Explain This to Me

**ursula** · 03-13-2013, 01:16 PM

Originally Posted by rlh445

We KNOW when the freaking season starts guys. That doesn't take away from confusion and or dismay and or happiness derived from off season moves. Continually pointing out when the season actually starts means nothing and just detracts from the overall conversation. Sheesh. We don't have a lot of money to make a lot of moves so we're going to be heavily dependent on the draft as it is, why is it a crime to worry about that?

What a joke of a reply. Okay-you want to run around like chicken little, go ahead. It is your choice to be confused, that's all. It is your choice to see the players that are gone and react like a 13 year old. CCC brought up the end of the off-season, not me.

**Shas** · 03-13-2013, 01:29 PM

Originally Posted by CharmCityCrab

we should have just done massive restructuring contracts to keep the team intact for this coming season and tried to repeat as champions, followed by massive cuts. We were told explicitly by the front office that we were going to avoid massive rebuilding by not restructuring contracts.

You stipulate that we're witnessing massive rebuilding and suggest that if we have to go through the pain of massive rebuilding, why not just put it off and do the rebuild thing a year from now. But I would argue we're not witnessing massive rebuilding at all. To wit,

Anquan Boldin -- a huge part of their 2012 success, but 33 years old this season, with a limited future

Dannell Ellerbe -- a guy who has only given them 14 starts in the last two seasons and who has been injury prone. He looked very, very promising, but that's not to say he's proved much quite yet, and it's hard to justify paying him like a pro bowler, no?

Paul Kruger -- a guy who had a flurry of sacks against lessor tackles, but who struggled against better tackles, and also a guy who was on the sideline for 2/3rds of the defensive snaps on Super Bowl Sunday. Should they consider him Pro Bowl caliber and outbid for him?

Bernard Pollard. Loved the guy and not sure why he's gone. But he'll be with his fourth team in his eighth year, so who knows?

McKinney and Reed are still in limbo, but I think that's about it, right? I guess I should throw in Ray and Birk, the retirees.

They've lost six good contributors and it could balloon to eight. Is that really what we should be referring to as 'massive rebuilding?" That's 15% of the roster. The NFL average roster turnover has been running around 14 players per year. We're at half that right now, certainly with a few more turnovers with cuts and injuries that will happen before opening day.

The team still has some cap space to sign free agent replacements and they have 12 draft picks to work with.

So the plan isn't to massively rebuild this year, or any year in the future. It's to steadily trim out the players who are aging or who don't justify what other teams are going to offer them. That, in a nut shell, is the plan you're asking to have explained. Groom your own players, keep the guys who are too valuable to let walk, and apply the right-player-right-price philosophy to the rest.

Look, I think the issue is that we get emotionally attached to particular players and that tends to amplify the impact of seeing them leave. But let's gear back on the massive rebuilding concept and talk about it in more reasonable terms.

**srobert96** · 03-13-2013, 01:38 PM

Ozzie makes mistakes. Look at some of the last few drafts. The reason why it is smart to trust Ozzie is because Ozzie has a system that is proven to work. He does not stray. It is not based on emotion. He may make mistakes as any GM will do but because he does not stray from his system his overall body of work is successful. After all it is about winning games and Ozzie has proven through two coaches he knows what he is doing when putting a franchise together.

**riprulz8** · 03-13-2013, 02:36 PM

Originally Posted by CharmCityCrab

It's not any one move, it's cumulatively losing all these folks without replacing them.

Damn, nobody told me FA was over and that the draft was moved up this year.

**pslholder96** · 03-13-2013, 02:51 PM

Originally Posted by Shas

You stipulate that we're witnessing massive rebuilding and suggest that if we have to go through the pain of massive rebuilding, why not just put it off and do the rebuild thing a year from now. But I would argue we're not witnessing massive rebuilding at all. To wit,

Anquan Boldin -- a huge part of their 2012 success, but 33 years old this season, with a limited future

Dannell Ellerbe -- a guy who has only given them 14 starts in the last two seasons and who has been injury prone. He looked very, very promising, but that's not to say he's proved much quite yet, and it's hard to justify paying him like a pro bowler, no?

Paul Kruger -- a guy who had a flurry of sacks against lessor tackles, but who struggled against better tackles, and also a guy who was on the sideline for 2/3rds of the defensive snaps on Super Bowl Sunday. Should they consider him Pro Bowl caliber and outbid for him?

Bernard Pollard. Loved the guy and not sure why he's gone. But he'll be with his fourth team in his eighth year, so who knows?

McKinney and Reed are still in limbo, but I think that's about it, right? I guess I should throw in Ray and Birk, the retirees.

They've lost six good contributors and it could balloon to eight. Is that really what we should be referring to as 'massive rebuilding?" That's 15% of the roster. The NFL average roster turnover has been running around 14 players per year. We're at half that right now, certainly with a few more turnovers with cuts and injuries that will happen before opening day.

The team still has some cap space to sign free agent replacements and they have 12 draft picks to work with.

So the plan isn't to massively rebuild this year, or any year in the future. It's to steadily trim out the players who are aging or who don't justify what other teams are going to offer them. That, in a nut shell, is the plan you're asking to have explained. Groom your own players, keep the guys who are too valuable to let walk, and apply the right-player-right-price philosophy to the rest.

Look, I think the issue is that we get emotionally attached to particular players and that tends to amplify the impact of seeing them leave. But let's gear back on the massive rebuilding concept and talk about it in more reasonable terms.

Shas, stop being the voice of reason!!

In all seriousness Pollard one is the most baffling. However he's now looking for his 4th team in 8 years. Hmmmm..where there's smoke there's fire?

I too also took issue with the Op's use of the term "massive rebuilding". Quite exaggerated here. How about the ravens having a "massive" strategy driving all this. There's wisdom in everything they do and don't do. Most moves work out and others don't

**GaTechRavens** · 03-13-2013, 02:51 PM

I think with the Ravens, short term and long term planning are intertwined. If letting a player go is going to leave the team better off in 2016 by not overpaying him, I think it's not unreasonable to believe the same could be true in 2013.

Look at it from a baseball perspective. WAR (Wins Above Replacement) is becoming a really big stat, and your typical solid starter has a WAR of about 2-3. But...that's over 162 games. Divide that by 10, and even a legitimately solid player is adding only about 0.2 wins to his team - which means he probably isn't affecting their record at all.

I think it's that sort of idea that allows the Ravens to let mid-tier starters go so easily. Teams are forced to play Moneyball with a salary cap, and it's important to put a player's overall impact in perspective. In a sport with so many starters and so few games, there aren't many non-quarterbacks who actually do much to impact a team's record - in fact, there might not even be any.

**Brien Jackson** · 03-13-2013, 03:10 PM

Originally Posted by rlh445

We KNOW when the freaking season starts guys. That doesn't take away from confusion and or dismay and or happiness derived from off season moves. Continually pointing out when the season actually starts means nothing and just detracts from the overall conversation. Sheesh. We don't have a lot of money to make a lot of moves so we're going to be heavily dependent on the draft as it is, why is it a crime to worry about that?

Well, if nothing else, it does make it factually inaccurate to characterize this as "the end of the offseason" when in fact it's only the second day of the league year. Hell, teams will still be cutting veteran players even after training camps begin.

**HoustonRaven** · 03-13-2013, 03:12 PM

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**rlh445** · 03-13-2013, 05:24 PM

Originally Posted by ursula

What a joke of a reply. Okay-you want to run around like chicken little, go ahead. It is your choice to be confused, that's all. It is your choice to see the players that are gone and react like a 13 year old. CCC brought up the end of the off-season, not me.

YOU'RE the joke, madam. I didn't say anything about being a, 'Chicken Little,' I simply pointed out that we all have calendars and don't need to be chided for our thoughts and opinions despite how fondly it makes you remember when you were thirteen.

**CharmCityCrab** · 03-13-2013, 05:59 PM

Originally Posted by HoustonRaven

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1363201920.447071.jpg

Actually, I did win my fantasy football league championship this year. :)

Anyhow, I'm not sitting here saying I'm a better GM than Ozzie Newsome. I'm also not a better quarterback than Stony Case. Doesn't mean I wouldn't be concerned if we had let Joe Flacco sign elsewhere and brought Stony Case out of retirement to replace him. We all play arm-chair quarterback a little, part of being a fan.

But as I've said several times here, I'm not ready to fire Ozzie or anything. Man has a great track record. I'm just saying so far this off-season is looking a bit scary. There's a chance he'll pull a magic rabbit out of his hat, and I hope he does. It wouldn't shock me- he's done it before. That's why I started the thread- to ask what the magic rabbit would be, what our options are with the cap space and what we could do the rest of the off-season. But at the same time, I don't don't think Ozzie is infallible and am not going to automatically say all the moves he made will definitely work out for the best or that they don't concern me. They concern me, and they might not work out- it's only because Ozzie has such a good track record that I'm thinking there's a chance that they could work out and I'm asking for some speculation about what the secret plan might be. ;) If we had a different GM who had just started this off-season, I would just assume he was no good- with Ozzie I am mostly assuming that there might be a (good) plan or something I'm not seeing, with only a little side of panic. ;)