Cavaliers, Indians, Buckeyes all up for ESPY awards
July 15, 2015Johnny’s Hancock: Hundreds pay to get Manziel’s autograph in College Station
July 15, 2015Note: A big part of the Cleveland Browns’ chances in any season is the outlook on teams they play two times each in their own division. This week, we will be going over the Top 5 stories from each of the Browns’ divisional rivals as we head closer to training camp and the 2015 NFL season.
The Baltimore Ravens finished third in the AFC North in 2014 with 10 wins. I’m sure that was disappointing for the Ravens at first, but it was good enough for a Wild Card spot. It was also good enough for the Ravens to get themselves into a first-round matchup with their rival Pittsburgh Steelers.1 The Ravens beat up the Steelers 30-17 on the road in Heinz field before dropping a 35-31 road game to the eventual Super Bowl Champion New England Patriots. If you’re not going to win it all — and thankfully they didn’t — that’s really not an awful way to end a season if you’re a Ravens fan.2 That was last year though. We’ve had a (really) long offseason since the Ravens’ playoff exit in January.
Here are the Top 5 offseason stories for Browns fans to consider heading into the 2015 NFL season.
1. Haloti Ngata was traded to Lions in a salary dump
Haloti Ngata is not a young player anymore, but it’s strange to consider that he won’t be lining up in the middle of the Ravens defense this year. The 6-foot-4, 335-pound behemoth has been a nearly literal fixture for the Ravens since 2006. In the end, the Ravens had to make a very difficult choice with other players taking up precious cap space, starting with Joe Flacco’s $14.55 million cap hit. What are you going to do? John Harbaugh says he’s still confident.
Resident Ravens homer Jamison Hensley of ESPN had the story on Harbaugh and his feelings about potential replacements Timmy Jernigan and Brandon Williams.
“There’s no reason we can’t be a great defense and a great defensive front next year,” Harbaugh said at the NFL owners meetings.
Harbaugh isn’t simply being optimistic. He has watched the Ravens succeed without Ngata in the lineup.
Last season, the Ravens were statistically a better run defense with Ngata on the sideline. Their defense limited teams to 3.8 yards per carry with Ngata on the field and kept them to 3.4 yards per carry with him off the field, according to ESPN Stats & Information.
One thing that is true is that the Ravens had a chance to see what life was like without Ngata. It’s probably not all that coincidental that they asked him to take a pay cut after he put his team out with a performance-enhancing drug suspension and as he ages out of his prime. He wouldn’t agree, so Ozzie Newsome shipped him out. Even as it makes sense and even as it might be the right move long-term, that doesn’t mean that it won’t hurt the Ravens — maybe drastically — in the short-term. It’s one thing to fill in for a wildly talented and consistent player. It’s quite another to take over and do his job from the front to the back of a complete NFL season.
2. Ravens lose Gary Kubiak
I have no idea whether Gary Kubiak is going to be a good head coach in Denver, but I think he did a pretty good job coaching up the Baltimore offense. He was only with the team for one season, but considering all that the Ravens offense had to deal with — or who they didn’t have at their disposal — they did a pretty nice job.
The Ravens scored the eighth-most points in the NFL in 2014. Joe Flacco had his highest completion percentage of the past four years, with his passes caught 62.1 percent of the time. The Ravens were able to find ways to use Steve Smith, Torrey Smith, and Owen Daniels as their top three receivers after losing tight end Dennis Pitta to injury. None of this is to mention the Ray Rice absence as a football player that Kubiak likely was counting on for at least something in 2014 before he imploded his career in Atlantic City. Simply stated, Kubiak and his staff did a nice job. Speaking of which, when Kubiak took off to Denver to reunite with John Elway and the Broncos, he took a few assistants with him.
Replacing Kubiak is former Bears head coach Marc Trestman. Trestman’s teams in Chicago were not very good, but that’s not to say his offensive pedigree isn’t legit. Trestman has history with Ozzie Newsome back when the Wizard was playing.
3. Beefing up the passing game
When you make a choice like trading Haloti Ngata, you have to lean on your highest paid remaining players. That means making life easier for Joe Flacco. The Ravens seemed intent on doing just that in the NFL draft this year. They lost Torrey Smith (who departed to San Francisco), but they used the draft to find guys who can presumably take his place in catching the ball.
The Ravens grabbed Breshad Perriman with the 26th pick in the first round. He’s a big boy at 6-2 and 214 pounds. He was really fast in his pro day, but might have slipped under the radar a bit because he was injured and didn’t perform at the combine. That might have benefited the Ravens, who presumably had him atop their draft board when it was their turn to pick a guy. The NFL Comparison that NFL.com made on their draft profile of Perriman was… wait for it… Josh Gordon. I presume they only meant physically and as a player.
The Ravens didn’t stop there, as they selected Minnesota tight end Maxx Williams in the second round. Many Browns fans were bemoaning that pick after the draft as one that might bite the Browns in the butt, regardless of how much anyone might like pass rusher Nate Orchard, whom the Browns selected five spots earlier. It’s hard to justify that level of Browns fan paranoia except that there are just too many bad memories of Baltimore Ravens tight ends torturing Browns linebackers over the years, from Todd Heap to Dennis Pitta. The Ravens hope Maxx Williams will do just that for them.
4. Questions abound in Ravens secondary
If you surf Ravens websites and articles,3 the number one question that always seems to float to the top (Or over it. Get it?) is the Ravens secondary. The Ravens re-signed Lardarius Webb, but he dealt with back injuries in 2014. Jimmy Smith is back and he’s a source of confidence among the Seven Nation Army.4 After that though, it starts to look scary.
Asa Jackson gives Ravens fans chills in a bad way. The Ravens showed interest in Tramon Williams before he ended up in a redesigned Cleveland Browns uniform. The Ravens also wanted Perrish Cox, but wouldn’t pony up the way the Titans did. Rashaan Melvin played pretty well for the Ravens against the Browns and has an outside shot to be a help, but the questions are plentiful and loud.
The Ravens might spend all season looking for answers.
5. Do the Ravens plan on punting a lot?
The Ravens re-signed their punter Sam Koch for five years during the offseason. The deal was reportedly worth a total of $18.75 million. The Browns traded for Pro Bowl punter Andy Lee this offseason, thus setting up a really boring, but strategically intriguing AFC North punt-fest this year. Actually considering what the Browns have on offense, this is an ever-concerning possibility.
In all actuality, I ran out of things to say about the Ravens and it seemed like a decent way to mix in a Browns offense joke. “Needz mor puntz.”
The Conclusion for Browns Fans
The Ravens didn’t have an awful offseason, and they’re no strangers to seeing veteran players go. However, they haven’t let a lot of players of Haloti Ngata’s productivity leave their roster before they were truly washed up. When Ed Reed left for Houston he was already 34 years old. The Ravens seemed to have a decent draft as well, but even a good drafting team like Baltimore usually has to wait a little while for their replacements to become the contributors that Baltimore expects from their starting lineup.
All things considered, it might very well be a step-back kind of year for the Ravens. From a Browns perspective, that’s great news. However, don’t get too excited because the Ravens managed to beat the Browns twice in 2014. Until that result changes for real in front of our eyes, you can’t begin to think the Browns really do have the upper hand.
