Thankfully they turned us down. We saved a ton of money and added a number of quality players by not doing that deal. Sure Ryan might turn into a great quarterback, but Flacco might too. First round QB's are a crap shoot. I'd rather roll the dice in the mid-to-late first round than at 2 (especially when you have to give up multiple picks to get there). N is for "no"--thank you St. Louis for saying no.

Is that the same King that said the Ravens were going to take Henne instead of Flacco? it is? Ok, just checking.

I never realized Ozzie was so foolish. Trading all those picks for a QB who has little chance to succeed behind an offensive line that doesn't protect the passer is moronic. Any quarterback would struggle behind our swiss cheese line (and don't forget our mediocre receiving corps), whether his name is Ryan, Flacco, Boller, (who somehow managed five games with 100+ QB ratings in his last 16, despite constant pressure), Manning, or Brady (as we saw in the Super Bowl, when Brady was constantly pressured and not given all day to scan the field, he was mediocre at best. He looked a lot like Boller, actually - always on the run because his pocket quickly collapsed, inaccurate on many passes, and unable to put up many points.) Boller is not our offense's problem - inept pass protection was, is, and will continue to be. I pray Flacco doesn't win the starting job, or we'll have another Tim Couch, Joey Harrington, David Carr on our hands - first round QBs who failed because they weren't protected (I don't include Boller, because he's actually improved a bit each season he started - check the QB rating season by season, despite the poor protection.)

We still have a depth problm at tight end, and we still desperately need defensive linemen who pressure quarterbacks. We had no pass defense last season, but blame for our 5-11 record fell on Boller, because blaming the QB is simpler than actually looking at the big picture, which is what the media and most fans are not looking at. The Ravens are at least 8-8 last season if the defense doesn't blow the Cleveland home game, the New England game, and the Miami game (getting torched by Cleo Lemon is inexcusable - no way should they blow a 13 point lead - 16 if Stover's field goal at the half, after Boller got him into range, isn't blocked - against Lemon, but the "defense" did just that.)

King was likley a pawn in an Ozzie ploy to deflect the true level of interest in Flacco.
They could have made a deal if they really wanted Ryan. Wanting him at 8 is a lot different than giving up picks and a lot more cash to take basically the same percentage gamble that the guy will be good.

Ray Lewis a RAVEN Forever.Offer him player couch.His best years maybe in the future.MISTER MOTIVATOR...This way he could be used more sparingly for the more importan plays.

I often wonder about the thinking of Ozzie and the rest of the "brain trust". They probably could have gotten Flacco at 26 and if not, they could have gotten Henne in the second round. Ozzie is still living off his pre-2000 drafts and the Super Bowl. The

Kevin Byrne said the King story was news to him, and it was probably manufactured by St Loius to get Atlanta to give up a 2nd round pick to swap spots.

Al, couldn't have said it better!!!

At one point, we had 12 picks and STILL didn't address our three biggest needs: OL, CB and WR.

Unfortunately, none of us will ever know how good Boller is or isn't until he goes to another team with a decent O-line and wide receivers.

I used to joke with the buddies I watch Ravens' games with that Brady, after dropping back to pass, could get a pizza delivery before he felt any pass rush. Then comes the Super Bowl. Finally, some pressure.

Poor Flacco. He's gonna get killed. And guess who the geniuses on these boards are going to blame? Flacco.

Can we trade Ozzie to Cleveland and get Savage and Derek Anderson back? Didn't think so....

Dear Michael Black:

The difference between intelligence and stupidity is that there are limits to intelligence.

Ray doesn't need a couch; he already has several.

Is peter king always wrong?

Wow Al,
Excellent analysis!!!
I thought I was the only one not drinking the kool-ade.
Maybe the newly drafted OL's, in concert with last year's newbys and new coaches, will fortify KB's "moat" and the Raves will exhibit some offense. Of course, they will rue the day that they did not select Limas Sweed (& not just because the Steelers did).
RichinDallas

for all you naysayers like richard, al, easywriter - do us real fans a favor and move elsewhere. if you found a bag of gold covered in dogpoop you'd complain about the smell. over the last 10 years there is no team in the NFL that has drafted more probowlers than Oz and the Ravens. So they blew it on Boller. Guess what - all qb's are a crapshoot. Ask the clowns who spent the #1 pick on Tim Couch or the Bungles who spent the #3 pick in the draft of Akili Smith. If you all are so freaking smart, why don't we see GM next to any of your names? Every fan has a right to complain, but it is getting tiresome listening to you whining, sniveling, boobirds who can't wait to complain and moan when the team doesn't follow your brilliant thought pattern. Do us all a favor, when the team starts doing well in the next year or so under Coach Harbaugh, don't get on the bandwagon. Stay off and leave room for the real Ravens fans to have fun.

Peter King....self agrandising, pompous know it all. He's all about gossip, and everyone knows the bad thing about gossip is there is always a tad of truth in it. Key word "tad". King made up most of it.

The Ravens did call and inquire about Ryan, but the truth is the Rams tried to use the Ravens call to sucker the Falcons into trading up with them to acquire another draft pick.

The Ravens interest died when the Rams wanted more than a first,second and 4th rd pick.

Where is your source?

Flacco will outperform any QB in the 2008 draft.

Go Ravens

our interior offensive line is young and talented with great young guards like Brown and Grubbs. Hopefully Chester will be a good center and Terry or Yanda or Gaither or one of the picks will pan out and JO will hopefully come back this year. This isn't the line of a few years ago, this line is not swiss cheese (like some of our less bright fans that root for the Ravens but hate all their front office decisions) like to think

I'm glad the Raven's hedged their bets to acquire a wide range of helpful talent as opposed to trading away the farm for Ryan. Flacco comes at a cheaper price all around and looks to have a greater upside.

The next great offseason question relates to JO and whether he'll come back for one last year. If he could come in and hold down the LT spot, it would help solidify this team's ability to install a better offense.

It seemed that when Sedric Ellis was off the board, the ravens lost all desire to draft a d-lineman.

I'm betting Flacco will be better than other 6' 7" qbs Dan Mcqwire, Mike Tice, and Bill Munson....but not as good as other division 1A QBs Rich Gannon and Phil Simms.

P.S. Why no Terps signed to free agent deals? I can see Erin Henderson going to the Vikings to play with his brother, but what about Keon Lattimore? Can we get a little love in this room? How far a drive is it to college park from owings mills? Not as far as Delaware and New Jersey...

To all of you who say that Boller isn't bad or that we don't know for sure that he is bad, drafting him was a very questionable decision. It was NOT i repeat, NOT the lines fault that he did not do well for the Ravens. He's been here since 2003, stop equating our current line situation (crappy) to what it was then (Stellar). Granted in 2003 he did have a season ending injury, and I also DID believe in him that year, because he was starting to come around by the time he got injured... but still, look who was on the O-line from 2004 to 2006:

LT - John Ogden (BEFORE Toe problem)
LG - Edwin Mulitalo (Great LG- cut for cap purposes.
C - Rabach/Flynn - both very good
RG - Anderson/Rabach -both ok to sub par
RT - Brown/ and others

For the most part, their Left Side and Center was solid, but there right side was on the weak side. Still.. look at the stats for:

Offense - Sacks Allowed:
2003- 21st
2004 - 13th - with 9 sacks difference btw 7th and 20th ranked team.
2005 - 21st - year of injuries to O line
2006 - 11th - mind you with Steve McNair.

N Regardless of Pro statistics, don't you remember the past? How Boller couldn't scramble, how he seemed to lack awareness of where defenders were (even in the 2004 season in games with guys healthy), his lack of ball control (He fumbles a lot!), and how he often didn't make the right read, (he'd throw it short when their is a man open down 10-20 yards). Also, he stared at his intended target receiver. It was disgusting he would give away reads to defenders with his need to eye receivers.

And also, for all of you who even defended the PICK of Boller.. look at his college numbers, he might have had a good rating, but look at his completion percentage: only his senior year was it above 50% (at 53.5). To make it quite simple, I was baffled when he was drafted as high as he was looking back at his college numbers. If you can still defend Boller after this, well, I am not saying he WON'T be good, but based on his college numbers, his amount of time given at the pro level, and his inability to change certain key flaws in his QB delivery/presence/awareness, it was a great decision to draft another QB, and it is a right decision to NOT play Boller.

An absolute disaster of a draft for Ozzie Newsome. I think all of the praise he has received over the years has gone to his head and now he thinks is the top GM in the league. People like me who have questioned his decision making over the years finally have two legs to stand on. He has lost control of his drafting philosophy and it will not be long before he lets his ego wreck the front office.

This draft could have gone a number of different ways, but trading up to get Flacco was inexcusable. No team between 18-25 needed a QB. The kid would still have been there at 26. But Ozzie got impatient and gave away valuable picks, for a 1AA QB? This move will come back to haunt him because now that Flacco is a first round pick, he all but has to play this year. If he slid into a later round, Hardball might be able to keep him off the field for at least a year or two.

And the Ray Rice pick in round 2? Again this position of need could have waited until the 3rd or 4th round. We needed a lineman or two and maybe a decent receiver. Instead we drafted Musa Smith’s replacement early on ( speaking of Musa, what will the Sun reporters do all week now that the annual Musa injury watch is migrating to another city?).

Ozzie’s recent drafts have been unimpressive and this one will probably join the disaster of ’05 or at least last year’s mediocre draft harvest.

U is for updating the resume, something Ozzie should be doing.

Sorry, but Sal Paulantonio (who was with the Ravens during draft) said that Peter's report was absolutely false. He said the Ravens never offered that much and that may have been what St. Louis was demanding, but the Ravens never offered that much.

Post draft I was feeling pretty good about the state of competence in the Raven's front office until I read the Peter King article. Somebody tell me it's totally false! I did not think the tradeback for Flacco was necessary but hey, sometimes you do overpay a little for your inpatience. What had changed I thought was the addition of some blue collar players like the ND safety that are more interested in old fashion football than showing off their own talent. I thought, ah, there's the new coach's hand. Now I read that we almost blew everything pre draft and I thought all along it was Billick pressuring Ossie. Hum?

I sure hope the ravens get to schedule Towson, William & Mary, & James Madison in the future so that their new QB is on a level playing field. Those long bombs (prayers) down the sideline into a crowd aren't going to work in the NFL.....

Hopefully Boller will pull a "Derek Anderson/Drew Brees" and put up great stats while winning games, thus keeping FLAILco on the bench of the forseeble future.

Al...you are so right my friend. Al for president!!!

Look now you know who was really running the ravens and who the brain trust of the organization was. The ANSWER PHIL SAVAGE who has made the browns a very good team in a very short period of time.