This Offseason Will Make or Break the Long Term Reputation of the Ravens Front Office

[owknows]

There. It's been said. The Ravens' Front Office and Ozzie Newsome in particular, will either be hailed as the greatest football minds in the history of the game or be called over-rated hacks, based solely on the results of their gambit of the 2013 Offseason.

The Ravens have long been respected as perhaps the best decision making machine in football. Better than average draft performance, carefully chosen value free agents, developing their own talent, and skillfully applying the scalpel when necessary, have made for the most consistent franchise in the NFL over at least the last five seasons.

This has not come without a price. Ravens coaching and on-field success combined with a reputation for evaluating and developing players builds a certain league expectation. This often has the effect of creating better perceived value in their Free Agents than perhaps genuinely exists in an objective sense. Players that looked like monsters in purple, found their way into lucrative contracts with other franchises over the years. And nearly without exception, new uniform colors seemed to bring them crashing back to earth.

Adalius Thomas, Edgerton Hartwell, LeRon McClain, Bart Scott, Derrick Mason, and countless other examples are players that left the Ravens to a chorus of wailing and gnashing of teeth only to find that perhaps they owed as much of their success to the franchise, as the franchise owed to them. Maybe there's some truth to that. Maybe the Ravens make more of their players more than they really are. Maybe with the right coaching, strategy, and puzzle-fitting, the whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts. But I digress.

The subject of this missive is the 2013 offseason, and the risk-reward gambit of the Ravens' front office. The Ravens finally have their franchise quarterback, and they paid the man. And to secure the future of the franchise, they have decided to use the 2013 scalpel with a little more gusto than in years past. Some would say that the Ravens 2013 personnel losses represent a gutting of the soul of the club. Others might say that after years of experience the Ravens' Brass has become pretty good at determining how old is too old, how slow is too slow, how brash is too brash, and how much money is too much.

Only time will tell if Kruger, Ellerbe, Williams, and Boldin will be 2013's Thomas, Scott, McClain, and Mason. I wish them all nothing but success. But I wouldn't put my money on it. Only time will tell if the 2013 Ravens bloodbath will be viewed as the greatest mistake in the history of the franchise, or as the shot of young blood that kept the Ravens in the driver's seat for the next decade.

The stakes are high. The front office decisions were bold. Only history will judge the results. Will the front office seal it's reputation as the greatest ever?

I wouldn't bet against them.

[rlh445]

even if we do horribly this year (I don't think we will) it's not gonna do much to change the reputation the Ravens FO has built for themselves lol. i think 17 years of relatively successful football will trump one bad year.

[owknows]

If we suck for the next 5, and Kruger, Ellerbe, Boldin and Williams tear the league a new one... the Ravens Front Office mystique will be lost. (not that it deserves to be.. but it undoubtedly would).

[leachisabeast]

If this team sucks for the next 5 years, it would mean that Flacco would have to regress massively in order for it to happen, which is very doubtful.

[strez]

If we suck for the next 5, and Kruger, Ellerbe, Boldin and Williams tear the league a new one... the Ravens Front Office mystique will be lost. (not that it deserves to be.. but it undoubtedly would).

...maybe when monkeys fly out of my butt.

But seriously, what would your plan be to retain all of these guys for next years' team? How would you do it under the cap? Honest question.

[rlh445]

If we suck for the next 5, and Kruger, Ellerbe, Boldin and Williams tear the league a new one... the Ravens Front Office mystique will be lost. (not that it deserves to be.. but it undoubtedly would).

nah. if we sucked for the next five years it'd have a heck of a lot more to do with who isn't playing well on our squad, not guys we let go five years prior. maybe the coaches would be hated on but that's about it.

[DerpyDerp]

If we suck for the next 5, and Kruger, Ellerbe, Boldin and Williams tear the league a new one... the Ravens Front Office mystique will be lost. (not that it deserves to be.. but it undoubtedly would).

So, which is it? Is it that "This Offseason Will Make or Break the Long Term Reputation of the Ravens Front Office", or is it the next 5 that will make or break the reputation?

[owknows]

...maybe when monkeys fly out of my butt.

But seriously, what would your plan be to retain all of these guys for next years' team? How would you do it under the cap? Honest question.

I wouldn't.

I think the Ravens have done exactly what they should have done.

Even with Boldin.

But the fact remains that there will be a chorus of criticism for every bump in the road for some time to come.

[RavensQB]

Didn't Vinny Testeverde avg 36 points a game???

Oh thats right we gave up 38-40 a game.

So Joe could throw 5 TD's a game and still lose every one.

[NCRAVEN]

So, which is it? Is it that "This Offseason Will Make or Break the Long Term Reputation of the Ravens Front Office", or is it the next 5 that will make or break the reputation?

Both. If we suck for the next 5 years it'll be because we didn't have a great offseason this year.

[Crabcake]

No, it won't. If people don't already have confidence in the FO then there's nothing the FO can do to earn it.

I firmly believe that the Ravens could go 19-0 in 2013, and Kruger, Ellerbe, Boldin, Williams, Pollard, and Reed could fade into obscurity, and the same complaints and outrage would be seen weeks later around town when Michael Oher and whomever else sign elsewhere.

[Bigfish]

One year is hardly a barometer for the success of this franchise. Maybe in your mind it is, but I don't expect you'll get a lot of support outside of the chicken little crowd that wishes for bad luck while knocking on wood. You don't get to decide how to measure the organizational success, get over yourself. Ozzie's image is intact, your demonization won't tarnish his legacy.