First a little self-congratulating as I corrected predicted the Ravens would waive Syp:

Ravens Waive Sypniewski

Second, for those of you who are Netflix viewers, "The Blind Side" is now available to be saved in your queue.  Have not read the book yet, but will before the movie comes out.

Third, Fox has the Ravens OL ranked 7th (not too shabby-!):

OL Rankings

And finally, so if we had to play tomorrow, our receiver corp would look like: Clayton #1, D-Will, Kelley Washington and Marcus Smith as some #2-#3-#4 (not necessarily in that order), and Yamon Figurs as the #5; and then Justin Harper, Ernie Wheelright (at least he has a cool receiver name -anybody named "Wheelright" has got to be fast...), Eron Riley and Isiah Williams to step up into the starting five should someone falter/go down???  The more and more I think about it, Ozzie needs to drop a dime and CALL MATT JONES!!!  Please, for the love of all that is right and good, just try the guy out.  How much could it possible cost to try the guy out???  A plane ticket in roach class, a night at the Westminster Best Western and a steak dinner at the local Sizzler?  I think if we passed the hat around here on "The Beatdown" we could probably cover the cost for the Ravens...  I think JetBlue is offering $99 fares round-trip from Florida...  I am not saying give him a contract.  Just take a peak, a little peak.  If he shows up dressed like Jimmy Buffet, then turn him right around; if he shows up looking like Hercules, have Beck through him, heck, have Paul Kruger (a former QB at one point in his life) through him a few balls and see if anything sticks...  What could it possibly hurt???

In case of truth stranger than fiction, check this out: Browns Infected.  The only way this could be better was if this was the Squealers and not the Stains...

But seriously, how can a multi-million dollar organization be this careless with its most important, and expensive assets?  One would think that player health and safety were job #1...  I guess that is why they are the Cleveland Browns...

So far, have not been impressed with the new regime in Cleveland every since they came back into the league: two out of ten winning seasons and one playoff appearance?  And I do not think anybody is predicting them to do much this season either.

Oh, and to keep all you haters at bay, this is not glee over the poor health of a player, but the mis-management of the Browns.

Here is a definitive critique of Ozzie’s draft’s starting with the ’96 draft.

 

1996:

Jonathon Ogden-        Hall of Famer

Ray Lewis-                  Hall of Famer

DeRon Jenkins-           So-so

Jermaine Lewis-          Critical SuperBowl component

Dexter Daniels-           Who?

James Roe-                  A step below DeRon

Jon Stark-                    A Dexter Daniels wannabe…

 

In summary: 2 HoF’ers, 1 critical SuperBowl component, 1 FTE combination of competent players.  4 out of 7 hits.

 

 

1997:

Peter Boulware-          Perennial All-Pro

Jamie Sharper- Just like Jermaine Lewis, just not as flashy…

Kim Herring-               Competent starter

Jay Graham-                Meh…

Tyrus McCloud-          Who?

Jeff Mitchell-              Competent starter

Steve Lee-                   Who?

Cornell Brown-           Competent player

Chris Ward-                Who?

Wally Richardson-      Yes, I do remember, but barely registers…

Ralph Staten-              Ack!

Leland Taylor-            Who?

 

In summary: 1 Perennial All-Pro, 1 critical SuperBowl component, 3 competent starters/players.  5 out of 12 hits.

 

 

1998:

Duane Starks-             Critical SuperBowl component

Patrick Johnson-          Such a tease

Ryan Sutter-                Who?

Martin Chase-             Meh…

Ron Rogers-                Who?

Sammy Williams-        See Martin Chase

Cam Quayle-               David Modell’s finest pick…  The story: the Ravens had the absolute last pick in the ’98 draft AKA “Mr. Irrelevant”.  As a goof, they decided to let David Modell make the pick.  Now, how many times have NFL teams caught lightening in a bottle with sixth round, seventh round and UDFA’s?  Enough that you do not waste a pick like this…

 

In summary: 1 critical SuperBowl component, 1 competent starter, combination 1 FTE competent players.  3 out of 7 hits.

 

1999:

Chris McAlister-         Perennial All-Pro who at one point was arguably the best shutdown corner in the NFL; otherwise the consummate #2 shutdown corner behind some guy in Denver named “Champ” or something...

Brandon Stokely-        See Patrick Johnson

Edwin Mulitalo-          Competent starter

Anthony Pointdexter- Competent player

 

In summary: 1 perennial All-Pro, 3 competent starters/players.  4 out of 4 hits.

 

2000:

Jamal Lewis-               Almost Hall of Fame.  Almost.

Travis Taylor-              Starting to see a pattern here with Patrick Johnson, Brandon Stokely and Travis Taylor…

Chris Redman-            Competent player.  Tragic case of really bad luck overall.

Richard Mercier:         Who?  And thus ends Ozzie’s run of seven straight good to outright spectacular draft picks going back to last year’s draft.

Adalius Thomas-         Perennial Pro-Bowler

Cedric Woodard-        Who?

 

In summary: 2 perennial Pro-Bowlers, 2 competent starts/players.  4 out of 6 hits.

 

2001:

Todd Heap-                 For awhile, one of the best

Gary Baxter-               Competent player

Casey Rabach-            Competent player

Edgerton Hartwell-     Competent player

Chris Barnes-              Who?

Joe Maese-                  Competent starter

Dwayen Missouri-       Who?

 

In summary, 1 Pro-bowler, 4 competent starters/players.  5 out of 7 hits.

 

2002:

Ed Reed-                     Hall of Famer

Anthony Weaver-       So-so

Dave Zastudil-                        Competent starter

Ron Johnson-              Who?

Terry Jones-                 Meh…

Jarvin Hunter-             See Ron Johnson

Chester Taylor-           Competent player

Chad Williams-           Meh…

Wes Pate-                    Okay, really, who?

 

In summary: 1 HoF’er, (being generous) 3 FTE competent starters/players.  Call it 4 out of 9 hits –being quite generous…

 

2003:

Terrell Suggs-              Perennial All-Pro

Kyle Boller-                ‘nuff said

Musa Smith-                Competent player

Jarret Johnson-            Jury still out (injuries), for now let us say competent starter –could go either way

Ovie Mugheli-             Meh…

Aubrayo Franklin-       See Ovie…

Tony Pashos-               See Aubrayo…

Gerome Sapp-             See Tony…

Trent Smith-                Who?

Mike Murphy-             Really, who?

Antoine Sanders-        No, really, who?

 

In summary: 1 perennial All-Pro, 2 competent starters/players and 1 maddening, all of the talent in the world, yet not the head to match…  4 out of 11 hits.

 

2004 (might want to skip to ’05 as ’04 was pretty ugly…):

Dwan Edwards-          Meh…

Devard Darling-          Meh…

Roderick Green-         Who?

Josh Harris-                 Who?

Clarence Moore-         Meh…

Derek Abney-             Who?

Brian Rimpf-               Meh…

 

In summary: I am probably going to lose all credibility by giving Ozzie credit for one Full Time Equivalent okay player…  (maybe) 1 hit out of 7.  Obviously Ozzie’s worse and the only one without a first rounder, which probably had something to do with this class going down in flames…  And a run of FOURTEEN straight duds going back to last year’s draft.  One would think somewhere along the line ONE of the fourteen would have hit…

 

2005:

Mark Clayton-             And Ozzie ends his horrible run with a player that is starting to give Ravens fans visions of Patrick Johnson, Brandon Stokely, Travis Taylor et al.  But the jury is still out on Mark, and I will be very generous and say competent player

Dan Cody-                  Meh (and that is being nice)…

Adam Terry-               Competent player

Jason Brown-              Competent starter (even for the ridiculous money, still hated to see him go)…

Justin Green-               See Dan Cody

Derek Anderson-        Competent player (ironically is/was of more value to a team other than the Ravens)

Mike Smith-                See Justin Green

 

In summary: 4 competent starters/players.  4 out of 7 hits

 

2006:

Haloti Ngata-              Perennial Pro-Bowler

Chris Chester-             Competent player

Demetrius Williams-   For now, a competent player.  I know I will catch flack for calling him that and he could very easily go either way (even more so that Jarret Johnson) as the jury is still out on him.

PJ Daniels-                  Meh…

Quinn Sypniewski-     Competent player.  Again, because of injuries I do not know if the jury is ready ot return a verdict yet on him.  So we will keep him here for now.

 

In summary: 1 Perennial Pro-Bowler, 3 competent players/starters.  4 out of 5 hits.

 

2007: (the last year I am grading as we are getting to the point where it is too early in many of these guys’ careers to render a decision)

Ben Grubbs-                Competent starter

Yamon Figurs-            Competent player (see Demetrius Williams)

Marshall Yanda-         Competent player

Antwan Barnes-          Jury still out

Le’Ron McClain-        Pro-Bowler

Troy Smith-                 Competent player

Prescott Burgess-        Jury still out

Jarred Gaither-            Competent starter.  Am including him here , even though he was the 2007 supplemental draft.  Ravens gave up a 2008 5th rounder- kind of like trading a future draft pick to move up in the current draft, ergo the inclusion here.

 

In summary: 1 Pro-Bowler, 5 competent starters/players, plus I am willing to bet 1 additional competent player out of the combination of Barnes and Burgess.  Call it 7 out of 8 hits.

 

 

So, you may ask yourself, which was his best effort?  Was it ’96 with two future residents of Canton?  Interestingly, 2007 could be ultimately the best as it appears Ozzie has hit on 7 of 8: three potential career OL fixtures in Grubbs, Yanda and Gaither, Barnes could be the Next Great Ravens Linebacker, Le’Ron has already greatly exceeded expectations, who knows how high Troy Smith’s career goes, if not here then elsewhere.  But I would argue that the best drafting job Ozzie did was in ’99 when he hit on 4 out of 4.  He maximized out of so little to work with: only four picks but he did the best he could, with each pick.  And it is a shame about McAlister because if he had handled himself differently, we might be talking about him like we do Ed Reed –he was that talented.  Mulitalo was a pretty solid if not spectacular guard for several years; Stokely and Pointdexter certainly had their moments when they contributed greatly, especially during the magical season of 2000.  Not too shabby for only having four picks…

 

It is obvious ’04 was the worse for Ozzie.  Here is a list of players drafted after the Ravens first pick of 2004.  Since I am a believer of Chaos Theory, I submit that we can only realistically say one of them could have been a Raven, as by the Ravens not drafting Dwan Edwards, who is to say how Dwan Edwards remaining available would have changed teams’ boards, caused/or not caused other drafting movement, etc:  Antwan Odom DE Bengals, Darnell Dockett DT Cardinals, Nick Hardwick C Chargers (although one could argue we then do not draft Jason Brown in ’05), Max Starks OT Steelers (if we draft him instead of Pittsburgh that would have had an interesting ripple effect for the 2008 season…), Bernard Berrian WR Vikings, Chris Cooley TE Redskins, Sean Locklear OL Seahawks, Matt Schaub QB Texans (which may have affected who drafts Joe Cool :)  ), Shaun Phillips DE Chargers,  Jerricho Cothery WR Jets, to name just a few.  Any one of these would have greatly improved the Ravens 2004 draft.

 

It is hard to say how these stack up to other teams as I do not know other teams as well as the Ravens.  I believe one could say Ozzie did a very good job in ’96, ’99 and ’07; a good job in ’97, ’00, ’01, ’02, ‘06; an okay job in ’03, ‘05; a not so great job in ’98 and ‘04; -but I really do not have a good metric to go by.  If you go by my grades, eight good to great drafts, with four marginal to ugly drafts; and he is “hitting” on slightly better than 50% of his picks- 49 out of 90 by my count –again, not sure how that measures up to other teams.  This, of course, does not take into account UDFA’s such as Bart Scott, Priest Holmes, et al.

 

 

 

 

To change the subject from the much bally-whoed Q trade talk, I thought I would toss this out there.  There is a good chance 2010 will be uncapped.  How does that affect the future signings of Suggs, Ngata, Gaither and Flacco (which are out most pressing signings)?

 

Do we get to see how good of an owner Bisciotti is?  I mean, I know the guy is rich, but is he Bill Gates, Sam Walton, Larry Ellison rich?  Does he pull a Steinbrenner and shell out a $200M+ payroll or does he pull a Bill Bidwell/Mike Brown?

We only have six picks this year.  I really believe Ozzie will trade down.  The draft is too strong and too deep in too many positions.  Why get just one great player when you can get two *almost* really great players?

 

Try this on for size: we trade our first rounder for a high 2nd and 3rd.  We take the best WR or if some crazy BPA falls to us we take hime.  We trade our lower 2nd rounder for a third and a fourth rounder.  That gives us three 3rd rounders.  We draft, in no particular order in the third round: best DE, Best CB and best FB- a Frank Wycheck wannabe.  Cam loves the blocking FB's that can also catch a pass in his system.

 

Our two fourth rounders we draft, in no particular order, the best OT and LB.  Fifth and sixth rounders, anybody's guess: maybe a TE, maybe a kicker, maybe another OL, who knows...

 

In summation, we get the best WR that falls to the early second round, we get a quality DE, FB and young CB to groom, we get a quality OT and LB.  And, no first round money to pay out-!