Not taking a shot at them, but this might be the worst offseason for a Super Bowl winner. I think they will finally be missing the postseason in 2013, they are still the champs tho so im not trying to take anything away,
Losing Birk and Boldin will hurt big, but Lewis and Reed (if he leaves) aren't that great anymore. I don't know much about Ellerbe.
They lost Boldin, Lewis, Ellerbe, Birk, Krueger and about to lose Reed. They overpaid Flacco and now they are suffering. Die Ravens die. I hate them.
Flacco's cap hits for the next three years do not exceed 14.5 mill. This is not about the money he got, but about the roster as a whole and them vastly under valuing Ellerby who they said was their priority entering free agency.
They will take a big step back. Boldin helped them win the superbowl. Overpay your QB, so you can't afford the rest. I called this right after he got the contract. The team will need at least 2 years before being back in contention.
We can't talk much as how we paid Sanchez. They were forced into that situation with him, although one could say they could have stood ground for 15 million, and just tagged him, but such thing could have gotten ugly. ANYWAY, time to add Pollard to that list. So that's 6 starters lost? With Reed it would be 7? Jeesh..
I don't know where this hard-on for Ellerby comes from. He's ok, not great. Granted, he's young, but lets stop making it sound like the Fish just signed the next Patrick Willis.
At least they're paying Flacco for a great playoff run AND a Super Bowl Trophy. We paid Sanchez to cheer him up when we flirted with other QB's so he wouldn't lose his confidence.
They'll be okay. They have a lot of great players on that team. The last two years they had to give contracts to a franchise QB and a franchise RB. Of course they are going to lose some of their role players. Ellerbe is about the only player that really hurts. Kruger can be replaced. Can't do anything about Ray Lewis and Birk retiring. Boldin is a good player but I'd sacrifice him too over Flacco and Rice, especially since Torrey Smith is waiting in the wings. They have a nice core with Flacco, Rice, Harbaugh, Suggs.. to be successful for a long time. Maybe they struggle to make the playoffs this year, but they will be consistent contenders for the forseeable future.
So how do feel about it after the Dumerville signing? Sure they lost Kruger, but that pass rush just got very scary.
As I said and was ignored earlier, Flacco's cap hit this season has nothing to do with the exodus this offseason. It was more about setting a price for players and not exceeding it. This is good management. Not overpaying for guys they may have wanted back in Ellerby and Reed allowed them to sign a top flight pass rusher. Over paying for average talent is what got us in our current mess. They did a good job avoiding over paying the average and aging this year.
I agree with your other post about not overpaying for the likes or Kruger and Ellerbe, and that it allowed them so sign Dumervil, however, Dumervile still doesn't make up for not having a replacement for: FS Reed SS Pollard ILB Ellerbe ILB Lewis CB Williams Dumervil is also a below average run stuffer and will be playing out of position (he was DE his entire time in Denver, correct? I'm assuming he'll be playing mostly OLB in Balt since Suggs takes on the role of the on-the-line OLB role more often than not), which means we don't know how effective he'll be if he's asked to do other things, such as cover TE's or play the run. His contract makes it a risk worth taking as its heavily incentive laden, but its still only replace Kruger, not making up for everyone else they've lost on defense and haven't filled the roles of. They added some DL help with Canty and Spears, but again, neither of them replace the secondary missing 3 of 4 base defense starters or the LB corps missing both inside players. Like I said, I do commend them for not overpaying for what might be 1-year wonder players in Kruger and Ellerbe but their defense still, as of this moment, looks like: ----- ------ Webb ------- Suggs ------ ------ Dumervil Jones Ngata Canty They could be worse but this is certainly a downgrade.
Great players like Lewis and Reed are impossible to replace. That said Lewis retired and Reed will be 35 shortly after the season starts. Pollard was is a JAG that is on his third team in five years. Williams will be replaced by Corry Grham who played a lot last year or Jimmy Smith thier first rounder in 2011. Kruger was a part time pass rusher who lost increasing time to Upshaw as the seaso progressed. Ellerby was over paid by the phins and they where right to not match it. Teams who draft well don't always have to sign guys to replace lost parts. That's how you stay competitive long term in the NFL, you play the next man up, not run into free agency every chance you get. You set a price for a players talent and when exceeded you let them walk. The biggest thing they lost was leadership. Lewis, Reed, and Boldin are big time leaders. Now it's time for Suggs, Nagata, and Flacco to take over as the long standing vets on the team. People keep point to the Flacco deal as t.he issue this offseason and that's dead wrong. His cap hit is 7.5 mill, or about half of the Sanchez hit. It does not exceed 14.5 mill untill the 4th year of the six year deal. By then the cap will be somewhat larger and I'm sure Ozzie will hav whim restructure/extend the deal to get better numbers on the cap. Are they better? Not at all and you could say worse. Did they handcuff themselves long term? No, they let guys walk they could replace, didn't over pay for aging stars, and lost an all time great to retirement. This is how you run an NFL team. It's not baseball where you buy your way into wins.
