Like many of you, I would have liked to have seen the Baltimore Ravens do more at the NFL trade deadline.
I mean, like many of you, I would like for the Ravens to have all of the good players on their team. I’d settle for most. I’d begrudgingly settle for more. But the point is that it’s hard to ever truly be satisfied by how a roster looks because you could always have more.
The Ravens made two major in-season acquisitions this year. Neither qualifies as a “game-changer.” Safety Alohi Gilman has played well and has more importantly allowed the Ravens to use Kyle Hamilton again as a “Swiss Army knife” defensive weapon in the box. Gilman has made an impact similar to the one Ar’Darius Washington made after being inserted into the starting lineup a season ago.
The trade-off has been that Odafe Oweh has been legitimately impactful for the Chargers after being shipped out of Baltimore. Meanwhile, the Ravens’ edge rush has remained … mostly inconsequential. They had to do something at the deadline and they did. While Dre’Mont Jones has never been a star, he has recorded at least one sack in each of his last four games. If he can continue his strong play now in Baltimore, he could prove to be a game-changer.
It’s easy for Ravens fans to suggest the team should have done more. I would have liked more. But it’s impossible to know whether “more” was even possible. The two most impactful front seven defenders who were traded were both sent from the AFC to the NFC. It may well have been worth giving up a third-round pick to acquire Jaelan Phillips, but to trade him within the AFC, the Dolphins may have asked for an additional tax, like bumping that up to a second-rounder. Or perhaps the Dolphins were simply unwilling to deal Phillips within the conference at all.
And everyone would have been excited to see Quinnen Williams trade Gang Green for the Purple Patrol. But the price the Cowboys paid (Mazi Smith, a first-round pick and a second-round pick) might have been comparable to Travis Jones, a first-rounder, a second-rounder and perhaps an additional pick in order to keep him in the AFC. Or again, the Jets might not have been willing to make an in-conference trade at all. And admittedly, once I knew it was the Cowboys I immediately thought “it must be a bad decision” because the Cowboys are basically just the Jets with an insanely large PR staff.
We all wanted to see the Ravens attempt to upgrade the offensive line, specifically at least one of the guard positions. But in the end, only one offensive lineman was traded and you guys, Trevor Penning has been so disappointing that he’s actually graded out worse than both Andrew Vorhees and Daniel Faalele this season.
Could other trades have been made? Don’t know! In poking around with league sources, I did get the sense that teams were frustrated with the lack of availability of offensive linemen. Even bad teams still want to keep their quarterbacks upright.
I think the Ravens improved at the NFL trade deadline. I think swapping Oweh and some loose draft change for Gilman and Jones is at least a mild upgrade. But that doesn’t mean I think they’re good enough on the whole to win a Super Bowl. I’m quite skeptical of that.
The vibes have shifted in the last couple of weeks, but the Ravens still have to prove they’re exceptional in any way other than “quarterback makes everything look better.” There’s reason to believe that the defense is improving, but there’s a big difference between “improving” and “ready to beat Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes in the playoffs.”
If the roster proves to not be good enough, criticism will be warranted — not necessarily for the trade deadline activity specifically, as again, we have no idea if there were even opportunities to do more at the trade deadline. But criticism will be warranted for the construction of the roster in general. That has been far less perfect than we mistakenly assumed it was back when we thought it was made complete by the acquisition of Jaire Alexander.
But like many of you, I can’t help but wonder if Alexander will end up being a thing in Philadelphia. The Eagles have earned that reputation. The Ravens haven’t truly earned the same.
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