Inside The Huskies

Rosengarten Has Memorable First Start for Baltimore Ravens

The former Husky right tackle helped open up the hole for Derrick Henry's 87-yard TD run.
Dan Raley|
Husky offensive tackle Roger Rosengarten heads to the field to face Michigan in the 2024 College Football Playoff national championship game.
Husky offensive tackle Roger Rosengarten heads to the field to face Michigan in the 2024 College Football Playoff national championship game. | Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

With the NFL being extra hard on former Washington Huskies this season -- notably Troy Fautanu and Bralen Trice, who were sidelined early in their pro careers with knee injuries -- Roger Rosengarten had everything go his way this past Sunday night.

The 6-foot-5, 316-pound rookie made his first start at right offensive guard for the Baltimore Ravens a memorable one.

On his first offensive play, Rosengarten helped open a huge hole on the right side in which running back Derrick Henry zipped through on his way to an 87-yard touchdown run -- the longest in Ravens history -- in a 35-10 victory over the previously unbeaten Buffalo Bills.

In the fourth quarter, Rosengarten nearly scored himself, momentarily getting his hands on a Henry fumble in the end zone before teammate Patrick Ricard, a fullback, fell on the ball for the final score of the night.

The Rosengarten start came about when left guard Andrew Vorhees, a rookie from USC, was made inactive with an ankle injury and the Ravens shuffled their line to fill in the gap.

Normal starting right tiackle Patrick Mekari, a 6-year veteran from California, was moved to Vorhees' spot and Rosengarten stepped in fro Mekari.

If you didn't notice, those were all former Pac-12 players moving in and out for Baltimore up front.


When the evening was done, Rosengarten graded out the highest among the Ravens' offensive linemen with a 75.9 grade, according to Pro Football Focus.

“I have to give credit to the rest of my colleagues on the offensive line,” the always modest Rosengarten said in a postgame interview. “These guys have played a lot of snaps in the NFL, so I get any information that I can from them. I got my first start and they came up to me and they believed in me. They said I got this. And with that 87-yard touchdown run, we couldn’t ask for a better start. No doubt.”

This was a marked improvement for him from the exhibition season, when Rosengarten got schooled at times. He didn't play a snap in the Baltimore regularl-season opener against the Kansas City Chiefs.

The Ravens have won two consecutive games after losing the first two, which bodes well for Rosengarten continuing to play an important role moving forward.

“Roger is a guy that’s been coming on,’ Baltimore coach John Harbaugh said after the game. “He’s a high draft pick. He’s a guy that we have a lot of expectations for and he didn’t do anything in that game to dampen that down at all.”

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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