Ed Reed: Are the Ravens a "bad organization?"

[TL24x7]

"You hate to see the Ravens even put him in this kind of predicament," Reed said. "That goes to show you how shady and how bad the business is and how bad certain organizations are. I really think he should have been signed a long time ago. It should have never gotten to this point. He has been nothing but loyal to them. Not only the city, but the organization. If he gets away, it's a terrible decision on their part. It was a terrible decision to even let it get this far." :grbac:

More here (http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=cr-thomas021007&prov=yhoo&type=lgns)

[bassgtrst]

Woah, c'mon Ed.

He needs to realize that if he ever want to wear a SB ring on his finger we need to spend some $$$ on the O.

Ed, I love ya man, but shutup.

[purplepoe]

1. We took AD in the 6th round after teams passed on him nonstop.

2. We signed him to a 3 year deal when he was still a situational player.

3. If Reed wants to restructure to enable the team to sign AD, go ahead.

4. I still wonder if some of these players have any concept of the salary cap.

It was a "decision" to let it get this far in the sense that the FO went out and signed other players to improve the team. It wasn't a case of "let's ignore AD and get others signed".

Everyone wants AD back. On every board and in every conversation, I haven't read or heard anything else.

But the reality is it might not be feasible.

PP

[Big Meaty]

So do you think Reed would trade places with AD? Prior to the season, the Ravens could have signed Reed or AD. Ed got his money and now criticizes the organization? Would he be happier if AD was the one who got paid and Ed was looking at the franchise tag? That's what I would've done. No problem to franchise a safety as only TEs, Kickers and Punters are cheaper. In the end, the Ravens decided to make Ed happy. Now, it appears he's still not. I'm a fan, but Ed's just another punk who should keep quiet, make plays and just be happy he got his and isn't staring at $4.5 million.

Stick to playing the game Ed. You got your money. You'll have plenty of time to hang with your homeboy in the off-season.

[purplepoe]

Oz can't sign everyone.

Every Ravens fan and player needs to read what Trap said and then re-read it until it sinks in.

PP

[festivus]

:brickwall:

Perhaps Ed Reed does not have a future as a front office guy.

Go play, Ed, and nice job in the Pro Bowl.

[The Fanatic]

That's why Players play, Coaches coach, and Front office people run the off the field stuff.
When you start having individuals from one area critisize another for the way they're doing their job...:grbac: :grbac: :grbac:

To a man (and woman) in this organization, I think you would be hard pressed to find anybody that wants to see AD go.

[ravenwoman]

To Ed,

We will lose AD. Get use to it. It may mean that you have to work harder next year protecting the middle. That's what we paid you for. Piece of advice--Don't tell your bosses how to do their job. They don't like it. Also, we need to improve the offense. That's why we lost, dummy. We need a balanced team. Be happy you got your money.

[PurpleRulz]

Yes, Ed Reed needs to be quiet and learn the business aspects of this game. Is it me or does there seem to be a high number of crybabies on our team? You'd think we went 3-13. Mason crying about lack of catches. Ogden is crying about gameplans (valid, but still crying). Ray wants a new contract. Jamal wants and wants and wants, and now Reed.

I would love for AD to stay as well, but we have what is called a salary cap. Reed needs to learn that as much as he needs to learn accountability.

[ExiledRaven]

Is it me or does there seem to be a high number of crybabies on our team?

That's probably a big reason why the organization is shifting focus from a star-centered to team-centered approach

How do you win in today's nfl? Have a few "stars" aka 1-2 on offense (QB has to be one of those, or at least recognized as being an excellent game manager) and defense and then have a bunch of players that might be good, but won't make the pro bowl.

Who knows, yeah, it's a shame, but AD is gone, it doesn't make sense for the future of the club to keep him when someone else is going to overpay whether that be new england, detroit, or san francisco.

[GreenWave52]

It's tough on teammates when they are going to lose a well liked member of the team. AD has been here for a long time and if there were no salary cap this wouldn't be an issue (well until the Skins get involved) but life in the NFL is full of tough, heartbreaking decisions. THis is one of them.

Ed made a mistake lashing out, but I don't blame him. He knows he is about to lose a good friend.

[Ravens0587]

its not as if they raven are unwilling to sign him, if he takes a cheap deal he can stick around.

In the end it's up to him. DOes he want to stay here or take the money.

[Gabrosin]

Hey Ed, you're one of my favorite Ravens. So is AD. Any chance you might, y'know, just talk to him? Try to convince him to take the best the Ravens are willing to offer and stay with us for the rest of his career? Because there's no law saying that EVERY NFL player has to go where the money is greatest, regardless of other factors. No one's going to blame him for taking the biggest contract if it's somewhere else, but have him ask how that worked out for Edgerton Hartwell or Gary Baxter or Ma'ake Kemoeatu or Anthony Weaver.

Or Edgerrin James.

If you feel so strongly about keeping him around, maybe you can work out a pay cut that'll free up more money to offer him. After all, you did just sign a huge contract, right? With money that we could have used on Adalius, if you hadn't been asking so much. I know you're worth it and all, but the salary cap doesn't make exceptions just because the Ravens have a lot of good players that can command huge contracts. But if you speak to the commissioner and get him to give us some more space, that might let us keep AD too. You know that everyone wants to bring him back, if he's willing to come back for the money we've got available.

And if you do manage to convince the front office to break the bank for AD now, I'll make sure to send Terrell Suggs your way when he asks why the Ravens have to let him walk in a year or two.

But I bet that'll be the organization's problem, right?

[Fanman]

Why do I keep hearing the Ravens don't want to use the franchise tag on AD? Isn't this a case where the tag could benefit the team? I can't think of another player they would use it on this year.

FM

[Losac]

Because there's no law saying that EVERY NFL player has to go where the money is greatest, regardless of other factors. No one's going to blame him for taking the biggest contract if it's somewhere else, but have him ask how that worked out for Edgerton Hartwell or Gary Baxter or Ma'ake Kemoeatu or Anthony Weaver.

Or Edgerrin James.
Very good point Gabrosin. How many times have we seen these players go after the big money and end up playing for a loser, or not put up the same numbers? But I guess the harsh reality is that money means more to these players than team loyalty, or even sometimes - winning a Super Bowl.

That's why I love Bart Scott. He turned down a more lucrative offer to re-sign with the Ravens. Now, we'll see if he is willing to show the same loyalty in 2 years when he's a free agent again if he has 2 more Pro Bowl caliber seasons.

[festivus]

Why do I keep hearing the Ravens don't want to use the franchise tag on AD? Isn't this a case where the tag could benefit the team? I can't think of another player they would use it on this year.

FM
If we could afford it, sure. The problem is the cap gives a very cap-unfriendly one year contract, which we can't afford right now. While it's technically true we *could* use the franchise tag, it would seriously undermine our ability to do things like beef up the OL, sign our draft picks, resign the less-prominent UFA's such as Tony Pashos and Jarret Johnson, etc.

Everybody agrees AD is talented and everybody wishes he could be a Raven for his entire career. But he is due a big payday, and the Ravens (a) can't afford it, and (b) even if they could, would probably not make it a priority given how much money they already have tied up in the linebacker position.

That said, keep your fingers crossed, there is a remote possibility we will get him with a cap-friendly deal. I doubt that will come to pass, though.

[Fanman]

What about tagging him and trading for a position we need...like OL or RB?

FM

[Gabrosin]

Tagging him and considering trades could be the best of all possible worlds, because we could get something good in return for his services, or we could keep him for one more year and re-examine our cap then. But it suffers the exact same problem mentioned earlier in the thread. To invoke the tag, we need to be able to free up about $7.5m against this year's cap, and we're close to the limit already. BmoreRavor has posted a couple of great threads looking at where we might be able to get that money, but it's not pretty. We can get some from getting rid of Jamal; that one's a given. We could get a little more from extending Todd Heap. We get almost no benefit if Ogden decides to retire; for every further year he decides to play, we start getting more relief when he hangs up his cleats. But not this year. Plus, we would lose Ogden, which is a pretty big deal. Cutting veterans like Mason or Rolle would do nothing for us, and in fact would probably hurt us. We loaded up with guys like Mason, Rolle, McNair, and Pryce, and those players are filling big needs of ours, but their contracts are also leaving us little flexibility against the cap.

If we were able to make room for Adalius Thomas, I would imagine it would come from a combination of two moves. First, we'd need to release Jamal; no surprise there, and that's likely to happen either way. Second, we'd need to get a big deal done... for Terrell Suggs. His salary for next year jumped by five million when he hit his sack escalator, and that money can't be spread out. What we can do, however, is dump his base salary back to the minimum this coming year, give him a multi-year extension, and roll that five million (conceptually) into a big signing bonus that would then spread through the life of the deal. Of course, we'd take the risk of his skills going downhill, which is very real for any pass rusher; only RBs wear out faster. But Suggs is young and I don't think he's ever had a major injury; there's no doubt we're going to want to keep him for a long time, and there's no longer any incentive to wait on his deal.

If we make room by cutting Jamal and shrinking the cap impact for Suggs this year, we may have enough space to franchise AD. We draft low this year, which means we don't have to reserve as much space for first-day rookie contracts; the slotting system will ensure their impacts are relatively low. But even then, keeping AD means we'll probably lose Pashos and/or Mughelli, both solid contributors.

If this were a video game, I'd say we should:

1. Cut Jamal.
2. Extend Suggs to clear room for tagging AD.
3. Tag AD.
4. Trade AD for a first-round pick, because his value is at an all-time high; I'd expect a low first from a contending team (Patriots, Eagles, etc.) or, failing that, a high second from a rebounding team (Packers, 49ers, etc.).
5. Use the cap space from Jamal and Suggs that we temporarily used for AD to re-sign Pashos and Mughelli to modest deals.
6. Spend our draft picks to add depth and fill the voids left by losing Jamal Lewis and AD.

As an amateur looking at the numbers, it all seems possible. But in a video game, you can press a few buttons under no time pressure and get that all done. In real life, we'd have to work against the clock. We'd have to reach step 5 by the time free agency opens, or we'd risk losing Pashos and Mughelli; we'd be unable to sign them while AD was still tagged. And there's no guarantee we could unload AD by that point, not for what he's worth, since any competent GM would realize the pressure we're putting on ourselves and use it to bargain down the compensation... not to mention that AD would have to get a contract worked out with that team, which also takes time.

Bottom line, I don't think we'll wind up making the space for AD, and he'll likely move on to another team without us getting anything but a comp pick a year or two from now.

[GreenWave52]

What about tagging him and trading for a position we need...like OL or RB?

FM
Beacuse if we don't get a trading partner we are screwed. We can't afford to carry his franchise tag value into the season, or if we did (as another poster stated) we would not be able to sign players like Pashos.

Charles Woodson f'ed the Raiders 2 years ago by immediately signing his tag (most players don't sign until training camp) and getting 10MM for one year, plus they couldn't trade him.

AD is a great player and a good guy. Everyone wants him to stay, but we would be sacrificing the competitiveness of the team to do it. The only players that might warrant a big financial commitment at 30 are true franchise QBs.

[festivus]

What about tagging him and trading for a position we need...like OL or RB?

FM
Tagging and trading is very complicated. It's not impossible, but the chief drawbacks you are talking about a 3 way negotiation: Selling team franchises player on the condition that buying team will trade X in exchange, but buying team will only give up X for player *if* player and buying team have an agreement for a longer term deal.

Also a straight player-for-player deal is unlikely because then we still have the cap problems; the player we would be getting would, after all, have a salary of his own. . .

Plus, why would a team give anything up for AD? They all know we can't really afford to sign him to a generous deal right now, he's a UFA and we can't realistically franchise him. The smart thing for them to do is wait and try to nab him in the open market.

There's a reason why trades are infrequent in the NFL. I'm not saying it can't happen, but I doubt it.

Everything would have to fall perfectly into place to keep AD. :ihope: