The One Move I Disagree With by Decosta

[Ravenswintitle]

I think they felt it was worth the gamble and when he was signed, they move on. He played well last year with his familiarity but it's not like he's irreplaceable. They LB by committee anyway

[Culex]

We tried to pay him a huge contract before the Jets went crazy and outbid us, so obviously the coaches didn't see it that way. (And neither did I.)

If we really wanted to pay Mosley then we would have resigned him before the final year of his contract but we didn't. We let him play out his contract year and allowed other teams to pay him more than what he is worth instead.

[Bhcforlife]

I would have liked to see him re-signed as well, but the rest of the defense is so strong now that I don't see growing pains from Queen and Harrison being any kind of significant issue.

Offense Tackle - depth

A much bigger issue than ILB IMO. I'm far from a member of the James Hurst fan club, but I don't think they needed to cut him (correct me if I'm wrong re: cap space needs) and they have not adequately replaced him after doing so.

[HotInHere]

Offense Tackle - depth

Yeah, at this moment I'm far more worried about losing James Hurst than I am about Bynes. Yes, *that* James Hurst. We have nobody in that role. Of course, you'll note that I said "at this moment." I won't actually worry about holes in the roster until September.

I think it would have been a mistake to keep Bynes AND Fort. Had to be one or the other. Whether they picked the right one, I don't know. But we just spent a first and a third on ILBs. And we hardly use ILBs anymore with all of the dime we play. So we certainly didn't need to have four. A special teams guy (Alaka or Board) can fill the fourth ILB role just fine as far as I'm concerned.

[21xxxv]

I've been watching the games on Lamar's MVP season on NFL network.
One player that was not resigned that should have been

Josh Bynes

Hindsight not withstanding, his play was so solid and his veteran presence and familiarity with Baltimore helped the defense tremendously.

I love our rookie picks. I find myself smiling whenever I remember "we got Harrison too!!", however, especially in early games, inexperience and lack of preseason games could cost the Ravens. At the end of the year, all games count.

Covid or an injury Queen, Harrison or Fort could quickly put the ILBs behind the eight ball.

Bynes was too good and great insurance at a low cost. Mistakes by EDC are like politicians speaking the truth. This is one of those rare times IMO.

Do you agree with my assessment. Is there any moves made you don't agree with.

Don't get me wrong, Decosta is the man and he will prove me wrong on my take, maybe

Biggest mistakes front offices make around the league is sticking with a veteran too long. The two rookies, Queen and Harrison along with resigning Fort will get it down.

[Ortizer]

I think that narrative is harsh on Moseley. He wasn't bad in coverage really, it's just that the Ravens (Pees especially) gave him too much coverage responsibility.

He was left in on 3rd and long, covering someone one on one. Compared to the safeties and corners he was definitely the weak link in coverage and the pass rush was so awful in his last few years in Baltimore that eventually his man would get open and we'd all blame CJ.

That's a hard situation for any linebacker but when you think of all the passes he broke up and passing lanes he got into, he wasn't so bad.

It didn't help that pees routinely had him starting at the Los them immediately having to back pedal ten yards into his zone.

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[Ortizer]

Along the same lines I'd add Canaday in 2019 to the list even though it didn't turn out bad.

It's the same idea as your ILB argument. He was a decent back up corner (better than Averett) who could have been kept cheaply, epecially with Tavon already out. DeCosta didn't know that Peters would fall into his lap and that the rest of the corners would stay healthy. We could easily have found ourselves wishing we'd kept Canady.

Fair. Smith to Averett was a bit of a drop.

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[Ortizer]

If we really wanted to pay Mosley then we would have resigned him before the final year of his contract but we didn't. We let him play out his contract year and allowed other teams to pay him more than what he is worth instead.

Didn't they try to and he said no?

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[Culex]

Didn't they try to and he said no?

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Nope we did not try to.

[JimZipCode]

I'll add an even bigger ILB mistake. How could DeCosta and the coaches have misevaluated Peanut, Kenny Young and Board so badly? It was a major mistake that could have been fatal to the whole season if we hadn't found Bynes and Fort

YES. This. The major un-reported story of the 2019 Ravens is how we broke camp with a LB corps that couldn't play, and forced DeCosta & co to reconstitute it from scratch midseason.

They managed to reconstitute it, and that is freaking remarkable. Deserves some applause. But how the hell did they put themselves in a position where they needed to?!?

yet I've never heard Harbaugh, Wink or DeCosta address it at all. They haven't talked about why they got it so wrong and how they'll avoid such catastrophic misevaluations in future.

Exactly. What in the actual hell happened?!?

If I had to guess, I would say that they over-valued speed & athelticism, and undervalued plain ol' experience and knowledge of the position. I remember during training camp, Wink said "We have a fast, fast defense." Well yeah: but half of them played safety in college and didn't know where to line up.

Someone shared here a YouTube vid here after the Browns game, where a guy (who sounded like a HS coach) broke down all the big runs by Cleveland in the game. In all of them, our LBs were just screwing up basic alignment pre-snap. They would just leave gaps uncovered before the snap; it was obvious once he showed it. And the Brownies ran wild thru those gaps.

How the Ravens seem to have decided to address it, is to draft a couple fast guys who actually played ILB in college. The experiment of UDFAs and trying to conjure the next Urlachers out of converted safeties, seems to be over. They decided that since speed & athleticism and knowledge & savvy are valuable, they need to pay draft capital for it. Makes sense.

But there's a story there. And it hasn't been covered.

[LC_Ravens_87]

I don't think it's rocket science. Peanut had a strong year in 2018, and Kenny Young is a great athlete. They made a bet, gave 2 guys who'd never played together an opportunity to gel and then pulled the plug after about 4 weeks.

You can go back through many, many seasons under Harbaugh -- incl. playoff seasons -- where the 1st quarter season depth chart and rotations looked nothing like the team down the stretch.

[HotInHere]

I don't think it's rocket science. Peanut had a strong year in 2018, and Kenny Young is a great athlete. They made a bet, gave 2 guys who'd never played together an opportunity to gel and then pulled the plug after about 4 weeks.

You can go back through many, many seasons under Harbaugh -- incl. playoff seasons -- where the 1st quarter season depth chart and rotations looked nothing like the team down the stretch.

Agreed. They had both proven themselves -- very well in fact -- as role players the year before. Limited snaps, limited responsibilities. It was reasonable to hope that one or both would be able to make the jump. Neither was. The only way you find that out is to let them try.

To categorize it as a mistake? Personally, I'd rather we give our own young guys an opportunity to fail before we run out and sign vets.

Look at WR this year. Is it a mistake to believe Hollywood will make a jump to being a dominant WR, and that the draftees will be able to play at the NFL level? No. But it's certainly possible that they all end up sucking, and we have to go dumpster-diving in the FA WR bin again. (Good God, shoot me now if that happens.)

But it doesn't mean it's a mistake to let the young guys try it first.