A thought on why we cut some quality guys

[awalt]

Ozzie said yesterday this is the deepest team ever, and some of our cuts will be playing for other teams. Two thoughts I had to temper this:

1. We had a remarkably injury-free training camp (hopefully not at the expense of being ready for the Bengals). In past years throwing a few depth guys on the IR lets you keep some other guys. This year we leave camp with 2 on the IR, last year I think only 1, but in 2005 we had 5 and the year before 4.

2. We have 6 guys again who are pretty much dedicated to special teams - Stover, Lloyd, Katula, Koch, Sams, and Figurs. Thats a lot. While one could argue other backups are only on the team because they can contribute to special teams, to me most everyone else has potential to play on offense or defense one day. You could argue Figurs is in that category as well, but I would say Figurs doesn't make this team if he had no experience running back kicks. By the end of last year, albeit with Sams on the IR, we only had 3 ST guys - Stover, Koch, and Katula.

Just some thoughts...

[RavensNTerps]

Ozzie said yesterday this is the deepest team ever, and some of our cuts will be playing for other teams. Two thoughts I had to temper this:

1. We had a remarkably injury-free training camp (hopefully not at the expense of being ready for the Bengals). In past years throwing a few depth guys on the IR lets you keep some other guys. This year we leave camp with 2 on the IR, last year I think only 1, but in 2005 we had 5 and the year before 4.

2. We have 6 guys again who are pretty much dedicated to special teams - Stover, Lloyd, Katula, Koch, Sams, and Figurs. Thats a lot. While one could argue other backups are only on the team because they can contribute to special teams, to me most everyone else has potential to play on offense or defense one day. You could argue Figurs is in that category as well, but I would say Figurs doesn't make this team if he had no experience running back kicks. By the end of last year, albeit with Sams on the IR, we only had 3 ST guys - Stover, Koch, and Katula.

Just some thoughts...

Don't forget Stills as an "only special teams" player.