The Ravens had some of their top players on the sidelines because of injuries last season.
Their health will play a huge part in whether the team can get back into the playoffs in 2022.
“I’m hopeful,” coach John Harbaugh said about those players returning from injuries. “I’m not in the rehabs every day. So, I’m like you guys. I’m hopeful. I’m down there encouraging them. I’m talking to them, and so far, so good.”
Running backs J.K. Dobbins and Gus Edwards went down with season-ending knee injuries during training camp.
The Ravens signed Devonta Freeman, Latavius Murray and Le’Veon Bell as their running backs, but this group never quite found their footing.
Baltimore still finished with 145.8 yards rushing per game, which ranked third in the NFL behind the Philadelphia Eagles and Indianapolis Colts. However, it was the Ravens quarterbacks — Lamar Jackson and Tyler Huntley —that carried the running game.
Harbaugh wants more production from the running backs.
“A lot of our run offense this year was quarterback runs, and it was the last two years,” Harbaugh said. “But the schemed-up run game, that’s probably something that we have been the top team at. That’s something that we made a big point of the last couple of years, and it’s something that really fell off this year, so it’s an important element for us. How big of a piece is it going forward? That’s what we’ve got to decide. It’s going to be a big piece.
“But is it going to be as big of a piece as it was in ’19, say, as Lamar progresses as a quarterback? No, I don’t think it will be. It will be a piece, and people are going to have to contend with it and deal with it, but it won’t be as big as it was that year. So, that’s hopefully an evolution that we make as our players grow.”
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The Ravens are confident the running attack will get back to a high level with Dobbins and Edwards back in the lineup.
In 2020, Dobbins led the Ravens’ running backs with 805 yards on 134 carries with nine touchdowns. He also recorded a rushing score in seven consecutive games.
Edwards was third on the team with 723 yards on 144 carries with six touchdowns.
“It was certainly a big blow losing J.K. and then Gus Edwards, and then Justice Hill – all three of our guys,” Ravens GM Eric DeCosta said. “Three of our mainstay players, losing those guys in the span of two weeks was very, very challenging as an organization.
“Saying that, we are very confident that those guys will all come back this year and play winning football for us. J.K., specifically, obviously suffered a serious knee injury, but he’s a young player. He’s a hungry player, [and] he has a great mindset.”
The Ravens also played the season without starting cornerback Marcus Peters, who also suffered a season-ending knee injury near the end of training camp. Fellow starting cornerback Marlon Humphrey was lost for the year when he tore a pectoral muscle in the second game against the Steelers.
DeCosta and Harbaugh are hopeful they can come back fully healthy and help a secondary that ranked last in the NFL against the pass.
Perhaps the biggest question mark surround left tackle Ronnie Stanley, who played in just one game after aggravating an ankle injury that knocked him out of the previous season.
Stanley’s ability to get back on the field dramatically dictates the direction of the team. Stanley has a large contact that impacts the team’s salary cap. They also must decide whether to select an offensive tackle with the 14th overall pick in the draft.
“I feel like I can say Ronnie feels farther ahead now than he did at the same stage last year,” DeCosta said. “He’s excited, he’s very optimistic, I think he’s working hard. As an organization, we’re very optimistic. As I said before, I’m not going to make the same mistake. We’ll have contingency plans moving forward. But we’re optimistic that Ronnie is making good progress.”
The Ravens can only hope for that type of good news.
