Ravens: From First To Worst

To begin let me congratulate the most recent Super Bowl champions, Baltimore Ravens. Now let me apologize to Ravens fans for the upcoming 2013 season. Not only will the Ravens be the defending world champions with a big target on their back, but they will have to defend against their charging opponents without many key players from their 2012 team. 

Ray Lewis: Retired

Ray Lewis had a good and productive career. As the face of the Ravens organization for several years Lewis provided the Ravens defense with an intensity that other defenses in the league only dream of (yes I’m talking to you New Orleans Saints).

The 2012 season for Ray Lewis was filled with injury and controversy. Ray Lewis only played in six games last season with only one sack, one fumble recovery, 44 tackles, and 13 assisted tackles. What Lewis lacked in statistical relevance he made up for with inspired leadership. Before the Ravens made their surprising playoff run, Ray Lewis announced that this would be his last season in the NFL. This provided motivation for his teammates, who adored Lewis, to help him win one more Super Bowl.

Now the Ravens look for another player to anchor their team that has been known for their defense. Filling the shoes of Ray Lewis won’t be an easy job, however if the Ravens have any kind of shot of repeating, somebody will have to step up.

Paul Kruger: Cleveland Browns, 5 years - $40 Million

On Tuesday March 12th, Paul Kruger signed a 5-year, 40 million dollar deal with the Cleveland Browns. Although many people might argue that Cleveland is kind of dumb for offering Kruger that much money for a season in which he only had 9 sacks and 30 tackles, both of which were career highs for Kruger. Kruger earned his paycheck with 4.5 sacks in the playoffs. He established himself as a dominant pass rusher in the playoffs and on football’s biggest stage he sacked Kaepernick 2.5 times.

Argue about whether or not Kruger’s contract is earned or a result of hype, Kruger will not be playing on the Ravens team next year so the Ravens will have to get nine sacks from someone else.

Dannelle Ellerbe: Miami Dolphins, 5 years - $35 Million

Dannelle Ellerbe had a tremendous 2012 campaign. Ellerbe capitalized on the fact that Ray Lewis was out for the majority of the season. Ellerbe was second in tackles amongst Ravens with 66 solo tackles and he assisted on 23 others. Although the Ravens attempted to pursue Ellerbe there was no way they could not match offers made by other teams.

Anquan Boldin: San Fransisco 49ers, 4 years, $25 Million

Baltimore Ravens what are you going to do now that you’ve won the Super Bowl?  Here’s an idea let’s get rid of the wide receiver that helped us win that Super Bowl to the team that we just beat. Well that’s exactly what the Ravens did. Anquan Boldin will be playing for the Super Bowl favorites San Francisco 49ers.

This might possibly be the biggest loss for the Ravens. Boldin tore it up in the playoffs. With him gone the Ravens look to Torrey Smith to step up and make up for the slack that Boldin left behind.

What do all of these losses mean for the Baltimore Ravens from a fantasy perspective? I’ll be avoiding anyone in a Ravens uniform at this point in free agency.

Flacco finished 14th among quarterbacks last year and 15th in 2011. In 2012 he scored 227 fantasy points  (ESPN standard scoring) and 195 points in 2011.  Josh Freeman, Andrew Luck, and Russell Wilson all scored more points than Joe Flacco last season. So don’t let Flacco’s big paycheck fool you, he is a mediocre quarterback.

That being said Flacco will have to throw a lot more because the Raven’s defense has weakened considerably, so the potential for big numbers are there for Flacco. However losing Boldin will hurt Flacco considerably. Boldin is a possession receiver, which means when Flacco needed a completion he targeted Boldin.

The below table shows passing plays on 3^rd down, as you can see Boldin was targeted 10 more times than any other receiver on third down. Boldin also caught 92.3% of his target for almost two times more yards than any other receiver. To say that Flacco lost a valuable target for him is a huge understatement.

Player	T	C	Pct	Yds	TD
Anquan Boldin	26	24	92.3%	450	1
Jacoby Jones	13	9	69.2%	231	3
Dennis Pitta	14	13	92.9%	204	3
Torrey Smith	14	10	71.4%	170	2
Ray Rice	12	9	75.0%	143	0
Ed Dickson	4	4	100.0%	79	0
Tandon Doss	3	2	66.7%	54	1
Deonte Thompson	1	1	100.0%	25	0
Bernard Pierce	1	1	100.0%	5	0
Anthony Allen	1	1	100.0%	5	0
Totals	89	74	83.1%	1366	10

I look for Flacco to finish worse than 14^th that he finished in 2012. He even has a chance to finish outside of the top 20 fantasy quarterbacks in 2013.

With the defense being bad, the Raven’s will have to play from behind a lot. This means that Ray Rice will see a decline in his carries. Although Rice will still probably be the best fantasy players on the Raven’s team, I would look to draft running backs like Doug Martin or Trent Richardson before I drafted Ray Rice.

Also it goes without saying but you will not be starting the Raven’s defense during the 2013 season. Look for the Raven’s defense to finish in the bottom of the league on the defensive end.

Giants Backfield Situation Post-Bradshaw

On February 6, Ahmad Bradshaw was released from the New York Giants, this move created nearly $3 million dollars in cap room space for them. While the reason may appear to be financially motivated, the Giants lost very little in releasing Bradshaw, a very injury-prone player, from their roster. Over Bradshaw’s 6 year career with the Giants he has only played a full 16 game season one time, amassing 15 games only twice.

Setting injuries aside Bradshaw also wasn’t as productive as the Giants would have liked never rushing for more than 1,300 yards in a season and rushing for 1,000 yards only twice, in 2010 and 2012.

With Bradshaw leaving it leaves the Giants with three running backs currently on roster, David Wilson, Kregg Lumpkin and Ryan Torain. Although these are the only backs currently on roster, rumor has it that the Giants are looking to sign restricted free agent Andre Brown this season.

I would be shocked if Brown is not on the roster next season. Brown led all Giants with 8 rushing touchdowns and Brown would be an excellent insurance policy for the much lighter Wilson.

Although coach Coughlin has yet to tell anyone how the carries will be distributed, the best guess is that Wilson and Brown will share carries. Probably a lot like Bradshaw and Brandon Jacobs shared carries.

Alex Smith's Fantasy Value Remains Unchanged

Bleacherreport.com

With Alex Smith being traded to the Kansas City Chiefs for future draft picks, both the Chiefs and the 49ers came out smelling like a rose. The 49ers gained draft picks to continue to build their team and the Chiefs gained a play caller that knows how to manage a football game. Unfortunately for fantasy players this trade means very, very little.

Alex Smith was drafted with the first pick in the 2005 NFL draft to the San Francisco 49ers and in his first few years with the Niners he made little if any impact on the team. The team had a carousel of coaches and offensive coordinators which didn’t help the young quarterback with his transition from college to the NFL.

Over the last two years however Smith had begun to show signs of promise leading the 49ers to the NFC championship game only to fall to the future Super Bowl champions New York Giants. Through the first 10 weeks of the 2012 season Smith showed signs of brilliance only to fall back into mediocrity. As the starting quarterback he led the Niners to a 6-2-1 mark getting injured in his final game as a starter a 24-24 tie to the St. Louis Rams.

Although Smith was benched for rising star Colin Kaepernick his stats for the first half of the season were 13 touchdowns, 5 interceptions and a 104.1 quarterback rating. Smith also completed over 70 percent of his passes being very effective and efficient with the football.

Those stats might make you wonder why Smith was benched, however, that is not the purpose of this article.

In 2013 will we see the Alex Smith that is willing to take shots down the field with an explosive receiver in Dwayne Bowe (Although there have been trade rumors Bowe is still a part of the team) or will we see the check-down Smith? I say that we will see the exact same Smith that we saw when he was with the Niners, a game manager with very little turnovers.

This means that Alex Smith is going to remain at or near 15 in my quarterback ratings for the 2013 season.