Ravens State of the Union 5/12/09

[Filmstudy]

2009 Ravens State of the Union

I got a chance to go to the Ravens annual “State of the Union” event tonight. It’s a special event featuring a Q&A with Harbaugh and Ozzie as well as a tour of the 1 Winning Drive facility. Many of the Ravens brass are on hand to mingle. The memorabilia horde there would make Ted Patterson (who at one time owned both the last home plate from Shibe Park and Ray Fosse’s 1970 All Star “Pete Rose Collision” Uniform) wince with envy. A few noteables:
• A poster signed by perhaps 75% of the Hall of Famers living in 2003
• Oil paintings of a number of the great still shots from Ravens history
• Art Modell’s stadium-replica table
• And of course the Hunt and Lombardi trophies from 2000

This season, with the event held after the draft, access to the war room was allowed. Unfortunately the grades on the players had been erased, but the draft picks for each team were posted and had a system of dots. New to me was the blue dot given to players with 30+ bench reps at 225, a 30” vertical leap, and a 30 Wonderlic score. You’ve no doubt read about the red star given to players with unanymous approval from the Ravens’ personnel department, but how about the black dot? That’s given to players with character concerns, who the Ravens won’t draft. It was amusing to see that 4 of the 6 Redskin draft picks were black dots for the Ravens!

Harbaugh and Ozzie were entertaining. Highlights:
• Ozzie mentioned Pettigrew was the Ravens’ target once he dropped into the high teens. The team had agreed they’d sacrifice a 5th round pick to move up and take Brandon, but the Lions “picked his pocket” at #20.
• Harbaugh said Oher will compete immediately at RT with Adam Terry. There was no mention of a competition with Gaither.
• There were several comments on the wide receiver situation, but thankfully no mention of Anquan Boldin. Ozzie mentioned Kelly Washington was traveling from New England to Florida now and has offers from both the Ravens and Redskins.
• Harbs spoke glowingly of Marcus Smith and said he would compete with Washington for a spot were he to be signed. Harper, Riley, and Figurs were not mentioned.
• Harbaugh reported that Belichek said Washington was the Patriots best special teams player in 2007.
• On the loss of Lorenzo Neal, Harbaugh had a great comment, which I’ll paraphrase. He said Neal is a fine blocking fullback, but out of those roster spots he wants multiple dimensions filled. So a blocking fullback also needs to be able to contribute on special teams. He used Stover as an example, indicating that having Stover as a kicker meant the Ravens would also need to carry a kickoff specialist. It underscores how good it is to have a special teams coach making significant personnel decisions.
• Harbaugh talked about the turnaround from winning the Miami game in week 7. He mentioned they’d “had some discipline problems” but said the decision to bench McAlister for the Miami game was related to his play on the field and not disciplinary. Ozzie was asked why McAlister missed the 2003 game at San Diego. He indicated the decision ultimately rested with the head coach and refused to elaborate on the circumstances.
• Both Harbaugh and Newsome seemed excited that Kelly Gregg was back at the OTA’s. Harbaugh said he is “chomping at the bit” to go.
• Newsome was asked about the Suggs contract situation, which he described as an “impasse”. Ozzie professional said he bears a share of the blame for that along with Suggs’ representation. He said he wanted to get Terrell in for OTA’s and that Suggs wants to be present.

[52decleetzu]

2009 Ravens State of the Union

I got a chance to go to the Ravens annual “State of the Union” event tonight. It’s a special event featuring a Q&A with Harbaugh and Ozzie as well as a tour of the 1 Winning Drive facility. Many of the Ravens brass are on hand to mingle. The memorabilia horde there would make Ted Patterson (who at one time owned both the last home plate from Shibe Park and Ray Fosse’s 1970 All Star “Pete Rose Collision” Uniform) wince with envy. A few noteables:
• A poster signed by perhaps 75% of the Hall of Famers living in 2003
• Oil paintings of a number of the great still shots from Ravens history
• Art Modell’s stadium-replica table
• And of course the Hunt and Lombardi trophies from 2000

This season, with the event held after the draft, access to the war room was allowed. Unfortunately the grades on the players had been erased, but the draft picks for each team were posted and had a system of dots. New to me was the blue dot given to players with 30+ bench reps at 225, a 30” vertical leap, and a 30 Wonderlic score. You’ve no doubt read about the red star given to players with unanymous approval from the Ravens’ personnel department, but how about the black dot? That’s given to players with character concerns, who the Ravens won’t draft. It was amusing to see that 4 of the 6 Redskin draft picks were black dots for the Ravens!

Harbaugh and Ozzie were entertaining. Highlights:
• Ozzie mentioned Pettigrew was the Ravens’ target once he dropped into the high teens. The team had agreed they’d sacrifice a 5th round pick to move up and take Brandon, but the Lions “picked his pocket” at #20.
• Harbaugh said Oher will compete immediately at RT with Adam Terry. There was no mention of a competition with Gaither.
• There were several comments on the wide receiver situation, but thankfully no mention of Anquan Boldin. Ozzie mentioned Kelly Washington was traveling from New England to Florida now and has offers from both the Ravens and Redskins.
• Harbs spoke glowingly of Marcus Smith and said he would compete with Washington for a spot were he to be signed. Harper, Riley, and Figurs were not mentioned.
• Harbaugh reported that Belichek said Washington was the Patriots best special teams player in 2007.
• On the loss of Lorenzo Neal, Harbaugh had a great comment, which I’ll paraphrase. He said Neal is a fine blocking fullback, but out of those roster spots he wants multiple dimensions filled. So a blocking fullback also needs to be able to contribute on special teams. He used Stover as an example, indicating that having Stover as a kicker meant the Ravens would also need to carry a kickoff specialist. It underscores how good it is to have a special teams coach making significant personnel decisions.
• Harbaugh talked about the turnaround from winning the Miami game in week 7. He mentioned they’d “had some discipline problems” but said the decision to bench McAlister for the Miami game was related to his play on the field and not disciplinary. Ozzie was asked why McAlister missed the 2003 game at San Diego. He indicated the decision ultimately rested with the head coach and refused to elaborate on the circumstances.
• Both Harbaugh and Newsome seemed excited that Kelly Gregg was back at the OTA’s. Harbaugh said he is “chomping at the bit” to go.
• Newsome was asked about the Suggs contract situation, which he described as an “impasse”. Ozzie professional said he bears a share of the blame for that along with Suggs’ representation. He said he wanted to get Terrell in for OTA’s and that Suggs wants to be present.

Let me pick my tongue back up off the floor,you actually got to see top secret draft info!!

The vertical/wonderlic/bench thing is kind of odd to be quite honest.I dont quite get the correlation between the 3.....maybe they have done some research and saw a trend with guys exceeding those numbers.

As far as the Neal and Stover situations,its obvious the Ravens are going with the versatile guys to fill certain holes.Webb is a perfect example,a guy who can play just about every position in the secondary AND plays special team AND returns kicks.

They say "the more you can do..."

As far as Suggs is concerned,Ozzie just confirmed what most of us figured at this point, after 2 years they are stuck in negotiations...for whatever reason.

Who knows who is to blame,but one thing id fro sure we have a serious problem on our hands and I have no clue how we are going to come out of this.

Will we franchise Suggs and suck up about 17 million of our cap to try to trade him next year? Will we even have the salary cap space to do that?

One thing is certain,Suggs doesnt appear to be signing and we can not have him play under the average of the top 5 contracts overall next year...just cant happen.

So what do we do?

If we do try to franchise him and trade him,I have a feeling we wont get full value because teams will know we cant carry him under that one year tender and lowball us accordingly.

I wish they would send some feelers out to other teams now,this situation is only going to get worse for us next year,and if this goes into next year we have no leverage in the situation because of what the ramifications are of tagging him again.

So what is the end game?

Where are we going with him at this point?

I all for holding out hope,but an "impasse" is just what it is......and I cant help but place some blame on the front office for not realizing this a while back.

Suggs is a great player,but right player right price..next man up.We will find another one.

[math_geek]

That was a wonderful post. Thanks so much film study.

I realize that you're probably going to say no, but can you provide any more details on those "black dot" players or Ravens draft strategy in general? If the Ravens left it up there, they probably don't care if you see it and share it, and I'd be fascinated to know anything there is to know about their draft beliefs. Was Orakpo or Kevin Barnes really a character concern? I really liked Kevin Barnes and was hoping the Ravens would draft him.

[awalt]

This is the first time I can ever remember Ozzie telling the fans about a player he wanted to draft that he didn't get - Pettigrew. Every other year, the Ravens speak glowingly about their pick, as if that was the only guy they wanted (which is good to do). Now I feel like they are very excited about Oher, I am not going there...

...but where I am going is this -- I think we are hearing so much about how much the Ravens wanted Pettigrew to light a fire under Heap. That means they think he is capable of elevating his game again, but he needs to hear the message that there could be another #1 TE on the roster next year if you don't step up your play. Cameron loves TEs in his set, Heap was too inconsistent when he did go out for passes last year. Flacco will be a ton better just getting some pass offense over the middle of the field, and for sure that's what TEs do.

[festivus]

Hey FS, thanks for the update & thorough recap. How quick was Ozzie's first step? Was he able to get to the second level? ;)

[claxkeeper]

Crazy good info film study! I think I speak for all of us when I say thanks you very much. Was there anything else intresting that you could tell us? Anything eye popping in the war room?

[jonboy79]

The vertical/wonderlic/bench thing is kind of odd to be quite honest.I dont quite get the correlation between the 3.....maybe they have done some research and saw a trend with guys exceeding those numbers.

.

I remember hearing abotu this a few years ago. Specifically I remember that ryan Lacasse was a 30^3 guy.


And as far as the Pettigrew Love... I'm nto sure there is alterior motives or if they are just being truthful. He would have been a truly great fit here.

[Rxdoxx]

On the loss of Lorenzo Neal, Harbaugh had a great comment, which I’ll paraphrase. He said Neal is a fine blocking fullback, but out of those roster spots he wants multiple dimensions filled. So a blocking fullback also needs to be able to contribute on special teams. He used Stover as an example, indicating that having Stover as a kicker meant the Ravens would also need to carry a kickoff specialist. It underscores how good it is to have a special teams coach making significant personnel decisions.


Thank you FS, super stuff.

Not sure about the "underscores good" with a ST coach making decisions, just different from what we have ever been used to :) I had concerns last year that Stover wouldn't make it... turned out wrong but the fact that he is not even part of the camp competition shows that Harbs now has the reins comfortably in his hands... a HC in control of his team is good.

[srobert96]

Did Orakpo have a black dot?

I would not worry about getting Suggs under a long term contract.

I highly doubt that Suggs or his agent want to take the risk of playing another season under the franchise tag. Suggs was hurt in the playoffs last year. All it would take is a knee injury or a shoulder injury during the season to destroy his ability to get a long term big dollar deal.

There is no salary cap next year so the Ravens could afford to shell out top 5 player money for Suggs. At leas long enough to get him traded or under a long term contract.

[Jeremiah W]

Thank you FS. We need more of that. Break us off, do not be stingy.

[Ravenswarrior19]

Great stuff Film (as usual). Did someone tell you about the black dot system, or was that something you already knew about before you went in?

As to Suggs - my rampant speculation -
It is sounding more and more like Suggs is ready to "take a tiny bit less" just to get this over with. It sounds like Oz is ready to get this thing done to, even if the price is "a tiny bit" high. But Sugg's agent refuses to settle for anything less than the moon, and the arrangement is "Sizzle, you take care of the football side, I'll take care of the business side."



The vertical/wonderlic/bench thing is kind of odd to be quite honest.I dont quite get the correlation between the 3.....maybe they have done some research and saw a trend with guys exceeding those numbers.


I remember hearing abotu this a few years ago. Specifically I remember that ryan Lacasse was a 30^3 guy.


I'm pretty sure I heard about this before, possibly in Feinstein's book (?). Blue dots go out to superior athletes who are also smart. I always assumed more when into it than just some benchmarks on workouts/wonderlic.

[Stealthbirds80]

Awesome read. I like this little peek into the Ravens logic in the draft and with players I'm curious about how many WR they will carry since Marcus will compete with Kelly for the 4th WR spot. That is only four spots, but maybe whoever loses is strictly a special teams option and will not likely see the field with the offense barring injury. So I can then understand the importance of the 4th WR position if that is the case.

[B-more Ravor]

• Harbaugh said Oher will compete immediately at RT with Adam Terry. There was no mention of a competition with Gaither.


Was there any mention of Willie Anderson? Or should we take that as a foregone conclusion that Willie will be released at some point (which begs the question - why wait?).

[B-more Ravor]

Well, I guess this evening's news of Anderson's retirement takes care of that question! :D

[Filmstudy]

To those of you who noticed Anderson was not mentioned as part of the competition in any way...

His name was mentioned by Harbaugh last night as an obvious afterthought to the Oher/Terry competition for RT. Rather than get Harbs wording wrong, I wanted talk to someone who also heard it to make sure I reported it accurately. Now that Willie retired, I don't think there's any reason not to risk paraphrasing.

Harbaugh said Terry was going to compete with Oher and that we'll see what happens with Willie Anderson in the next days and weeks.

I would agree that Anderson's retirement was planned pre-draft and Willie did the right thing to keep it a secret so that the Ravens were not further gouged on a move up.

As far as the Lions "failing" to draft a left tackle to protect their new QB, I don't think that can be fairly said. Oher is 6'4". How many franchise LT's are that height? He should have a good to great career at RT.

[psuasskicker]

To those of you who noticed Anderson was not mentioned as part of the competition in any way...

His name was mentioned by Harbaugh last night as an obvious afterthought to the Oher/Terry competition for RT. Rather than get Harbs wording wrong, I wanted talk to someone who also heard it to make sure I reported it accurately. Now that Willie retired, I don't think there's any reason not to risk paraphrasing.

Harbaugh said Terry was going to compete with Oher and that we'll see what happens with Willie Anderson in the next days and weeks.

I would agree that Anderson's retirement was planned pre-draft and Willie did the right thing to keep it a secret so that the Ravens were not further gouged on a move up.

As far as the Lions "failing" to draft a left tackle to protect their new QB, I don't think that can be fairly said. Oher is 6'4". How many franchise LT's are that height? He should have a good to great career at RT.

Great summaries and posts fs, thanks for sharing.

FWIW, I disagree about the Lions not drafting an OT. They already have Backus and Gossider...no reason to take another one right now. Pettigrew will also help substantially in the blocking game.

LT wasn't a big need for them, and teams shouldn't be drafting for need anyway. A team taking a LT simply because they just drafted a QB would be ridiculously stupid.

- C -

[Brtnder81]

To those of you who noticed Anderson was not mentioned as part of the competition in any way...

His name was mentioned by Harbaugh last night as an obvious afterthought to the Oher/Terry competition for RT. Rather than get Harbs wording wrong, I wanted talk to someone who also heard it to make sure I reported it accurately. Now that Willie retired, I don't think there's any reason not to risk paraphrasing.

Harbaugh said Terry was going to compete with Oher and that we'll see what happens with Willie Anderson in the next days and weeks.

I would agree that Anderson's retirement was planned pre-draft and Willie did the right thing to keep it a secret so that the Ravens were not further gouged on a move up.

As far as the Lions "failing" to draft a left tackle to protect their new QB, I don't think that can be fairly said. Oher is 6'4". How many franchise LT's are that height? He should have a good to great career at RT.

Jordan Gross is 6-4, Walter Jones 6-5, Matt Light 6-4, Chris Samuels 6-5 just a few of the premier tackles in the NFL under 6-6

[52decleetzu]

I remember hearing abotu this a few years ago. Specifically I remember that ryan Lacasse was a 30^3 guy.


And as far as the Pettigrew Love... I'm nto sure there is alterior motives or if they are just being truthful. He would have been a truly great fit here.

Ryan Lacasse???

We see how that worked out....but he was a 7th rounder if memory serves so...

I still dont get it,but there has to be data to back it up or tyhey wouldnt use it.

[Filmstudy]

I don't know, but perhaps the blue dot is a positive quality for DL's and LB's. Strength for everything, leaping to block passes and smarts to pick up the playbook.

[jonboy79]

I don't know, but perhaps the blue dot is a positive quality for DL's and LB's. Strength for everything, leaping to block passes and smarts to pick up the playbook.

Vertical measueres explosion and how quick twitch someon's muscles are. Bench Press measures strength and determination. Wonderlick seperates the pretenders from contenders.

I remember after the Lacasse draft seeing a list of 30 30 30 guys, there were more then a few elite passrushers on the list.

[Rxdoxx]

Vertical measueres explosion and how quick twitch someon's muscles are. Bench Press measures strength and determination. Wonderlick seperates the pretenders from contenders.

I agree and would tweak what you said just a little...
Bench press besides measuring strength and determination also says the player probably doesn't have to be dragged to the weight room, he will be self-motivated there which is determination in a little broader sense than just the lifting/reps.

Vertical may be a more accurate assessment of quick start, since there is no timing involved, but I'd have to have some sliding scale for wingspan and height to use it that way in evaluating 5'11" vs 6'1"