I truly wish I hadn't gone 14-2 in my final regular season predictions on Sunday. I tried to suspend my Purple and Black bias a lot more this season, and as a result, I had to go with my brain and not my heart when predicting that the Ravens would lose 28-17. Well they didn't lose 28-17...they lost 34-17 after being tied at 17 in the 3rd quarter. Keeping the game close through 3 quarters didn't matter in the end, however, as the same problems that plagued the Ravens for almost the entire season were once again evident in Cincinnati. The Ravens never established a legitimate running attack, Joe Flacco sustained a handful of brutal hits as the result of poor pass protection, and the Ravens once again stalled in almost all of their trips to the redzone and were forced to settle for field goals. It didn't matter that the defense picked off Andy Dalton 4 times, and it didn't matter that A.J. Green was once again held well under 100 yards receiving. The Ravens simply didn't possess an offensive recipe for success this season.
In all likelihood, the Ravens would not have gone far in the playoffs even if they somehow found a way to take the lead late in the game and hold on to beat a dangerous Bengals team. The problems the Ravens frequently encountered would still be present the following week, and they may very well have actually been compounded. Consider, for a moment, a scenario where the Ravens defensive backs picked off Andy Dalton one or two more times and taken at least one of those interceptions back for a touchdown late in the game. The Ravens could have gone on to win the contest, but Flacco would have emerged even more battered and injured than he was at kickoff. Then consider that the Bengals would have likely hosted the Ravens the next week, and the Ravens would have had to face the Bengals with a more complete roster. If you recall, the Bengals played the Ravens without their two starting tight ends and one of their starting cornerbacks. Even if the Ravens would have somehow won the game, they would have had to face a Bengals receiving corps stacked with even more weapons.
The Ravens did NOT beat the Bengals, and now Baltimore has some tough personnel decisions in front of them if they wish to return to the post-season in 2014. The first decision is a no-brainer: fire and replace Juan Castillo. I would hope that this move wouldn't require much explanation at this point as the Ravens rushing attack reached historic lows in 2013 and Ray Rice turned from the NFL's best all-purpose weapon of the previous 4 seasons into one of the most disappointing players of the year. One could point to Rice's nagging hip injury as a reason for his struggles, but Bernard Pierce had no such injury and found little success himself. The Ravens could consider giving the job BACK to the man who held it before Castillo as that man was never actually fired. Andy Moeller was demoted from offensive line coach to assistant offensive line coach after the Ravens hired Castillo to be the "run game coordinator" and then ultimately offensive line coach for the 2013 season. Despite Moeller's brush with the law, he was simply better at his job than Castillo, and if the Ravens don't want to give him a second chance, they need to find someone equally or more qualified to restore the Ravens offensive line and running game to their respective old, dominant forms.
The next major decision the Ravens must make is how to allocate their salary cap money. This is far more complicated than simply one decision, but the Ravens front office should begin their evaluation of their roster from top of the earner's list. Despite his highly publicized contract, Joe Flacco actually doesn't have the highest salary cap number on the team for next season; that number actually belongs to Haloti Ngata. If his contract is left as it currently stands, the Haloti Ngata's cap number for 2014 will be 16 million dollars. That is an astronomical number for a player who has struggled to stay healthy for the last 3 seasons and isn't even the best defensive player on the team. I heard a caller on 105.7 The Fan actually pose an interesting idea 4 nights ago. The caller suggested that the Ravens should find a team with a good amount of salary cap space and a high draft pick such as the Raiders. If the Ravens could deal Ngata to a team such as the Raiders for a 1st or high 2nd round draft pick, they would have more than enough room to give Arthur Jones a well-deserved long term contract and still have at least 10 million dollars in extra cap space left over to help accommodate for the moderate rise in the cap number of Joe Flacco as well as players such as Lardarius Webb. The Ravens also need such extra room to offer Dennis Pitta, Eugene Monroe, and Torrey Smith new contracts. The 16 million dollars from a Haloti Ngata trade/salary dump wouldn't take care of the contracts for ALL of these players, but it would certainly take care of a massive chunk of the Ravens' financial issues.
So thus far we've covered coaching changes and player contract issues, but there's another major issue that only became more apparent in the Bengals game on Sunday. The Ravens no longer have a legitimate free safety. Matt Elam and James Ihedigbo performed reasonably well this season, but both players are ideally suited to play strong safety. For over a decade, the Ravens had history's greatest free safety patrolling the secondary, and that meant seldom seeing the birds of Baltimore get torched by deep passes over the middle of the field. A.J. Green did exactly that against Matt Elam on a play that made the rookie look like he decided to take a nap while one of the NFL's best receivers glided effortlessly past him for a wide-open touchdown grab. James Ihedigbo actually impressed me quite a bit this season, but he's also due for another contract, and there's a good chance he finds one elsewhere based on his experience level and strong performance as a starter in 2013. This means the Ravens may have to turn to the draft to find the ACTUAL replacement for Ed Reed. That's a lot easier said than done, because again, Ed Reed was history's greatest free safety. The Ravens, nevertheless, will have to find serious talent at the position or simply get Lardarius Webb to bulk up 15-20 pounds and switch positions.
The Ravens will also have to turn to the draft to find a replacement for Michael Oher. Oher is unquestionably gone next season as he was the NFL's most penalized player as of the Thanksgiving night game this season. The Ravens could either replace Oher with a talented and hopefully more disciplined right tackle in the draft, or they could elect to slide Kelechi Osemele to right tackle and draft another left guard. However they elect to repair and bolster the offensive line, the Ravens will need to utilize the draft to do so since they can't afford to give long term contracts to both Michael Oher AND Eugene Monroe. The Ravens also need to decide what to do at the center position. Gino Gradkowski simply isn't strong or talented enough to be the leader of the offensive line. It's possible that he could work extremely hard and come back bigger, strong, and wiser next season, but I wouldn't count on it. It should come as no surprise to Ravens fans if Ozzie Newsome and Eric Decosta decide to use their first or second round pick on a center.
There are probably dozens of contract decisions we could continue to go over and dozens more that we probably aren't even aware of which the Ravens front office will find themselves faced with over the course of the next few months. Hopefully this season serves as a wake-up call to Harbaugh and Ozzie. They attempted to avoid a Super Bowl hangover by taking a polar opposite strategy of that used after the Ravens won their first Super Bowl. In 2001, the Ravens organization tried whatever they could to restructure salaries to keep their Super Bowl team from the year before together. That strategy failed as the centerpiece of that team's offense, Jamaal Lewis, suffered a season-ending injury before the beginning of the regular season and the Ravens ended up being bounced from the playoffs by the Steelers.
In 2013, the Ravens front office decided to turn over the Ravens roster to an extreme degree as they got rid of players that most fans and analysts believed had earned their spots on the team. Sure, Paul Kruger and Dannell Ellerbe became too expensive for the Ravens to keep, but Anquan Boldin performed too well once he was finally put in the slot last season and the Ravens learned how to correctly use him. The decision to let Ed Reed go proved a good one off the bat as the Texans paid him entirely too much money when he clearly hadn't yet recovered from his off-season hip surgery. After he was cut, however, Ed Reed could have been a valuable asset to the Ravens considering their issues at the free safety position. Case in point: Ed Reed had 3 interceptions in his 6 games with the Jets this season. We can only wonder what he could have done for the Ravens if brought back into the defensive back the rotation down the stretch--but now we'll never know.
This isn't a time to second guess the Ravens decisions, but to simply evaluate them, learn from them, and move on. I'm actually quite excited about a number of things for the Ravens in 2014. Marlon Brown is going to be a touchdown machine, and the Ravens can finally see what Aaron Mellette and Matt Furstenburg can do for receiving depth. The Ravens also will finally have a good draft spot as this will be the first season in over half a decade where they won't pick near the end of the draft order. Jimmy Smith will likely continue to develop into a Pro Bowl cornerback if he stays healthy next season, and Lardarius Webb will hopefully continue his return to his shut-down form from prior to his most recent knee injury. Hopefully the Ravens will be able to re-sign Dennis Pitta, and he'll have a breakout season with a healthy Flacco and a revamped offensive line. Last, but certainly not least, Ray Rice will hopefully take his rehab and training seriously and return to his old form for at least another season or two. Missing the playoffs is painful, but that seems to be the price that every Super Bowl Champion pays nowadays. Maybe we were all spoiled with a spectacular storybook ending to Ray Lewis' career, and maybe their luck from early 2013 simply ran out in the last couple of weeks. They won't repeat as Super Bowl Champions, but that doesn't mean they won't be back soon...
THE RAVENS 2013 SEASON IS OVER, BUT RAVENS NATION STANDS AS PROUD AS EVER OF THEIR CITY AND THEIR TEAM. THE RAVENS WILL BE BACK IN A BIG WAY IN 2014. UNTIL THEN, WE AS FOOTBALL FANS CAN SIT BACK AND ENJOY THE PLAYOFFS.
AS ALWAYS
GO RAVENS...DRAFT SOME LINEMEN!
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