Not to discredit our drafting team

[GreenCornBengal]

(05-05-2016, 12:07 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: Actually I wouldn't go that far. I do think the Ravens are trending down thanks to some bad recent drafts and losing some old cogs like Rice, Boldin, Lewis, Reed, Pitta, Ngata, etc etc. While I think it's ridiculous to say that the Ravens have been garbage outside of the 2 championships, I'm not impressed with their current roster.

That's not to say that Ozzie is a bad GM (everyone has some poor drafts) and I wouldn't totally count out the Ravens this year either, as I think they have a decent QB and a really good HC. That roster needs some rebuilding though. I just think it's silly for a Bengals fan to thumb their nose at a GM with 2 titles and a decade of dominance on his resume.

Even though I think the Ravens look like a 7-9 team on paper, I don't think they'll be down for long. 

He technically wasn't GM until the 2002 season, so you could say the first title wasn't really his  (he was a front office executive just not the GM). I suppose you could say he and Marvin Lewis share that title.

I believe Ozzie is very good at bringing in quality free agents (mason, boldin, steve smith) and retaining their star players, but just looking at their roster right now, I'm not sure how a top notch GM could allow a team to fall into this hole. Their roster is depleted at almost every position (no one on that team scares me anymore), and you have to believe its because they decided to pay Flacco the big bucks.. fwiw the Ravens had some really great 1st round picks from 2002 - 2009 (Reed, Suggs, Flacco, Oher, Ngata etc) but the last 3 drafts (Matt Elam, C.J. Mosely and Breshard Perriman) haven't really lived up to expectations yet. They always say this is a "what have you done for me lately" league, and they havent been as good at drafting the last few years.

Anyways, saying they had "mostly crap seasons" was a bit of a stretch, but hey, they are a rival, so I probably brain washed myself into thinking that just because. The only times I watch them is when we play them, and we have their number, so that probably also aids my perception of them.