Joe Flacco Finally Gets A Respectable Receiver As Michael Crabtree Signs A 3-Year Deal With The Ravens

FINALLY. Finally Joe Flacco gets a guy who can go up and get the football. Ever since the departure of Anquan Boldin after the Super Bowl, Joe has been looking for a guy he can depend on to compete for balls in the red zone. A guy who has a nose for the football in traffic. A guy who can do more than just run fast in a straight line. Michael Crabtree is that guy.

He might not be a superstar #1 wide receiver, but he’s damn good at what he does. And what he does is get into the end zone. 8+ touchdowns in all 3 of his years in Oakland, which were really his only years in the league playing under a traditional pro-style offense. San Francisco was never a great fit for him, and it looked like all that talent we saw at Texas Tech would go to waste. I BEGGED Ozzie to take a flier on him back in 2015 when he was a free agent to complement whatever WR we were sure to take in the first round that year. Sure enough, we took our chances with that bum Perriman and we got burned. We’ve been paying for that ever since.

Now we’ve got a guy who fits well with Flacco and has a proven track record. He complements the other receivers on the roster, particularly Mike Wallace and John Brown. Brown is such a great low-risk/high-reward signing because we’ve seen what he can do when healthy. The guy can fly. Both him and Wallace are guys that can run deep and open up things in the middle of the field, just like Jacoby Jones and Torrey Smith used to do for Anquan. We’ve seen the offense thrive with a similar collection of receivers and it could certainly happen again.

The best thing of all is the same thing I said all year last year. They may have faltered down the stretch, but I still believe the Ravens have one of the better defenses in the league. By that I mean the offense doesn’t need to set the world on fire. It just needs to capitalize on its takeaways and convert them into touchdowns and not field goals. A red zone weapon like Crabtree is exactly how you do that.

There’s a lot of talk about the Ravens possibly having the worst roster in the AFC North. I don’t buy that for a second. I concede the Steelers are more talented, but the Ravens do have pieces. They were missing two top-tier O-lineman for nearly the entire year, including the best guard on the planet. Marshal Yanda and Alex Lewis will be back and that will create a lot more opportunity for the offense to move the football.

This roster reload is far from over, but this was a big piece at an affordable price. 3 years for $21M is a steal relative to some of the other deals I’ve seen for receivers in recent years. I’d still like to see the Ravens get another receiver in the first two rounds and try to nab another pass-rusher, and it couldn’t hurt to grab a TE either. But the Ravens aren’t too far away from being a playoff team again. That much I promise.

PS completely forgot we just cut Mike Wallace but he may come back. Take whatever I said about Wallace and apply it to Chris Moore or whatever. Playas fuck up