Matt Spiegel

They won a Super Bowl.

You know, the Chiefs had an older core with Mahomes and Jones and Kelsey, and then they stacked a younger core on top of it.

After they traded away Tyreek Hill and got a bunch of picks, they drafted a younger core of guys, including Trent McDuffie, won a few Super Bowls.

And so you have to have multiple cores together.

But to do that, you have to retain your talent.

And I feel like the Ravens have consistently...

either let guys walk that they probably shouldn't have walked, or B, they would draft a good player in the first round, but not necessarily one that they felt confident enough in retaining, so they would let them walk anyway.

And I feel like the Ravens

don't draft as well as maybe their reputation is.

And because they draft guys that aren't outright bust, but they're also drafting guys that are only there for one contract because they're just not good enough to retain.

And so that's how you end up with a situation where you're spending five or three out of your five first round picks over a five year period on receiver.

And the best one you get is a flowers, right?

Or you spend two first round picks within seven years on a linebacker only if

neither one of them stays for more than one contract, and you're also spending a second on Roquan Smith, and you pay him a top-of-market deal to fix your linebacker issue.

So when you have to spend that many picks on linebacker and receiver, and you're not really getting any long-term contributors that you can stack one core on top of another, that's how you end up just building a team that's good, even very, very good, but never...

going to actually win a championship.

And so my criticism of the Ravens is they're kind of a victim of their own process sometimes.

I understand they let Tyler Linderbaum, or they weren't going to match $27 million for Tyler Linderbaum.

I get it.

But they had an opportunity to extend Tyler Linderbaum a while ago when he wasn't going to be $27 million.