In this season of swelling expectations for the Baltimore Ravens and their amped-up fans, who does or doesn’t make the Pro Bowl seems pretty insignificant in the big picture.
After all, if/when the Ravens make the Super Bowl, the players won’t be in the exhibition game, anyway, right? They have much bigger prey in sight than that.
Only, it does matter, particularly to the players. It shows who is getting respect from the fans and the League, can be used as a tool in contract negotiations down the line and, more immediately, can mean a tasty little bonus if that is written into their current deals.
Plus, it’s fun. It’s good old-fashioned water-cooler talk, and that’s always fun.
The Ravens had seven players make the initial Pro Bowl roster — Lamar Jackson, Tyler Linderbaum, Kyle Hamilton, Roquan Smith, Justin Madubuike, Patrick Queen and Justin Tucker.
The Banner’s Giana Han broke down the seven selectees, and offered some background on each. Nationally, the one Ravens player who raised a few eyebrows with his selection was Justin Tucker, who didn’t seem to play to his typical out-of-this-galaxy standards. Han put his performance in proper perspective.
“Tucker briefly slipped behind Younghoe Koo in career field goal percentage but took back the top spot (90.2%), where he has sat for years,” wrote Han. “On the season, Tucker has made 31 of 36 attempts (86.1%) and been perfect from inside 40 yards. He has made 50 out of 51 extra point attempts. Special teams coordinator Chris Horton said the one miss was not on Tucker but on the unit around him. Tucker has made at least 30 field goals in nine seasons. No other kicker has more than five. Tucker has been a Pro Bowler seven times in his 12-year career, tying Morten Andersen for most by a kicker.”
The Banner also had an interesting article where Han, Jonas Shaffer and Kyle Goon debated who the Ravens’ defensive MVP should be this year, a topic I’ve been wrestling with myself these past few weeks as I’m readying the Ravens’ regular-season superlatives article for next week.
Han chose defensive tackle Justin Madubuike, and for more than his team-leading 13 sacks, alone.
“Madubuike has affected the game in more ways than just taking down the quarterback, though,” wrote Han. “He has 41 tackles in addition to his 13 sacks for a total of 54 this season. He has a PFF grade of 75.1, with high marks for his run defense and higher marks for his pass rush. He has 21 run stops, 32 quarterback hurries and 62 quarterback pressures.”
Shaffer selected Smith as his pick, citing his cumulative effect on the Ravens’ defense as much as his sparkling individual play.
“Smith’s arrival in a midseason trade last year has transformed the Ravens’ defense,” said Shaffer. “Over the past 25 games, according to TruMedia, the Ravens rank tied for first in yards per play allowed, first in expected points added per drive, second in EPA per play, fifth in explosive-play rate and sixth in success rate.
Goon went with Hamilton as his top pick.
“There’s no Ravens defender for whom it is easier to list game-breaking plays off the top of your head,” argued Good. “Three sacks against the Indianapolis Colts. His pick-six against the Cleveland Browns. The play against the San Francisco 49ers when he rushed the passer, was literally pinned to the ground by an offensive lineman, then scrambled to get back in coverage to intercept a tipped pass.”
The Ringer’s Nora Princiotti wrote an interesting article about Lamar Jackson’s terrific season, and how other teams had the opportunity to try to pry him away from the Ravens this past offseason, but didn’t.
“He’s the quarterback of a 13-win team that has the no. 1 seed in the AFC locked up before Week 18,” wrote Princiotti. “His last outing was a five-touchdown performance against the Dolphins, another playoff team. The week before that, Jackson and the Ravens handily beat the 49ers, the no. 1 seed in the NFC, and the difference between Jackson’s play and that of Brock Purdy, another MVP contender, was, um, stark. He’s had a career-best season in completion percentage, interception rate, and yards per pass attempt, and he leads the league in rushing yards per attempt. He is the MVP, which has got to feel pretty good, particularly given that just 10 months ago Jackson was embroiled in a contract dispute with the Ravens that grew contentious enough that he asked to be traded, a request that Baltimore answered by giving him the non-exclusive franchise tag and the rest of the league answered with a total brush-off.”
She continued to write that maybe something else was afoot here.
“Obviously, this all goes down as a pretty epic whoopsie,” said Princiotti. “But the denials of interest in a 26-year-old recent MVP from a normally QB-desperate league were issued so swiftly — the Falcons, Dolphins, Panthers, Raiders, and Commanders seemed to be in a race to leak to NFL reporters that they didn’t want Jackson — that it was easy to wonder if something more sinister, namely collusion on the part of owners eager to keep contract costs down and prevent other quarterbacks from a getting a fully guaranteed deal like the one the Browns gave Deshaun Watson in 2022, was afoot. Then-NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith wrote in March that “owners have colluded in the past—and might do it again, as they are potentially doing right now—when it comes to highly-sought after players.”
It’s an interesting read.
Also around the NFL world:
Adam Schein has Ravens as second most likely Super Bowl winners
The biggest snub for Ravens was guard Kevin Zeitler, who didn't make the Pro Bowl for the 12th consecutive season despite finishing second in the AFC at his position in fan voting.
— Jamison Hensley (@jamisonhensley) January 4, 2024
This is pure gold! pic.twitter.com/Y05TLkjYtR
— Russell St. Report (@RussellStReport) January 4, 2024
.@Lj_era8 dropped back like he was throwing lefty and then threw it righty.
Playing on another level. 💯 (via @OfficialCrowder, @MarcHochman) pic.twitter.com/IeuBGzEdSq
— NFL (@NFL) January 3, 2024
The Ravens lost 2 RBs for the season and they lead the league in rushing. They lost 2 of their primary OLBs and they lead the league in sacks. Their two most accomplished DBs have missed time and they lead the league in takeaways.
Depth has told the storyhttps://t.co/uJojHILABF— Jeff Zrebiec (@jeffzrebiec) January 4, 2024
Dare you not to run through a wall
Watch Wired ➡️ https://t.co/wZzFt0tb5s pic.twitter.com/O6S1LVASMi
— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) January 4, 2024
