Ravens Hopeful Players With Knee Injuries Will Bounce Back

OWINGS MILLS, Md. — The Ravens had several players suffer season-ending knee injuries last year, most notably Marcus Peters, Gus Edwards and J.K. Dobbins.

The good news is that players with these types of injuries are bouncing back quicker.

“I think ACL, certainly the procedure itself, but certainly the rehab protocols have changed dramatically over 10-20 years," Ravens head strength and conditioning coach Steve Saunders said. "I think we just know more about it. You know better how to rehab it. You also know that sometimes, the time isn’t the time. It can take longer, and some guys will adapt shorter; it depends on the work they’ve had done. It definitely … The guys, I feel like, today definitely have a much higher percentage of returning to normal after an ACL [injury] than they did 20 years ago, which is a great thing.”

The Ravens are hopeful that Peters, Edwards, and Dobbins will be ready for the regular season. All three are key players and would be a boost to the lineup. However, there is a chance those players could open training camp on the PUP list.

The key is to keep them healthy for the season.

As a result, the Ravens are changing their practice habits to keep their players on the field and not in the training room.

"I think you just have to re-evaluate everything, turn over every stone, and there are so many different aspects of that," Saunders said. "I think you have to take the offseason, preseason and the whole season into account, and just say, ‘OK, is there something we need to improve on? Is there something we need to tweak?’ I think part of it is just being able to have the guys here, because we haven’t been able to do that for three years. This is such a critical time for the players. One of my No. 1 philosophies is you can’t make up for lost training time. Skipping something today, you can’t make up for it tomorrow. Skipping a week, you can’t make up for it a month from now.

"So, this is really a critical time of the year to lay the foundation for next season, and we haven’t had that in a long time.”