Is WM much of an upgrade over Jamal Lewis?

[Pyrite Gal]

This is the basic question for those interested in assessing the trade of WM for 3 draft choices. The key question for the Bills is going to be what quality of players did we get from the draft and that question will remain substantially unanswered for well over year as the third of those picks will not even be acquired until 2008. However, the Baltimore side of the equation will be substantially known by the end of this season,

 

First off one can pretty much ignore the hype being spewed by Ravens GM Ozzie Newsome. His purpose in saying this was merely to sell tickets and raise excitement. If the weird analysis had any football effect it was merely to set a high standard for McGahee to reach which is probably not a bad idea to do.

 

However, in terms of a football assessment, i think this likely will be a good move by Baltimore as WM brings several things to the table Lewis does not.

 

1. Where they are in their careers.

 

Clearly Lewis as an older player who once suffered a substantial injury as a pro is on the downhill side of his career while McGahee has disappointed the last season and a half after suffering a substantial injury in college is still a relatively young player. One can disagree about their performance but the Ravens have gotten younger as WM MIGHT perform alot better than he has but it is doubtful Lewis will improve on where he is right now.

 

2. Despite all the complaints from many Bills partisans of WM's YPC being too low at 3.8, Lewis comes off and even less impressive two seasons where he registered 3.6 abd even 3.4 the year before that.

 

3. Lewis did amass more total yards than WM last year but did this in two more starts. This stat is probably better used as some indicator of impact of their injuries, but given that WM actually had his usual productive game against the Jets after his injury, he seems to be recovered and still capable of at least good episodes.

 

4. Few teams know these two players better.

 

Clearly the Ravens have decided to go in another direction at RB than Lewis and its hard to argue with this as no one knows him better than the Ravens and how much he likely has in the tank. Interestingly, despite the many complaints of Bills fans who have watched WM all season, the Ravens actually had a good look at him and all the tape on him as we faced them in the final game of the season.

 

They saw Willis at his worse but still were willing to give up far more value than most folks thought we would get for WM to acquire him. Obviously they saw something they liked in a very unproductive game for him.

 

My guess is that they were quite impressed as WMs reception to open the game and a nice RAC job he did with the rock which was called back on a seemingly unrelated to the play Bills penalty. Its not like Lewis was used a great deal as a receiver by Balt, nor did Fairchild ever really try to use WM much as a receiver so they may see now downgrade hear at least.

 

Overall, I think that the Ravens correctly view themselves as being close to making the SB, and I think merely based on rep as Ds saw they had little to fear from the Bills allowing JP to throw alot they lined up a lot of guys in the box to concentrate on stopping the run and WM.

 

Further, the massive moves by the Bills to acquire three OL players this off-season is a pretty clear admission that the OL simply did not produce last year and the thought that part of the WM problems were rooted in poor OL performance are likely more than a convenient excuse for him. On rep alone and fear that he produce another performance like he did for us against the MYJ, WM likely improves their O.

 

We will have a hint to answer this question once the 07 draft occurs and we also see how we do in FA finding a vet or two as we look to upgrade over Shaud Williams, However, despite the folks who hate WM's dumb attitude toward woman and parenting, this looks like a good move for the Ravens.