Nothing has really gone according to plan for the Baltimore Ravens in their 20th Anniversary season.
From a brutal road schedule to start off the season to finding themselves on the losing end of close games (all 12 Ravens games have been decided by one score, an NFL record they add to each week) to having key players ravaged by injury, it hasn’t been easy.
With four games remaining in this dismal season, it’s time to shake things up a bit and give coaches and decision makers an early look at next year and beyond. A great place to start is on the left side of offensive line, and a great time to start is Sunday against the Seahawks.
Hampered by injuries all season long, left tackle Eugene Monroe has been a disappointment on an offensive line that at season’s start was considered to be a top five NFL group. Even when healthy, the results have been up and down. Monroe again is in question for Sunday’s game as he did not participate in practice on Wednesday and appears to be the “next man up” to go on injured reserve.
Were the Ravens to cut Monroe, it would result in dead money of $6.6M with $2.1M saved against the cap if Eugene was a pre-June 1 release. However, post-June 1, the Ravens would save $6.5M in cap space yet would be hit with dead money of $2.2M in 2016 and $4.4M in 2017, per RSR salary cap specialist Brian McFarland.
Filling in for Monroe has been second year offensive lineman, James Hurst, and it hasn’t been pretty. In fact, Hurst has achieved Pro Football Focus’s lowest grade of the week not once but twice this season. To be fair, it’s never an easy adjustment to be thrown into the fire as Hurst was last season as an undrafted rookie; however, by Week 14 of this season there should be marked improvement given Monroe’s constant injuries. There hasn’t and he’s been beaten like a drum on multiple occasions. It’s time to end the experiment.
Instead it would be an interesting option if the Ravens plugged Kelechi Osemele in at left tackle instead of his usual spot at left guard along the offensive front. Osemele, who has been dominant when healthy has experience at the tackle position (he started all 16 games at RT as a rookie in 2012, 38 at LT in college) and fared well. It’s likely Osemele will draw a big pay day this offseason as a pending free agent and the Ravens have already re-signed right guard Marshal Yanda earlier this season.
If Osemele was to slide to left tackle, it would make sense to insert G/C Ryan Jensen into Osemele’s spot to see how the Ravens’ 2013 sixth-round draft pick fares against some of the NFL’s best defenses in the coming weeks. Jensen has started two games this season in place of K.O., did well, and would give the Ravens an extended look at him before he becomes an exclusive rights free agent in 2016.
The right side of the offensive line could also feature a different look given the injury status of right tackle Rick Wagner, who missed Wednesday’s practice with a sore ankle. If Wagner is unable to go on Sunday it appears the Ravens would fill his spot with De’Ondre Wesley who spent the first seven weeks of the season on the practice squad before being signed to the 53-man roster. Wesley has appeared in two games this season including for Wagner last week and was the tackle on the Ravens’ lone touchdown drive against the Dolphins.
Thankfully, Yanda is as steady as they come at the right guard spot and a true bulldog, and has recently only reiterated to the organization that they made the correct decision to extend his contract.
While it remains to be seen if any of the above moves are made over the season’s final weeks, they certainly would make sense in terms of evaluating things with an eye toward the future.
Follow me on Twitter @sportguyRSR
