FOOL Baltimore Ravens Roster
After the preseason:
-C Josue Doyle now looks like a pretty nice second round pickup at offensive guard. Problem is, we spent a 1st round pick on him to be an anchor center. Fail.
-The rest of our draft looks about the same as before. Undrafted rookie RB Dusty Shaughnessy wins the backup RB job and booms +11 in preseason - he'll be a high-elusiveness guy with workable bars elsewhere. I don't need much with a stud RB and no injuries. LT Martin Van Pelt may be a long term starter for us, albeit an unexciting one -- but maybe the sort of guy we keep around for cohesion and affordability. LB Ryan Foley is a nice well-rounded dude, probably a 200-play guy in time. WR Bennie Burns loses some of his luster, and may not make the roster.
-At QB, we had ratings bumps from both guys who are fighting for playing time -- Shaq Upshaw is now a mighty 32/36 overall, and Jean is now 30/32. I know, neither of these guys merits a role leading a legitimate american football team, but here we are. I'm actually tempted to play Jean this year in a contract angle -- Upshaw might re-sign long term next season really cheaply, and I could keep Jean around if I give him playing time now. Not sure what to do yet.
-TE Martin Lester has gotten no nibbles on the trade block, which is not a shock, he's a 13th year rental. A -9 in preseason is expected, but he's still a special teams ace (100 by my scout) and a TE1 for us, if he stays. I don't have much reason to cut him, I think we just squeeze one more solid season from him in our 2TE offense, and use the lesser playing time to try to reneg down someone else next offseason. (TE Qualls, our offseason acquisition there, took an unexpected -10 hit, so he looks like the candidate for the rest, dammit) Carrying 5 TEs seems stupid, but here we are yet again.
-In less exciting news, our WR corps is a real worry now. Our stalwart Floyd Cochrane is in year 11, he's declining, but is still by far our best option there. Only 81 targets last year, though... not sure what happened. My best option to start at SE is probably Bailey (34/34) who is about as thrilling as a stick of chewing gum - solid RR, little else, totally wrong. No good options, other than to tank for a stud receiver this year (no not really). Thus the 2TE setup, mostly.
-We are rated 2nd overall in the
BELCO team power rating system, that tries to look at everything. With our QB situation, I don't think this is a power team by any stretch, but it wouldn't be a shock if we mustered 10 or more wins, especially if we can manage to get something modest like a +8 from our QB (like a line of 25 TD to only 17 Int, rather than the other way around).
My predictions:
-RB Barry Pullen logs another 300 carries and probably nets 2,000 total yards again...he's clearly our centerpiece player at this point
-Our defensive front get its act together and steps up our numbers there - we should be top-5 in PR% and that should help the defense a ton, and help cover up talent pool problems elsewhere on that side of the ball
-QB (insert name here) gives us a competent but not great effort, with a passer rating around 85-90, and a ratio of something like 24/18
-Baltimore manages to go 10-6, posts something like a +40 in total points, and looks like a great candidate to go one-and-out in the postseason