There’s an arrogance with the Ravens about their ability to draft and develop players. For the most part, it’s well-earned. There are more players currently on 90-man rosters around the league who initially entered the NFL as Ravens than with any other team, and it isn’t particularly close.
That’s something that Baltimore general manager Eric DeCosta and his predecessor, Ozzie Newsome, along with the team’s coaching and personnel staffs, should be immensely proud of, a testament to their eye for talent and the organization’s ability to develop it.
From the top of the organization on down, that’s created an unwavering self-confidence in how the Ravens do things. Former Baltimore Orioles manager Buck Showalter used to say, “We like our guys,” so often that it became a marketing slogan for the team.
The Ravens, too, like their guys. Love them, in fact.
For the past couple of months, they’ve told anybody who will listen how confident they are in their young offensive linemen. Their actions tell the same story as they haven’t made a notable addition to their offensive line since they selected offensive tackle Roger Rosengarten in the second round of the NFL Draft in April. They lost three starters this offseason, guards Kevin Zeitler and John Simpson and right tackle Morgan Moses, and only added one from the outside, assuming Rosengarten wins the job.
There’s always a chance that changes and the Ravens add a piece upfront in the coming weeks — cutdown day is Aug. 27 — but it’s not like quality NFL offensive linemen are prowling the streets and looking for work.
Other than quarterback, it’s probably the next greatest example of a position where supply doesn’t meet the demand of the league’s 32 teams.
Any move DeCosta and company make on this front will presumably be to upgrade the offensive line’s depth. While such a focus cannot be dismissed, it feels less significant to the potential bigger issue, which is two-and-a-half weeks before they go on the road to face the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs in the NFL’s regular-season opener, the Ravens have legitimate questions about three starting offensive line spots.
I’m guessing Andy Reid and Steve Spagnuolo have noticed.
And it’s probably even more telling than none of those questions — at least right now — involve their standout center Tyler Linderbaum, who is currently sidelined with a neck injury, or veteran left tackle Ronnie Stanley, who has missed multiple games in five straight seasons and is coming off a year where he barely flirted with the form he maintained when he was one of the top tackles in the sport.
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In Saturday’s 13-12 preseason victory over the Atlanta Falcons at M&T Bank Stadium, a result that was secured when outside linebacker Tavius Robinson shut down a go-ahead two-point conversion attempt with 36 seconds to play, the Ravens rolled out potentially three-fifths of their starting offensive line.
Stanley and Linderbaum watched from the sideline as Andrew Vorhees started at left guard, which is where he’s been all summer; Daniel Faalele started again at right guard, also where he’s been all summer; and Rosengarten got the nod at right tackle. He’s taken over that spot from the versatile Patrick Mekari, who started at center Saturday, relatively recently.
Fairly and thoroughly evaluating offensive line play requires both time and tape, so we won’t go too deep in the weeds here a couple of hours after the game’s conclusion. But there were a few breakdowns obvious enough where scrutiny is inescapable, particularly when Ravens coach John Harbaugh had a few of his projected starting offensive linemen playing into the third quarter.
“There were some good plays and some bad plays,” Harbaugh said. “Until you see the tape, you really don’t know.”
Baltimore Ravens center Tyler Linderbaum’s neck injury has been a major storyline for the team this summer. (Rob Carr / Getty Images)
On the fifth play from scrimmage, Vorhees was beaten badly by Ruke Orhorhoro for a sack on Josh Johnson that forced a Baltimore punt. The Ravens’ third drive was scuttled when Ben Cleveland, who has been playing center with Linderbaum down and interestingly hasn’t gotten much of a look for either of the guard vacancies, fired a snap back to an unsuspecting Johnson. The Falcons recorded the loose ball.
Then, there was a common trend: a lack of push in the run game against a Falcons defense sitting most of its starters. The Ravens finished with 71 rushing yards on 30 carries, a paltry 2.4 yards per carry average. Baltimore’s longest carry of the day covered eight yards.
The Ravens got zero or negative yards on six rushes in the first half. Another five rushes resulted in two or one-yard gains. In many cases, the running backs haven’t stood a chance. Per TruMedia, the Ravens’ backs averaged just 1.08 yards before contact this preseason. That’s not good.
Of course, some perspective is needed. Quarterback Lamar Jackson and the team’s top two running backs, Derrick Henry and Justice Hill, haven’t touched the field in the preseason. Jackson and Henry will undoubtedly change the face of the Ravens running game and almost certainly make the offensive line look much better, too. Linderbaum, already one of the game’s best centers, and Stanley will help, too.
The Ravens are also not exactly going deep into Todd Monken’s playbook, either. They’re keeping things as vanilla as possible.
There’s also a growing process that needs to take place, and this is the right time for it. Vorhees, a 2023 seventh-round pick, missed his entire rookie season as he rehabbed a knee injury. So, he’s essentially a rookie now. Rosengarten is less than four months into his NFL career. Faalele, a 2022 fourth-round pick, is a converted tackle who is playing inside extensively for the first time in his life.
Faalele described his performance Saturday as “some good, some bad,” and that could apply to the rest of the offensive line as well. There have been some understandable growing pains this summer in both practices and games, and the challenge got even tougher with the recent news that offensive line coach Joe D’Alessandris, who is known for his ability to teach and develop young offensive linemen, will be away from the team for the foreseeable future as he recovers from an “acute illness.”
The Ravens hired veteran offensive line coach George Warhop and he’s now got to learn a new group of players as they settle into their roles.
The clock is ticking.
“I feel like the more we play together, the more we mesh,” Faalele said.
In many ways, Faalele is the biggest question mark. At 6-foot-8 and 380 pounds, he has the size to be a mauler. But moving inside will require him to react quicker and use his hands more. Just about every day this summer has felt like a learning experience for the affable Australian.
Vorhees probably has the highest floor of the potential three new offensive line starters. He’s already one of the team’s strongest players, and he has the smarts to match. He just need reps after not playing all of last season. There’s certainly been far more good than bad from Vorhees this summer.
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Then, there’s Rosengarten, who has played pretty well and looked the part of a Day 1 starter on the edge. However, he will have to prove that he already has enough play strength to keep some of the league’s most feared edge rushers away from his two-time league MVP quarterback.
The Ravens clearly believe he’s capable, and they’ve been right in their evaluations of their own players far more often than they are. To be clear, they deserve the benefit of the doubt here.
But nothing has the potential of squashing a season of high expectations more quickly than the star quarterback facing constant pressure and the big offseason running back addition getting hit in the backfield.
The Ravens insist they have the right guys to prevent that, and they better be right.
(Photo: Scott Taetsch / Getty Images)
