dependent on an o-line so the Ravens run blocking must be somewhat better than Pittsburgh's, with all those injuries still, to have a 4.2 ypc vs the 3.8 team number the black and yellow are sporting. since we'd all agree Bell is a better back than any Ravens RB. I'm not sure how anybody would judge the WRs or TEs with the QB playing like pure trash right now.

That said, if you're saying the QB position is bottom 5, I'd still disagree as it's easily bottom 3 at best

 

Debating is one thing. But I don't think you'd debate me if I tried to make a case for Chris Boswell being better than Justin Tucker. You would probably just throw your hands up. That's how I feel when I see you defending the offensive personnel because I think you're alone out on that limb.

 

Chris Boswell hasn't attempted a kick over 50 yards this season. He's missed one from between the 40-49 range. Tucker hasn't missed a kick under 50 yards but is 2 of 4 from over 50. What's the debate?

And again, you're not really going to debate so I'm not sure what's the point of the replies? I've laid out my view a few times and just get back a lot of nothing. What was the point of it all? The Ravens current offensive personnel as a whole sucks. The intended personnel does not, minus Flacco it seems. He's just been trash.

 

Not my conversation but just to touch on this one thing. We've discussed this in the past. They guys you hope to get in the early rounds are the playmakers. Obviously there are exceptions to both sides but in general I believe teams see the first couple rounds as their opportunity to get All-Pro / Pro-Bowl like players. So while Brandon Williams was a great pick in the 3rd round guys like Sheldon Richardson, Kawaan Short and Star Lotulelei were taken in the early rounds because of their projected ability to both stop the run and play the 3 technique in passing downs and pressure the QB.

Right now the Ravens have a bunch of solid starters. They don't have much in the way of playmakers mostly because they've missed in those early rounds. Examples:

2012 - Traded back with the Vikings. Minnesota selected a playmaker in Harrison Smith. The Ravens got a solid player in Courtney Upshaw.
2013 - Ravens selected but didn't necessarily hang on to several solid players. They passed up on guys like Kawaan Short, Leveon Bell, Jamie Collins, Travis Kelce
2014 - They did well to get Mosely
2015 - Just bad all the way around. No starters from that group.
2016 / 2017 - Probably still too early to say.

 

Other than Yanda who did the Ravens lose that was a talented offensive player?

 

I'm assuming you don't think Dixon is talented? Gilmore, who's chronically injured, has played fairly well when on the field. I won't call him great or anything.

I won't say much on Maxx Williams as I've never been a fan. I think Maclin is talented as well.

As I said, the current offense sucks. But you add in Yanda, Dixon, and a Flacco that's actually playing like a real NFL QB and this whole team looks different. I personally believe a few other players would have made a difference (like Lewis at RT, Siragusa at LG) but we have zero info to confirm or deny how they'd play if they were healthy.

Now a question for you. I mentioned the Ravens run blocking. Since I'm sure you believe Bell is a more talented player than any Ravens RB. You may also believe John Connor is more talented than any Ravens RB also (I don't know). So would you then believe the Ravens o-line is doing something right if they have Baltimore's running game ranked 14th in ypc vs the Steelers' o-line that has them ranked 23rd? Or are Alex Collins and Buck Allen simply playing better than Bell and Connor?

 

You know what, I'm going to step away from this topic for today. I had an annoying day that fueled my desire to debate/argue, when I normally would have ignored this. I still don't believe the intended roster was bad on offense though. If need be I may pick it back up tomorrow.

 

When the Steelers play the Ravens the Ravens usually make us look like pussies on the field. This season the Ravens look like pussies. That right there is your problem, the Ravens are playing like pussies this season. You guys need to get tough again.

 

So the difference between current sucky personnel and the intended personnel is Dixon, Gilmore, Lewis and Siragusa? Honesty, RR that's pretty much echoing my point. If you (and Ozzie) thought those guys were difference makers you went into the season unprepared - IMO of course.

P.S. Dixon was suspended 4 games in March so he wasn't going to be here for 25% of the season anyway.

Trying to draw a conclusion using one stat 7 games into a season is pretty flawed don't you think? And I'll give you a pretty good example of why. Look no further than Steelers vs Ravens on October 1st. The Steelers rushed for 173 yards and the Ravens rushed for 82 but by your logic the Ravens had the better day because they averaged 5.5 yards per carry (vs. 4.1). Break it down even further and it really tells the story...

23, -1, 4, -6, 5, 6, 4, -1, -3, 50, 2, -3, 1, 3, -5

Those are the Ravens 15 attempts. Six of the 15 went for negative yards which makes sticking to the run pretty difficult. 73yds came on two carries and 11yds on the other 13 carries. But they averaged 5.5 ypc so that's good right?

4, 3, 0, 9, 1, 23, 2, 16, -2, 2, 4, 7, 3, 1, 7, 6, 1, 4, -1, 1, 3, 6, 17, 7, 0, 3, -2, 2, 1, -3, 2, 4, 3, 7, 21, 6, 0, 6, 1

Only 4 negative runs out of 43 attempts which allowed them to stick to run and pick up 1st downs.

Which team rushed the ball better on October 1st?

 

Yes, those guys and Yanda, and Woodhead along with Maclin and Wallace with Flacco not playing like trash. I know you enjoy putting down the Ravens whenever possible, but the intended 2017 personnel was not bottom 5. Hell, the players out there now would look better if Joe simply played like he did anywhere between 2009 and 2014.

The Ravens rushed the ball better, specifically Alex Collins. Collins is averaging almost 6 ypc on the season. He's hit a long run in almost every game, whereas the RBs he's shared a load with have not been able to find similar success (minus Allen against the Raiders, I think). In that game above, West had 4 carries for negative 7 yards. The -6, -3, and -3 belong to west. Can't find the -5 you listed, and also the total rushing yards you have for Baltimore is 79. The Steelers could run 43 times because they achieved a 2 score lead with 7 minutes to go in the second quarter that only expanded, and the Ravens could only run 15 times because of the same thing. Do you think Ben only gets 30 attempts if the scores were reversed? Probably not, right?

We've had this discussion before. Where you like to diminish certain plays, or in this case certain runs, because you feel it twists the average. I've never seen you do this for the Steelers in the, now, 11 years we've interacted online. No matter how you want to diminish it, every run counts towards a player and team's averages. Barry Sanders had the most negative runs in NFL history. Does that diminish the fact he's the only player that's averaged 1,500 rushing yards a season for 10 years or more?

 

Okay but Maclin and Wallace have played and things haven't changed. Every team loses players here and there. Yanda I'll give you. He's a stud. Woodhead was a foolish signing. Guy can't hold up. That's roster management.

I don't know why you have to say stuff like this. #1 You come to the Steelers board and offer criticisms and I don't respond that way. #2 I'm not saying things other Ravens fans aren't also saying. The offensive personnel is not thought very highly of.

I believe it's the opposite. I think if you surround Joe with protection and just average targets he can be very dangerous. If he gets hit too often he gets skittish.

I'm on my phone and my wife is getting aggravated so when I accidentally erased your entire paragraph I wasn't going to start over with the whole post.

I vehemently disagree with the idea that the Ravens ran it better and I'm not discrediting anything. The 50 yard run was great and it led to the Ravens only TD. But it was one play and the lack of success on the other runs didn't allow them to run it anymore. When it's 2nd and 12 or 2nd or 16 or 2nd and 13 most teams have to resort to passing. You have glossed over that point and that's a disservice to the discussion because it's a very real point. You can't sustain a running game when the majority of your carries go for 0 or negative yardage.

 

Let me ask you this. Do you think Maclin and Wallace haven't been great due to them, or due to the QB play, honestly?

For shits and giggles, when was the last time I said anything negative on the Steelers board? I went recently to compliment you on some research, and another time to say I was surprised at your offensive production after reading through a GBU thread. Seriously, when was the last time I criticized the Steelers on the Steelers board, since you say I do it? And then ask yourself, if Ravens fans have already said it all, why are you always so eager to repeat what's said? A lot of your recent posts I've noticed have been disagreeing with Faulk.

But more importantly, don't skip over these times I come to criticize the Steelers on their board

I don't disagree with this in theory. But from what I see, Joe is playing more scared now than he did his first 5 years. Could be age, could be finally getting a serious injury in 2015. It's more than just pressure. The Ravens FB page posted a throwback to the second Steelers game in 2011. The 92 yard drive. I forgot how much pressure Pittsburgh put on that drive, but he consistently stepped up in the pocket, avoided rushers, and made great reads, good throws, and just looked like the "cool Joe" moniker people gave him. 2017 Flacco throws off his backfoot, even with no pressure. 2017 Joe sees pressure and starts looking for the rusher more than keeping his eyes downfield. 2017 Joe checks down almost immediately. His current pass catchers, minus Perriman, would be far more dangerous with just about anybody else under center.

I didn't gloss over anything. I specifically addressed the point you made and this is your first time bringing up any down and distance. With that said the lack of success is what caused them to stop running, or at least that's what you believe. I'm not sure if you're throwing this against the wall and hoping it sticks or if you believe this from research. Let's see the research.

1st Ravens drive - The run on 4 out of 7 offensive plays.

Steelers then 10 freaking minutes and kick a FG.

2nd drive - 3 and out featuring one 5 yard run on 2nd and 8. Surely that didn't prevent them from running again.

Steelers 4 and out

3rd drive - 3 and out on 3 consecutive pass plays. I guess having 25 yards on 5 rushes discouraged any runs here.

Steelers kick another FG, up 6-0

4th drive - run for 6 yards, run for 4 yards (first down in two plays), fumble after being hit 4 yards in the backfield).

Steelers score TD, up 13-0

5th drive - 3 and out featuring a West negative 3 yard run on 3rd and 7. Keep in mind they didn't run on 3rd and 3 earlier. Play calling is an issue Ravens fans point out also.

Steelers score TD and miss 2 point. Up 19-0 with the half looming

6th drive, all passes due to trying to score with 31 seconds left in half

So far, please tell me where lack of success made them stop running, per your words?

6th drive - 3 straight passes from inside the redzone (we've seen this song and dance before in Baltimore). FG

7th drive - 50 yard run. Two more passes after for a TD. Maybe they threw twice because they were discouraged by the 50 yard run.

8th drive - extends into 4th quarter. 2 runs, to 6 pass attempts. I guess they could have been upset about the runs, or a team down 10 in the 4th gets pass happy. Wouldn't be the first time I've heard that happening, on any team

At this point I don't need to state much else. Almost every team in the league is going to get pass happy when down two scores in the 4th quarter. Of course if you're of the opinion that they went away from the run because of lack of success, then we'll just agree to disagree.