I woke up this morning feeling as though last night was simply a bad dream. There's no way that the Ravens defense would hold Brady without a passing touchdown, that Joe Flacco would have a passer rating of 95.4 with two beautiful touchdowns, and the Ravens would still somehow LOSE THE GAME! The Ravens' young cornerbacks intercepted Tom Brady twice in spectacular fashion to keep the game painfully close. In fact, as I sat and watched Billy Cundiff and Lee Evans ruin my season, I realized the total irony of the name of this blog: that game was truly a Purple Nightmare.
As hard as it may be for Ravens' fans to see at this moment, there remains a fair number of things to be optimistic about going into the offseason. First, the Ravens finally have an elite secondary again. They have ball hawks all over the place and 3 highly talented, speedy corners that will only get better by next season. Ed Reed is still playing at an alarmingly high level, and I believe the offseason will be quite good for him to rehab further and come into the 2012 season in great shape. Bernard Pollard showed that he can be the hard hitting strong safety that the Ravens need, and if anything happens to Ed or Bernard, the Ravens have two talented young back-ups in Tom Zbikowski and Haruki Nakamura. The Ravens, therefore, finally have great depth, speed, talent, and experience at every position in the defensive backfield.
The Ravens' linebacker corps gives me less reason for optimism than the secondary, but there is still plenty to which I will look forward. I'm always happy to have Ray back, I don't think there's a single true Ravens fan that would have enjoyed hearing that Ray Lewis would retire after losing THAT game. Ray had 12 tackles, including a couple of punishing classic Ray Lewis hits, and he expertly defended a pass in the endzone to Wes Welker that otherwise would have resulted in a touchdown. It is clear, however, that Ray needs some support, and Jameel McClain showed last night that he is simply not consistent enough to provide it. Dannell Ellerbe couldn't tackle to save his life, and his abysmal performance helped to keep Patriot drives alive.
What then do we have to be optimistic about in this department? That's simple: the draft. Early mock drafts show two top college inside linebackers possibly being available to the Ravens close to the end of the 1st round. Dont'a Hightower of Alabama, and more interestingly, Vontaze Burfict of Arizona State would both be great draft picks to bolster the Ravens linebacker corps and provide depth at a position where there appears a bit of uncertainty as Ray Lewis comes 1 year closer to retirement. I believe Hightower will be drafted first out of those two players, but I believe Vontaze Burfict would be a much better fit and a total steal if the Ravens can get him with the 29th pick or whichever draft spot to which they made trade up. Here's an incredibly impressive highlight video for Burfict (#7): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7achvXsy3Q . Hightower is no slouch and he possesses great anticipatory skills that would be required to join Ray and the boys, but I don't see the same speed and intensity in his tape: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7achvXsy3Q . Both of these guys, however, come from colleges that Ozzie Newsome seems to favor in the draft. He selected Todd Heap and Terrell Suggs from Arizona state, and he selected Terrance Cody and Jarret Johnson from Alabama.
Terrance Cody and the rest of the defensive line dropped off in production late in the season, but that drop-off was due to a nagging leg injury that Haloti Ngata played through for most of the season. An off-season of training and rehab will be the only thing required to bring this otherwise strong group back to the form seen on Thanksgiving night as the Ravens sacked Alex Smith a record-tying 9 times. Pernell McPhee proved an incredible draft steal as he led NFL rookies with 6 sacks, and I seriously doubt the Ravens will look at this area of the team as a weak point when deciding who to draft.
It's often tough to predict who the Ravens will draft at which round because Ozzie Newsome's general philosophy is to draft the best player available rather than going after perceived positional needs, but if Hightower or Burfict fall close to the end of the first round, I believe either of those players WOULD be the best player available. What then, would the Ravens do with the rest of the draft? We can only speculate that the Ravens will go after a center or left tackle as Matt Birk appears to have overstayed his welcome on the Ravens, and Bryant McKinney, due to his age, is not a long term solution at the blind side. I can see the Ravens waiting to see who they are able to pick up in the draft before deciding whether or not to cut Birk and replace him with his back-up, Andre Gurode.
The Ravens may also draft a wide receiver or two depending on what is available in the later rounds, but I'm actually quite optimistic of what they have despite Lee Evans' inability to haul in a pass that would have altered the course of Ravens' history. With Pitta and Dickson, the Ravens now have two talented young tight ends with good experience. Pitta, in particular, showed his ability to catch just about everything that Flacco throws his way and caught one of the two Raven touchdowns in double coverage. Torrey Smith, showed that he can be a game changer all season and his ability to catch the ball and run short and intermediate routes became more apparent with each passing game. Boldin looked fantastic again after having his knee repaired and I can forsee fantastic chemistry between Flacco and both Boldin and Smith next year as they'll have an offseason to solidify their connection. Even Evans looked good down the stretch with some great catches in both playoff games. I doubt he'll be cut as the Ravens owe him a lot of money, but now that his ankle is healed, he'll provide a mixture of speed and experience that should make the Ravens passing offense even more impressive in 2012.
Perhaps the most important factor that will lead to an increase in production from the Ravens' pass offense next season will be the almost certain departure of the Ravens' offenseive coordinator, Cam Cameron. I naively held on to a belief that Cameron had simply withheld more creative plays from the regular season to be used in the playoffs. We saw a glimpse in week 1 of how explosive the Ravens' offense could be, and I simply assumed he left a few tricks up his sleeve that he didn't want the Patriots to see on tape. The Ravens DID move the ball in the second half of yesterday's game, but his offense still looked far too vanilla most of the season, and Flacco appears to have gone as far as he can within Cam's system.
Overall, the Ravens remained one of the elite teams in the NFL in 2011. In the past two season they showed that they have a defense that performs well even without Ed Reed and Ray Lewis, but I'm certainly happy that both of those future hall-of-famers will be back again as both demonstrated that they can play at a high level in big games. The Ravens will hopefully further bolster their offensive line which, along with the hiring of a better and more creative offensive coordinator, will help to take advantage of Flacco's cannon arm and a Ravens receiving corps that proudly includes one of the fastest (if not the fastest) deep threats in the league. Ray Rice only seems to get better each year, and at 25 years old, is smack dab in the middle of his prime. Yesterday broke our hearts, but if all goes well, I think we can look forward to a far more explosive, complete Ravens team in 2012 that will strike fear into the hearts of opponents everywhere. As a small consolation, now we get to watch 7 of them play in the Pro Bowl, so as always GO RAVENS!!
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