Dean Pees among Bucky Brooks’ top 10 defensive coordinators
Many Ravens fans would probably disagree with this one. I’ve been critical of Dean Pees in the past. I’ve found him predictable. This past year, however, I was very impressed with what he got out of his guys with a piecemeal secondary. Bucky Brooks was also impressed, ranking him as the 7th best defensive coordinator in the league. LINK
Bill Barnwell: Flacco is an average quarterback, not an above average quarterback
Skip to 12:00 for the relevant audio. Bill Barnwell of the Grantland podcast (he’s also a Grantland NFL writer), while going through the best and worst quarterback contracts, ranks Flacco’s among the worst. To his credit, he mentions Jay Cutler before him, but he doesn’t give Flacco enough credit, which is kind of his thing. He says, “Not because Joe Flacco is a terrible quarterback, he’s fine, he’s an average quarterback being paid like an above average quarterback.” He also ranks Dennis Pitta among the worst tight end contracts, but that’s pretty fair (~27:00). LINK
Jimmy Smith most important non-QB coming back from injury
Louis Riddick tweeted out that Jimmy Smith will be the most important non-QB in the league coming back from injury next year.
Not a non-QB on a Super Bowl contender coming off injury and more important to his team’s future success than #Ravens CB Jimmy Smith.
— Louis Riddick (@LRiddickESPN) June 23, 2015
I’m someone who likes when our players get props, so I’ve enjoyed all of the talk about the Ravens thus far this offseason. This just adds to that.
Ravens Projected Top 5 in Running Back Targets under Trestman
Yitzi Weiss of Baltimore Beatdown looks at how running backs may be seeing more targets in 2015 under Marc Trestman. Mike Clay projected that the Ravens will have the 5th most with help from Rotoworld’s Evan Silva’s running back target numbers from 2014. While I think that the Ravens will target running backs out of the backfield more, but I doubt that they make that big of a jump (from 15th most to 5th most). I guess we’ll see. LINK
Starting Over? Ngata Prob
Jenny Vrentas of MMQB interviews the guy with the easiest name with which to make a play on words about how he is adjusting to life with the Detroit Lions. In the interview, he is very complimentary of the Ravens’ organization. It’s good to see that there aren’t any hard feelings. LINK
