2017 IDP Projection Marking: Baltimore Ravens

Tom Kislingbury

Hi everyone and welcome to the fantasy off-season. It was a wild ride in 2017 and I’m still recovering, but there’s no real off-season in the dynasty world. In the summer I made projections for every IDP in the league I thought would be relevant. You can go back and read all of the 2017 IDP Projections here.

I was right in some places. I was wrong in some places. But either way, it’s important to be accountable and honest so I can figure out why and make adjustments in the future. I’ll be going through every team and noting where I was right and where I was wrong. To do that I’ll show what my projections were, how players actually performed, and how big the discrepancies were.

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The Ravens had a very strange season. At times they were fantastic and others dire before being eliminated from the playoffs on one of the craziest plays you’ll see in the NFL.

bal team

Defensive Line

I was pretty up and down here. Let’s look at some hits first:

Michael Pierce was very close to what I predicted. I said 28 solos (he had 32), 20 assists (17) and three sacks (one).

Brandon Williams was another close one. I said 16 solos (18), 11 assists (12) and three sacks (none).
On the other hand, I was quite far out with Brent Urban and Willie Henry (who may well have been the Ravens’ best lineman).

Inside Linebacker

From the two Ravens LB spots, I hit on one and missed on one.

I underestimated C.J. Mosley’s solo tackles by quite a lot but I was very accurate on all his other stats. I had him down as a top-five LB for the season and he proved exactly that. It’s worth remembering that he was barely an LB4 in 2016.

At the other spot, I was vocally in favor of Kamalei Correa over Patrick Onwuasor. Correa was given an opportunity to win the job as they played about the same volume over the first month of the season. But unfortunately (for me) Onwuasor was clearly the better player and won the job fair and square. As a result, my numbers were off. I had Correa down for 71 solos and Onwuasor for 27. In reality, Correa managed six and Onwuasor 65.

Outside Linebacker

I’m pretty happy with how close I was to Terrell Suggs. I was ten solos, six assists, four sacks and two PDs out but those are very acceptable to me.

I was too low on Matt Judon and thought he’d be behind rookie Tyus Bowser. That was badly wrong! Even accounting for that, if you switched the two players around Judon managed a LOT more solo tackles than I thought. He had a really solid season which I did not see coming.

Cornerback

Brandon Carr and Jimmy Smith were both acceptable. I had them switched around in terms of the #1 and #2 role but actually wasn’t that far away from many stats regardless.

I had a good bead on Marlon Humphrey and managed to get his solos and assists pretty dead on. He did have six more PDs and two more INTs than I predicted.

Lardarius Webb played corner for pretty much the whole season. I thought he’d remain at safety (he played there for 2016 and was eligible at the position on MFL). My predictions weren’t far out but that was chance really. I don’t count this as a hit or a miss.

Safety

Here’s a nice little success story. I was only a handful out for both players against solo tackles and assists. Tony Jefferson managed two more sacks than I thought he’d have and Eric Weddle was significantly better in coverage (five more interceptions) with Jefferson managing just two PDs but overall I’m happy with my performance here. Sacks and interceptions are extremely hard to predict given the natural variance so being out by a few isn’t too worrying for me. I’m more buoyed by the tackle figures.

In summary

The toughest thing by far to see coming on the Ravens was the depth chart at inside and outside linebacker. I think I hedged my bets too much between Correa and Onwuasor to be accurate for either one of them which is a learning point. On the edge, I freely admit I had very little idea how the depth chart would shake out. I was confident Suggs would still be a factor and Williams wouldn’t be much of one but aside from that it was a crapshoot. I’m pleased with how I did here.

Defensive back was a success story with five good projections. I was really happy with the corners and I like to think I saw the use of Jefferson and Weddle as split safeties coming – hence my very similar predicted stat lines.

With Dean Pees retiring, there could be some turnover coming, but over the years the team has weathered changing coordinators before without too much impact. It’s a strange time for this team though. They’ve really achieved very little over the last three or four seasons and it feels to me like they really need a shakeup – which is where the stability turns into a double-edged sword. It’s just unlikely to come given the power Ozzie Newsome and John Harbaugh wield.

Thanks for reading.

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tom kislingbury