How did we do?

[Raveninwoodlawn]

The position is a big difference. Also Flacco was highly thought of and there was a lot of daylight between Flacco and other quarterbacks. Hard to imagine a tremendous amount of daylight between Gradkowski and the other C's.

I could drum up a lot of "media" articles that would say different...

http://www.walterfootball.com/draft2008QB.php

http://cfn.scout.com/2/744614.html

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/foo...sition/qb.html

http://www.footballsfuture.com/2008/prospects/qb.html

http://nfldraft.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=766923

http://www.draftcountdown.com/archiv...8-Rankings.php

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200...mqb/index.html

There are more. Flacco was hardly considered the clear #2 guy in that draft.

[RavingMad]

Enjoying the debate (some of it), will back in a bit. Duty calls.

[BigPlayReceiver]

Just a thought for the 105.7 mope ;) --
Forget for a moment that Ozzie has over a decade of experience at the Ravens helm in managing the draft process, and by any reasonable account has his shit wired together pretty well.

Do you really think that the Ravens were so blind that they missed the idea that there were initially 28 other teams who had a shot at drafting Hightower, or that trading up significantly in the draft order to swipe him before the Pats or others did was a sound business decision, or that Hightower is a given as far as his immediate success in the NFL v. the certain inability of Upshaw to be of any benefit,....or are you really an administrative insider on the Ravens draft team and are disgusted with the team because they didn't listen to your wisdom?

Anxiously awaiting your reply,

I remain,

Perplexed

I'm not sure this guy even had any wisdom.
He obviously wasn't a fan of Upshaw...probably fell in love with Hightower long ago. You know, the whole "we gotta replace Ray Lewis or else the world will 'splode!" kinda of psychology that's been spewed for half a decade.

[seraph]

The Ravens front office and scouting needs to find a new edge in the process. A lot of teams are getting smarter and in my opinion are catching up with the Ravens in player evaluation. I'm not sure how much analysis the Ravens scouts rely on but it seems like the edge they had before is becoming less effective. If their main evaluation is watching tape then they need to look more closely at measurables.

[Beau Petard]

BPR--
Years ago when I posted regularly on The Forum Whose Name Shall Not Be Mentioned ;), I started a series of threads loosely called The Great Perception Experiment. It got really painful reading posters who pissed and moaned about stuff throughout the year, but after a careful review of what they were saying, one realized that their comments/opinions/etc. seemed to bend with the prevailing winds of current wisdom and popularity, not with any seeming intelligent thought or analysis. So I asked posters to start putting their predictions for the Ravens upcoming season where their mouths were, and at different times of the year -- just after the draft, just after training camp/prior to pre-season, and then agin just after pre-season/prior to game 1. It was illuminating to watch how some opinions really followed the crowd as opposed to having any analytical integrity.

[ActualSpamBot]

Here's an indisputable fact, and a disputable opinion about what that fact means.

Fact. Brewster was not drafted by anyone.

What it means- Any pick except the final pick in the draft used on Brewster would have been a reach. If you can get a guy in the second, you don't take him in the first and if you can get a guy off the street, you don't take him in the 4th, 5th, 6th, or even 7th. Further, simply by going undrafted we now know what every other NFL team thought of Brewster. They all thought he was not valuable enough to give up a draft pick to get. Even a 7th round draft pick. The idea that all 32 of them are wrong and he is in fact worth a draft pick, is unlikely.

[ActualSpamBot]

The Ravens front office and scouting needs to find a new edge in the process. A lot of teams are getting smarter and in my opinion are catching up with the Ravens in player evaluation. I'm not sure how much analysis the Ravens scouts rely on but it seems like the edge they had before is becoming less effective. If their main evaluation is watching tape then they need to look more closely at measurables.

What are you basing this on? The only way to know if a front office is good at picking talent is to compare their wins to everyone else's. Since 2000 only 4 teams have a higher winning percentage than we do and no one has given up fewer points. Plus, our winning percentage and average final season position (as in how late in the postseason have we gotten on average)has been on the rise in the last four years relative to our historic average. If anything, Ozzie and our coaching staff are getting better compared to the majority of the league.

[bmorecareful]

I'm very happy with the Ravens draft. They added a lot of talent in a lot of areas they needed it. It's rare you can get both quality and quantity, but the Ravens did it. They didn't get some players I really liked, and they made some moves that didn't immediately make sense to me, but all that shows is that they know a lot more than I do.

Between the 8 draft picks and the 10 or so UDFAs they've signed so far, I think as many as 12-14 might make the team next year.

[pyite32]

Honestly I have no idea how well we did and I will venturebto say none of us will for at least 2 years. The one thing that I did not like about this draft by the ravens is they seemed to draft more for need than I have seen in the past. That is not to say it won't work out but a few of the players seemed like a reach at the position drafted due to a need at that posotiom on the team.

Sent from my DROID2 using Tapatalk 2

[Raveninwoodlawn]

If you want to believe Decosta, the article on the Ravens site all but says they didn't have Brewster as a draftable player.

[seraph]

What are you basing this on? The only way to know if a front office is good at picking talent is to compare their wins to everyone else's. Since 2000 only 4 teams have a higher winning percentage than we do and no one has given up fewer points. Plus, our winning percentage and average final season position (as in how late in the postseason have we gotten on average)has been on the rise in the last four years relative to our historic average. If anything, Ozzie and our coaching staff are getting better compared to the majority of the league.

I didn't say they weren't good at picking talent. There are teams that are getting smarter at drafting at particular positions. Overall the Ravens are well built and they have the blueprint. I just wonder how progressive their scouting is compared to the other teams that have their own scouts.

[RavingMad]

I just want to clarify my opinion and statement that the Ravens panicked and reached for 2 picks. From multiple reports (I know its a bad term here) the Ravens had 3 main targets and they believed one would fall to them and that is the guard from Wisconsin, the guard from Stanford, and ILB from Alabama. I 'm not saying they didn't have a back up plan in case the guys were gone, what I am saying is they changed their philosophy or got creative as Decosta said. Fearing that more targets would be taken they panicked and reached for guys/talent that could have been acquired later in the draft. I'm not saying that the Ravens didn't have Pierce and Gradkowski high on their board by position, I'm saying these guys and/or their comparable skill set were available later in the draft.
My point when it comes to small school players is you have to take into consideration their competition when you are scouting, analyzing and evaluating their skill set and talent. Seeing a player get push against lesser competition or seeing a RB run over less competition can cause them to shoot up your board.
When it comes to reasons why other teams didn't draft or target certain players/positions, there are so many nuances to take into consideration, for example--needs, roster and strategy (if too general I can be more specific in another post).