Just a month ago, a giddy-for-good-reason danced behind the podium after a win at Pittsburgh and declared, for the second-straight week: "These ain't the same ."But at the midpoint of the season, at 4-4 and facing a franchise-defining three-game homestand, I can't help but think that, actually, this is almost exactly the same middling football team we have seen in Baltimore since their last Super Bowl win in 2012. And if I am correct, and if this is a team again destined to flirt with the playoffs, only to fall just short, then the Ravens wasted an opportunity to vigorously explore compiling desperately-needed draft picks at Tuesday's trade deadline.An argument could be made that no team had more aging-but-still-po sibly-valuable veterans who would have appealed to top-tier contenders. And if this team is in fact looking at another 8-8-ish season and facing a potentially sweeping rebuild with venerable general manager Ozzie Newsome about to retire, and esteemed head coach John Harbaugh facing a lame-duck year in 2019, then the best time to start the purge
Odell Beckham Jr Jersey may have been this week. The , , , and are in a similar predicament, whether they want to admit it or not (all appear in various stages of denial), with 2019 now only mere months away and change already in the air. More on the NFL Don't you think names like , , Weddle and (and maybe if you only watched 2017 tape) might have elicited some interest with so many teams desperate for pa s rush and offensive line help and help in coverage? Gue s we'll never know, and with all of them except Suggs still signed beyond this season, Baltimore could ostensibly still deal older players in the offseason. But in March, teams will be lacking the intense adrenaline rush of a po sible Super-Bowl push, and with many of the older Ravens prime candidates to be cut, one could argue their returns might have been highest
Alec Ogletree Jersey this week. Regardle s, the thought was certainly on my mind these past few weeks. Any team that can go from owning the in Pittsburgh to losing 12-9 in Cleveland in the span of a week (Hue Jackson's final NFL win with the !), is by its very nature difficult to figure out with a half-season still to play. But those charged with evaluating the future of the franchise must wipe away nostalgia and what-ifs and coulda-beens. This franchise is 44-44 since the Super Bowl, and many a wise personnel man has told me over the years that in this league you are often better off being really good, or starting from scratch with top-five picks, than you are stuck in a perpetual 8-8/9-7 vortex.Bisciotti's planOwner Steve Bisciotti has ruminated about making macro-level changes with his team for years, with the Ravens falling from perennial contenders to securing just one playoff appearance since 2013. In the past the owner has generally defaulted to the least-me sy decision: Keep an aging core together, make some restrained free-agent moves and try to fix the roster in the next draft. But with young GM-in-waiting Eric DeCosta set to take the reigns in 2019, and with playing pedestrian-at-best football again (NFL's 25th rated pa ser) and set to count nearly $27M against the 2019 cap -- and with seven of Baltimore's eight top-salaried players in 2019 aged 31 or older at the start of next season (and on contracts that are easy to trade or release) -- punting until 2020 ain't gonna be feasible this time around I don't reckon. There is no shame in winning 8-10 games most years, and there are numerous franchises desperate to taste even those modest heights (Jimmy Haslam in Cleveland can't even dream that big as an NFL owner to this point, for instance). But for three straight years Bisciotti has been saying this team has failed to meet its own lofty standards, and a continued lurch toward .500 would surely come with major ramifications.Bisciotti signaled as much by championing, if
Daniel Jones Jersey not spearheading, the movement to trade back into the first round to draft QB in the spring (an absolutely vital move, as coming out of that 2018 QB cla s empty-handed would have been Giants/Broncos/Dolphins-level quarterback negligence). The cupboard is not totally bare, and things can turn around relatively quickly for Baltimore, but this organization is going to have to embrace the future and accept significant change.Other teams in similar spotThe Ravens are far from alone in their conundrum. It's something of an epidemic.The Dolphins (4-4) not trading is a head-scratcher, and Miami not rebuilding in 2019 would be a shocker. The Cardinals (2-6) pa sing up potentially two first-round picks for and not selling off anything at all will be looked back upon as a huge whiff, to go
Wayne Gallman Jersey along with a bevy of them there recently (I'd still wager Peterson is not in their lineup opening day 2019). The Broncos (3-5) making only one salary dump ( ), but not adding real value picks by jump starting their rebuild by dealing and , both coveted by contenders, is ludicrous to me. Personally, I would have traded all the above, plus held an auction for to see if I could beat the return from the trade, and kickstart my future. The Bucs, facing likely sweeping changes in 2019, will soon regret not shopping and other vets. The Cowboys (3-4) being buyers and not sellers will prove to be folly. The Jaguars (3-5) have a QB crisis, and how long will guys like be around? Why stop at trading ? Is this team really winning anything with and at quarterback? Parity is a helluva drug, but once it di sipates and cold-hard reality strikes in 2019, there are going to be a number of teams who were fooling themselves about what they really are, and where they are truly going in the next few years.Who are these Ravens?So, what, precisely, are we to make of the Baltimore Ravens when viewed through this prism? Are they Super Bowl contenders? Have they truly changed?They still rank first in overall defense after consecutive lo ses, but when they have faced competent quarterbacks (you know, guys not named Kizer or Keenum or Peterman or Cutler or Hundley or Savage or Bri sett or or Mariota, to name a few of the lightweight QBs vanquished in recent years), they tend to
Doug Kotar Jersey suffer, especially late in games. and the always give them fits (ending their season on a fourth-and-forever last year and looming, again, in Week 11). Drew Brees shredded them in the second half in Week 7 and tore them up all day in Week 8. The Ravens get more sacks now but 11 of them came in the rain against a haple s . And for this defense, relying on so many older players, wilting in December has become a holiday ritual in Charm City. Will this year be any different? The offense has evolved some in the pa sing game, and Baltimore certainly has more viable pa s catchers than in recent years, with newcomers , and as upgrades. But Brown is the only one to make a consistent impact. Snead and Crabtree have made critical drops. Crabtree is catching just 55 percent of his targets (38-of-69), and the duo is averaging a modest 11 yards per catch
