cravnravn Posted August 9, 2010 Posted August 9, 2010 They finally have balance on both sides of the ball, but as the fifth-oldest team in the NFL, is the Ravens’ window of opportunity to win a Super Bowl closing? It’s an interesting question posed by Jamison Hensley of The Baltimore Sun, who explained that the long-time foundation of the team – Ray Lewis, Derrick Mason, Todd Heap and Ed Reed – is aging. But a similar question was raised in May 2006 when Hensley reported that President Dick Cass put an actual time stamp on the championship window. That year, Cass told fans at Spring Football Festival that the window was two years. http://blogs.baltimoreravens.com/2010/08/09/late-for-work-89-ravens-super-bowl-window-closing/ Quote
ravinmaniac52 Posted August 9, 2010 Posted August 9, 2010 If you play your cards right you can always be in the running Quote
thundercleetz Posted August 9, 2010 Posted August 9, 2010 FBO: 2010 Organizational RankingsBased on under-25 talent, the Texans, Panthers and Chiefs shine Talent is a more fluid proposition in football than any other sport. Consider some of the prominent young wide receivers of last season and where they were before the 2009-10 campaign. Sidney Rice was third on the Minnesota Vikings' depth chart at wide receiver; had the team's pitch to T.J. Houshmandzadeh in free agency worked, Rice would have been buried behind him. Robert Meachem was a colossal bust who had 12 catches in two pro seasons. Miles Austin was stuck behind Sam Hurd as the primary backup for the Dallas Cowboys. Pierre Garcon was a lower-level college star with a cool name. This past season was nothing new; every year, teams are pushed to new heights by players who were considered to be inexperienced or underprepared only weeks prior. Flaws attributed to talent magically disappear with playing time, first-team practice reps and confidence. Our Top 25 Prospects list attempts to identify those individual players lurking at the bottom of NFL rosters who are likely to emerge as valuable players in 2010, but our Organizational Rankings take a different approach. Instead of limiting our analysis to players who have yet to emerge in the NFL, these rankings consider all players who will be 25 or younger as of September 1, 2010 -- regardless of where they were drafted or how many games they've started. After compiling a list of eligible players for each team, we compared the groups on a variety of factors. We weighed issues like upside versus established production, quantity versus quality, and current staff versus historical ability to develop rookies when it comes to evaluating the talent available to each NFL franchise. In the end, we put together these rankings with help from the rest of the crew at Football Outsiders. The capsules represent a synopsis of thoughts as to why the team is ranked where they are and who the important young players are for the franchise. However, we should point out that talent under the age of 25 does not equal talent overall. In the NFL, a couple bounces of the ball can turn an average team into a wild-card contender -- but it takes real time to build a team that can challenge for a Super Bowl title. Some of the teams near the top of our list are still a couple of years away from that point, and their rank is more about promise for the future than promise for this upcoming campaign. 4. Baltimore RavensOzzie Newsome is the best general manager in football, and year after year, his drafts deliver promising new players to an organization that seems to have more talent than opportunities. Although the Ravens are known for their defense, it's the offense that has most of the team's young talent these days. Joe Flacco and Ray Rice get the headlines at quarterback and running back, respectively, but no team has a pair of young tackles that match up with Michael Oher and Jared Gaither, both 24. The problem with the defensive talent might just be getting on the field; the Ravens spent their two second-rounders this year on front seven talent, linebacker Sergio Kindle and massive nose tackle Terrence Cody, but those guys will need to serve their apprenticeships before seeing serious snap totals. One player who might break through this season is corner Lardarius Webb, who is coming off of a torn ACL but should be starting by the end of the season. Quote
geo Posted August 9, 2010 Posted August 9, 2010 Those numbers from Hensley is so meaningless, he is counting 80 men, and our Ravens have more than 60 players with NFL experience, we had a record of RFAs, and we have probably fewer undrafted rookies than most. Players who will likely not make it in most cases and still they count and confuse the entire issue. What is interesting is what the average age will be when we cut to 53! And how old our starters will be, that number will hopefully be more than 26! For now it would probably be something like 28. Quote
vmax Posted August 9, 2010 Posted August 9, 2010 The Ravens are only about 6 months older than the NFL team average age....and 1 year from the youngest....so it's really no big deal.http://forums.extremeravens.com/index.php?showtopic=1844 For almost every ageing vet the Ravens have solid depth developing in the pipeline....corner and DE are weak. Quote
vmax Posted August 9, 2010 Posted August 9, 2010 The Ravens Super Bowl window should be open for a good while. What happened this year is Ozzie thinks this team is close so he brought in valuable depth/insurance for this season....but he did not break the bank or mortgage the future. He'll probably be doing that next year and the next. Quote
varaven45 Posted August 10, 2010 Posted August 10, 2010 The Ravens Super Bowl window should be open for a good while. What happened this year is Ozzie thinks this team is close so he brought in valuable depth/insurance for this season....but he did not break the bank or mortgage the future. He'll probably be doing that next year and the next. Max, Agreed. Our Super Bowl window opens every year, right ? Quote
thundercleetz Posted August 11, 2010 Posted August 11, 2010 Good stuff from Rice and Flacco on ESPN about the new direction of the team. http://espn.go.com/blog/afcnorth/post/_/id/15745/video-on-the-road-to-camp-ravens Quote
vmax Posted August 11, 2010 Posted August 11, 2010 Thanks cleetz. I liked "go out and kill teams." There was a great interview with Joe and others by the NFL Network who was out there today. I heard it on Serius and it should be up on NFL.com tomorrow. Quote
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