There’s reason to be excited about the 2015 NFL season if you are a fan of the Baltimore Ravens. There isn’t a roster in the NFL that is as deep – on paper.
Yet there are a couple of concerns that could and should be addressed.
Inside Linebacker
The Ravens starting ILB’s are solid. CJ Mosley is a budding star and Daryl Smith, while in the December of his career, has been a very solid contributor to the team. His 2014 season was arguably better than his first with the club.
Pro Football Focus (“PFF”) graded Mosley as the league’s 10th best inside linebacker in 2014 while Smith came in at No. 7. In 2013 Smith finished as the 14th best ILB.
So what’s the problem?
In a word – DEPTH!
Arthur Brown, 2013’s second round pick who allegedly had first round grades, has been a major disappointment. He didn’t play a single defensive snap in 2014. He’s been described as a NaVorro Bowman type of player yet for the moment you’d be hard-pressed to get a Natty Boh for him in a trade.
Beyond Brown there is Albert McClellan and Zachary Orr. McClellan was primarily a goal line specialist given his limitations in coverage. He had 45 snaps to his credit last season. Orr played mostly on teams and very sparingly as a defender (4 snaps) in mop up duties. Between them that’s not even a game’s worth of defensive plays.
The Ravens were once a team that groomed inside backers like the Tampa Rays groom young pitchers. That’s no longer the case.
Return Specialist
Jacoby Jones is gone but the truth be told, he wasn’t all that in 2014. PFF graded him out as the 24th best kick returner and 187th best punt returner. While Jones had the 10th best kick return average (30.1 ypr, 6th best among specialists with 10 or more returns), his decision-making was questionable. He too often opted to return kicks deep from the end zone forcing Joe Flacco & Co. to start drives from inside the 20.
As a punt returner Jones was even worse with his decision-making. He regularly let punts bounce deeper into Ravens’ territory instead of coming up to field balls in traffic. “Sure-handed” is not a description often applied to Jones.
So sentimental journeys aside, moving on from Jones represents addition by subtraction.
Yet who his replacement will be remains to be seen.
Some have suggested Michael Campanaro but he’s struggled to stay healthy as a WR despite his limited action. DeAngelo Carter has been mentioned but he needs to make the team as a receiver and that is a long shot at best.
Silly names mentioned have been Steve Smith, Sr. and Lardarius Webb. That’s just not going to happen regardless of their respective enthusiasm.
My wildcard is Asa Jackson. He’s shown in the past that he can do it during the preseason. But then again there’s this thing about spending time in the tub and not being able to help the club.
Perhaps the solution for the problems at both inside linebacker and return specialist are in the forms of players currently not on the roster. The Ravens typically spend to the cap and they have about $8M of cap space available to them.
Some of that they’ll want to reserve as an emergency fund. Some will go to the 52nd and 53rd players on the roster. (Remember the current cap only takes into consideration the top 51 cap numbers at this point in the league year).
Yet they still should have enough to address two positions that should concern Ozzie Newsome the most.
And then a deep roster will just get deeper.
