Ravens Didn't Want A Center In Draft

[Dirt1]

It is.

How much should we believe it? Seems like all the 40 times this year are inflated. (Or deflated, I guess.) I've never seen so many 4.3's in a WR class in my life. Hell, our OLB draftee ran in the 4.3's at ~260#.

Cleveland’s shuttle time sucked which is more important for an OL than a 40 time. He is a RG, not a RT or a LG. Cleveland could be a successor to Zeitler in 2 years.

So, is Bozeman going to move to Center or will they draft a Center. If Bozeman moves to Center, does anyone have confidence that Phillips, Powers, or Bredesen could play LG effectively? I don’t. Also, they still don’t have a RT.


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[Mark]

I like the idea of going huge. Ben Cleveland, who stood right next to Troy Hill at RG, is listed as C/G.

What it is that I exactly want is one thing, and there are other things that might be good or bad.

Ben Cleveland as massive Center who is also fast, strong, etc., definitely holds appeal, but the Ravens might not be thinking that at all. 343 and 5.05 is rare, not extraordinarily rare, but rare, and the Ravens could definitely have been thinking "want this" without having an absolutely concrete idea about where exactly he'd play.

Who “listed” Cleveland as C/G ?

[John Reglarperson]

[QUOTE=JimZipCode;2091896]Yeah. I'm reluctant to assume that any Guard can play Center. There are additional technical skills (snapping) and cognitive demands (calling out blocking schemes and so forth). It's not the same job.


Ha yes. I'm sure Joe D (the OL coach) can figure out a way to make use of this lump of raw material.[/QU

Yeah, I'm not going to assume that he can play Center. I assumed Right Guard. I like very much the idea of massive 343 Center with a 5.05 40, and 30 bench, and the rest of the good. And this Sporting News list of draft picks has him as C/G. But I'm not saying at all that anybody who wasn't a Center can play Center. I would like it if he could play Center. I would like a 343 road grading Center, 343 road grading Centers are rare. But I have no idea if he can. Spencer Brown, the guy I was talking about wanting, is a RT, not a Center either, and he was taken 1 pick before Cleveland.

https://www.3sigmaathlete.com/sparq-.../running-back/ does this load?

[John Reglarperson]

Who “listed” Cleveland as C/G ?

https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nfl/...51svirdprup4e4

[BRfan96]

Cleveland is not nimble but he moves well enough to pull in our offense. There is zero chance they draft him if they think he can’t pull. Also ,5.0 40 speed at 350 lbs is insane

I agree with you, if they want him to play guard they wouldn't have taken him thinking he can't pull.

However, I promise you they'll coach him up to do a better job. Because as of right now, Cleveland's pulling ability isn't good enough for him to be a starter. At least if they want him to pull alot. Like I said in my other post Cleveland is going to be outstanding in pile driving, road grading, pushing defenders back, and making holes at the LOS.

[NjRavensFan]

I'm sure he can adjust but I don't think he's every played on the left side

He said last night that he practiced on the left a ton to prepare for the NFL and that the transition didn’t affect him at all.

[BRfan96]

Here's a clip of him pulling:

Spencer N. Schultz
@ravens4dummies
1:50 AM · May 1, 2021
https://twitter.com/ravens4dummies/s...70116887388161

Not to argue, this is literally *ALL* I know about it. If you've looked at his film, then you know a lot more than I do.

The clip posted here is a mixed bag IMO.

Cleveland has a good "pull step" (different systems use different terms for the pulling step you first take to turn yourself and accelerate down the line). He turns his heels and drives through the ground thus giving him good movement initially. However, once he gets to his spot you'll notice he has to slow down, stop almost, and gear up so he can make contact with the defender. This is actually a flaw in his technique that carries through to everything he does as a OL. He always has to lower his head and "load" himself up to make contact. It's irritating considering the fact that he's probably the biggest strongest dude on the field. Just use your hands and big ass arms for crying out loud. Back to the film, the alabama defender actually did a bad job. The alabama defender needed to continue laterally and meet the pulling guard sooner rather than later, this is why when Cleveland bear hugged the defender it created a massive lane. Had the defende done his job there wouldn't have been a lane, the RB would've had to make some kind of cut to escape defenders, and the RB would've been tackled for a minimum gain or even a loss by an ILB.

So Cleveland got a little lucky that the bama guy did a bad job. In the NFL if you have to slow down to initiate contact with your defender you're going to get knocked back into the RB because NFL defenders know to "get the puller, before the puller gets you". This usually creates a big pile and a run for no gain. This is why when you look for pulling guards you look for guys who can 1) move well in space i.e. fluid hips, good leg strength with appropriate knee bend and 2) guys who know how to roll their hips through contact so that when they "bench press" defenders they can do it instantaneously in the moment without slowing down

[Mark]

Who “listed” Cleveland as C/G ?

https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nfl/...51svirdprup4e4

Makes sense. The Sporting News clown also thought Tommy Tremble as a natural receiver who needed to work on his blocking

[NjRavensFan]

Cleveland is not nimble but he moves well enough to pull in our offense. There is zero chance they draft him if they think he can’t pull. Also ,5.0 40 speed at 350 lbs is insane

Splits were elite for his size as well. Dude might not be the most athletic OL ever but compared to Boze he’s Joe Thomas. And Boze has been just fine at LG here.

[boller4president]

Not a surprise the Ravens really haven't valued the position since Birk. Since then we'd had Gino and let anyone half ways decent walk.

Meinerz would have been a perfect fit. The issue with moving Bozeman there is two fold one he was very good at guard for us so why move him to center? He may play the position well then again he may struggle making the transition back. I'd rather Bozeman continue to focus on being the best guard he can be. Two we already have a big developmental guy in Phillips who was drafted for G but is really a RT in the THIRD ROUND LAST YEAR. Why add Cleveland? Sign a veteran RT and allow Phillips to battle him out for the job it isn't complicated.

To me this move is baffling. We had a guy fall to us who we at worst all probably had him mocked in the top of the 2nd and instead of taking him we take a developmental RT. Decosta has completely lost the plot it's like he walks around trying to prove to the rest of the NFL and talking heads how much smarter he is then everyone else.

I'm getting Sashi Brown vibes from him. Meanwhile anyone watching the draft Douglas had? We may have promoted the wrong guy.

[John Reglarperson]

It is.

How much should we believe it? Seems like all the 40 times this year are inflated. (Or deflated, I guess.) I've never seen so many 4.3's in a WR class in my life. Hell, our OLB draftee ran in the 4.3's at ~260#.

It's also useful to get the numbers right. I mean, you can say that Ben Cleveland ran 5.00 at 350, but that's wrong. It's not a question of flaws in the pro day measuring system. He's not listed at 350, he's listed at 343. He didn't run a 5.00, he ran a 5.05. Oweh wasn't 260, he was 257.

There isn't really a lot of difference between 343 and 350 and between 257 and 260 and between 5.00 and 5.05 and between 4.3 and 4.37. But if you type out the wrong numbers, the problem is that you're typing out the wrong numbers, not that the numbers are fake and they don't know how to measure. Definitely, they could be both, but it's better to clean up the parts that are easier to clean up, which is to not typing out the wrong numbers in the first place.

Here is Ben Clevelands full set of numbers.

https://relativeathleticscores.com/r...PlayerID=19347

Here's another list of the numbers from another place.

https://draftscout.com/dsprofile.php...DraftYear=2021

And 5.05 at 343 isn't that crazy. It's very good, it's definitely rare, but the benchmark for crazy numbers for those really big ones is Dontari Poe.

https://draftscout.com/dsprofile.php...DraftYear=2012 4.98 at 346.

[John Reglarperson]

Not a surprise the Ravens really haven't valued the position since Birk. Since then we'd had Gino and let anyone half ways decent walk.

Meinerz would have been a perfect fit. The issue with moving Bozeman there is two fold one he was very good at guard for us so why move him to center? He may play the position well then again he may struggle making the transition back. I'd rather Bozeman continue to focus on being the best guard he can be. Two we already have a big developmental guy in Phillips who was drafted for G but is really a RT in the THIRD ROUND LAST YEAR. Why add Cleveland? Sign a veteran RT and allow Phillips to battle him out for the job it isn't complicated.

To me this move is baffling. We had a guy fall to us who we at worst all probably had him mocked in the top of the 2nd and instead of taking him we take a developmental RT. Decosta has completely lost the plot it's like he walks around trying to prove to the rest of the NFL and talking heads how much smarter he is then everyone else.

I'm getting Sashi Brown vibes from him. Meanwhile anyone watching the draft Douglas had? We may have promoted the wrong guy.

You're wrong about Sashi Brown. Sashi Brown was not trying to do what Eric is trying to do. Sashi wasn't trying to win games. He was trying to remove all veterans who were making any money at all, and if there was a way to trade 1 pick for 10 4th rounders and a future 1, he was for it. It worked. The Browns have a good roster right now, and one of the key reasons they have that roster is that there were years where they had $50 Million of cap carried over. So, they were paying nobody for a number of years and accumulating top picks at the same time.

I'm going to assume that this happened. They were going to take Spencer Brown, and he was gone the pick before him, and they like Drew Himmelman too, but he's not a 3rd rounder, so, you're all ready to hand in the Spencer Brown card, and boom, he's gone, and you have to act fast, and the solution is Ben Cleveland.

Most of us here have a largely shared idea that the Ravens needed OC and RT. And the Ravens went and picked a RG, despite spending a decent amount of money on a good RG recently. So, I get why this would seem confusing.

But, you know OLine, 343, 5.05, kinda a freakbeast, the Ravens have been drafting IOL the last few years that were not freakbeasts, they were low sparq, and, personally, I found that general philosophy something I didn't like.

What the Ravens seem to do, at least a bit, is look a bit more at the future than the present, and with this one, I think they're looking a bit more at the OL room, than at specific positions.

If we ignore entirely who else the Ravens have on the OL, and we just look at players, I'd definitely say yes to 343 OL with 5.05 and 30 bench. Add strong road grader to OL. Sounds good. Orlando Brown is gone, he was strong road grader. On that level, it's good. When you dig down to actual positions, it becomes more confusing. Can Zeitler play Center? If Zeitler can play Center and Ben Cleveland can play RG, great. Can Ben Cleveland play Center? Can Ben Cleveland play Right Tackle?

We, many of us, thought - ok, well Meinerz is a top sparq/RAS Center, and I really liked top sparq/RAS RT Spencer Brown, and some others agreed. Those players played the positions of need and they were top sparq/RAS, so, as they say over and over when they're not hyping vaccines which have not been tested by the FDA on the NFL channel, just go get em. But the Ravens don't think of it the same way as we do. They think about the OL room and they think of the future. I'm happy the Ravens added Ben Cleveland to the OL room. I think he matches the general run game / road grader philosophy, and he'll be able to play well doing that. But it seems like there is a stack of players at RG now and holes to the left and right, and a lot of people seems to notice that.

Personally, I said a couple days ago that I'm not going to, what's the phrase, freak out, that isn't it, if I don't get everything I want. I'm good after Oweh. I got Oweh, I'm good.

I'll still criticize. Not sure why the Ravens needed 2 new not tall WRs. But, whatever with that. At least Ben Cleveland definitely does fit the model of BIG OL, and he also has the speed, I'm definitely happy that he's there.

I think I care less about a May draft than a draft in April. It's like, I care about the draft in April and March and February. But May, May is a time for complaining about why the venues haven't put the bands back the way they should be. It's not intentional. It's just like, balloon deflates.

Additionally, there's less good data available on all these players, no combine, no good, solid, reliable numbers for anybody. The sparq page is back, but the downside is that the page doesn't load. RAS is nice, but RAS doesn't work the same was as sparq. Sparq compares this years set of players to existing NFL players. Which means that really high sparq numbers are actually great because those players are compared to NFL players. RAS compares this years set of players to this years set of players. Most players who want to get into the NFL are not as fast and athletic as actual NFL players. A 9.9 RAS is not the same at a Top 1% sparq. And we really don't know what it actually means.

So, all of that, draft is late, data isn't there, and they have people getting vaccines on the TV. All of that's bad. But the Ravens got Oweh. I'm good.