Juju Smith-Schuster to Baltimore_
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00:00So former star wide receiver Juju Smith-Schuster went from 111 catches, 1,426 yards at age 21 to now at age 27 being cut by one of the worst rosters in the NFL, the New England Patriots.
00:17Juju Smith-Schuster was just released by the Patriots and the Ravens have made two recent moves at the wide receiver position with reports of signing Anthony Miller, the former Bears wide receiver,
00:28and a confirmed reporting of the Ravens signing Russell Gage, the former Buccaneer and Falcon.
00:36The Ravens were obviously interested in improving their wide receiver room and I'm curious now as if they would regret pursuing those two wide receivers we just mentioned if they had knew that wide receiver Juju Smith-Schuster would be cut days later.
00:50I wanted to address this real quick because I'm already getting questions about it.
00:53So let's talk about whether the Baltimore Ravens should even consider signing this wide receiver and what he could possibly bring to Baltimore.
00:59First of all, one of the things I've always liked about Juju Smith-Schuster is his willingness to work over the middle of the football field with big strong hands.
01:07I thought, you know, Lamar Jackson, I've always said this even whenever he's been a free agent the last few years, I said Lamar Jackson loves to throw the football over the middle of the field and Juju Smith-Schuster does that very well.
01:18However, it feels like some of his change of direction and just straight out acceleration and speed has dipped off a little bit, which is really weird for his age.
01:29He's only 27 years old and should be in the prime of his career as a wide receiver.
01:33So would it be worth it if the Baltimore Ravens could revitalize or get just a percentage out of what they saw a few years ago whenever he had put up 1,400 yards or even just two years ago whenever he put up over 900 yards with the Kansas City Chiefs?
01:51So four out of eight of Juju's seasons have went over 800 yards.
01:56Five out of eight have went over 550 yards.
02:00He has had two seasons where he's been relatively injured.
02:03One season in 2019, he only played five games and had 129 yards.
02:09And then again, last year in 2023, he only played 11 and had 260 yards.
02:15Now the Patriots, they drafted two wide receivers pretty early and Javon Baker and Jalen Polk that have been making a ton of plays in training camp.
02:23And they just decided to move on from Juju and save themselves $7 million on this year's salary cap.
02:31The thing about Juju is he has over 5,000 career yards and 30 touchdowns and he's only 27 years old.
02:40So that's like the part that gets you thinking a little bit.
02:43So to answer the question about whether or not the Ravens should pursue this or not, I would really say it depends on the Ravens personnel staff ability to evaluate the tape they saw from the last year or two.
02:56If they still saw some explosiveness, if they saw some playmaking ability, then yeah, especially if it's a low risk, high reward type of situation.
03:06However, I do think the Ravens will probably stick with what they have at the receivers position.
03:11The Baltimore Ravens top three receivers right now are all first round draft picks, starting with Zay Flowers.
03:16Second year player after having a dynamite rookie season, over 800 receiving yards, over 1,000 when you include the playoffs and was just one of Lamar Jackson's favorite targets.
03:26He's reportedly even better this year, worked with Lamar Jackson in the off season and has been cooking all throughout training camp.
03:34Rashad Bateman, also the former first round pick from a few years ago, is having a healthy off season.
03:40He's been able to attend mini camp and training camp.
03:44He dealt with a little bit of a bruising on his ribs, but nothing serious right now.
03:48So he's been relatively healthy and he's making plays and was specifically catching some intermediate and long routes from Lamar Jackson this year.
03:56Nelson Aguilar is a veteran.
03:59And then, of course, we got the rookie this year, Devontae Walker.
04:02We got Nelson Aguilar.
04:04And then there's going to be a whole lot of competition for those last few spots with Tyler Wallace and Russell Gage, Dayton Wade, Sean Ryan, Malik Cunningham.
04:12All these guys are going to be battling for spots.
04:14So do I think that Juju Smith-Schuster is going to be a massive upgrade over a guy that we just signed like a Russell Gage at this point in his career?
04:23Probably not.
04:24Plus, Juju, I don't know what he's looking for as far as contract wise, but I'd have to imagine at his age and some of the numbers that he's put up,
04:35there's going to be some teams out there that might be willing to shell out a little bit more than the Baltimore Ravens.
04:40So hopefully that answered your question because I'm already starting to see it.
04:45I just wanted to get out ahead of this, address it, because the Patriots just made this move and released Juju.
04:51We also got the preseason game about to go live in just a few hours.
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05:21The.