Ozzie isn't rebuilding this team, he's upgrading the defense.

[LukeDaniel]

So it's wrong for me to have the opinion that people who think it's been a disastrous offseason and the sky is falling are silly, but it's okay for you to say my opinion about those people is wrong?

Umm, okay.

I've noticed that trend more and more. People with extreme, emotion-based, counterintuitive opinions tend to hide behind the wall of "well, it's my opinion and we are all entitled to have one" regardless of how thin and poorly constructed that wall may be.

Yet, to dare to call them out on it makes you the inflexible and short-sighted one.

Anyone and everyone is entitled to have an opinion, but the further from reality you get, the more you need to be prepared to defend it with logic and fact.

[Ngata Da Vida]

Fact is Canty, Spears, and Dumervil holds better value than keeping Boldin.

+1, but try telling any of the national media fat head that. Don't you know that trading Boldin was a white flag?

[alien bird]

I've noticed that trend more and more. People with extreme, emotion-based, counterintuitive opinions tend to hide behind the wall of "well, it's my opinion and we are all entitled to have one" regardless of how thin and poorly constructed that wall may be.

Yet, to dare to call them out on it makes you the inflexible and short-sighted one.

Anyone and everyone is entitled to have an opinion, but the further from reality you get, the more you need to be prepared to defend it with logic and fact.

I am all for people having an opinion, and some people are much more passionate about what happens in March than I am. I appreciate the passion that these guys have, but at the same time I find it rather amusing.

If I recall, last year the Ravens were doomed in the spring because they lost Cory Redding, Ricky Williams, Chris Carr, Jarret Johnson, Ben Grubbs, Tom Zbikowski, Haruki Nakamura, Brandon McKinney. Then Suggs got hurt - OMG! the sky was falling.

Somehow, though, things seemed to work out okay in 2012 without those guys. Sure, they all didn't have the impact of some of the guys the Ravens lost this year, but they were key contributors. Teams are never static, and who didn't see about 80% of these 2013 changes coming? It shouldn't have been a big surprise.

[LukeDaniel]

I am all for people having an opinion, and some people are much more passionate about what happens in March than I am. I appreciate the passion that these guys have, but at the same time I find it rather amusing.

If I recall, last year the Ravens were doomed in the spring because they lost Cory Redding, Ricky Williams, Chris Carr, Jarret Johnson, Ben Grubbs, Tom Zbikowski, Haruki Nakamura, Brandon McKinney. Then Suggs got hurt - OMG! the sky was falling.

Somehow, though, things seemed to work out okay in 2012 without those guys. Sure, they all didn't have the impact of some of the guys the Ravens lost this year, but they were key contributors. Teams are never static, and who didn't see about 80% of these 2013 changes coming? It shouldn't have been a big surprise.

Good example of how March means very little.

Last offseason, we thought our best offseason addition would be bringing in the supposedly rock solid Bobbie Williams to replace Grubbs. We didn't think much of Graham other than a depth guy. Jacoby Jones was just a guy with a little upside that we wanted to round out our roster.


Looking back on it now....

Sitting here a year later, would you trade Johnson, Grubbs, Redding, Nakamura, Evans, Carr, Zibby, and McKinney even up for Corey Graham and Jacoby Jones? I wouldn't personally.

Zibby and Nakamura didn't really do anything more for this team than what Considine and Ihedigbo did for a fraction of the cost. We found a cheaper, younger replacement for Redding with Art Jones and for JJ with Kruger and Upshaw. Grubbs was the one that stung the most, but at the end of the season we were getting equal, perhaps better, play from Osemele at LG. Now KO is under contract for the next 3 years at about 15% of what Grubbs costs.

We had nothing on the team last year that resembled what Jacoby did and Graham played a near Pro Bowl level CB over the final 4-5 regular season games and the entire playoffs. Best of all, Jacoby and Graham cost about $3-4m towards our 2012 cap, while all those outgoing players cost $12m+ just with their first year cap figures.

It was a genius offseason for Newsome and the front office. The draft producing valuable world championship cogs in Upshaw, Osemele, and Pierce was just icing on the cake. Don't forget Tucker either. We opted to eat a large amount of dead money to give an undrafted rookie the nod over a veteran. Who knows how that game in DEN turns out without Tucker's deadly leg....

This offseason is beginning to head down the same path of brilliance as last year.

[srobert96]

The NFL in the salary cap era is all about the next man up. We may not see the next man but the front office does. The coaches have had a bunch of young guys around for a year to develop for this time. WRs Thompson, Streeter and Doss. Thompson and Brown at safety. Jackson and chykie brown at CB. Not every position is going to be filled with experienced vets or first round picks. Ellerbe was undrafted. Cary Williams was a 7th rounder. Bart Scott spent 3 years primarily on special teams before he got his shot.

Sometimes you just have to roll with the young guys and give them their shot. Ravens have a good stable coaching staff with the addition of Castillo. Because of the stability over the years the Ravens have been able to plug in players and have them become solid players. Leonard, Landry and Chris Carr come to mind.

I am excited by the youth movement. I would be disappointed if we tried to hold this team together. I would have little faith in a team of aging veterans coming off a SB victory. The only real concern I had was how were the Ravens going to replace Kruger's sacks as it is hard to find guys who can pressure the QB.

[StingerNLG]

So it's wrong for me to have the opinion that people who think it's been a disastrous offseason and the sky is falling are silly, but it's okay for you to say my opinion about those people is wrong?

Umm, okay.

OK. So I will keep this in mind when folks like you complain when it happens to you. I will look the other way because you are just being ridiculous. If mocking people is the new rule of the forum, that's fine. I'll conform to that.

Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk 2

[lobachevsky]

Yes it is.

No it isn't--not in my opinion, which I have as much right to as you do yours.

And if one of those people were you, I'm sure you'd be complaining that you are entitled to your opinion.

Of course you're entitled to your opinion. I have yet to see anyone on this site who says you aren't. And you are even entitled to respect for it, in the "I respect that that's what you believe" sense.

What you are not entitled to is respect for the substance of an opinion from people who consider it (not you) foolish, hasty, illogical, panicky, poorly thought out, etc. etc. etc. Even the most solid of solid citizens is bound to have an opinion that someone would toss into one of those dustbins.

Remember, opinions are like anuses: Everyone has one. And it frequently (in the opinion of at least some other folks) stinks. But for the sake of community harmony, most of us don't go out of our way to confront others with that opinion of their opinion, so long as they don't go out of their way to drop their drawers or break wind in public...

(Now back to the regularly-scheduled bickering...)

[HoustonRaven]

OK. So I will keep this in mind when folks like you complain when it happens to you. I will look the other way because you are just being ridiculous. If mocking people is the new rule of the forum, that's fine. I'll conform to that.

People are not being mocked.

Certain opinions are.

There's a HUGE distinction. I happen to think the opinion that this off season as "disastrous", a failure, etc while not waiting to see the final product is ridiculous. Do I think they are bad people? No.

I just happen to think their opinion is incredibly far off base.

[ravenwoman]

Whether you call it an upgrade, a reload or rebuilding, it really doesn't matter. On paper, at least, I think the Ravens defense is improving. I don't know how long it will take before the defense has chemistry, but we need to be patient.

I always thought that Ozzie was a good GM. But he has really improved over the past few years, minus the Sergio Kindle/Terrence Cody picks. Ozzie really excels at signing the right free agents and rarely overpays for them. I can't wait for the draft and I hope he nails each and every one.

Kudos to our coaching staff, too. I know they have the ability to develop raw talent and turn them into starters, even if it takes a year or two.

GO RAVENS!!

[Haloti92]

There is a difference between saying the offseason has been depressing or that we have less overall talent heading into 2013 or being pessimistic about our prospects, and saying that Ozzie has somehow screwed up. The former sentiments can exist without the latter being true. That Ozzie has had to make a whole bunch of difficult decisions between bad and worse in a lot of cases, does not mean one can say "end result in this case is bad, therefore Ozzie made a mistake." Because the other side of the same decision would be worse.

I am not pessimistic about the season at all. I think we will be competitive, and if we make the playoffs it will once again be a matter of getting hot at the right time. But I also think we have more positional downgrades this year through cuts/defections than we have upgrades through FA signings. Obviously the draft remains, but in some positions I don't hold out much hope of finding a good year 1 starter in the draft (LT and WR, for example).

I am very worried about LT and our O-line, because I think the O-line play was by far the most important factor in our end of season run. By far. Even the Gradkowski for Birk substitution could be costly, let alone the still-unfilled spot on the line. Doss for Boldin also could turn out badly. There is a legitimate argument to be made that our offense could struggle like it did in 2012 through week 15, rather than look more like week 16 and beyond.

On defense I am worried more about Ray's coach-on-the-field leadership, though I hope Suggs/Dumervil/Webb can combine to fill that role. No matter how optimistic one is about the talent we will eventually put out there, it will be the first time we play without Ray for a whole season. Even when he was injured for stretches he was coaching guys up at practice, on the sidelines and in the film room. Not any more.

But again, back to the main point, Ozzie is not responsible for really any of this. He can't help the retirements, and he shouldn't have paid up to keep Kruger or Ellerbe or Reed (imo). Boldin and Pollard are debatable, imo, especially Pollard since his cap savings was negligible, but even with these decisions, there is a downside to keeping both/either of them. Whether it was greater than the upside of keeping them is the question; it was never really a matter of "all things equal would you want them" because things (cap) aren't equal if you keep them (especially not with Boldin). It was a "which is worse/better" decision.

As is often the case around here, similar sounding but distinct positions get lumped into a generic label. I think some worry or pessimism can be defended easily. I don't think criticism of Ozzie's decisions can be defended that effectively at all.

[alien bird]

OK. So I will keep this in mind when folks like you complain when it happens to you. I will look the other way because you are just being ridiculous. If mocking people is the new rule of the forum, that's fine. I'll conform to that.

I'm not mocking anyone. I find some opinions silly and am amused by them. That doesn't mean I find the people silly. There is a huge difference. I've been pretty clear on that. If you want to think otherwise, that's your prerogative. I won't think any less of you. If you can't post on a message board without disagreeing with someone once in a while, you probably don't have an opinion worth caring about.

And if there are "folks like me", they aren't going to complain when their opinions are opposed. That's how real life works sometimes.

[perryw9202]

Sometimes the slobbering over Ozzie on this forum gets to be a bit much. Dumervil is a great signing, but I'm sure Ozzie didn't plan on some kind of fax machine incident making him available. Ozzie was planning on signing 35 yo James Harrison. Canty is a decent signing. Spears sucks. We have no proven safeties at the moment. Maybe that will be fixed shortly.

On offense, outside of Torrey's go routes, we don't really have a true playmaker at receiver. We are basically hoping one of our young guys can step up, but none of them have shown any sign of being half the receiver that Boldin was. This team doesn't win the Lombardi without Boldin. That's a fact. Right now it looks like we are going with Oher at left tackle, like we haven't seen enough of that to know how bad it is. McKinnie can talk to Harbaugh all he wants. Harbaugh doesn't like him, and we saw what happened to every guy that Harbaugh didn't like this offseason.

Dumervil was a great, although lucky, signing. It doesn't yet make up for what has been a disastrous off-season.

Wow... glass half empty eh?

While the Dumervil signing may have been "lucky", it wasn't just luck that gave them the cap space to get that and other signings done. It was making hard decisions about the direction of the franchise and cutting ties with productive albeit too expensive players for that production.

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
Seneca
Roman dramatist, philosopher, & politician (5 BC - 65 AD)