State of the Franchise: Ravens Edition

Hello and welcome back to State of the Franchise. In this edition we will be taking an in-depth look at the Ravens Franchise. As always, feel free to let me know what you think in the comments section below.

Below is some information that you can reference throughout the analysis portion of this blog.

Last Year Record: 10-7

Draft Picks:

Round 1: Pick 22

Round 3: Pick 86

Round 4: Pick 124

Round 5: Pick 157

Round 6: Pick 199

Key Additions in Free Agency:

Nelson Agholor (WR): 1 year $3.25 million

Key Departures in Free Agency:

Chuck Clark (S): traded to the Jets for a 2024 7th round pick

Calais Campbell (DL): released and signed by the Falcons

Ben Powers (OG): signed by the Broncos

Kyle Fuller (CB): hasn’t been resigned by the team - still in FA

Marcus Peters (CB): hasn’t been resigned by the team - still in FA

Analysis: If you read any of the key additions or key departures in free agency, you might see a little bit of a problem: the Ravens have lost a ton of key impactful players in free agency. If you don’t know football that well, you might think that the signing of Nelson Agholor accounts for the losses since “maybe the Ravens wanted to sign 1 stud player at the expense of releasing the rest of their team”. Let me tell you, no word in that sentence is correct: Agholor is neither a stud player nor a player that makes up for all the losses the Ravens had in free agency. With that being said, let's get into the depth of the analysis. The Ravens, like all teams that I have done State of the Franchise for, are in an interesting position this offseason. By interesting I mean highly controversial and pretty bad. Let’s take a look at how we got here. Ever since Lamar was drafted (already 5 years ago!) the Ravens have been a competent football organization. In 2018 they went 10-6, then 14-2, then 11-5, then 8-9, then 10-7 this past year. In the past 5 years they have only had 1 losing season, which was 1 win away from being above .500. To any biased person who just looks at the record, this looks amazing. However, since you all are not biased, I will provide the other side of the story for you. In the 5 years mentioned above, the Ravens have a grand total of 1 playoff win - ONE! Despite all the winning seasons, with today’s NFL standards, where fans expect you to make deep playoff runs, making the playoffs just isn’t good enough. Logically when the team isn’t meeting expectations, someone is going to get mad inside of the organization. Unfortunately for all Ravens fans, that happened to be Lamar Jackson, and oh, the rest of their organization too. Let me give you a little insight into what I’m saying: after Lamar Jackson requested a trade from the Ravens, he has become the 5th homegrown Ravens player to request a trade from the team in the past 4 years. And just to further what I’m saying, let me give you the names of the players that have requested a trade: QB Lamar Jackson, OT Orlando Brown, WR Hollywood Brown, TE Hayden Hurst, S Chuck Clark. That is a pretty significant list of players that have wanted to get out of Baltimore and reinforces the idea that frustration has been building in Baltimore for years. This frustration has been even more evident as of late: many Ravens players have taken to twitter to express their frustrations with the organization and front office. After the 14-2 Lamar Jackson MVP season, the expectation for the Ravens has been at least the AFC Championship game and unfortunately they haven’t reached that level ONCE. And it’s not like the talent hasn’t been there - so many star players have played for the Ravens in the past couple of years so the expectations are obviously somewhat logical. With that being said, I think this team needs a complete tear down. There are 2 reasons I say this. The first is that with all the frustration that has been brewing inside of the organization the past couple of years I think it makes the most sense to do a full house cleaning. Secondly, the Ravens roster has been getting worse throughout the last 1-2 years. This season was a perfect example of this: the Ravens had absolutely no room in cap since they placed the non-exclusive tag on Lamar Jackson. As a result, they lost significant talent without adding any to counteract those losses. Obviously I mentioned that the Ravens should clean house, but what’s the best way to do that? First and foremost everything has to come down to Lamar Jackson. Ever since he’s wanted a new contract, tensions between him and the Ravens front office have been increasing. It is pretty clear that the Ravens don’t want to spend premier money on a stud QB (which by the way makes no sense) and Lamar has consistently expressed discontent with the Ravens front office for not addressing his concerns with the team. From an outsider perspective it makes sense: the Ravens have not surrounded Lamar Jackson with talent, instead they have just traded talent away. I would trade Lamar Jackson to a QB needy team, like the Colts, in exchange for 2-3 first round picks and a couple of mid-round selections as well. From there, I would draft someone like Anthony Richardson who has a high ceiling and plays very much like Lamar. Not only would the Ravens be able to secure their franchise QB, but they would also be able to secure SIGNIFICANT draft capital for the years to come in order to succeed in the future.

UPDATE: the analysis above was written before the Ravens signed Odell Beckham Jr. so I will add a few points about that signing down below.

The signing of OBJ to the Ravens is pretty significant for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, reports have emerged that Lamar Jackson is “thrilled with the signing”. Why is this significant? Well if you have read the paragraph above I think it is pretty clear that Lamar Jackson doesn’t want to be in Baltimore. The signing helps relieve some of the tensions between him and the organization. Secondly, the move brings in a star wide receiver to the Ravens offense, which hasn’t been there ever since Hollywood Brown left. However, despite the positives, I think there are a couple of drawbacks as well. First off, giving 18 million to any player isn’t feasible when you are trying to pay your QB big money. Additionally, I don’t believe that the Ravens are in good shape for a Super Bowl run, given the current state of talent on their team. They had a ton of losses in free agency (which I mentioned above) and I don’t think they can be super competitive in the playoffs. That being said, I still think that trading Lamar away is a solid idea, however, I am extremely excited to see what the Lamar to O’Dell combination has in store for the 2023 season.