Even In May, One New Ravens Offensive Coach Continues To Inspire Confidence

Hope springs eternal in the NFL in May.

There are going to be stories written about undrafted free agents who will never play in the league and, especially with many veterans not even taking part in these glorified walkthroughs, there are going to be daily standouts who won’t even make it through training camp.

Buyer beware on some of the hype.

But as someone who has covered so many of these offseason sessions and been through thousands of offseason interviews in a group session, occasionally the way an established player lights up about a particular topic or a particular coach catches your eye. It comes through as particularly genuine, and, potentially, particularly telling.

I got that sense watching grizzled guard John Simpson, back for his second stint in Baltimore, talk about his new position coach. It’s similar in tone and look to how I’ve seen and heard other respected players and coaches talk about Dwayne Ledford. It jibes.

If you are looking for takeaways this time of year amid all of the fool’s gold and false prophecies, it tends to come in less obvious moments like this, away from the seven-on-seven sessions without pads. Its from the way someone who could very easily be going through the motions in May lights up from a certain prompt that is likely revealing of some larger gains being made.

I’m on record as having some serious reservations about the way rookie head coach Jesse Minter built his staff in general, and I am particularly skeptical about the overall pedigree of what rookie offensive coordinator Declan Doyle constructed on offense.

But plenty of smart people around this league believe Ledford is going to be a shining light for them at a position group where scrutiny is soaring after a lost 2025 season. I think it would be fair to count Simpson among them.

Conviction And Sincerity

At a time when PR-speak reigns, and coach-speak is in midseason form, Simpson seemed to truly embrace the idea that Ledford is going to make him a better player in year seven than he’s ever been before.

“I think Dwayne Ledford is a really, really great coach,” Simpson said after Tuesday’s practice, “and I think he's a really good teacher more so than anything. He takes his time to like slow things down and really teach it how it should be taught, and he breaks it down to the smallest little details just so you can understand it and so you can play faster.

“And I think that'll help me out a whole lot just so I can get out there and know exactly what I have, know my assignment and just play ball."

There was nothing overtly physical or fast about the Ravens last season. The guard play was atrocious and even Pro Bowl center Tyler Linderbaum, who got a monster deal from the Raiders, couldn’t buoy them. Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry had some of the worst yards-before-contact metrics of their career.

Ledford is the run game coordinator and with all of this so new to Doyle, I’d anticipate that Ledford’s sway with the ground game will be significant. And he is going to be able to get much more immediate buy in with the players up front, frankly, than Doyle will be virtue of his resume and reputation and having a body of work succeeding in the job he is doing here.

This group has to get back to being the aggressors and Ledford has the chops to help them get there.

“As far as the trenches go, I feel like that's like the main priority is just like imposing your will on the person in front of you,” Simpson said. “Since Day One, that's what Dwayne's been drilling in our head - is just speed off the ball. And I bring this up all the time, but speed off the ball, speed off the ball, speed off the ball.

“It just creates so much more hesitation from the defense, in a sense. So, I think that's his mindset behind us coming off the ball fast, getting lined up fast and stuff like that."

Color me a skeptic that Ledford is going to turn any of the centers on this roster into the real deal – and a free agent signing or trade had best be forthcoming in that regard Hyper – but it’s also going to hard for Ledford’s group to get pushed around nearly as much as a year ago if they can solidify the center spot.

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