What If It Wasn't Cam?

[Paintballguy]

We don't know what goes on behind closed doors, but the way it looks from the outside is that they put a number on what each player is worth, and then let the market decide. It's not necessarily "we want this player, we don't want that player."

Does anyone doubt that they would have kept Anquan for the league minimum? Meanwhile it's also clear they didn't want him at his $7MM price tag. So there is a number somewhere in between those two where their cutoff was.

In some cases (like Kruger,) everybody and their mother knows that the number the player is going to command on the open market is going to be higher than what the Ravens will offer them, so it seems as though they have no desire to keep that player.

In other cases, it's a lot closer. Their number for Leach was $2MM. If Miami had offered 3, Vonta would be in teal, and it would have nothing to do with whether the Ravens wanted him or not. It's just about how much they are willing to pay to have him.

They approach the draft the same way -- they stay true to their board. Only in the draft they are working with a limited resource pool of draft picks instead of dollars. But the philosophy is the same: right player, right price.

Ozzie plays the NFL version of Moneyball because he has to with the salary cap. Ideally, yea you'd like to keep every good player that you have, but you can't in a league with a salary cap.

[Money227]

I think the front office felt that they could get sufficient production from the slot, for a more reasonable price, if they replaced Boldin with a younger player who could do a better job of getting separation. Nobody is going to make a catch in traffic better than Boldin, but far too many of his catches HAD to be made in traffic, because he couldn't separate.

I agree with both points made in this post.

1. The Ravens wanted to replace 80% of Boldin's production for 20% of Boldin's cost. They figured Smith, Pitta and Rice could make up the lost 20% of production. Losing Pitta makes this more difficult, but it doesn't make their original decision wrong.

2. Giving Boldin too much credit for "making tough catches in traffic" is like giving an outfielder in baseball too much credit for making sliding/difficult catches because they cannot read the ball off of the bat as well as other outfielders and get a horrible jump.

[Raveninwoodlawn]

I agree with both points made in this post.

1. The Ravens wanted to replace 80% of Boldin's production for 20% of Boldin's cost. They figured Smith, Pitta and Rice could make up the lost 20% of production. Losing Pitta makes this more difficult, but it doesn't make their original decision wrong.

2. Giving Boldin too much credit for "making tough catches in traffic" is like giving an outfielder in baseball too much credit for making sliding/difficult catches because they cannot read the ball off of the bat as well as other outfielders and get a horrible jump.

I don't disagree with your view of the Ravens thinking...nobody at all disputesthe fact that the team didnt want Q at his cap number and that the team expected Pitta and others to do a good job of replacing him...I still dont agree with it and for like the 100th time, i, nor anybody else suddenly felt that way when Oitta got hurt.

Lol at the second point. Every Legit WR is going to have to make tough catches. And who knows how open he'd be with a OC who actually has a clue on how to use him. Contested catches or not, the guy was absolutely dominating in the highest pressure games of the year.

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[Money227]

I don't disagree with your view of the Ravens thinking...nobody at all disputesthe fact that the team didnt want Q at his cap number and that the team expected Pitta and others to do a good job of replacing him...I still dont agree with it and for like the 100th time, i, nor anybody else suddenly felt that way when Oitta got hurt.

Lol at the second point. Every Legit WR is going to have to make tough catches. And who knows how open he'd be with a OC who actually has a clue on how to use him. Contested catches or not, the guy was absolutely dominating in the highest pressure games of the year.

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I certainly don't mean to minimize Boldin's contribution to the Ravens. He's a fan favorite and had a fantastic playoff run. I just feel like a lot of people are approaching it like we lost a top 10 receiver. Those days are long gone for him.

[B-more Ravor]

1. Gotcha. For some reason I thought only the extra proration was in play until June-1st, not the whole transaction.

2. I still think it could have been done. Dumervil's cap number is only $2.5M ($2M above replacement). Canty was signed before Boldin's physical (while his full salary was still being applied). Huff is an extra 850k above replacement. So we are talking about finding $3M at the time, at least $1M of which we had. Releasing McClain and Leach, no Spears, no Reed gets us there, as far as I can see, or no? Or am I making a mistake due to the timing of Boldin's physical (the week where we had traded Boldin but could not use his cap space)?

And, btw, what is our current cap situation, including Leach? Approximately, if we do not know the details of the Leach deal.

Still haven't seen any final numbers on Leach. Without him factored in, I've got them presently at a little under $5.4M under the Cap. But, that's the Rule of 51 number.

When projecting a roster of 53 and who we can presently expect to be on IR/PUP (Pitta, Jensen, Kapron-Lewis) - and before factoring Leach in - I've got them with only around $2.5M under. Obviously, the make up of the final 53 can be argued and there are always surprises, but barring a major surprise, it's likely to be somewhere between $2-3M. Again, that's without Leach and without any more injuries.

That's not a lot, especially when considering that McClain very well may end up staying on PUP, meaning that another player would be added to the roster at at least $405K. And, unfortunately, there will likely be other injuries.

In fact, now looking at it closer, I would expect that they will have to restructure Yanda, Suggs or Ngata at some point, in order to create some additional cushion (or release McClain with a failed physical designation).

So, we can pick and choose who we might have liked to see released instead of Boldin or who shouldn't have been signed, but again, he was still the best way to get $6M (or a restructure and a release of Leach, as I said above). Otherwise, any combination of players not signed or released has to be replaced by several bodies and that offsets any of the Cap savings.

Heck, at this point, even releasing Boldin and getting $6M in savings might very well not be enough.

[Haloti92]

Still haven't seen any final numbers on Leach. Without him factored in, I've got them presently at a little under $5.4M under the Cap. But, that's the Rule of 51 number.

When projecting a roster of 53 and who we can presently expect to be on IR/PUP (Pitta, Jensen, Kapron-Lewis) - and before factoring Leach in - I've got them with only around $2.5M under. Obviously, the make up of the final 53 can be argued and there are always surprises, but barring a major surprise, it's likely to be somewhere between $2-3M. Again, that's without Leach and without any more injuries.

That's not a lot, especially when considering that McClain very well may end up staying on PUP, meaning that another player would be added to the roster at at least $405K. And, unfortunately, there will likely be other injuries.

Good info. Thanks, as always.

So, we can pick and choose who we might have liked to see released instead of Boldin or who shouldn't have been signed, but again, he was still the best way to get $6M (or a restructure and a release of Leach, as I said above). Otherwise, any combination of players not signed or released has to be replaced by several bodies and that offsets any of the Cap savings.

That is all I was doing, was picking and choosing differently. But I also was trying to recall what would have been needed in terms of timing as well. As you pointed out, some of the issue was timing (not getting post-June 1st help for cuts in March, and needing the space in March, not just by now, in order to sign coveted FAs).

[GOTA]

What we're going to find out is if once Caldwell took over it was Flacco who made the receivers or if it was the receivers who made Flacco. Ozzie is betting on the former or he never would have moved Boldin.

[JimZipCode]

You can keep saying that you can't have a competitive offense with mediocre receivers, but clearly you can. Tom Brady did in 2004.

Yes, and he's not the only one. The Niners first SB win with Montana, those receivers were nothing special. San Deigo's offenses with Cam Cameron, they frequently led the league in scoring, and they were very weak at WR. Hall of Famers at RB and TE, and a great O-line, but squadoosh at WR.

In general, WRs are the least important component of championship teams. Well, second-least behind FB. If you look at the rosters of the Super Bowl teams year after year, and count up the positions where they have Pro Bowl players, you'll find that FB has the lowest count of Pro Bowlers, and WR the second-lowest. (Thanks to mine and Chris Psuasskicker's friend Patch for those research results.) Championship teams usually have Pro Bowl O-linemen, and DBs, etc. But are not usually built around great receivers.

There are exceptions. The nineties had several championship teams build with exceptional WRs, including Jerry Rice, Coke-me-up Irvin, Rod Smith & Eddie McCaffrey, etc. But over a long stretch of time, great WRs have not been critical pieces of championship teams.

My point is that Decker and Thomas were SQUAT before Peyton got there. They were mediocre until Peyton got hold of them.

Eric Decker was a developing, up-and-coming WR before Manning got there. As a 24yo 2nd-year player he had 600 yds and 8 TDs with Tim Tebow throwing him the ball. Certainly that suggests he could be a thousand-yard guy as he matures, esp with Peyton freakin Manning throwing the football? Demaryius Thomas was a 1st-rd pick. These were not talentless clowns.

That was part of the point of their getting Manning. They already had guys to put around him, to make a legitimate passing offense.

[Paintballguy]

How did Calvin Johnson's 1900 receiving yards help the Lions last year? Yes someone will say but their defense was terrible!! Well yeah that's the point. You need a complete team to win instead of just a superstar receiver.

I believe that Flacco will make shit happen with the receivers he has. There will be some growing pains, but they will be fine.

[B-more Ravor]

FWIW, Ozzie's perspective on trading Boldin:

“The acquisitions of Elvis Dumervil and Michael Huff are a direct result of the money we saved from that contract,” Newsome told me, watching practice at the Ravens’ facility. “And other guys we got—Chris Canty, Marcus Spears, Daryl Smith—were helped by the savings. So if you ask the question, you can’t just say, ‘Do you wish you kept him?’ You also have to look at the unintended consequences of your actions.”

http://mmqb.si.com/2013/08/12/andy-r...quarterback/3/

[BigPlayReceiver]

Eric Decker was a developing, up-and-coming WR before Manning got there. As a 24yo 2nd-year player he had 600 yds and 8 TDs with Tim Tebow throwing him the ball. Certainly that suggests he could be a thousand-yard guy as he matures, esp with Peyton freakin Manning throwing the football? Demaryius Thomas was a 1st-rd pick. These were not talentless clowns.

Totally agree that Decker was up-and-coming as a WR. His senior year injury and umm...optics fooled people. His ceiling is still ahead of him. Thomas had all the skill in the world, but his college system and injury history also fooled people. I'm not sure that he'll get much better with the options that DEN now have, but obviously, he's already very good.


As a side note, Decker and Thomas together will cost DEN less than $1.5M this season.
Thomas goes UFA in 2015. Decker next spring.

[bacchys]

Who knows who should be blamed if the offense doesn't look sharper and more consistent? We won't be able to answer that before the season.

There's no doubt Cam's playcalling was a serious anchor dragging the O down. Flacco's "inconsistency" was mostly due to that playcalling. He's too accurate a thrower- with too strong an arm- to have the low completion percentage he does. But with Cameron we basically went run, run, throw it deep...until Cam got desperate and Flacco would be called on to throw it deep on every down.

Routes were slow-developing, little to no motion, and never anything geared towards getting Flacco and the offense into a rhythm. It didn't help that Cameron discouraged Flacco from using his feet to buy time, either. We saw what he could do in that regard during the playoff run. We saw it when he was a rookie, too. Flacco didn't just suddenly develop some mobility at the end of last year. He's always had that. There's a simple answer as to why we didn't see it in between his rookie season and the Super Bowl run: Cam Cameron.

So, it might turn out the offense doesn't hum like we'd like it to do. That's always possible. An NFL team is a machine with a lot of moving parts, and there's a lot that can go wrong. But it's not a "if not Cam" scenario going into this year. We *know* it was Cam last year (and the year before that, and the year before that, etc.). Something else might cause problems this year, but that's what it's going to be. Something else.