The Ravens are out in Green Bay for joint practices, and things nearly kicked off with a disaster. The Ravens were participating in the Packers’ tradition of biking to the facility for camp, and Lamar Jackson nearly did, well…the most Lamar Jackson thing ever.
Lamar Jackson rode a bike to practice …
sort of 😅
via @ByRyanWood | @Lj_era8 pic.twitter.com/ptbicGWFYy
— FanDuel (@FanDuel) August 22, 2024
For crying out loud, LJ, be careful!
Having avoided injury on the ride in, things got started and of course continued down the rotten luck path.
Kyle Hamilton shaken up in practice, Ravens don't think it's serious https://t.co/8bgGXVRGJs
— Opening Day Game (@OpeningDayNFL) August 23, 2024
John Harbaugh said only “it’s not a serious injury,” which means absolutely nothing, for those of us versed in Harbspeak. Another guy he assured us was fine is Mark Andrews, who’s still not practiced since his automobile accident.
John Harbaugh said TE Mark Andrews will travel to Green Bay with the team. His situation after the car accident is “very minor.”
Harbaugh said we shouldn’t worry and that he’s going to be “fine.”
— Jonas Shaffer (@jonas_shaffer) August 19, 2024
As for the practice itself, it sounds like the Ravens kind of got their butts handed to them by the Packers, especially up front.
I am in GB and watched the practice. Our D had zero push/pressure and the Pack’s D line was pursuing LJ throughout. Outside of punt coverage,
I’d be concerned. The Ravens media coverage today was absent and the Ravens’s self assessment misses the mark.— Greg Kirkorsky (@gkirkorsky) August 22, 2024
I’m not trying to necessarily take a random fan’s perspective over that of the Ravens’ beat reporters, but I noticed Greg’s tweet and wanted to share it. I had previously seen that the Ravens defense was making some plays:
Roquan Smith with a jumping INT of Love. Looks like 10 never saw him. Has had a Dee of those over the middle ints in camp.
He comes back and fires a seed to an open Doubs on a post but it goes right off Doubs hands.
Preceeding play was another nice crosser to Kraft.
Next…
— Andy Herman (@AndyHermanNFL) August 22, 2024
Ravens defense making a lot of plays. 2 PBU’s and a pick earlier, just had two more pbu’s on the last two plays – one on Love, one on Pratt.
Pratt complete to Heath on a slant for about 6.
Clifford gets defense to jump but oddly doesn’t take the shot down field and takes a…
— Andy Herman (@AndyHermanNFL) August 22, 2024
However, it sounds like, on balance, the Pack offense was able to move the ball and punch it in.
Outside of the Love pick to Roquan and the near Love pick to Roquan – I thought the Packers were fantastic today. Red zone periods were massively impressive. Great day of practice.
— Andy Herman (@AndyHermanNFL) August 22, 2024
On the other side of the ball, Ravens fans’ biggest concern entering the season – the offensive line – did nothing to ease fears.
Lamar is running for his life out here and not by design. https://t.co/nZJs0jAfYQ
— Matt Schneidman (@mattschneidman) August 22, 2024
That isn’t to say that Lamar Jackson & Co. didn’t make any plays. Of course they did.
Lamar had two TD passes during lengthy RZ period to Kolar and Flowers. Nixon also committed DPI in end zone face guarding Tez Walker. Other than those, constant pressure/sacks in the backfield.
— Matt Schneidman (@mattschneidman) August 22, 2024
The “constant pressure and sacks” certainly isn’t what you want to hear. We know that the OL will be a work in progress with so much turnover, especially early in the season.
As our Cole Jackson points out, it’s probably best to expect those issues.
A lot of my opinions on the Ravens OL just really comes down to expectations, I guess.
They flipped 3 starters. All 3 of which are young players.
That was the direction most fans wanted to go.
That approach is going to lead to growing pains.
Shocked folks are surprised!
— Cole Jackson (@ColeJacksonFB) August 22, 2024
In his follow up post, Cole says that “you can struggle in September if you get it together by December.” Which is, of course, very true. Unless the unthinkable happens, and that poor offensive line play gets your quarterback seriously injured in September or October.
That’s a legitimate concern. We all hope the young guys will step in and become established cornerstones up front. But to expect that to happen immediately is unrealistic. We’ll likely also see plenty of this:
Ravens have four false starts in first two team periods.
Packers DL has been getting steady pressure.
More plays:
• Gary coverage sack on Lamar
• McKinney PBU over middle after multiple guys get pressure
• Jackson nice completions to Wallace (Stokes trailing) and Miller…— Matt Schneidman (@mattschneidman) August 22, 2024
Four false starts! Yeesh.
We’ll see what the second day out in Green Bay brings us. Hopefully no more injuries or near-crashes on bikes, at least.
2 Responses
This is all quite comical. Last year our LT had a bad year RT was so bad he needed TE help and was subbed out often and we had journeyman LG who was terrible as a Raider….yet we finished top 5 in pts abd yards and won 13 games. So yeah im not concerned
The Dline hasn’t gotten pressure in either gm thus far without having to do exotic blitzing. The stout run D or pressure with just 4 has been nonexistent to say the least. You can tell coach weave & mike mac made a difference and are missed.