Alejandro Villanueva is visiting the Ravens this week

[Shrubbs]

Lamar is in the shotgun or pistol every snap. All rushers are in his view. And regardless, if Villanueva still has any strengths it’s pass pro. But I don’t really want to hamper our running game with an aging 6’9 tackle getting blown up at the point of attack. On either side of the line.

I mean regardless Nj you might not have a choice. We wouldn’t be bringing Villanueva in to be our full time starter, unless there’s some
secret Brown Jr trade in the works. In other words, he’s not plan A. It’s a depth move. We would all love for Brown Jr. and Stanley to be the starters for years, but assume Stanley is hurt at the beginning of the year or one of our guys gets hurt mid season. That’s the scenario, and any time a starting OT is unavailable any team is gonna take a hit. Would you rather have this guy as a swing tackle or one of the other free agents? If you say you’d rather have a draft pick, maybe that happens and we never sign Villanueva. I think it’s a contingency plan. And you can’t have all pro depth.

[Shrubbs]

I’ll put it this way: off the top of my head here’s a list of names who have occupied that swing tackle spot/have started at OT for us in a pinch.

Greg Senat
James Hurst
Jermaine Elumenor
DJ Fluker

Would you rather have any of those guys over Villanueva? If not, we get better by adding him. We are better than we were last year if you like him more than Fluker. Personally, I’ll take the 5 year entrenched former starter on the back 9.

[OhThePossibilities]

Beyond his play on the field Villanueva would be tremendous in locker room. When he used to do those USAA commercials I always felt that for once there was a sports celebrity endorsement that actually seemed legitimate. He's the kind of person I think every team would love to have

You don't think Haloti loved some Royal Farms chicken???

[Shrubbs]

You don't think Haloti loved some Royal Farms chicken???

LOL

[mmi16]

Lots of Steelers fans on social media talking trash on him.

Sounds like a ringing endorsement.

[NjRavensFan]

I mean regardless Nj you might not have a choice. We wouldn’t be bringing Villanueva in to be our full time starter, unless there’s some
secret Brown Jr trade in the works. In other words, he’s not plan A. It’s a depth move. We would all love for Brown Jr. and Stanley to be the starters for years, but assume Stanley is hurt at the beginning of the year or one of our guys gets hurt mid season. That’s the scenario, and any time a starting OT is unavailable any team is gonna take a hit. Would you rather have this guy as a swing tackle or one of the other free agents? If you say you’d rather have a draft pick, maybe that happens and we never sign Villanueva. I think it’s a contingency plan. And you can’t have all pro depth.

I mean if it’s just a depth move of course I’d be on board with that, that’s a no brainer. I was responding to Lax saying we should sign him, trade Orlando, and pencil in Villanueva as the starting RT. Not on board with that at all.

[Shrubbs]

I mean if it’s just a depth move of course I’d be on board with that, that’s a no brainer. I was responding to Lax saying we should sign him, trade Orlando, and pencil in Villanueva as the starting RT. Not on board with that at all.

Yeeeeah that’s a pass from me as well Lax.

[jonboy79]

I’ll put it this way: off the top of my head here’s a list of names who have occupied that swing tackle spot/have started at OT for us in a pinch.

Greg Senat
James Hurst
Jermaine Elumenor
DJ Fluker

Would you rather have any of those guys over Villanueva? If not, we get better by adding him. We are better than we were last year if you like him more than Fluker. Personally, I’ll take the 5 year entrenched former starter on the back 9.

Don’t forget to add Andre Smith’s name to the list, after opting out last year he’s invited to this year’s camp...


If this move happens I wont be upset.


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[jonboy79]

You don't think Haloti loved some Royal Farms chicken???

How could one not?

Every time I make it down to York I need a chicken box... possibly what I miss most about Baltimore.


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[John Reglarperson]

John Reglarperson will be in hog heaven. Finally, a huge OT who can double as a red zone target.


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Well, he's exactly that. He's an older version, a war hero version, a proven veteran version of Spencer Brown and Drew Himmelman, really the only 2 players I've been talking about, in addition to Oweh, in this draft.

Villanueva does have, has had, very nice PFF scores throughout his career. The last 5 years were 74 PFF or better. The Ravens have 3 OL - Stanley, O Brown and Zeitler - with numbers like that.

Zeitler was 65.9 last year. The last year that Zeitler had a clearly better year than Villanueva's best year was 2014. Those 2 are about as good. One could argue that the war actually saved wear and tear on Villanueva. That definitely could be wrong, but Villanueva hasn't been in the NFL for 10 years.

Villanueva has been the starting LT for the Steelers and could be seen as a starting LT. He could also be seen as a starting RT. He could be seen as a blocking TE with all that college experience catching the ball at the WR spot. He isn't fast like a normal TE, because he's a OL. The same thing is true for Spencer Brown and Drew Himmelman. (But Spencer Brown is 10/10 RAS at a number of positions, all OL, and DT).

The Ravens might think that, yes, we do like the idea of tall, heavy OT/TE. And, over the course of time, how much, I don't know, you could have, maybe Villanueva starting at RT, and Brown/Himmelman at blocking TE and swing tackle. And, maybe Villanueva's athleticism declines, but is plenty good enough for swing tackle + blocking TE, and Brown/Himmelman moves into the RT spot.

I like O Brown, but it seems that at some point, he's going to very much want $20 Million a year, and it appears that other teams place an extremely high value on Raven Free Agents. $13 Million a year for Judon, and $10 Million for Clowney?

I assume that O Brown, as an ex Raven, would get more per year than Villanueva, but PFF doesn't show O Brown as being better than Villanueva. Basically about as good as Villanueva and Zeitler.

Ronnie Stanley had a 88.5 PFF in 2019, better than Villanueva ever did, but, otherwise, his numbers are similar to the rest. Stanley is signed long term and presumably is set at LT for a long time.

So, yeah, I like Villaneuva, I was telling (team) to get Villanueva after the Eagles cut him. The Eagles had him playing DT. He wasn't drafted, I didn't catch it when the Eagles brought him in to camp, I remembered him from Army catching passes while big, but didn't catch him going and becoming a war hero and then getting on the Eagles. The Eagles had a lot of very tall players that preseason. Momah was another. Yeah to Momah, yeah to Spencer Brown and Drew Himmelman. In theory, those 3 guys could play RT, LE, RE, and the 2 playing end are tall enough and heavy enough and have enough pass catching on the resume to stand in the end zone in the playoffs and catch a TD, or be a big enough threat to catch a pass in the end zone so that Mark Andrews won't be covered by 4, and still get the pass. I don't expect that the Ravens are going to end up with Villanueva + Spencer Brown + Drew Himmelman, but I like it. (And also, all 3 do have that size and some background experience at DL, it's all plausible at least. Spencer Brown is a 10/10 RAS at DT, and had a lot of sacks in high school).

If Villanueva is quite sufficient at pass protection, I'm thinking that RT Villanueva + RE Spencer Brown would be very very good at run blocking. If I'm saying oh, get the players you need to be able to do 10 blockers + Lamar, which is a play that would work over and over again. End - 2 of Villanueva, S Brown, Himmelman, Backs - Jackson + Boyle + Ricard + any number of players including Mark Andrews, Gus Edwards, I'd say they have the players at that point. Hooray! But I'm not suggesting that the Ravens do that play over and over again. The Ravens haven't won the Super Bowl with Lamar yet. They need to identify and fix the problem that caused them not to win every game in the playoffs. I have my theory, and Villanueva could help with the fix. BRZT + oline.

Also, in the old days, the Ends were about as big as the Tackles. It just seems right to me that the Ends be big. The convention is, for the most part, that the Center be shortest, the Guard be a little taller, the Tackle be a little taller, and to me, that says that the Ends be the tallest.

Most teams want weapony types at TE. Only one team has Lamar, most teams QBs are not really potent run weapons. Other teams might need weapons at every possible place because they get zero weaponry out of the QB spot. Their QB isn't going to be piling up yards on the ground, Lamar will be, and with the best possible blocking, Lamar should be able to get the most possible yards. It seems to me that big tackle sized TE who can also catch passes is the guy you want, mostly helping the run game, and this run game has exceptional runner at QB + very solid running backs and outside runner wrs like Duvernay and Brown. There are a lot of different ways to dial in top run game, massive TEs who can catch would help. It just seem to me that having max run blocking locked down, 10 blockers + Lamar, would be great. Some might argue that not having 6 all pro pass catchers is some flaw with the Ravens at this point, but I disagree. They have Andrews and Hollywood and now Watkins, that's 3 very good pass catching weapons. They have Boykin and Duvernay, who will likely be improved. With what they have right now, the Ravens could do empty set with 5 good/fast WRs. Adding bonus WRs seems a bit like overkill on a team that has been and should continue to be, going to the playoffs every year with the best running game in NFL history. Keep going to the playoffs, keep breaking the rushing records, or trying to. At some point, presumably, Lamar gets signed. I'm thinking that when Lamar gets the big contract, Lamar won't really care quite as much about learning to be a normal QB and not running so much. If Lamar doesn't know for sure that he's going to be very happy with what the Ravens give him, he might want to develop in such a way that he's more appealing to a team that is looking for a more generic QB. If the team that is paying him the big money (Ravens) are very very happy with the running part, he wouldn't have any reason to push to become more trained at passing, the Ravens could do normal, which would include passing, as opposed to train Lamar at passing.

[21xxxv]

Well, he's exactly that. He's an older version, a war hero version, a proven veteran version of Spencer Brown and Drew Himmelman, really the only 2 players I've been talking about, in addition to Oweh, in this draft.

Villanueva does have, has had, very nice PFF scores throughout his career. The last 5 years were 74 PFF or better. The Ravens have 3 OL - Stanley, O Brown and Zeitler - with numbers like that.

Zeitler was 65.9 last year. The last year that Zeitler had a clearly better year than Villanueva's best year was 2014. Those 2 are about as good. One could argue that the war actually saved wear and tear on Villanueva. That definitely could be wrong, but Villanueva hasn't been in the NFL for 10 years.

Villanueva has been the starting LT for the Steelers and could be seen as a starting LT. He could also be seen as a starting RT. He could be seen as a blocking TE with all that college experience catching the ball at the WR spot. He isn't fast like a normal TE, because he's a OL. The same thing is true for Spencer Brown and Drew Himmelman. (But Spencer Brown is 10/10 RAS at a number of positions, all OL, and DT).

The Ravens might think that, yes, we do like the idea of tall, heavy OT/TE. And, over the course of time, how much, I don't know, you could have, maybe Villanueva starting at RT, and Brown/Himmelman at blocking TE and swing tackle. And, maybe Villanueva's athleticism declines, but is plenty good enough for swing tackle + blocking TE, and Brown/Himmelman moves into the RT spot.

I like O Brown, but it seems that at some point, he's going to very much want $20 Million a year, and it appears that other teams place an extremely high value on Raven Free Agents. $13 Million a year for Judon, and $10 Million for Clowney?

I assume that O Brown, as an ex Raven, would get more per year than Villanueva, but PFF doesn't show O Brown as being better than Villanueva. Basically about as good as Villanueva and Zeitler.

Ronnie Stanley had a 88.5 PFF in 2019, better than Villanueva ever did, but, otherwise, his numbers are similar to the rest. Stanley is signed long term and presumably is set at LT for a long time.

So, yeah, I like Villaneuva, I was telling (team) to get Villanueva after the Eagles cut him. The Eagles had him playing DT. He wasn't drafted, I didn't catch it when the Eagles brought him in to camp, I remembered him from Army catching passes while big, but didn't catch him going and becoming a war hero and then getting on the Eagles. The Eagles had a lot of very tall players that preseason. Momah was another. Yeah to Momah, yeah to Spencer Brown and Drew Himmelman. In theory, those 3 guys could play RT, LE, RE, and the 2 playing end are tall enough and heavy enough and have enough pass catching on the resume to stand in the end zone in the playoffs and catch a TD, or be a big enough threat to catch a pass in the end zone so that Mark Andrews won't be covered by 4, and still get the pass. I don't expect that the Ravens are going to end up with Villanueva + Spencer Brown + Drew Himmelman, but I like it. (And also, all 3 do have that size and some background experience at DL, it's all plausible at least. Spencer Brown is a 10/10 RAS at DT, and had a lot of sacks in high school).

If Villanueva is quite sufficient at pass protection, I'm thinking that RT Villanueva + RE Spencer Brown would be very very good at run blocking. If I'm saying oh, get the players you need to be able to do 10 blockers + Lamar, which is a play that would work over and over again. End - 2 of Villanueva, S Brown, Himmelman, Backs - Jackson + Boyle + Ricard + any number of players including Mark Andrews, Gus Edwards, I'd say they have the players at that point. Hooray! But I'm not suggesting that the Ravens do that play over and over again. The Ravens haven't won the Super Bowl with Lamar yet. They need to identify and fix the problem that caused them not to win every game in the playoffs. I have my theory, and Villanueva could help with the fix. BRZT + oline.

Also, in the old days, the Ends were about as big as the Tackles. It just seems right to me that the Ends be big. The convention is, for the most part, that the Center be shortest, the Guard be a little taller, the Tackle be a little taller, and to me, that says that the Ends be the tallest.

Most teams want weapony types at TE. Only one team has Lamar, most teams QBs are not really potent run weapons. Other teams might need weapons at every possible place because they get zero weaponry out of the QB spot. Their QB isn't going to be piling up yards on the ground, Lamar will be, and with the best possible blocking, Lamar should be able to get the most possible yards. It seems to me that big tackle sized TE who can also catch passes is the guy you want, mostly helping the run game, and this run game has exceptional runner at QB + very solid running backs and outside runner wrs like Duvernay and Brown. There are a lot of different ways to dial in top run game, massive TEs who can catch would help. It just seem to me that having max run blocking locked down, 10 blockers + Lamar, would be great. Some might argue that not having 6 all pro pass catchers is some flaw with the Ravens at this point, but I disagree. They have Andrews and Hollywood and now Watkins, that's 3 very good pass catching weapons. They have Boykin and Duvernay, who will likely be improved. With what they have right now, the Ravens could do empty set with 5 good/fast WRs. Adding bonus WRs seems a bit like overkill on a team that has been and should continue to be, going to the playoffs every year with the best running game in NFL history. Keep going to the playoffs, keep breaking the rushing records, or trying to. At some point, presumably, Lamar gets signed. I'm thinking that when Lamar gets the big contract, Lamar won't really care quite as much about learning to be a normal QB and not running so much. If Lamar doesn't know for sure that he's going to be very happy with what the Ravens give him, he might want to develop in such a way that he's more appealing to a team that is looking for a more generic QB. If the team that is paying him the big money (Ravens) are very very happy with the running part, he wouldn't have any reason to push to become more trained at passing, the Ravens could do normal, which would include passing, as opposed to train Lamar at passing.

PFF is far from reality

[DeltaRaven]

If this is true it leaves me concerned for Stanley’s recovery.