Anquan Boldin Is A Raven

What a great night to be a Ravens fan.  After years of sighing loudly when an offseason, draft or trade deadline went by without the team adding a legitimate offensive weapon, the Ravens have finally made an impact.  Any wow, is it big.

I’ve probably written the words “trade for a veteran receiver like Brandon Marshall or Anquan Boldin” about 100 times in the last year.  The number of mentions of either of those names probably numbers somewhere in the hundred trillions.  I have to admit something.  I never thought we would see Marshall or Boldin in a Ravens jersey, and I’ll also admit that I’ve never been so happy to be wrong about the Ravens. Anquan Boldin is a legitimate NFL #1.  If everything that everyone has said is true, that’s the key factor for the Ravens to become a premier NFL team.

We all know the impact Boldin should make.  Finally giving this team a high-profile offense that can win them games when the defense doesn’t show up, making Flacco a franchise quarterback, the works. The Ravens have never produced a Pro Bowl wide receiver, and today, they brought in a guy who’s good enough to have been considered as an All-Pro player in several seasons.  Just to give you a glimpse of how good he is and what his impact will be, here’s some quick stats:

• Based on his career stats, he averages 1,074 yards each season, and he has missed 17 total games in his career.
• If you add his yards per game average for those 17 games he’s missed, he averages 1,266 yards per season.
• If you look at the Ravens’ receivers history, only 9 have had 1,000+ yard seasons, and the most yards by a Ravens receiver in one season is 1,201.
• Boldin has 45 career touchdowns in 7 seasons. Derrick Mason, possibly a future Hall of Famer, has 62 touchdowns, in 13 years.

Boldin is no doubt an upgrade.  Granted, he won’t be putting up his monster numbers like in Arizona, where they averaged about 3,401 pass attempts per game, but he’ll be a huge weapon for the offense.  Anybody who says this trade isn’t smart, or is ill-advised is pretty dim and ill-advised themselves.  Try to tell me that those two players selected in the third and fourth round would’ve become NFL stars.  Now try to tell me that it’s worse to have a current NFL star than to draft one.  Yeah, didn’t think so.  A huge addition, Boldin is the answer to every Ravens fan’s prayers for the past 10 years.

More on this move and what it means for the receiving corps coming tomorrow.