A Warning to Ravens Fans:
Don’t be too surprised when there isn’t a real big shake up regarding the cornerback personnel in 2015.
Head coach John Harbaugh, along with the Ravens top brass, met in Florida with owner Steve Bisciotti last week to go over the team’s offseason plans, and you can damn sure bet the topic of what to do regarding the cornerback position was discussed in detail.
Something needs to be done, and the sooner the better.
Just how much the team is willing to invest in the defensive unit remains to be seen, however. In his end-of-season press conference, Harbs alluded that he does not expect a complete overhaul of the secondary, now led by newly promoted Chris Hewitt (defensive backs coach) and Matt Weiss (cornerbacks coach).
“I’ve been trying to grapple with that myself,” John said firmly at the podium when asked about his CBs. “How do you define it? Because it’s really not a major overhaul in the sense of everybody is going to be cleaned out and we’re going to bring a bunch of new guys in.”
Given Harbaugh’s remarks and the Ravens’ tight salary cap situation, it seems highly unlikely the Ravens would opt to make a big splash in free agency for one of the league’s top CBs. For many of us Purple faithful, that’s a scary thought.
Injuries happen. While nobody can predict them, what we can do is look at the injury history of the current players.
Starters Jimmy Smith and Lardarius Webb have combined to play a full 16-game season just three times since being drafted (2011 and 2009, respectively).
The team found out the hard way last season, when they lost five cornerbacks to IR, the need for a backup plan. If the injury bug bites again, they need to be better prepared. While it’s impossible to have stater material as a backup given the stringent salary cap limitations of the NFL, let’s be honest – four out of those five that were placed on IR weren’t exactly going to save the day.
All are expected to return healthy in 2015 including Jimmy Smith, but again the trend is still there.
“There are a lot of good players sitting in there because of the fact that we’ll be healthy and the fact that we brought some good players in because of what happened this year,” said Harbaugh. “So, you have Jimmy, you have Lardarius [Webb], you have Asa [Jackson] coming back.
“Rashaan Melvin played really well. We brought in Chris Greenwood, who we like. Antoine Cason did a nice job for us; we’ll have to make a decision on that and see where he’s at in his career. Danny Gorrer is another guy that’ll be coming off of surgery. So, we have some options there.”
Options indeed. But are they the right ones?
Quality kicks quantity’s butt every time. The players who filled in did the best they could no doubt, but there was a reason they were out there for the organization to pluck in the first place.
Another factor is the need to plan for the future. The Ravens must be ahead of the game looking ahead, and it begins in April at the NFL draft.
The last time the Ravens took a cornerback in the first round was in 2011 when they selected Smith with the 27th overall pick. If you ask me, it’s time once again!
While many draft pundits believe the talent pool at cornerback is shallow in 2015 with just a few top-caliber players, with the Ravens holding the 26th pick in 2015, there will likely be at least a top three or four player available at the position when they are on the clock.
Baltimore shouldn’t hesitate to write down a CB on their card come draft day.
We could hear more about the team’s tentative plans and how they feel about their secondary here in a couple weeks; they announced that their annual “State of the Ravens” press conference will be held on February 24 at 2 PM.
Until then, don’t let the lull of the offseason put you to sleep.
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