I had no clue that he was possibly in position for a trade. How can someone of his talent not fit a defensive system?

Anyway, I personally would definitely give up a deal that looks like a 2nd and 4th/5th round pick for him. He is still young and has had very little injury problems, from what I know. I agree that players do not make sense to be involved in a trade like this, since you are still building for the future and a much better way to do that is with draft picks rather than trading for one or two players.

With the draft picks, you can definitely have a larger variety than what is already in the league for what would fit your team best.

So in my opinion, I would say a 2nd and 4th/5th seems like a fair trade for both sides.

My personal favorite beer. Isn’t POD some 1 hit wonder rock band from the early part of this decade? Lol. Anyway….

1. Yes, I have seen “The Blindside” and it was very good. I like the timing of the movie with Oher’s rookie year because it got his name out there very quickly. He is getting the publicity he deserves. It was definitely a little cheesy, as the guy who played Oher seemed way softer and less intelligent than Mike really is. All around great movie though.

2. I could not be happier with Oher. He is a mean, mean dude. He has taken some of the games best DE (Odom, Allen, Dumerville, Mathis) and just thrown them to the ground. This guy is scary good. Sure fire pro-bowler for years to come and should really be a candidate for rookie of the year. I think it is smart for you to draft an OL this year. With you having your franchise QB, you have to keep him upright. No matter how many weapons you have in Johnson, Pettigrew, Smith, no QB will succeed without a solid O-Line. The Ravens made sure of that for Joe. We have 2 first round picks starting for us, a pro bowl Center, and maybe the most athletic and largest LT in the game in Jared Gaither. Russel Okong from Oklahoma State and Bruce Campbell from Maryland are my two best prospects. I attend Maryland right now, and I have watched Campbell for a while and he is nasty. But with the way your season is playing out (no disrespect) Okung is too good to pass up if it is OL you really need. But if you do get the first pick in the draft, go after Suh. Insane DT.

3. I am iffy on Flacco right now. Making terrible decisions in many of our losses this year, most of which are coming in the redzone when we really need a score. He is trying to force some throws, but much of his bad numbers are coming from bad play calling from our coaches. Joe is still a very good QB and yes I am glad we started him from day 1. He has all the physical tools and a very mature mind. He just needs to learn to be patient and not go for the throat on every pass.

Really like Stafford. I think he is way better than Sanchez ever will be. Rocket arm and just seems like he wants to get the job done. And you guys put some great weapons around him with Calvin and Pettigrew. Those two should be able to help Matthew progress very quickly. I do like Kevin Smith, but I think you guys need a power Running Back to take some of the weight off Matt’s shoulders. Even though it was against Cleveland, the way he stood in there with that hurt shoulder was incredible. I only wish success for the guy and success for your team with him.

Thanks for the questions. Keep them coming.

Our lead blogger, Bruce, usually starts one of these but I thought I would get it rolling. He will definitely be in here contributing as I am sure a few other Ravens bloggers will as well.

I do remember that game. Ray Ray was going insane about the penalties.

Where Kevin Jones hit and drove through a Ray Ray tackle to score? I remember reading about how he went to Ray and said “I got you”, and he replied, “Yeah, you got me . . .”

I thought it was proof positive that Kevin Jones was strong enough to handle a full load . . . heh. Right.

Peace
Ty

You guys got hosed, the “Tom Brady” rule was in full effect.

I just remember Billick pacing the sidelines, like he couldn’t believe it was happening. Looked like his head was going to explode. I think that game was the first time he probably knew he was going to get fired!

- Ray and Reed are having “off years.” Yes, they are putting up some of the stats that we are used to seeing from them, but these 2 are not leading the other guys the way we want them to. Ray of course is slowing down a bit, as he is 34 years old now. But he can still bring it for sure and leads our team in tackles. Reed has not been himself this year. Still making some plays, but I blame a good bit of our struggles in the secondary on Reed being out of position. We really do not have anyone, yet, to replace Ray and Reed. Ray will most likely be the first, so we will need to make a move high in the draft for that. It is a little too early to start thinking of Reed’s replacement in my opinion. It is not too big of a concern because our general manager, Ozzie Newsome, is arguably the best in the league at getting talent through the draft. I trust that he will be able to replace these two HOF.

- With Harbaugh, I think it is a little of both of which you stated. I think he is a good, but not great coach right now. He needs to teach more discipline to this team, something we lacked under Billick. He did inherit a great roster, that is not a lie. I think he is the right coach for us, but is just starting to get his feet on the ground. Gotta give the man some time.

- With the draft, I think the biggest needs right now are WR, CB, and DE, in no particular order. We need to give Joe some weapons, and do it quickly. But we also need to stop the pass which we havent been able to do too much this year with terrible CB play. We need to improve our pass rush, as we only have 23 sacks on the year when in recent years 40 sacks was a bad season for us. I am unsure which position I want more, but right now I would like to see a pure DE through the draft. We have too many of those hybrid players and need someone with their hand in the dirt every down. I think we will make a move for a CB or WR through free agency or a trade. I do like Dunlap out of FLA for DE or Morgan from G-Tech. For WR, love Dez Bryant, but doubt he will fall to us. Like Arellius Benn out of Illinois. For CB, I like Joe Haden (Baltimore Born) from FLA and Thompson from CAL. I also would not mind seeing LB Rolando McClain from Bama or Brandon Spikes from FLA to maybe breed into taking over for Ray Lewis one day.

Not as quick as he was in his prime, but no 34 year old player is in this league. Still the best MLB in the game. That Sproles tackle just shows people how dominant Ray can be. We needed someone to step up and make a play to end it, and it did not surprise us that Ray was the one who got it done.

We all knew from the little we saw last year that he could definitely be an every down back. I think where most fans are surprised is that he is doing this well in only his 2nd year. If anything, we expected him to get these types of stats in his 3rd or 4th year. The part of his game that I did not know was this good is his pass catching. He is by far the best RB in the league at catching a pass and turning it up field.

Really is an incredible player.