Jared Gaither for our second pick?

[Thurman#1]

Good solid post and it's hard to really argue with any of it. But for the sake of argument, here's reasons why the Ravens would trade JG:

 

1) The Ravens are very good at managing their cap. They just paid Boldin $7 million. Flacco, Ngata, and Rice will have their contracts up in the next few years. Looking ahead to the future, is it in the Ravens best interest to pay 2 tackles top money? I don't know if it is.

 

 

That's very kind of you, and so I'll answer in the spirit of your post.

 

I also think your post was good, but I do disagree with your points and would like to tell you why.

 

I agree that the Ravens are good at managing their cap. But in this case, they don't need to do anything. Oher's contract is 5 years and less than $14 mill. That is cheap by any measure. Remember that we picked up Langston Hughes who was a pretty good RT but no Michael Oher, and paid him $5 mil a season. They tendered Gaither at about $3 mill. They don't need to do anything, as they have Gaither just where they want him, and these two are extremely cheap this year.

 

 

2) Oher is a rookie. Part of the reason teams passed on him was because he projected as more of a RT. However, the Ravens love him and view him as the LT of the future. It is much easier to find a RT than LT. Again thinking about the cap, it would make sense to get great value for Gaither, move Oher to LT, and draft a RT in this tackle heavy draft.

 

 

I haven't seen anyone connected with the Ravens saying that Oher is a future LT. Only fans. And yeah, it's easier to find an RT, but extremely difficult to find a guy who is good at being an RT as Oher. And draft picks take a while to develop and some don't turn out. When you have arguably the best RT in the league, why take a chance?

 

 

3) The value of getting a high 2nd for a former 5th round supplement draft guy is really great value. NFL teams, especially great drafting ones like the Ravens, really value draft picks. Get the most of the player before they become super expensive, get the best value for them, and reload your team in the draft.

 

 

The instant you make your pick in the draft, where you picked him no longer matters. After that, you value the guy, not the pick. Thinking otherwise would make you think that it would be a good value for the Pats* to trade Brady for a third-rounder because he was only a fifth, or that back when the Bills had Pat Williams, they should have traded him for a seventh-rounder because he was only a UDFA.

 

You can't think of Gaither as a fifth-rounder. You have to think of him as Jared Gaither who has performed extremely well as an NFL left tackle. You say that they should get the most of the player before they become super expensive? Well, they didn't do that to Ray Lewis. I'd bet they're not going to do it with Ngata or Flacco or... Certain guys you keep. Great left tackles are one of the prime examples. It's not a coincidence that Peters is the only franchise LT that has been traded anywhere close to his prime in ... what ... ten years? You don't do that.

 

4) It was a great post until your last point about Peters. The Bills paid big bucks to Walker and Dockery. They paid big money to Schobel and Evans. They pay people who go about their business right. If Peters didn't act like a child, have one of the worst seasons of any OL, and put the health of his teammates at risk, he would have gotten paid.

 

It blows my mind that people think it was a good idea to give Peters $10 million plus after what he pulled in 2008. He's a good, not elite LT, who has questions about his intelligence, conditioning, and ability to stay healthy.

 

Trading Peters is 100% fine. We just need to do a better job of replacing him. JG for a 2nd would be a ncie start and something the Ravens might be more willing to do than you think.

 

 

This is the part of your post which stops being kind. "a child?" That's crap. What he acted like was a guy being extremely underpaid. To recall, Peters' salary his last year with the Bills was the lowest paid to ANY starting LT in the league. He was wildly underpaid and the Bills decided to play hardball. They should have expected hardball back.

 

The Bills paid big bucks to Walker and Dockery? I remember it as being about $5 mill each. Am I wrong? That's chicken feed compared to market value for a franchise LT. Same with Schobel and Evans. Chicken feed. You say Peters would have been paid but as you know, you have nothing whatsoever to base that on. It's just a guess.

 

Peters is an elite LT, as can be shown by, among other things, the fact that the Panthers finally gave up on Peppers trying to get past Peters this year and simply switched him to the other side, not to mention the fact that right up until his ankle injury, Peters was ranked as the #2 LT in the league overall at profootballfocus.com. He was absolutely gimped up by that ankle injury, yet played through it for the team even though it really hurt his stats. Peters has been accused of not caring about the team, but he showed right there that when a team values him, he'll come through for them, even if it hurts his stats and therefore his image.

 

Particularly without an even slightly competent replacement, trading Peters ranks as a truly stupid move, and is the reason we're likely to use our first-rounder replacing him, thus preventing us from having a chance at McClain, Clausen, Dan Williams, Derrick Morgan, Dez Bryant, Spiller, Sergio Kindle or someone else who would fill one of our several gaping holes. Horrendous.

[papazoid]

Whatcha think?

 

 

 

i say NO !!!........here's why

 

 

#1 - Ozzie Newsome......one of the very best talent evaluators...if he don't want him, theres a reason.

 

#2- work ethic......read the ravens message boards

 

#3- has health issues

 

#4- was academically ineligible in college

 

#5 - will want to get paid big bucks as a starting LT $5-8 mil/yr......a 2nd round pick is the best value/talent for the money with under $1 mil/yr ave salary.

[Bagel]

A reivew of Gaither by the Football Scientist on ESPN:

 

Gaither has been a starter for the past two seasons and in that time his metrics have been nothing short of superb. He has allowed only seven total sacks in 27 games and only one of these was a one-on-one sack (defined as when a defender beats a blocker in a one-on-one environment and tackles the quarterback in the pocket within three seconds of the snap).

 

That illustrates Gaither's dominant pass blocking skills, but his run blocking numbers are also quite notable. Gaither was at the Point of Attack (POA) on 300 running plays the past two years and he won his block 255 times, or 85 percent of the time.

 

That is a solid number on its own, but his 2009 POA win rate of 89.0 percent is even more noteworthy. To put that total into perspective, consider that in a typical NFL season, a little less than one out of ten offensive linemen will crack the 90 percent POA win mark. Gaither was on the precipice of that mark last year despite battling injuries.

 

Put these two factors together and it equals a truly elite blindside blocker. Add to this the question marks surrounding many of the left tackles in this year's draft and it means Gaither is hands down the best choice in the market at his position, especially since it will reportedly only cost a second-round pick to acquire him.

 

http://insider.espn.go.com/nfl/insider/new...d_front_xxx_xxx

[basskik11]

How about we swap firsts and give them a 3rd or 2nd if necessary.

 

 

TOTALLY AGREE.