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  1. When did player evaluations start to go south?

    Hi all,

    There's been a lot of talk, and rightfully so, about the decline in accurate player evaluations. Did the decline start when Phil Savage left? My memory seems to suggest that. What other good evaluators have been lost?

    Is Decosta the optimum solution at GM when Ozzie eventually departs? Or are his evaluations suspect now too? I just don't know anymore.





  2. #2

    Re: When did player evaluations start to go south?

    Quote Originally Posted by wilshade View Post
    Hi all,

    There's been a lot of talk, and rightfully so, about the decline in accurate player evaluations. Did the decline start when Phil Savage left? My memory seems to suggest that. What other good evaluators have been lost?

    Is Decosta the optimum solution at GM when Ozzie eventually departs? Or are his evaluations suspect now too? I just don't know anymore.
    No the fall off started really in 2009 i would say.

    Back from 2005-2008 when Savage was with the Browns we still Selected Ngata, Sam Koch, Marshal Yanda, Ben Grubbs, Chris Chester, Derek Anderson, Mark Clayton. Were all of those pro bowlers? No but they moved on to and some are still in the NFL.

    You can say Savage impacted the Browns too, they had some of their better years. They drafted Joe Thomas, Braylon Edwards, Eric WRight, Brady Quinn during his short stint. His final year there he traded away half his draft to acquire Brady Quinn. Who could have been a decent talent but the Browns were run even more poorly than they are today.

    Phil Savage lost his job cursing out a Browns fan who was stalking him pretty much. Or their team might be a lot better today had he stayed around.





  3. #3
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    Re: When did player evaluations start to go south?

    Reviewing the last decade of Ravens drafts is painful. It is shocking we are as competitive as we have been given our picks.

    2007 was the last time we had a draft with multiple pro bowlers (with most every year before that featuring at least 1) and it fell off a cliff after 2008. The only true pro bowler on the Ravens drafted in the last 10 drafts is Mosley. That is garbage.

    I tried googling to see if their were any personnel departures but nothing really came up. I wonder if Savage took some of the better scouts to Cle. Or my suspicion, and the Ravens have hinted at this over the years, is that we out drafted teams by our working them. We had a large scouting department and went to more games than other teams. With the spread of cheap digital video that advantage has been erased.

    I would be curious where we stack up against other team’s drafts over the last decade. We are at best 3rd in our own division.

    I still have faith in this FO, but I’m starting to question how deserved that is and how much is resting on success from over 10 years ago. I used to love draft weekend as we got guys I was excited about, but more and more I find myself scratching my head or upset at our picks.





  4. #4

    Re: When did player evaluations start to go south?

    I can't identify a start date, but I think it happened because they read all the press clippings about how well they drafted and how smart they were, and thought that meant they could make "clever" picks instead of solid ones.
    "This space for rent" - Roger Goodell





  5. #5

    Re: When did player evaluations start to go south?

    Seems we used to get more out of our young players when Ray and Ed were around. Wonder why...





  6. #6

    Re: When did player evaluations start to go south?

    A list of the "red star" prospects in each class would be pretty interesting to see.





  7. #7
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    Re: When did player evaluations start to go south?

    2012. You still had a good amount of starters before that like Jimmy Smith, Pitta, Torrey, McPhee, Arthur Jones, Oher, Kruger etc.. 2012 is KO and a marginal Upshaw. Then you get into Elam Arthur Brown the year after. 2012 was the start of drafts heading south.





  8. #8
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    Re: When did player evaluations start to go south?

    When they stopped letting Excelletor input on draft picks?
    "Cause if you ain’t pissed off for greatness, that just means you’re okay with being mediocre, and ain’t no man in here okay with just basic.”
    - Ray Lewis

    https://www.baltimoreravens.com/author/cole-jackson

    Twitter: @ColeJacksonFB





  9. #9

    Re: When did player evaluations start to go south?

    Quote Originally Posted by GreatWhiteNorthRaven View Post
    When they stopped letting Excelletor input on draft picks?
    I bet he and a number of folks here would wipe the floor with this FO drafting the past 5 years if we went back in the archives and looked at their mocks.





  10. #10
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    Re: When did player evaluations start to go south?

    Quote Originally Posted by DeltaRaven View Post
    I bet he and a number of folks here would wipe the floor with this FO drafting the past 5 years if we went back in the archives and looked at their mocks.
    BPR Is basically a GM, so yeah.
    "Cause if you ain’t pissed off for greatness, that just means you’re okay with being mediocre, and ain’t no man in here okay with just basic.”
    - Ray Lewis

    https://www.baltimoreravens.com/author/cole-jackson

    Twitter: @ColeJacksonFB





  11. #11
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    Re: When did player evaluations start to go south?

    2008: Flacco and Rice were home run picks. Any time you get a Superbowl MVP who's won 7 road playoff games at QB, that's a home run, elite or not. Rice topped 2000 yps twice. Everything else was pretty bad though. Tom Zbikowski and Haruki Nakamura were nice backup safeties / ST players but that's it. This draft more than any points to the imprtance of hitting on your top picks.

    2009: Oher was a solid single, so was Kruger. Webb was a very good 3rd round pick. Cedric Peerman was another (pro bowl) special teamer but for other teams. Again, nearly no returns past day 2, but the top three picks contributed to the Superbowl team.

    2010: Do we start with the Kindle/Cody season? Not really. No first round pick, and despite the disastrous Round 2, the later picks of Ed Dickson, Dennis Pitta and Arthur Jones turned out well, especially Pitta.

    2011: Jimmy Smith is the best 1st round talent since Haloti Ngata. It's sad that injuries have withheld him from an All Pro selection. Smith a solid Round 2 pick, and McPhee/Taylor very good picks for round 5/6. This was overall a good draft.

    2012: Upshaw was ok for Round 2 and Osemele was a home run taken away by free agency. Bernard Pierce had a good rookie season and helped in the playoff run (and then ???). DeAngelo Tyson was a good round 7 pick that moved on. This draft arguably has the best Round 2 and Round 7 picks in team history, albeit the bar for Round 7 is not high.

    2013: Here's the one we keep referring to with the horrible picks of Elam and Brown in rounds 1/2. But after round 2, this is probably the best the Ravens have ever done. Williams in Rd 3, Simon and Juszczyk in round 4, Wagner in round 5 and Jensen in round 6. That is rare to hit on a player in four straight rounds.

    2014: Mosley is almost a home run in Rd 1 -- I don't care if he's overrated and struggles vs TEs, he's a perennial award candidate. Jernigan is showing in Philly why he was a Rd 2 pick. Past that, we really start getting into guys that get hurt all the time. The string of Brooks-Gilmore-Urban-Taliaferro-Urshel-Campanaro picks have given us many, many games inactive or on IR.

    2015: Here's the doozy. Perriman, Williams, Davis, Smith, Allen, Walker (RIP), Boyle, Myers, Waller. I think this is the worst draft ever for the Ravens. Only Buck Allen has avoided missing significant time for one reason or another.

    2016: This draft still shows a lot of promise but it may not bear fruit. Stanley is a good pick especially when you see the drop off after the top seven. Correa/Kaufusi look like bad picks but their time is not yet done. Rounds 4-6 have a mix of developing players and people on IR. Moore, Henry, Judon and Canady are the former... Young, Lewis and Dixon the latter.

    2017: just too early to tell... but Humphrey looks like another good Round 1 pick.
    -----------

    So in conclusion, what's really hurting the team are the 2014-2016 drafts and all the injuries to those young players. They either suck up roster spots being inactive, or they are put on IR. They have caused cap problems as well, necessitating restructures the team would rather not have to do. A guy like say John Simon gets cut -- he doesn't help the team but he doesn't cost the team resources either. A guy like Crockett Gilmore pokes a hole in the team design and bleeds resources out a little. Too many of those and the team is bleeding too much.

    Next season will be the third for the 2016 draft class. It is paramount that the Rounds 4-6 picks (along with Stanley) continue to improve. They would form a large part of team success.





  12. #12
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    Re: When did player evaluations start to go south?

    Quote Originally Posted by GOTA View Post
    2012. You still had a good amount of starters before that like Jimmy Smith, Pitta, Torrey, McPhee, Arthur Jones, Oher, Kruger etc.. 2012 is KO and a marginal Upshaw. Then you get into Elam Arthur Brown the year after. 2012 was the start of drafts heading south.
    With 36 picks from 2012-2015, 4 drafts, the Ravens only selected these useful starting* players: Upshaw, Osemele, Juzczyk, Williams, Wagner, Jensen, Mosley, Jernigan. Of which only Williams and Mosley are definitely on the team next year. So in 4 years, 36 picks, we have 1 Pro-bowl Raven LB and a very good run stopping DT to show for it. Everyone else was a JAG or bust.

    If our strategy is to build from the draft that means we had a 22% hit rate for starters and a 5% long term success rate from 2012-2015. It is hard to be that bad.

    *I'm stretching the definition of starting for Upshaw and Jernigan, but they were more than JAG contributors.
    Last edited by GreenWave52; 01-11-2018 at 03:58 PM.





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