Jesse Minter Tipped His Hand As To When Madubuike, Buchanan, Pocic Will Return For Ravens

Thirty-plus years into dissecting press conferences and the way that coaches and general managers speak, and what they leave unsaid, gives you a fairly decent meter on reading between the lines.

And when it comes to the way that head coach Jesse Minter and general manager Eric DeCosta speak about some of their critical roster issues, and especially as it pertains to crucial starters coming back from major injury, there are some major clues and massive tells about what the immediate future holds. And at this point,, I’d be quite surprised if All-Pro defensive tackle Nnamdi Madubuike or ascendant linebacker Teddy Buchanan are in uniform Week 1, and it sounds like center Ethan Pocic might be running out of time, too.

At this point, I get the strong sense that the Ravens aren’t even projecting Madubuike, coming off major April neck surgery - HYER or Buchanan, off late-season ACL surgery, to be a real consideration until Week 2 at the earliest, while they want to keep the door open for Pocic as long as possible, but he’s coming off a late-season Achilles tear and the fact they still are not willing to proclaim him the Week 1 starter, despite obviously signing him to lead the depth chart there, is also a major tell at this point.

DeCosta addressed the situations when he met the media late Wednesday afternoon and Minter spoke to them as well Thursday before the Ravens departed for the holiday weekend, not returning to the practice field until Tuesday with just a few real practices before a shorter session next Friday and then a flight to Indianapolis Saturday.

Time is simply running out. Here’s where things stand:

Madubuike

There is overt relief that he is on pace to play football at all this season with his career in doubt after a major injury early last season. They need him to meet the expectation that they get this defense back to an elite level. He is the second most important player on the roster to two-time MVP quarterback Lamar Jackson, and they need him to be available in the playoffs.

I’m going to let you in on a secret – this has never been really about Week 1. It was more about sometime in the first month of the season, and the fact they avoided an Injured Reserve – Designated to Return stint (which would keep him out until Week 5) was the sole focus and they checked that box.

“He’s been in few team reps and done some things,” Minter said, which is quite nebulous this close to the regular season. “What that looks like for Week 1, I think that’s still a day-to-day thing, I would say, to his credit. We’ve wanted this to be a really smart and proactive approach to get him ready to pay football … with the surgery he went through. We feel good about it today.”

It’s always been the long-view here, as it should be. But he missed almost the entire season, he hasn’t been challenged much in practice yet and this is the type of injury a team and player, undoubtedly would want multiple weeks of work in normal NFL practice settings before playing a game. And as DeCosta noted, they kept more interior defensive linemen than normal

“We had a few guys with some injuries,” he said. “Did that factor into us keeping six linemen? Probably did in some respects.”

Two weeks of strong practices and this starts getting more real perhaps going into Week 2.

Pocic

He was signed, at the time he was signed, for much more than the veteran minimum, to play center for the Ravens as soon as he was able. That’s not really up for debate – Pocic has a market and the Ravens knew they didn’t have anyone on this roster they really wanted snapping to Lamar Week 1. But he was also coming off major surgery himself, and they clearly weren’t thoroughly convinced by the final 30 snaps he played in the exhibition finale that he’s all the way back.

Hence no one making a statement about the starter and them leaving open the possibility of journeyman special-teams player Jovaughn Gwyn, 11 career snaps on offense, replacing departed Pro Bowler Tyler Linderbaum. If you think this was by design, or because Gwyn has proven to be transformational all of a sudden, you’re a fool. And if this doesn’t work out early, given how long ago Linderbaum left, then DeCosta is a fool for not being more proactive.

This has the potential to be hugely detrimental as we discussed with Cynthia Frelund on “The Daily Flock,” and they can’t even feign confidence here.

“I think when we come back after this break we’ll probably be pretty close to that,” Minter offered. “We’ll look at things over this break and talk it through … I feel confident that we’ll go into game week with that pecking order - for Week 1.”

Yeah? Really?

What’s the alternative? Have Lamar snap the ball to himself?

Minter put an emphasis on that final clause here, because that’s what’s going on here. They desperately want the guy with 6000 starts to be anchoring and snapping when their 30-year-old coordinator calls plays for the first time, but they are not convinced he’s physically ready yet and they might have the go with the guy who has never done it, because the guy they really wanted to be the back-up, Danny Pinter, went on IR weeks ago.

So Pocic is obviously the guy when he's fully cleared to be the guy by everyone involved, and there's still a chance that isn't by a week from now.

That’s how to decode that.

Buchanan

The fact he couldn’t do anything in the preseason games was a strong indicator that this would be another in-season ramp up, like Madubuike. The Ravens made big changes to their training and medical team and they likely altered some return-to-play protocols and will be extra careful this early in the season with key guys who came off the Physically Unable to Perform list later in the summer.

“He’s been in some reps as well,” Minter said, again, quite vague. “We’ll kind of get a feel for it over the next week, whether that’s Week 1, Week 2, whatever that might be.”

I’ll place a heavy wager on: “Week 2, whatever that might be.”

Minter doesn’t like talking about injuries. He has tried to be as general and opaque about them as possible. His mentor, John Harbaugh, routinely went public with medical return timetables that ended up quite off, for whatever reason. Those 33 years or so I’ve been in these scrums with coaches and execs, when they offer a suggestion like this, that earliest date ain’t the one they’re really looking at.

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